I grabbed the backpack, slung it without checking, and ran.
Back room, door, alley. The cold hit hard. I scanned both directions—clear—then grabbed for both water jugs at once and immediately knew that wasn’t happening.
“Damn it—”
One jug in the bag, one in my hand, and I ran. Full speed, boots loud on the pavement, the bag punishing my back with every stride.
I didn’t look back. Eyes forward, chest burning, every doorway a threat in my peripheral vision until the clinic materialized at the far end of the alley—dark windows, locked door, three people on the other side of it.
I hit the door with my shoulder, shoved through it, spun around, and threw the lock with fingers that barely cooperated.
The silence inside settled over me like a blanket.
“I’m back.” My back hit the door, and I stood there against it, chest heaving, the water jug still in my hand, the gun still in the other.
Thirty Eight
Big Mistake -Finn
The off-white, cracked ceiling came into view first, a dead fluorescent fixture staring back at me. Then the pain caught up.
I shifted.
Big mistake.
A hot spike of pain shot through my shoulder joint, locking my body rigid. A hiss tore from between my teeth before I could stop it.
“Fuck—”
Just like that, memory returned—not gradually, not gently, but all at once, slamming into me in pieces that assembled themselves whether I wanted them to or not.
The bridge. The crack of gunfire. The impact—that single, terrible second of pressure before the heat caught up with it. Blood soaking through my jacket and Libby’s hands, and after that—nothing.
“Shot,” I muttered to the ceiling. “Right.”
That tracked.
I turned my head, moving slower this time, cataloging the room with the careful attention of someone who couldn’t afford to be wrong about their surroundings. Metal table. Medical cabinets. Instrument trays. Not a hospital—the proportions were wrong, the equipment scaled differently, and the smell confirmed it before my eyes did.
Vet clinic.
Then I looked down at my arm and found the IV line running into the crook of my elbow, the tubing looping toward a bag hung somewhere above my head.
My eyes followed the line back down.
And that’s when I found her.
Libby, curled up beside me on the narrow, makeshift bed, tucked into the edge of it as if she’d refused to put any more distance between us. One arm lay close to my side, her face turned slightly toward my chest, and she breathed slow and even in the way people only manage when they’ve finally, exhaustedly let their guard down.
Something in my chest loosened so fast it almost hurt in its own right.
“She’s here,” I breathed.
Alive. Safe. Still here.
I shifted again, trying to push myself upright—
The pain returned immediately, sharper than before, and an involuntary groan escaped me.
