For once in his life, Alexei didn’t know what to do.
The bodies of Stanislav’s guards lay sprawled on the floor of the courtroom: two by the entrance and the other two farther inside. Alexei walked over the dead in his haste to get to where Jamie knelt on the courtroom floor, holding Kyle’s limp, bleeding body in his arms.
Kyle wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing, green eyes open and staring sightlessly up at the ceiling as Jamie held him and sobbed.
Alexei’s hands went numb, his weapon falling from loose fingers. It banged heavily against his bruised side, the strap connecting it to his tactical vest keeping it within reach. Alexei barely felt the blow.
“Kilyusha,” he said, or tried to. He couldn’t seem to form his brother’s name, all the air in his lungs trapped behind a building scream he wanted to release, but couldn’t.
Katie wouldn’t let him.
I need your eyes,she said, sounding more like herself and less like Mercedes with every word she spoke into his mind.
Alexei’s vision blurred. It felt as if someone else were looking through his eyes, focusing on the empty space near Jamie and Kyle. Between one heartbeat and the next, Tessa teleported in with a crack of displaced air.
“I need to take him, Apollo,” Tessa pleaded, reaching for Kyle.
Jamie didn’t seem to hear her or see her. He still held tight to Kyle’s lifeless body, blood leaking out of the bullet wound Alexei could see near the center of Kyle’s back.
Alexei wavered on his feet, a dull roaring sound filling his ears. It threatened to overwhelm him before Katie’s telepathy dug down deep into his mind, wrenching his thoughts away from a dangerous spiral.
Don’t you fucking dare check out on me,she told him.
Kyle—
I know. Iknow. I’m sorry. I’mso sorry, but we still need you.
Alexei’s vision wavered again, but this time it wasn’t from Katie’s power, just his own tears. He watched mutely as Tessa got hands on Kyle and teleported out with him before Jamie could react. Jamie’s arms closed on empty air, his hands stained red with Kyle’s blood. The twisted expression on his face was of a man not in his right mind.
“Fuck,fuck,” Matthew swore from behind Alexei. “Viper, I need orders!”
Stay with Apollo until I get there. Bones and I are on our way now that the nullification field is down.
“You can’t possibly think Apollo is in the right frame of mind to continue to fight? You need to take Apollo off the goddamn field. Send your teleporter back for him!”
He might not be in his right mind, but I am. I’m in his thoughts as deep as I can get and I’ll keep him on an even keel as best I can. But there’s only so much I can do.
Matthew dragged a hand down his face. “Reaper heals. He can heal from this, right?”
Alexei’s nascent hope at those words died with Katie’s answer.
Blanchett’s nullification field was still active when he took the hit.
Which meant Kyle had been, for all intents and purposes, human.
“Fucking hell, if that Russian bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him myself.”
“It wasn’t Stanislav.” Jamie’s raw voice broke Alexei out of his stupor and he looked at where his captain knelt on the bloodstained floor, staring unseeingly into the distance. “It wasn’t…”
His voice trailed off, and Alexei didn’t want him to finish his sentence. Swallowing thickly, Alexei went to Jamie and knelt, feeling his brother’s blood soak into his pants. He tried not to look at how much had stained the carpet and Jamie’s evening dress uniform. The white dress-shirt he wore was more crimson than anything else on the front.
Alexei grabbed Jamie by the shoulder, squeezing carefully. “Still have fight going on.”
Shattered blue eyes finally,finallyfocused on something other than whatever horror was replaying in Jamie’s mind. “I’m sorry.”
Alexei squeezed his eyes shut, violently shaking his head. “Nyet.”
He didn’t want to hear it—couldn’t hear it—not right now. What he’d seen of Kyle had been enough for Alexei to know that if he dwelled on what his brother had gone through any more than he already had, he’d do something he’d regret.
