Page 103 of Theta

"We owe her."

He nods again. "No shit." A sigh. "Fucking Giuseppe. Should've known he'd sell us out. I had a feeling about him."

I grip his wrist. "You can't kill him unless you have no other choice. He has a wife and daughter. And it's Pugli. What was he supposed to do?"

"I wasn't planning on it." He frowns, staring at nothing. "You know what, I'm gonna be right back."

"Killy—"

"I'm just getting my stuff. With what you've told me, I'm not leaving you alone anymore."

"Please don't leave me alone, Killy," I whisper. "I'm scared. I can't even freaking shift positions without screaming. I can't help you, and I'm just…I'm helpless and scared."

He cups my face in gentle hands, nuzzles his forehead against mine. "I've got you. I won't let anything else happen to you."

"Or you."

Silence.

"OR YOU," I snap. "Right?"

"You're all that matters to me, sweetheart."

I grab his wrist, squeeze hard. "Killy, it goes both ways. You're all that matters to me, so if you die, I'm fucked. I'll never love anyone the way I love you. And we haven't even gotten to really enjoy being in love yet. So you have to promise me nothing will happen to you."

"I can't promise that," he says to me. "But I can promise that I will fight like a fucking caged tiger to stay alive so we can get that month alone and naked on the beach."

"I thought it was a week."

“I’ve revised the estimate up to a month. At least." He nudges my lips with his. "Close your eyes. Relax. I'm gonna grab my stuff. We have a few hours to dawn."

I try to stay awake until he comes back, but it's futile. I'm still so, so weak. This sucks.

I wake up for a moment, and Killian has found a weapon-cleaning kit somewhere, somehow. He has half a dozen pistols stripped to their components and arrayed on the floor around him, and is methodically and obsessively cleaning each piece. He must feel my gaze, because he glances up at me, smiling. "Hey."

"Hey you."

He glances out the window. "Still time. Go back to sleep. I've got the watch."

"I know you do." I wince as a dull but intense wave of pain steamrolls over me. "Wish we were on that beach about now."

"Same." He pushes, pulls, and twists a bristle brush through a short piece of barrel. "Soon. You and me, some stiff drinks, no clothes, and a whole lotta O's."

"Something stiff, at any rate." I laugh at my own joke. "Oh god, that hurts. Don't make me laugh."

He snorts. “You laughed at your joke, not mine."

“Yours wasn’t a joke. It was a pretty awesome turn of phrase, though."

He peers one-eyed through the barrel and then starts re-cleaning it. "I don't really have a plan, by the way. Did a little scouting around outside earlier, and there's just not much. This is a fairly small facility in an out-of-the-way little cove on the water. There's only steep, unnavigable hills behind and the sea in front, and it's several miles over seriously rough terrain to get to town, even if you follow the road, so there's nowhere to run even if you could get out of bed. I can't trust Dante and obviously not Giuseppe, and I have to assume Doc Lia is gonna be neutral since she's a doctor." He shrugs. "So the only option is to hole up here and make 'em pay. Hopefully they won't try and burn us out since they want you alive and intact."

"Yeah, barbecued white girl won't sell, I suppose."

"Dude, gross."

I groan as I try to stifle a laugh. "Ah god. Ow, ow, ow. Being on this side of the medical experience is not fun." I wiggle my fingers at him. "Come sit where I can touch you."

He arches an eyebrow at me. "Story, I don’t think—"