Kasien moves ahead, guiding us toward the rocky shoreline. Every stroke is agony, but we make it. He takes Adrien and drags him up onto the stones, I’m following, scraping my knees raw.
Kasien stumbles beside me, pushing with what strength he has left before collapsing onto the ground, one hand pressed to his bleeding head.
“Kasien,” I breathe.
“I’m fine,” he mutters, but he isn’t.
Not at all. His voice is slurred, distant. His body sways as he tries to stay upright, blood mixing with river water on his shirt. He tries to stand but fails. He drops onto his back, chest heaving shallowly, the fight draining out of him second by second.
“Kasien,” I crawl to him, pushing wet hair from his forehead, shaking him gently.
His eyelids flicker. He reaches toward me, fingertips brushing my arm, then slipping away as his hand drops to the stone.
Behind me, Adrien still isn’t moving, his blood stains the rocks beneath him. My chest tightens, breath catching as I try to get up, slipping on the wet stone when someone catches me, gripping both of my arms, yanking me upright with brutalstrength, another hand circling my torso and ripping me away from Kasien.
I scream, but my voice breaks as I reach toward Kasien.
Kasien tries to rise, pain twisting his face, but his body won’t respond. A cold hand clamps over my mouth, cutting off my scream as I’m dragged up the slope, away from the river, away from them, my bare feet ripping on the sharp wet stones.
The last thing I see is Kasien lying there, chest trembling, eyes barely open and helpless, Adrien motionless beside him, before something sharp stings my neck, my chest starts to burn and I can’t see anything anymore.
Kasien
Present
The first thing I notice is the sound.
A slow, steady beeping somewhere above my head. Not loud. Just constant. Like it’s drilling into my skull, one second at a time. Then comes the light. Even with my eyes closed, there’s a pale glow pressing against my lids, too bright and sharp. My head throbs just from that. A heavy, dull pressure sits behind my forehead and at the base of my skull, pulsing with my heartbeat.
I try to swallow and my throat protests, dry and raw, like I’ve been breathing dust.
“Kasien?”
A voice cuts through the fog. Male, calm, professional. Not Adrien. I force my eyelids to open a fraction.
Bad idea.
White ceiling. A chandelier blurred into three copies. The light stabs straight into my brain and my vision swims. I hiss through my teeth and slam my eyes shut again, but the pain has already bloomed. The room tilts sideways even though I know I’m lying flat.
“Good. Stay with me,” the same voice says, closer now. “Don’t try to sit up yet.”
Too late.
My muscles already twitch like they want to move, and my whole body answers with a wave of nausea that rolls up from my stomach and crashes into my chest.
I let out a low, strangled sound. A cool hand lands on my shoulder, steadying.
“You’re home. You’re in the east wing. Second floor.” The man’s tone is low, measured, like he’s done this a hundred times. “It’s a concussion. You took a pretty bad hit. Just breathe.”
I focus on breathing. In. Out.
Every inhale feels like it makes my skull expand a millimeter. There’s something taped to the back of my hand—an IV cannula, tubing tugging lightly when I flex my fingers. My skin feels too tight, my whole body is heavy, like I’m sinking into wet sand.
I crack my eyes open again, slower this time. The ceiling stops doubling long enough for the rest of the room to come into focus. Dimmed sconces instead of full lights. Heavy curtains half-drawn. I recognize the molding on the walls. The third wing. One of the guest rooms we never use. It’s quiet and far from the main hall.
Four of my guys are scattered around the room. One by the door, one by the window, two leaning against the far wall. All armed, all watching, but none of them Adrien.
And then there’s the doctor, our doctor, sitting on the edge of the mattress by my hip. Mid-fifties, silver hair, stethoscope still hanging around his neck, sleeves rolled up. His eyes are sharp, clinically curious, not sentimental.
