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I collapse into him, and I bury my face into his coat, then let out a wail.

“I’ll die if he dies…” I wail into his chest, the truth tearing me apart from the inside out. “Alexei… please… I’ll fucking die if he doesn’t wake up.”

He tightens his grip, locking his arms around me, pulling me so close.

“I know,” Alexei whispers. His voice isn’t stiff anymore. “He won’t die.”

I feel something land on my skin. It comes from Alexei, a single tear.

I freeze because Alexei doesn’t cry. In all the years I’ve known him, the only time Alexei has ever shed a tear was when Marco’s heart stopped.

And now he’s crying for me.

His hand comes up to cup the back of my head, holding me while my body violently shakes against him.

“I shot him,” I choke out against his coat, the words muffled. “I shot him.”

“You dragged him out of the lake,” Alexei corrects, grounding me in the dark. “You saved him.”

“I can’t,” I weep, burying myself deeper into his hold. “I can’t do this without him.”

“You don’t have to,” Alexei murmurs, resting his chin against my hair. “You wait. And when the doors open, you go in there and you tell him.”

I can’t answer. I don’t have any words left in me. I just cling to him like a child drowning in the dark.

***

Two hours. Maybe three.

Rei is slumped against Dimitri’s side in the plastic corner chairs. His crying has stopped, but only because his lungs ran out of moisture.

Marco sits two chairs down, his knees pulled up to his chest, and Alexei hasn’t sat down once.

He stands beside my chair. One of his hands rests against the nape of my neck. If he took it away, I think the centrifugal force of my own panic would fling me through the window.

My eyes don’t leave the double red doors at the end of the hall.

Swish.

The pneumatic lock disengages.

A surgeon steps through, pulling down a pale blue surgical mask.

Rei makes a strangled gasp and tries to lurch forward, but Dimitri catches him around the waist, hauling him upright. Alexei’s fingers dig hard into my shoulder, keeping me on my feet as my knees go completely liquid.

“Kurosaki?” the doctor calls out.

“Is he—” Rei’s voice is destroyed. “Is he alive?”

“He’s alive,” the doctor says. “The shoulder wound was straightforward,” the surgeon continues, brisk. “The second round to the lower left quadrant was the problem. He lost a massive amount of blood before he arrived, and the hypothermia from the water nearly stopped his heart twice on the table. His vitals are stabilizing on pressors, but he is not out of the woods. The next twelve to twenty-four hours are critical for infection and organ failure.” He sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “He should pull through if his blood pressure holds. But he’s weak.”

Weak.

The word doesn’t belong in the same sentence as Kento Kazuma. It makes my skin crawl.

“Can we see him?” Dimitri asks, his arm still bracing Rei.

“One person,” the doctor replies firmly. “ICU bay four. He is heavily sedated. Do not agitate him.”