Page 280 of Seasons of War
She'd do it. Just like she scaled the building when she was terrified of heights.
He tried to nod but wasn't sure he managed. His head fell back, the leaves of the trees blurring in green lines that reminded him of the white trails of the shooting stars.
Beautiful.
Then his chest erupted with the pain of being shot all over again.
Worse.
The clotters expanded inside his open wound, and the trace amounts of PXI leeched into his body. Zayne lost touch with the world, with the trees, with himself.
His eyes fluttered open to Kira covering his mouth with her bloody hands, trying to suffocate his scream.
Grinding his teeth so hard he thought they'd break, Zayne seized control of his body and swallowed down the cries battering at his chest to escape. His muscles clenched from the PXI, not as bad as from a pure dose, but enough to fucking hurt when he had a hole in his lower chest.
“Fuck,” he hissed the word, chasing it with an unsatisfying groan that needed to explode into another scream.
“It's okay,” Kira whispered. “I'm so sorry.” Sticky fingers ran through his hair. Tears fell from her chin onto his cheeks.
“Red… cap…” He fought for every single gasp of air. Fury and desperation consumed him because he needed to get Kira to safety, not bleed out on the ground. But deep inside, in a place beneath the rage, Zayne felt a trickle of relief.
Relief at feeling what Edwards did in her last moments, like he'd joined his friend again, bringing her back to life to sit with her through the pain.
The guilt closed in soon after, silencing everything except the need to stay alive long enough to see Kira to safety. Before, Zayne's mind didn't let him see it, but while Kira injected him with the pain medicine, he took in Private Grave's unseeing eyes.
“I… killed him…”
What kind of monster could shoot his own private?
“Shhh…” Kira bent and wiped the blood from his mouth with her shirt. “He's fine. You hear me? He's fine. Nothing happened.”
It did. Zayne shot him twice in the heart and once in the fucking face.
He welcomed the pain and almost cursed the medication, only he needed the relief to help Kira. His entire life narrowed to this one mandate.
Kira. Safe.
Those words ran through his mind repeatedly until everything else quieted.
“A green cap,” he said.
“Adrenaline? Your heart—”
“Now,” he commanded, voice tense with pain. It didn't matter if the adrenaline pumped his heart so fast that all the blood rushed from his wound. He needed to move, immediately.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, she clasped the green-capped medication, eyes falling to the thick scar cutting through his chest and down to the bullet hole. Kira let out a sob. “I told you to stop getting hurt.”
“Oops,” Zayne said.
No way he'd get anything close to a smile out of her, but he tried. Kira's body trembled as she looked at the adrenaline. He kept his eyes on her, willing her to find the strength.
And she did.
When she injected him, the adrenaline surged through his body, flooding him with energy and the need to run, but he still felt weak.
Zayne clutched his wound with one hand, feeling the clotters bulging from it, and placed his other on the ground. Braced himself.
He rolled onto his forearm and froze at the ripping sensation in his gut, nearly collapsing. It would be too hard to get up. Come on.
