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I couldn’t stop moving.
Every time I stood still, I saw it again—the muzzle flash, the soundless flinch in Thomas’s shoulders, the way his legs gave out like his body realized what had happened before his mind did.
I was supposed to be watching his back.
That’s what we did—watched, covered, moved as one—and I’d let a bullet get to him. In our line of work, injuries were a matter of odds, but this didn’t feel like odds.
This felt like failure.
I glanced over at him. He slumped to one side as Sparrow cleaned around the wound with a cloth that had gone red far too fast. His face was pale, but his jaw was set. The idiot was stubborn as ever.
He was brave in a way I didn’t think I could be if our roles were reversed.
I wanted to touch him, just lay a hand on his shoulder, maybe, something to anchor him—or me, or both of us—but my hands weren’t steady enough. They hadn’t stopped shaking since we got him into the safe house.
I’d seen Thomas bluff diplomats and assassins, kneel in a puddle of broken glass to cover a drop, throw a knife left-handed to take down an enemy; but watching Sparrow press a gauze pad against his bleeding skin made me feel more helpless than I had in any of those moments.
Because I loved him, damn it.
And love, in our world, was the one thing that made us stupid.
It made us pace the floor like a caged animal, trying not to throw up. It made us count every breath and tally them like precious coins. It made us think ridiculous things, like whether he would be able to wear a shoulder holster on that side again, or if the scar would fade.
It made us afraid—bone-deep,soul-deep afraid—that tonight might be the last time we—the last timeI—got to hear his voice crack dryly with some half-assed joke about field medicine.
I would’ve taken that bullet a hundred times if it meant he could keep talking.
He hadn’t let me.
That’s who he was.
It was also why I was going to keep pacing until Sparrow told me he’d live—or I burned a hole straight through the tiles beneath my boots.
“Emu,” Thomas said through gritted teeth, “sit down. You’re making me dizzy.”
“You’re bleeding through your damn ribs,Condor,” I snapped, spitting his stupid code name like the vile lie it was.
“It’s a shoulder.”
“You bled on me, asshole.” I flicked him a bird, trying to lighten the mood, though clouds refused to part, not until I was sure he’d be okay. “You let them fucking shoot you . . . after I told you—orderedyou—not to get hurt again. I’m allowed to pace without you giving me shit. Understood?”
Sparrow’s lips curled into a grin, but she held her tongue. Egret, lingering in the doorway, chuckled loud enough for the dead to hear.
Thomas grunted but didn’t argue.
Sparrow snapped open the rusted hinges on the field kit and laid it out on the tile like it was sacred—tools of the trade lined up on a faded towel that looked like it had been used to clean rifles before it cleaned wounds.
“I need hands,” she snapped.
I was beside her before I even knew I’d moved.
Thomas blinked at me, his lips twitching into a weak smile. “I told you not to pace, not to become my nurse.”
“Shut up and bleed quieter,” I muttered, kneeling.
Sparrow handed me the antibiotic ampoule. “Snap the top, draw it up, and wait.”
I did as she asked. The tiny glass bottle cracked at the scored line and gave way with a soft pop. The syringe sucked the liquid like breath. My fingers still trembled.