Page 85 of Dozer

"Definitely funny."

Even now. Even here. She manages to put warmth into a place that has none. I hate how much I need that.

We move.

"Dozer, status," Hunter says over comms, his voice tight. He's running the operation from two blocks out, which means he's seeing enough through Ruby and Hack to know something went wrong without seeing exactly what.

"Hit. Still moving. Continuing to the lab."

"Copy. Ghost, Ruby's got eyes on two more teams converging from the east stairwell."

"On it."

Ghost peels off before the second team can flank us. I keep moving. Kenzi stays close behind me as we cut through a corridor lined with display cases full of preserved specimens, decades of medical history watching silently while we run toward the one piece of history somebody is still actively trying to erase.

My ribs hurt every time I breathe. I adjust. Pain is information. At least that's what I tell myself until two more hostiles hit us near the lab's outer door.

The first one comes straight at Kenzi.

Everything inside me changes.

I don't think. That's the part that should bother me later. I don't assess distance or risk or whether there's a smarter angle. I step directly into his path and take the strike meant for her across my shoulder. White heat tears down my arm. I finish him anyway.

The second man's weapon clears before I can close the distance. One shot. I hear it. Then I feel it. High in my side. Not the graze from the rail yard. Not even close. Heat punches through me, followed by pressure, then the kind of deep pain that tells a man exactly how bad something is before he looks. My body knows before my brain does.

This one's real.

I close the distance anyway. Put him down. Then the wall catches me. Or I catch the wall. Doesn't matter. I give myself one breath against it. One. Because that's all I can afford.

Kenzi's hand lands on my arm. "Dozer."

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not." Her voice changes. I've heard every version of Kenzi by now. Teasing. Working. Angry. Grieving. Terrified and pretending she isn't. Soft enough to tell me things she hasn't told anyone else. This is different. This is raw terror.

She looks down. I follow her eyes. Blood is already spreading through my shirt. Too fast.

"Dozer, you're bleeding. Badly. We need to⁠—"

"Later." My voice comes out rough.

She looks at me. "That's not a later wound."

"Lab's through that door."

"I know where the lab is."

"We don't have later if we stop now."

Her fingers tighten around my arm. For half a second, we're back in that van before dawn.

There's an after.

I promised her.

I don't say things I don't believe. Problem is, right now, I'm not entirely sure my body got the briefing.

"Kenzi." Her eyes meet mine. There's fear there. Real fear, she’s scared for me and I hate seeing it. I also feel something dangerously close to peace knowing somebody would be afraid to lose me. That's new. Most of my adult life has been built around making sure nobody had enough of me for my absence to hurt. Then Kenzi walked into it. Apparently, she didn't get the memo.