“Yeah,” I said automatically, because it didn’t matter if I was or not, and Novak made a low sound beside me, something between a breath and a warning, but he stayed on his feet, when I helped him forward.
We started toward the tree line, the others already ahead, shapes in the dark, Noah at the back carrying his sister and stumbling, Zach heading over to take her from him. We couldn’t stop—we’d burned the place down, and it would draw attention. I stayed close to Novak, steadying him when he stumbled.
“Why did you cover me, you idiot!” I said, the words coming out sharper than I intended, anger threading through the fear that hadn’t settled yet. “That was stupid as hell.” If he hadn’t thrown himself over me, maybe we could have gotten a few steps further away, and then he wouldn’t be hurt. I knew I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew he’d stopped me from getting injured, but fuck, this man made me lose it.
“Because nothing can hurt you,” he said, voice low, rough, absolute.
I didn’t have time to unpack it, didn’t have time to respond beyond pushing us both forward.
“Fucks sake,” I finally muttered, then added, “and nothing can hurt you back, asshole.”
He turned his head to look at me, something feral still under the surface as he processed whatever the blast had done to him, and then I felt it—the shift—his weight dropping heavier against me, his step missing half a beat as his foot dragged instead of landing clean.
“Novak?” I said, as his breathing hitched, shallow and uneven, a rough pull in that didn’t fill his chest the way it should have.
He tried to straighten, to push through it, but it wasn’t working, not properly, and I caught the moment his knees threatened to give, hauling him closer, taking more of his weight as something warm seeped through my hand where it was braced against his side.
“Hey—stay with me,” I said, low and urgent. Should we stop? The rest were some way ahead of us now, but as if I’d summoned him, Zach was heading back, and he slid to a halt next to us.
He was focused on Novak, gaze sharp as he took Novak in briefly, already assessing. “Let me see.” He checked Novak’s side, his breathing, the way he was holding himself. He was already reaching into his pack. “QuikClot. This is going to hurt,” Zach ripped a packet open with his teeth before dropping to one knee and shoving Novak’s torn jacket aside to expose the damage underneath.
Novak jerked, a low, warning growl ripping out of him as Zach pressed the QuikClot straight into the wound, hard and direct, fingers digging in to pack it deep.
“Hold still,” Zach snapped, all command now.
Novak’s body was locked tight, muscles straining, breath turning rougher as pain cut through whatever control he still had.
Zach didn’t ease off, didn’t soften it; he kept the pressure where it needed to be, blood soaking through his gloves as he worked. Novak bared his teeth as Zach packed the wound again, forcing the clotting agent into place.
I braced him, one arm around his back, feeling the tremor running through him, the fight to stay upright, to not drop, to not give in to it.
“Done,” Zach said and slapped a pressure bandage over it. “It’ll hold. For now.” He pressed along Novak’s ribs and back, watching his chest rise, listening to his breathing. “No obvious chest collapse, breath’s shallow, no massive bleed I can feel,” he added, fast and practical. “The burns I can’t do anything with.”
“We have stuff back at the cabin,” I said. “I don’t know what.”
He nodded, then stepped back. “We’re pushing on, and once we get the others to the cabin, we’ll come back for you.”
“No need, we’ll be right behind you,” Novak snarled through gritted teeth.
Zach and I had an entire conversation in silence, both of us clocking it, measuring how much further Novak could go before he dropped, whether he wanted to or not. “Keep walking,” Zach said, quiet but firm, and I nodded, tightening my grip on Novak and forcing us forward.
We made it another mile, maybe more, sticking to the logging road as best we could because the undergrowth and trees weren’t an option anymore. Novak was fading with every step, growing slower, heavier against me, but somehow more stubborn, too, digging in as if sheer will was enough to keep him upright even as his body was starting to fail.
I kept talking because silence felt like losing him, words spilling out without a filter as I steered him along the track, one step, then another, my arm locked around him while he leaned heavier and heavier.
“So, when this is over,” I said, breathless and half out of my head, “we’re going on dates, okay? Proper ones. Coffee first—no, you’ll hate coffee shops—fine, we’ll do something else, something low-risk, maybe a museum, you can case exits and judge everyone’s threat level, that’s fun, right?”Why am I talking? I’m talking so he doesn’t stop moving. I’m talking so I don’t have to think about what happens if he does.
“Or we could go somewhere loud so you can’t hear yourself think—concert, terrible music, you’d hate that too—okay, range day, you’d like that, we’ll call it a date, and I’ll win, obviously, and then dinner, except you’ll pick somewhere with one door, and I’ll complain and you’ll ignore me, and then—” I huffed a laugh that didn’t feel real. “What do functioning psychopaths even do for fun? Don’t answer that. We’ll make a list. We’ll try everything. We’ll?—”
He made a sound beside me, low and rough, and for a second, I thought it was pain, but then it tipped into something else—brief, unexpected—almost a chuckle—and I felt it through where we were pressed together, a flicker of him still there under everything.
“Yeah,” I said quickly, grabbing onto it. “See? You’re in. You don’t get to die before I figure out what you like. That’s not how this works.”
His step hit wrong again.
He stumbled hard, all his weight dropping into me at once, and I tightened my grip, dragging us both back into balance as his breath caught, shallow and uneven, that fragile thread of control slipping another notch.
“Hey,” I said, sharper now, pulling him closer. “Stay with me. One more mile. Then another. We’re getting there.”
