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Fal’ran hadn’t left him, but he would have. He would have had too.
Patrick screamed as the Interrogator dragged his private pains through his mind, raking him over the coals of his own self-loathing, weakening him, breaking him. She’d find what she wanted. He wouldn’t have the strength to hold her off.
He reached for one last memory of Fal’ran—him glaring into Patrick’s eyes and questioning if anyone had ever made him feel as good as Fal’ran had and not knowing it but making Patrick feel more desirable than he ever had in his entire life—ready to cling to it until his mind broke…when it all stopped.
The relief short-circuited Patrick’s mind.
The mandibles and slithering agony of acid disappeared from his throat, and his body slumped.
His own heartbeat and panting breaths roared in his ears, and it took him slow, sluggish seconds to register the cacophony all around him. Chittering. Screaming. Yelling. The familiar fire of ballistic rifles.
But Insects didn’t use ballistic rifles.
“Hands up! Don’t even think about it!”
Patrick knew that sharp tone.
“You! Get away from him.”
And he knew that commanding voice, though he’d never heard it so distorted with rage. He forced his eyes open and blinked away the haze of lingering pain and exhaustion.
He realized then that his mind had completely shattered. Because toward him strode Fal’ran, spinning Patrick’s own gatlung, his eyes blazing, and his handsome face twisted in fury. A fantasy. Patrick’s own broken mind conjuring up a daydream of salvation.
But the Soldier beside him was very real, and he lunged at Fal’ran with a chittering shriek. Fal’ran didn’t blink as he raised the serrated blade, aimed it, and in a blur buried it in the soft flesh where the Soldier’s neck met shoulder.
“You bastard,” Fal’ran hissed as he twisted the gatlung. He swung a rifle around his shoulder and fired two bullets into the Soldier’s head at point blank range.
Patrick winced as the sound of gunfire sliced through his pounding head. When he opened his eyes, he saw Fal’ran advancing on the Interrogator as she scrambled back.
“Stop moving,” Fal’ran growled, but the Insect kept backing up.
“Don’t. You don’t—I didn’t—” The Interrogator raised her hands but didn’t stop moving, her antennae reaching out for the cilia in the wall behind her. Fal’ran’s eyes flicked to the movement of her antennae, narrowed, and without a second warning, he dropped her with three more bullets.
Bar’in’s snarky voice filled the control room. “Anyone else want to try their luck? No?”
“Fal’ran.” Patrick’s voice rasped.
“Patrick.” Fal’ran dropped his rifle and gatlung to the ground and rushed to Patrick, grabbing his face in his huge hands and burying his nose in his temple. He breathed him in with a deep, shuddering inhale. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Goddammit, I’ll kill them again.”
“I’m—” Patrick’s throat, hoarse from screaming, spasmed on the words “—okay.”
* * *
Fal’ran’s heart cracked at the sound of Patrick’s broken voice, insisting he was okay. Fal’ran tried to believe him. He gulped down the smell of him in desperate gasps: the pained, scared, desperate, but live smell of him.
“I—”
“Shh, easy, easy.” Fal’ran shushed him when he tried to speak again, the sound of his dry, weak voice too much to take. He wrapped an arm around his waist and lifted him to take the pressure off his wrists, and Patrick hissed in pain. “I’m gonna get you down.”
“How is he?” Bar’in called from where he stood guarding their hostages, his voice carefully professional.
“He’s okay,” Fal’ran called back as he pulled his combat knife from his hip and hacked at the cords stringing Patrick up like a side of meat. He pressed his nose to the hollow behind Patrick’s ear and inhaled again to remind himself of the fact. He was okay. They’d made it in time. He was okay.
Barely.
Fal’ran carved through the last of the cord holding Patrick up and the human collapsed into his arms. His body shook and shuddered in Fal’ran’s grasp, and Fal’ran lowered him to the ground, eyes sweeping over him and cataloging every hurt and indignity.
They’d stripped him. Down to nothing. And even though it was the least of their concerns, Fal’ran shifted himself to block Patrick’s nudity from their teammates. They’d dripped acid down his skin, leaving raw strips of flesh across his body. And to his mind… Fal’ran didn’t know. Pinpricks of blood beaded along the edges of Patrick’s jaw and face, but Fal’ran didn’t think those alone had made Patrick scream like he had.
