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Hadria and I peel off down the hallway, guns at the ready. And that’s when I hear it—a voice I’d know anywhere. Grandmother’s voice, in the distance, calling sharply to someone to keep up with her.
Hadria hisses a warning, but I’m already moving, ignoring her call to stop. I streak down the hallway, my blood singing with the hunt.
She’s mine.
And she won’t escape this time.
I’m too focused on Grandmother’s voice to see the guard waiting in the shadows. I only have time to hear the gun go off. But Hadria, running right alongside me, shoves me aside even as she shoots back.
Hadria’s bullet finds its mark?—
But so does the guard’s.
Time slows down as I see Hadria collapse to the ground, her blood splattering the concrete floor.
“No!” I drop to my knees beside her, pressing my hands over the wound in her chest. “What did you do that for, you silly bitch?” I choke out, tears blurring my vision.
Hadria’s eyes flutter. “Forgot you were indestructible,” she whispers, the ghost of a smile on her blood-splattered lips.
I gather her up in my arms, ignoring the sticky warmth soaking through my clothes. “Hold on, Hades. Just hold on.”
I help her back down the tunnel, dragging and carrying her when her legs give out, all thoughts of Grandmother gone. I reach the rest of our people and we evacuate immediately, fast as we can, with Mario going back to the surface and then helping to haul Hadria up the vent. She’s still conscious when she gets up there, but she’s fading.
“She needs the hospital,” Scarlett says, climbing out of the vent behind me.
“No,” is the instant reply—from me, from Ricky, and from Hadria herself.
“Elysium,” Hadria whispers, as I lay her down in the back of one of the vans the Syndicate came in. I climb in next to her, and Scarlett follows.
“Keep pressure on that wound,” she tells me, looking down at Hadria. Hadria doesn’t seem all that concerned that Scarlett is taking point on the first aid. But I think she’s only half-conscious now. “You—Mario, isn’t it?”
“Me?” Mario, who climbed into this van as well, looks startled to have Scarlett address him directly.
“Call one of your Syndicate medics,” she says. “Tell them to be at Elysium when we get there.”
“And call Suzy,” I add. “Tell her…tell her to be waiting out front for us, too.” Because I’ve seen a lot of wounds in my life. And I’m terrified that this one has “goodbye” written all over it.
The journey back is blessedly fast, since the warehouse was to the north, just like Elysium. Under Scarlett’s calm instruction, I keep my hands pressed over Hadria’s wound the whole way back, as if I could hold her life inside her body through sheer force of will. But Hadria’s always-pale face has a pallor to it I’ve never seen before.
And I’m afraid. For the first time since my childhood with Grandmother, perhaps.
I’m afraid.
When we arrive at Elysium, the van skidding to a halt at the doors of the mansion, Aurora rushes out to Hadria’s side, her face pale and stricken. “Hadria? Oh, God, Hadria!”
Together, Scarlett and I lay Hadria on a makeshift gurney, attempting to stabilize her again as we rush her into the brand new medical room built into the mansion. It hurts so much to think that the very first patient here could be this woman. Our leader. And when I look down at Hadria’s gray face, at the blood soaking through the makeshift bandages, and a cold, hard realization settles in my gut.
Without immediate help, Hadria is going to die.
“Where’s that fucking doctor!” I roar, my voice raw with desperation. “Get them in here, now!”
Aurora, her delicate hands fluttering over the wound like frightened birds, is in tears. “I tried calling around, but no one will answer!”
Behind her, Mario also shakes his head grimly as he hangs up on another call.
I look down at Hadria, my best friend, my sister in all but blood. The woman who’s been by my side through thick and thin, who pulled me out of the gutter and gave me something to live for.
And now, when she needs me most, there’s not a damn thing I can do to save her. For all my skills and for all my strength…
