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And Kang.

He is not next to me. He is not even in my immediate field of view. But there is a line, a gravitational pull, that yanks every vector of my body in his direction. It’s not subtle, it’s not gentle; it is a primal, limbic kind of need, a compulsion so deep it overrides the pain.

My left hand is the first to rebel. I wrench it free from the slick grip of whoever is trying to stabilize me, and it slides across the mat, fingertips finding only concrete dust and fragments of glass. I try to push myself upright. My body does not cooperate, but with enough thrashing and force of will, I manage to roll onto my side. The world cartwheels around me, but I don’t care.

“Diana, stop,” Maven orders, but their hand is no match for the brute animal logic that propels me forward. I plant both elbows, scrape my knees bloody on the floor, and drag myself toward the only thing that matters.

He is ten feet away, laid out with cruel precision on a strip of tarp. His arms lie at his sides, the Authority jacket pulled up to reveal his bare, battered chest. There’s a pool of blood under his back, thick and blackened, a shadow on the mat.

His face is white, almost blue, lips cracked and parted as if he were about to snap something cutting. His eyes are shut, lashes damp. I crawl the last two feet and collapse against him, cheek to bare skin, searching for a heartbeat, a pulse, any flicker of life. My palm presses to his chest—there’s no rise, no throb—though I could have sworn I felt the faintest tremor under my fingertips. I don’t register it.

There is nothing.

I clutch his shoulders, shaking them, but his head just lolls to the side; his mouth opens and closes in the ragged rhythm of a dead fish. Desperate, I press my mouth to his, tasting the old bitterness of vodka and iron. “Come on,” I rasp, my voice strangled. “Come on, Kang. You promised. You said you’d always⁠—”

Words choke off in my throat. Only salt, only water, only the hot dribble of tears and blood from my face.

Someone grabs my shoulder—Maven, probably—but I twist away, curling into Kang’s still body, wrapping my arms around his head and cradling it to my chest. I thread my fingers through his hair, sticky with dried plasma, and press kisses to his forehead, to his cold cheeks, to his stubborn lips.

“Lance,” I whisper, voice trembling. “Lance, please come back to me. You promised you’d always find me. You don’t get to quit now. Not after all this. Not after—” My voice breaks, and I’m weeping, howling. My nails dig crescents into his neck as if I could claw him back from wherever he’s gone.

“We’re free now,” I sob. “We did it. It’s over. Please don’t leave me here in the dark.” My plea sounds childish, pathetic, but it’s all I have.

Maven kneels beside me, hand gentle on my shoulder. Their gaze flicks once to Kang, sharp and assessing, before they mask it again. “Diana. Let us help him. Please. You need⁠—”

I fling Maven away, rage and grief coalescing into pure motion. I scream, wordless, until my throat tears. I cling to Kang, burying my face in his chest, inhaling what’s left of his scent. The world contracts to two bodies, bound by grief and the slow cooling of his skin.

Minutes pass, maybe hours. Time no longer exists. Then, tentative hands slide under my arms, peeling me back. I bite and snarl, but they hold firm and roll me onto my back.

I refuse to let go of Kang’s hand. I grip it tight, interlacing our fingers, hoping to funnel my own blood into his palm. His skin is still warm beneath mine—if only I could see what I cannot.

Above us, the ceiling has vanished, and beyond it, the sky is clear. For the first time I see the stars.

I want to believe this is the end. I want it to be enough.

But as I lie bruised and broken, with Kang’s silent hand in mine and Maven’s soft voice hovering near my ear, I realize I’m still here. I am always still here.

And as long as I breathe, I will remember.

And somewhere in the ruin, another breath answers mine.

What’s left of me is fused to the ground. My left hand is outstretched, fingers still tangled in Kang’s. He is getting colder. I hold his hand like a relic, like something I can keep if I just maintain enough pressure, and try not to count the seconds as he stiffens. I want to believe that, if I hold on, the memory will become the man.

I catalogue the damage, because it’s what I do: left femur probably fractured (the angle is too sharp for dislocation), three ribs either cracked or shattered outright, blood pooling under my shoulder. My right eye won’t open, and when I touch the socket I get back a tacky slurry of plasma and something with the texture of egg yolk. I gag, dry-heave, then lie still, listening to the echoes of the retch bounce off the ruined walls.

But none of it matters. Not compared to the weight of Kang’s arm draped across my abdomen, or the ring of bruised flesh at his temple, or the obscene amount of blood leaking through the tatters of his Authority jacket. I press my palm to his sternum and try to feel the flutter of a pulse, but all I get is the memory of how it once thudded beneath my ear in the dark.

I keep my eyes on his face. He looks younger like this, the tension lines erased by trauma or by the simple subtraction of consciousness. There’s a nick on his jaw, a patch of grit ground into his stubble, and blood—always blood—seeping from his hairline, slicking down the side of his cheek. His lips are blue at the edges. I want to kiss them, maybe just to see if my own heat will come across.

I hear Maven but cant seem to comprehend what they’re saying, as if my mind is solely focused on kang, and blocking the rest of the world out.

I try to sit up, but my muscles refuse. Pain is everywhere. A hand—gloved, antiseptic—slaps the side of my face, then peels back my eyelid. “Diana, you with me?” Maven’s voice is right in my ear, nasal and commanding. “Hey, stay awake.”

“Did… did it work?” My tongue is a stone in my mouth, but I make the words anyway. “Is he⁠—?”

Maven’s shadow falls over Kang’s body. They press two fingers to his neck, count to five, then nod. “Pulse is there, but thready. Fuck, I need—” Maven shouts over their shoulder: “Gurney! IV, crash kit, stat! If any of you drop him, I will feed you to the fucking ghouls!”

The response is a tangle of voices, people I recognize only as vague silhouettes: Rosie, face bruised but alive, dragging a litter with one arm and a gun in the other; two of the Sanctuary’s medics, moving with the practiced terror of people who know there is no time. A plastic-wrapped foil sheet unfurls over me, the static electricity making every hair on my arm stand up and salute.