I close my eyes. The pain in my side is clawing at my insides, demanding attention I can't afford to give. The world keeps trying to go gray around the edges, and I keep pulling it back, refusing to let go.
"No," I admit. "I'm not okay with any of this."
Thiago shifts beside me. His good hand finds mine, squeezes once. Solidarity from a man who can't speak, offered in silence. His grip is weak but warm, and I hold onto it like an anchor.
Outside, the gunfire intensifies. Shouts in the distance. The crack of rifles, the deeper boom of a shotgun, the sharp pop of handguns.
Asher is out there. Fighting. Maybe dying.
And all I can do is wait.
The minutes stretch into eternity. Marlee paces by the door, rifle ready, watching the grounds for any sign of pursuit. Thiago's breathing has gone shallow, his face pale in the darkness. My wound throbs in time with my heartbeat, each pulse sending fresh waves of agony through my body.
I think about the children. Shipped off before we could arrive, sent to some other facility to continue their conditioning. Some other hell to endure. I think about what they're going through right now, while I bleed out in a shed full of fertilizer, and the rage that burns through me is almost enough to drown out the pain.
Almost.
I think about Asher. The way he looked at me before he left. The desperation in his kiss, the fear in his eyes. He's out there risking his life for Dom, for a man he's fought beside for years.
Would he have gone if I hadn't told him to?
Chapter Six: Asher
Thegunfireleadsmeeast.
Past the manicured hedges and decorative fountains, past the parking lot full of vehicles that will never take us anywhere, toward the perimeter fence where Dom's last transmission cut out. My boots pound against pavement, then grass, then gravel. My rifle is up, my eyes scanning, my heart hammering against my ribs.
Dom is out there. Dom, who taught me how to survive my first year in the pits. Dom, who held my head in his lap when I was seventeen and crying blood and convinced I was going to die. Dom, who followed me out of hell and into whatever this is, this half-life of violence and purpose.
Dom is dying, and I left Jinx bleeding in a shed to save him.
The math doesn't work. The math has never worked. You can't save everyone. The pits taught me that before I was old enough to shave. Triage is a fancy word for choosing who dies, and I've been making those choices since I was fifteen years old.
But I've never had to choose between two people I love.
Love. The word snags in my brain, catches on all the sharp edges.Is that what this is? With Jinx? With Dom?
Different kinds of love. Different weights. But love all the same.
The fence looms ahead, chain-link topped with razor wire. A section has been cut, peeled back, creating an opening just large enough for a body to slip through. Blood smears the metal where someone crawled past. Too much blood.
"Dom!" My voice cuts through the night. "Dom, respond!"
Silence. The kind of silence that settles into your bones and tells you what you already know.
Then, faint, "Here."
Twenty meters to my left. A drainage ditch, concrete walls sloping down into darkness. Dom is at the bottom, propped against the far wall, one hand pressed to his stomach. Even from here, even in the dark, the shine of wet is unmistakable.
Gut shot. The worst kind.
Slow. Painful. Invariably fatal without immediate surgery.
Kira is beside him, small hands trying to staunch the bleeding, her face white with fear. She looks up when she hears me approach, and the relief in her eyes is terrible. Like she thought I would have the answers. Like she thought I could fix this.
"He won't let me carry him," she says. "He keeps saying to leave him. He took off his vest to move faster and they… they got him."
"He's an idiot." I slide down the concrete slope, landing in ankle-deep water that stinks of sewage and rust. The cold hits my legs, seeping through my boots, but I barely notice. All I can see is Dom. Dom, who looked out for me when I was a scared kid thrown into the pits. Dom, who taught me how to read opponents, how to pace myself, how to survive when everything in me wanted to give up.
