“Somebody call an ambulance!!!”
It wasn’t the first time an assassin had come after him. It also wasn’t the first time he’d been shot at.
And they’d missed him. They’d missed him, only just. And only because…
It shouldn’t have happened this way. It should never happen this way. Never. Never. Never.
He dropped to his knees beside Mae, pressing trembling hands to the worst of the bullet wounds. Blood pumped, hot and thick, oozing between his fingers. Arterial blood. Dying.
She had stepped between the bullets and him.
Another drive-by. A dark sedan. They had fled. Like cowards. (But I’ll find them. I’ll fucking find–)
She had stepped between the bullets and him.
He wished, oh how he wished, that magic could fix this. But the body is an intricately complex thing. His magic was always… brute force. An energetic bludgeon. It didn’t have the delicate touch that a healer required, and even so, a wound like this…
She. Had stepped. Between the bullets and him. Between the bullets and him. Between–
“Hey,” he murmured to her. Pressing down. So much blood. Stop the bleeding. Stop. Stop it. Stop it, don’t die… His lips quivered, but he tried to turn them up in an encouraging, or at least comforting, smile. “It’ll be okay, Mae. Just hang in there. Okay? You’ll be… you’ll… Mae, please…”
Mae didn’t think about what she had done--par for the course with her--but she certainly felt it seconds later. One bullet was something she’d dealt with before. A minor hailstorm of them? Not as easy to work through. Not at all.
It’s what she wanted to say. What came out was a gurgle as she tried to speak.
There was blood in her mouth.
In her throat.
On her friend Harry’s hands.
Her vision blurred and the concrete underneath her felt wet and cold, spasms of shivers shaking her some. Or maybe that was Harry. It was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. She hated it. She was thinking about that, that cold, when her heart finally stopped beating.
....Thump...
...Thump...Thump...
...Thump...Thump...Thump...
Every part of her felt like it was leaden and on fire, all at once. Mae inhaled sharply, deeply, like she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to truly catch her breath.