Chapter 18

Caelum's POV

“Let her go,” I said in an even advanced degree voice. "Your fight is with me. She didn’t do it.”

"Innocent?" Nikolai chuckled, the sound bouncing from metal walls. There's no innocent one in your life, Caelum. They're all complicit. All assets to be leveraged against you." He tilted his head and regarded Celine as if she were a curious specimen. “And she’s so much more effective than a bullet, don’t you agree? To watch you lose one more woman that you love, to watch her die because you couldn’t save her - well, that’s poetry. That's justice."

I pulled my finger on the trigger, all my instincts screaming for me to fire. I could feel Celine’s trembling fingers clutch the back of my shirt behind me.

“Don’t,” she whispered, so softly that I was the only one who could hear. "Please don't."

She was telling me to yield. To value my own life over my pride, over the bloodlust I was feeling.

But she didn't understand. If I gave up, Nikolai would kill us both eventually. Slowly. Painfully. I’d seen what he did to enemies who surrendered, had heard the tales, had witnessed the results.

At least in that way, if I pulled the shot, she had a chance to live through it.

“One more time, Nikolai,” I whispered, subtly leaning to one side, readying myself. "Walk away. Let her go. We can handle this, no more dead, no more collateral.”

"Where's the fun in that?" Almost casually, he motioned with his gun. "No, I think I'll keep her. Have her watch while my men cut you to pieces. Perhaps leave her alive afterward, letting her be haunted by the memory of their screams for the rest of her life.”

Kent’s voice sounded in my earpiece, but it was barely audible over my pounding heart. "Boss, we're in position. Three snipers on the roof. Say the word."

I knew Kent would figure out something. He always did. Because we’d been together for 15 years, and he knew how I thought, how I functioned.

I made a decision.

Dropped my gun slowly so that it was hanging at my side in what must have looked like defeat.

"Fine. You win." The words tasted like ash. "Release her, and I will surrender. No resistance. Whatever you want to do with me is fine.”

There was victory in Nikolai's eyes, satisfaction in overcoming his greatest foe. "Now we're being reasonable."

"No!" Celine reached for my gun, attempting to pull it up. "Don't you dare give up! Don't you—"

I quickly pushed her behind me with my one free hand while I continued to glare at Nikolai. Murmured a single word into the concealed microphone, so softly it did not carry from the way she held her head and yet one which reached Kent's ears.

"Now."

Smoke grenades went off all around at the same time.

Within seconds, the warehouse was awash in smells and sounds — everything turned into a phantasmagoria of shapes with thick gray smoke. Shrieks of warning burst from Nikolai's guard. I took Celine by the hand and ran, dragging her down low under the thickest of the smoke where there was some air to breath.

From around the corner behind us, shots rang out as my boys charged into the building on all sides. Kent's recognizable laugh, Ryker shouting orders, the sweet cacophony of Nikolai's well-established ruse crumbling.

Almost to the door, almost safe, when pain shot through my left shoulder.

It jolted me sideways, my hand slipping from Celine’s. There was a hot, wet bloom of heat down my arm through which the sensation soaked into my shirt. Blood. So much blood.

"Caelum!" Over the ringing in my ears, Celine sounded faintly far away.

I couldn't stop. Wouldn't. Grabbed her hand again with my good arm and kept running through smoke and gunfire and chaos. Every step sent fire raging through my shoulder but I made my body move, forced my legs to keep pumping.

We emerged through the door into chilly air outside. My car was fifty yards back, I couldn’t hear it if it had been hemming and hawing over my condition.

"Come on." I yanked Celine to the car, my vision beginning to blur around the edges.

More gunfire erupted behind us. A bullet pinged off the car’s hood just as we made it to it, sparks flaring out in the dark. I pushed Celine up into the passenger seat with my good arm, then I folded over behind the wheel.

"Oh God, you're shot!" She was panicking, her hands just over my shoulder like she was afraid to touch it, as if touching me would make her nervous shakiness more volatile. “We need a hospital, we need to call an ambulance, we need —”

With one hand, my right slick with blood, I turned the key and started the engine. Everything felt distant, disconnected. The shock was settling in. “No hospitals. “They’re going to ask questions that we can’t answer.”

"You're bleeding! You could die!"

"I know." I drove away, somehow managed to step on the gas. "I've survived worse."

That might have been a lie. He got close and the bullet had been clean through, front to back — missing all the major arteries most likely but surely shattering my collarbone. Each breath shot pain through my chest.

I drove anyway. Had to. To remain here was death to both of us.

Celine was weeping, pressing her jacket to my shoulder, trying to stanch the flow with hands that shook. It was so pressure-y that it made me see stars but I didn’t tell her to stop. She had to do something, had to feel useful.

“Stay with me,” she repeated, over and over as if in prayer. "Please stay with me. Don’t you even think about dying on me now.”

"I'm here. I'm okay." Even to my own ears, my voice was strange; thick and slow.

I wasn't okay. The bullet was in there somewhere, grinding against bone each time I moved. Blood was filling the seat beneath me, my trousers were turning soggy. I could feel my heart laboring too much to make up for the loss of blood.

But I'd survived worse. Had to remember that all the time.

The safe house came into view at last, a tiny cabin on the outskirts of the city that only Kent and I were privy to. Emergency bolt hole. Untraceable, stocked with supplies.

I parked and turned the engine off, then toppled over onto the steering wheel.

"Caelum!" Celine had her hands on my face to make me look at her. Her eyes were wide and scared, drifting in and out of focus. "Stay with me. We're here. You made it. Just stay with me."

"In there," I wheezed with great difficulty. "Medical supplies. Bathroom cabinet."

She opened my door and got me out of the car, half dragging me even though she was only half my size. Adrenaline was some shit. We came crashing into the cabin, hurting furniture and smearing blood across the floor.

I got to the couch before my legs gave way entirely.

Celine dashed to the bathroom and returned with arms filled with gear. Bandages, antiseptic, surgical instruments I’d hoped never to use on myself.

"What do I do?" She was hyperventilating, nearly panicking. "Tell me what to do, Caelum. Please."

"Cut the shirt off." I had to make my eyes look at her. "Need to see how bad it is."

She had scissors, snipped off the fabric shaking hands. The bullet hole was high in my shoulder, front to back just as I thought. Not arterial, which was good. But deep. Possibly bone involvement.

“The bullet went through,” I said each word with precision. "That's good. But you have to clean it, pack it, stop the bleeding.”

"I'm not sure how to do that!" Now she was weeping and tears streaked her bruised face. "I'm not a doctor. I’ve never done anything of the kind. What if I hurt you worse? What if—"

"You won't." I seized her hand with my own good one, squeezed as hard as I could bear. "You're smart. You're capable. I'll talk you through it. Just breathe."

She nodded, resolve firm on her jaw despite the fear in her eyes.

“I walked her through it, step by step. How to sterilize the forceps by heating them over the flame of my lighter. How to examine the wound for bullet. When she saw that it had pushed clean through, relief washed over her face.”

"Okay. Okay, that's good, right? That’s an improvement on how it would have been if you left it in there?”

"Much better. Now clean it. Directly into the wound, both sides."

She hesitated, eyeing the bottle as if it might sink its teeth into her.

"Do it, Celine. It needs to be done."

She poured. The tiny sting barely got through the general torment, but I must have made a noise because she jumped.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry—"

"You're doing great. Keep going."

Trembling, she wiped away the blood and dirt as she cleaned both sides of the wound. Then she stuffed it with gauze, holding down against the bleeding until at least slowed to a trickle.

"Now what?"

"Stitches. Both in and out wounds must be closed.”

Her face went white. "I can't. I never, I don’t know how to –”

"Thread the needle. In and out, over then down, snug but not too tight. Small stitches. You can do this."

With hands that refused to stop shaking, she threaded the surgical needle. Took her three tries.

The first stitch was torture. The needle bit through my flesh and I clenched my mouth tightly in order not scream. Tasted blood, fresh and metallic.

"I'm hurting you." Now she was crying, but she pushed on. "Oh God, I'm hurting you."

"You're saving me. Keep going."

She did. Every stitch was pure torment, but she worked diligently and carefully, as if she were sewing something valuable and not the shred of my flesh. I was already soaked in sweat and my vision was making an all-out effort to gray as she came around the front and I turned over.

The last stitch went in. She tied it off, snipped the thread, and keeled over next to the couch.

"Is that it?" She was speaking in a mere whisper. "Is it done?"

"That's it. You did good." I attempted to smile at her but didn’t know if my face complied. "You saved my life."

She was covered in my blood. Face, hands, clothes. She appeared as though she’d been through a war, which I guess in some ways, she had.

"Why did you do that?" The question erupted from her as though she’d been holding it back. "Risk everything for me? Walk into that trap and be prepared to die? You could have let me go. Could have stayed safe. Why?"

I reached out for her by my good arm and used the hand to move blood matted hair away from her face with fingers that wanted to tremble.

"For to lose you would be worse than death."

The words were raw, entirely true. All that I’d tried not to feel, not to acknowledge, was out in the open between us.

Her eyes opened wide and filled with new tears. "Caelum—"

But the world was listing to the side. Fever had already started to set in, despite the antibiotics, my body gottin’ ready to do battle with shock and blood loss and infection all at once.

I attempted to say something else, tried to tell her everything that I should have said earlier. That she was the one thing real in my life of lies. That thinking about her was the only thing that made me feel human now. That I'd level empires and walk through fire if it meant keeping her safe.

But there was darkness tugging at me, pulling me down.

“Stay,” I said, the word slurred. "Please stay."

Then all at once consciousness left me, and I went down into the dark seeing her only.

I would wake up and be alive, next to her; or I wouldn’t wake up at all.

Either way the worst was over, I’d saved her.

At least she would survive.

That had to be enough.