Page 36 of Enslak

This small, fragile female who'd risked everything to save me—she cared.

And I needed to see her again.

I needed—

The thought fractured. Scattered before I could complete it.

But the feeling remained.

The need.

The desperate, aching need to open my eyes and find her there.

Pain spiked through my chest and I grabbed onto it. Used it to anchor myself.

The darkness clawed at me but I fought back. Pushed against it with everything I had left.

Not yet.

Not yet.

I had to see her again.

Had to know she was safe.

My body shifted again.

More changes I didn't understand.

Bones moving. Tissue reforming.

The augmentations that had been forced into me—the scales, the grafted skin, the modifications that made me more weapon than person—all of it was changing.

It hurt.

But not as much as it should have.

And beneath the pain, beneath the strange sensations of my body remaking itself, there was something else.

Her presence.

Constant. Unwavering.

As long as she was near, I would fight.

I'd keep fighting the darkness.

Keep forcing my eyes open even though they felt impossibly heavy.

Keep my heart beating even though it wanted to stop.

Because I needed to see her again.

The darkness pulled and I pushed back.

Again.

And again.