Page 28 of Enslak

We reached the ship and I practically shoved him up the ramp. He stumbled and caught himself against the wall, leaving a bloody handprint on the metal.

Binwee sat in the pilot's seat, her small hands flying over the controls.

"Get him secured," she shouted. "We need to go now."

I turned to help Enslak into one of the seats.

But he was already collapsing. His legs gave out and he went down hard, his massive body hitting the deck with a sound that made my heart stop.

"No, no, no." I dropped beside him, hands hovering over his wounds, not knowing where to start. There were so many. Too many.

"Enslak, stay with me. Please stay with me."

Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the deck in a dark, widening stain. His breathing turned shallow and wet, each breath a desperate struggle.

My hands shook as I pressed them against the worst of the wounds, trying to stem the bleeding. But the blood just kept coming, hot and slick between my fingers.

"You can't die," I said, my voice cracking. "Not now. Not after everything."

He'd survived the pits. Survived torture and starvation and whatever hell they'd put him through in that cell. He'd survived a century of it. And now, now that he was finally free, now that we'd actually made it out.

My chest constricted so tight I couldn't breathe.

This wasn't fair. This wasn't right.

He'd taken every shot meant for me. Thrown himself between me and the guards without hesitation. Used his body as a shield even as the bolts tore through him. He'd protected me.

And it was killing him.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, my vision blurring. "I'm so sorry. This is my fault. All of this is my fault."

If I hadn't come for him. If I'd just left him in that cell.

No.

He would have died there anyway. Slowly. Alone in the dark. At least this way he'd seen the sky. Felt the wind. Tasted freedom, even if only for a moment. But that thought didn't comfort me. It just made my heart break harder.

The ship lurched as Binwee engaged the engines.

We were lifting off, the ground falling away beneath us.

"Enslak." I said again, my voice breaking. "Please. You can't—"

My hands patted his face, trying to keep him conscious.

His hand moved, slow and trembling, rising toward my face.

"Niki," I whispered, suddenly needing him to know. "My name is Niki."

My whole body was shaking now, tremors I couldn't control running through my arms and legs. The adrenaline crash hit hard enough that my teeth chattered. The detective part of my brain, the part that had kept me alive through fifteen years on the force, was screaming at me to do something, to apply pressure to the wounds, to elevate his legs, to check for exit wounds, to run through the trauma protocol I'd learned at the academy.

But my hands wouldn't move. Couldn't move.

Because I knew, with the cold, clinical certainty of someone who'd seen too many bodies, that there was nothing I could do. The wounds were too severe, the blood loss too catastrophic. This wasn't a gunshot victim I could stabilize until the ambulance arrived. This was—

No. Don't think it. Don't.

I went very still as his fingers touched my cheek, my breath catching.