Blood drips steadily from my forearm, joining rainwater near my boot.
“Not mine,” I say.
Mira’s eyes narrow. “Some of it is.”
“It can wait.”
The physician opens her mouth to argue.
Darlene beats her to it. “Let him see her.”
The corridor goes quiet.
Darlene’s voice roughens. “Let him see what happens when men keep thinking love means bleeding in the right direction.”
I do not answer.
There is no defense.
The physician finally nods. “Five minutes. No touching the wound sites. No elevated voices. If monitors spike, you leave.”
“I understand.”
Nara swipes her badge at the trauma bay door and lowers her voice as it opens. “Kauss.”
I stop.
“She may hear you. Sedation isn’t always clean. Be careful what you put in the room with her.”
I nod.
Then I step inside.
The world ends quietly.
Evie lies in a hospital bed beneath clear monitoring arcs and soft blue diagnostic light. Tubes and sensor threads run from her arms, throat, chest, and temple into machines that hum with advanced Alliance precision. A transparent regen field glows over her right shoulder, pulsing faintly where the plasma shot tore through her. Her face is pale under bruises and healing gel. A line of sutures curves along her hairline. Purple shadows bloom beneath one eye. Her lips are cracked. Her right arm is immobilized in a stabilization cradle.
She looks too small.
That is the thought that destroys me.
Not fragile. Evie is not fragile. I have seen her stand against gangsters, crime lords, fear, poverty, heartbreak, and myself. She is brave past reason.
But here, swallowed by sterile sheets and machines built to keep her body from surrendering, she looks unbearably human.
I make a sound I do not recognize.
Not a word. Not a roar. Something torn from a place deeper than language.
The monitors rise.
I clamp both hands over my mouth and force myself silent.
Breathe.
No agitation.
No elevated voices.
