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A third dove for Roman’s throat, and he parried the attack with a shield of shadow. Magic hummed as the demon banged into it and ricocheted into the open driver’s door, causing it to rock on its hinges. It hit the ground, bucking and scrambling to its feet.

Roman shot it in the head.BANG. Brains misted the pavement.

“They aren’t in here!” Ivy screamed.“DALLAS—your dad!”

Dallas was already running—screaming for her dad’s help. The only person who might have more.

Loren’s heart wouldn’t respond—not without the serum. He was running out of time?—

Darien’s own heart gave a painfulthump-thump.

His upper body shot forward as if he had been stabbed in the back, a choked grunt of pain floating off his lips. But Darien kept fighting—fighting for Loren’s life, even as his own threatened to end.

“Come on, baby.”Pump, pump, pump,went his hands, her limp body jerking under his forceful palms, the blood from her nose streaming down the curve of her cheeks, toward her ears. “You’re not doing this.You’re not doing this!”

Another tightthumpof his heart—sharper, this one. A stab in the chest instead of the back.

He gritted his teeth, shoulders curling forward, and willed his heart to keep beating, and for hers tostart,god-DAMMIT!

“Come on, Loren!” he begged, his breaths clouding in the air before him, the others guarding the truck, round upon round of ammo emptying from the firearms they’d grabbed from under the back seats. Beasts were blown to bits, gore and body parts smacking into the truck, the pavement painted black and red. “Come on!”

His vision fogged over, and he began to see colors and lights. Stars and planets. Galaxies and memories, as if time were moving backward?—

“Look at you, my sweet Daredevil,” crooned a gentle female voice. He saw the woman’s face in his mind as if he were looking up at her from somewhere down below. Long hair the shade of autumn leaves in golden sunlight. Her beautiful smile as she cooed at her baby, so full of life and hope—both of them, so vibrant and hopeful for their bright future. A future that had been beaten to shit and left in smouldering ruins by the hands of one vile, hateful man. “Look at you—crawling already.” She held out her arms to him, scooping him up off the floor. Lifting him above her head, and then lowering him to rub her nose against his. He giggled, the sound bubbly. Happy. His tiny hands reached for her, fingers grasping at the air. “You’re special, my son. My special boy.”

Darien shook his head to clear it, more sharp pangs radiating through his chest. His heart. His lungs wereburning?—

“Come on, baby,” he begged, sweat dripping off his forehead, his hair. Loren’s skin was pallid and waxy, her lips turning blue. “Come on, baby,come on.”

“Darien—Darien here!”someone shouted.

He paused long enough to grab what Dallas shoved in front of his face—a syringe. He bit the cap off, spat it out, and punched the needle into Loren’s heart, dispensing the full vial of serum with one hard push of his thumb.

“Look at you, my handsome baby boy. Momma loves you so much?—”

“Not yet, Mom,” he bit out around a breathy, broken sob as he retracted the needle and resumed chest compressions. Loren’s heart glowed a pale blue beneath her skin. “Ineedto save her.” He pumped harder, hating how lifeless Loren looked as she lay there on the ground, her eyes shut. So different from the bubbly girl he loved.

Fuck,he couldn’t take this anymore.

“I love you.” His statement was for both women as tears splashed down his cheeks, his infant self giggling in his mind as the mother he’d lost bobbed him up and down. A sob ripped out of him. “I know you hate me right now, I know you’re upset with me, but I love you so much, baby.Please?—”

With every blink of his eyes, with every desperate pump of his hands, he flashed between life and death. Between here and the unknown—the now and the after. He saw things he couldn’t explain—things that filled him with fear and awe and surprise and hope and a strange sense of longing. Things that made him wonder if it really wasn’t so bad on the other side.

He kept breathing into Loren’s mouth, kept pumping that beautiful heart for her, as guns were shot above and around them, his family and friends guarding his back while the city was lit up with a heavy artillery blitz.

“I love you,” he said again on a husky whisper, galaxies and long-dead memories spinning by with every blink. “Come back to me. Come on, sweetheart, come back to me. You can hate me all you want—I don’t care, but I need you. I need you with me.Please.”

The last word echoed as his surroundings turned into shapeless streaks. Sound ceased. Explosives were going off, but he couldn’t hear anything, could barely see. His heart wasworking overtime—beating too fast and too hard, the blood rushing in his head, his ears.

“Stay with me, Loren—stay with me.” He heard his own voice as if it belonged to someone else—someone far away. Below the place where he was drifting. “Stay with me. I’m not giving up on you, do you hear me? I’m not giving up onus.”

He blew another breath into her mouth. Pumped her heart?—

One more time.

Two more times.

His vision narrowed to a tunnel of galaxies and memories passing by at the speed of light?—