“You did good, Aerin,” he says breathlessly. “Great driving.”
“You sure?” I squeal back. “Because I feel like I can’t stop. If I stop, we’ll crash!”
“Keep driving,” Falco groans, shifting slowly in his seat. “Fuck…Aerin?”
“What?” I glance at him and my stomach lurches. He’s as pale as a sheet, graying like death is already taking him. “Oh my god why do you look like that? Falco, what’s happening!?”
“Keep…driving.”
“Falco!”
He reels off an address. “Drive there, okay? You…you have to drive there.”
“Falco, don’t you dare. I’m scared, you can’t leave me!”
“I’m losing…a lot of blood…so you have to…you have to drive there, okay? Keep…driving. I’m not going…anywhere.”
Every word sounds like it takes immense effort. Given how he slashed that man’s throat, it’s impossible to tell where his blood ends and Falco’s starts, but he’s moving and blinking slower with each passing second.
We’re going to die.
If he passes out, we die because there’s no way I can keep him alive.
“Falco, please,” I gasp. “Don’t leave me. Please.”
He doesn’t.
Somehow he remains conscious all through the long drive to the address he gives me.
Just as I screech to a stop outside a dark building, his head lolls and his chin hits his chest.
“Falco!”
Just as I yell his name, my car door rips open and a scream of terror tears from me as a shadowy figure lunges into the car.
8
FALCO
“I’m okay.” I’m awake, sitting next to Aerin in Pidge’s living room.
“No you’re not! Look at you! You’re pale and I can feel you shaking and there’s so much blood!”
Our wrists are still bound together, raw and bruising from each jolt and twist and yank from the fight. “Aerin?—”
“Don’t you try and tell me you’re not, because I can see that you’re not!”
“Aerin—”
“And I saw you get shot before, but that wasn’t like this. This is different! Oh my god, you’re going to die, aren’t you? You’re just trying to calm me down but you’re totally going to die and it’s all my fault!”
“Aerin—”
“I’m sorry! I’m so so sorry, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”
“Aerin!” I hate to yell at her right now, but it’s the only thing that cuts through her panic and she finally stops talking, gasping herself into silence.
She stares up at me with red, tear-filled eyes and whimpers when I place my hand against her cheek.
