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“DON’T you dare die or I’ll kill you myself!”
Gulnar. And she sounded incensed. Raw.
Dante opened his eyes and a scalding liquid splashed in his right one, forcing them closed again. But he’d already seen her incredible face hanging inches over his, ravaged, swollen. It was her tear that had fallen in his eye.
He tried to move, to reach out for her, protect her, soothe her. He couldn’t. Searing lances in his chest pinned him to the floor. What was wrong with him?
Concentrate. Bring it back. Yes, there it was. The plan. The gamble. Gulnar right there beside him, unbelievable under duress, playing it all out with him. The Azernians joining in, overpowering in their desperation. Voices that could bring hell to its knees.
More memories rushed in. Stabbing their captors with the tranquilizer. One of the militants spoiling it all, killing his colleague without a thought. The man dying in his arms, his life seeping away with his consciousness, sensing the man’s confusion, his anger, his terror.
The rest came crushing down. Firing the semi-automatic. The vicious intention to kill. Succeeding, killing one of the terrorists. So easily, over so quickly, the life spent saving others erased. The burst of savagery followed by unbearable nausea and horror. Then the security forces’ unstoppable tide. The rest of the militants falling. Then the explosion and the building coming apart in monstrous chunks, crushing people. The screams. The screams!
But through it all, Gulnar’s screams. It was those he remembered. Those that still shuddered through him. Her voice, rending on his name, bleeding black terror, tearing at him with the need to protect her—with foreboding.
Then an invisible lightning bolt tore clear through him, a blinding, viscous pain following, bursting, draining away whatever power he had left.
The woman had shot him in the back. It was over. At last.
But before he acknowledged the end, he turned to Gulnar, needing one last look, one last question. Was it really over? He’d never see her again?
And he let go. Died.
But if he had died, why was he a jumble of soreness and nausea and general misery? Was this what death felt like? It wouldn’t be fair for death to feel so awful, so…corporeal. Shouldn’t there be peace, reprieve—cessation? Of all physical sensations at least? Could this be the afterlife? When it felt too much like mortality? And what was Gulnar doing there? In his deathscape? Was he not yet dead? Was he still dying?
Oh,
for God’s sake, couldn’t he just hurry up about it? What was he lingering for?
But he knew what for. Gulnar. She was all the reason he needed. To see her again. To at least say goodbye.
“You’re not dying, do you hear me?”
And here was another reason. He didn’t dare die, if it would anger her that much.
“Dante! Open your eyes, Dante! Now, damn you!”
Her yell tore through his quivering brain. Brought a smile bubbling from his depths. His lips couldn’t comply. They were stiff and dry. Paralyzed. So were his vocal cords. But he had to try.
It sure hurt, producing sound through the sandpaper filling his larynx, sucking in air with the spears lodged all through his right side. Not to mention that air was screeching down his lungs from a suffocating vice clamped over his nose and mouth. Death by oxygen mask. Now, that would be novel.
“Promise me…you won’t…rain tears in them again…first.” His words came out rasped, smothered. He almost didn’t understand them himself. “And…would you mind…letting me breathe…on my own?”
“Oh, Dante!” Seemed she understood him fine. Her trembling hands fumbled the mask off, then she hugged his head, his shoulders, racked him with her sobs.
His face burrowed in her hot, moist neck, his senses in her scent and anxiety and relief. She cared. Not about just another human being, but about him. And it no longer hurt. It was glorious. Could be addictive. He sighed and opened his eyes.
It was dark. And it wasn’t him who had trouble seeing. The sun had long set. This meant it was more than a couple of hours since the crisis. Or was it another day altogether? His gaze panned around and it was only then that sounds registered, too. The frantic din of a huge accident scene.
So it was definitely the same day. He wouldn’t avoid the immediate aftermath of the tragedy. He wasn’t that lucky.
They were out in the open. The Azernian August evening weighed down on them with unforgiving humid heat. The building was in the background, hundreds of people dashing around, military, medical, civilians, and as many ex-hostages staggering zombie-like or strewn on the ground. He was one of the fallen, lying there prostrate, his upper body in Gulnar’s lap. He stared up at her. A jeweled inky sky framed her now scarf-free, exquisite head.
Red. Deepest, richest vermillion. Her hair. It rioted out of an imperfect knot, waves of vital, vivid color. Even in the feeble streetlights, even after days of sweat and filth and abuse, it flamed, glorious, alive. He should have known it would be red. What other color could suit her? Express her?
Her tears splashed on his cheeks, his nose, trickled to his lips. He lapped at the precious drops. So good. Revitalizing. He sighed again. “I assume if I’m not dead, I’ve fainted. Again. This is getting embarrassing.”
She didn’t share his opinion. From the way her eyes blazed and her voice trembled she seemed to think it infuriating. “You idiot. You stupid, crazy fool! What did you think you were doing, when all hell broke loose and everyone was shooting at everything that moved, when everyone was flat on the floor and only you standing there, a seven-foot-tall target? What were you thinking, playing Rambo and all but screaming, ‘Me, me, shoot me!’?”
