Dom, who is dying in a drainage ditch with his guts spilling through his fingers.
"Dom. Hey. Look at me."
His eyes find mine. Dark and glassy, already going distant. The hand against his stomach is slick with blood, and when he shifts, more wells up between his fingers. The smell of it fills the ditch. Copper and meat. The smell of endings.
"Told her to go." His voice is a rasp, the throat damage making it harder to understand. "Told you both. Leave me."
"Not happening."
"Asher." He coughs, and red flecks his lips. "It doesn't work. You know it doesn't work."
"Fuck that. We’re getting you out."
"The Harrison kid. Jinx." Another cough, wetter this time. Pink foam at the corners of his mouth. Punctured lung. The clock is ticking faster than I thought. "He's hit bad. Marlee told me. You should be with him."
"I'm with you."
"Don't be stupid." His hand reaches up, grabs my vest, pulls me closer. His grip is weak, nothing like the strength that used to haul me off opponents in the pit, that carried me to safety more times than I can count. "You love him. Don't pretend you don't. I've seen how you look at him. The way you talked about him, all those years. The one who got away, you called him."
"Dom—"
"I'm done, Asher. We both know it. Gut wound, no medevac, middle of enemy territory." He tries to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. Blood stains his teeth. "This is how it ends for people like us. You know that. We always knew."
The words twist and turn, making me want to vomit. Because he's right. The math doesn't lie. Dom has maybe twenty minutesleft, and those twenty minutes will be agony, bleeding out in a drainage ditch while his body slowly shuts down. There's nothing I can do to change that. No surgery, no miracle, no last-second save.
But Jinx. Jinx has an hour. Maybe more, if Marlee keeps pressure on the wound, if his body holds out, if he's too stubborn to die. And I'm here, in a ditch, with a man I can't save, while the man I might love bleeds out in a maintenance shed.
"Go." Dom's voice breaks. "Please, Asher. Go to him. Don't let me be the reason you lose him."
"I can't leave you."
"You can. You have to." His hand tightens on my vest, then releases. Falls to his side. "I'm giving you permission. I'm telling you to go. Don't make me die knowing I took you down with me."
My eyes burn. My throat closes. Fifteen years I've known this man. Fifteen years of shared pain and hard-won trust and the kind of bond that only forms when you've watched each other bleed.
And now I have to walk away.
"I'm sorry." The words come out broken. "Dom, I'm so fucking sorry."
"Don't be." His eyes are closing, his breathing going shallow. "You gave me six good years after the pits. Six years of freedom. That's more than most of us get."
"It's not enough."
"It's gonna have to do." His hand finds mine, squeezes once. Weak but warm. "Go. Save your boy. Live the life I never got to have."
I lean down and press my forehead to his. Feel the clammy sweat on his skin, the fading heat of his body. Breathe in the smell of blood and sewer water and the particular scent that's just Dom, gun oil and cheap soap and stubborn survival.
"I'll remember you," I whisper. "Every day. I'll remember."
"Better not." The ghost of a smile crosses his face. "I was ugly as sin."
A laugh tears out of me, raw and wet. "You were beautiful."
"As beautiful as a wart on a camel’s asshole."
"Yeah. But I love you anyway."
"Same, brother." His eyes flutter closed. "Now go. Before I change my mind and make you stay."
