Page 94 of Red Zone Awakened

He might have laughed.He wasn’t sure.The world was fading fast.All he could do was keep his eyes on Keiko.She was his lifeline, and he wanted her face to be the last thing he saw before it all faded to black.

She was so fucking beautiful.Too beautiful for him.Too clean.Too perfect.It was right that he wouldn’t have a chance with her.Men like him didn’t get to touch beauty like Keiko Sato.A beauty that was soul deep.

And now he was a poet…

“No!”she screamed.At least, he thought she did.He was focused on the perfect shape of her lips and saw the word ripped from them.

“Live.”Mace wanted to shout it to her.Maybe he did.Or perhaps he whispered.

No!Not die!The imperial command was forced into his brain.

Sorry, rat face.I don’t have a choice.

He kept his eyes glued to Keiko.Nothing but death could make him look away now.If he couldn’t have her, couldn’t touch her, he’d take what he could get—her image imprinted on his soul.He’d fill his being with her.Drink her in.While he was still able.

As if in slow motion, Keiko turned to her attacker, snatched the gun from his hand, and shot him in the leg.He fell to the terrace with a cry of rage.Keiko didn’t pay any attention to him.She was already running.

But not for the door.

Not for safety.Not toward the perfect future she deserved.The one he would never have been able to give her.

No.

She was running for him.

And she was shooting as she did it.Her gun blasted at everything around her.A random deluge of deadly intent.She aimed at nothing and hit it perfectly.A stray shot caught the remaining Mercer twin, the one who’d killed him, taking the man down.Making Mace laughed at her blind luck.At least, he thought he was laughing.

His vision faded as blood pooled inside him.He swayed, the broken brick digging into the backs of his legs.Spots danced before him.Tired.He was so tired.

Do not give in,his bat ordered.

Mace smiled at the bat in his mind—maybe.It could have been a real smile: on his face for all the world to see.He wasn’t sure.He couldn’t tell the difference anymore.His eyes stayed fixed on Keiko as she ran for him, his name on her lips for everyone to read.Her black silken hair flew behind her.Tears marred her dirt-stained cheeks.Her borrowed clothes were torn.Her knees were bloody.She needed a medic.She needed care.

And he wouldn’t be the one to give it to her.

He’d failed her.All he’d wanted to do was get her safely out of the building, and he hadn’t even been able to do that.

The world shifted beneath him, as though sliding out from under his feet.The pink morning sky filled his vision, and he felt like he was floating.

“No!”Maybe the shout tore through him.Maybe it was in his head.Still, it jerked his mind back to a reality that suddenly felt brutally hard.

Keiko.

Fuck, she was beautiful.

As his eyes drifted shut on the image of the woman he loved, Mace smiled.He’d always wondered how it all ended.

Now he knew.