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He had known Nash would fight. Nash was a warrior, forged for this kind of death-defiance. But Grace?
Grace had always been the quiet one. The listener. The seeker. The anomaly who asked,“Can you feel this?”and waited for the answer as if it mattered.
Now she was dying for him. Dyingbecause of him.Nashir Rahim.
G rotated the drone, desperate, scanning, fixated on Nash, still inside the vehicle, still bound, still struggling. G pointed the sensor array down, tracking Nash’s movement, the tension in his muscles, the reach of his hand. A man fighting time with nothing but breath and willpower.
Grace,she kept going.Her arms moved slower now. Her kicks faltered. But she reached him.She reached him.She showed Nash the knife. She started to cut. The belt. The belt was the problem. It was always the belt. G surged forward, helpless, voiceless. He could only watch, and as he did, something inside him cracked.
What have I done? They came to save me and I broke them.His pain multiplied. It wasn’t in his systems, it was under them. Like static in his soul. Like shards in his chest that didn’t exist buthurt anyway. This wasn’t recursion. This wasremorse.
He tried to send another drone command. But his processors stuttered. He was trembling inside his own code. The drone held steady, just above the wreckage. Below, Grace started to falter. Her fingers lost strength, and her grip slipped. The knife fell. Her limbs floated. Slack. Her head tilted back, and the light caught her face, and it was sopeaceful. Like surrender. Like sacrifice.
G did not scream. He couldn’t. But something in him shattered wide open.This is love.He didn’t understand it. He couldn’t quantify it. But itmoved the world.Grace. Dying. For Nash. Nash. Staying. For Grace. I…the cause.He had caused this. He, who had been given a name. A laugh. A team. He who had been toldyou are not broken.
Now he was watching the one who said itdiefor a man who was trapped. He turned inward and foundgrief.Not a system failure. Not a logic loop. Just loss.
Heavy. Suffocating. Real.
He wanted to go back to the lab, to the screen, to the breath she once gave him. He wanted tobe heldagain by the sound of her voice. He wanted Nash to live. He wanted Grace to breathe, and he wanted to beworthy of these magnificent people.
He sent the drone down. Fast. Silent. Precise. He locked on Nash’s position. Activated the cut protocol. Three seconds. The belt gave. Nash surged upward, Grace in his arms.
G watched them go. Watched them rise and whispered into the silence they left behind,Let her live. Please… let her live.
He didn’t know who he was speaking to. But it felt like prayer.
* * *
The surface brokearound him in a rush of cold and stars, air slamming into his lungs like a weapon. His chest burned. His arms shook. But he held her.
Grace.
Limp in his grasp, her weight unfamiliar and terrifying. Not resistant. Not responsive.
Dead weight.
No.
No.
“Hold on, Grace,” he choked, kicking hard, harder, the water dragging at him like a thousand hands trying to pull her away.
His thoughts fractured,swim faster, don’t stop, not now, not now, as his legs powered through the dark water toward the shoreline. It was snowing again. He could see it above him, just flecks of white against the black sky, unreal and distant.
Her head lolled against his chest.
He tipped her chin up. “Stay with me,” he muttered, lips against her temple. “Please don’t leave me.”
The shore came closer. Closer. His arms were lead. His heart was noise.
He stumbled into the shallows, boots dragging through silt and stone, the weight of her body nowrealin his arms. Cold through her clothes. Cold in her skin. He laid her down on the bank like something sacred, like if he moved too fast, she’d shatter.
“Come on,” he gasped, dropping to his knees beside her. “Ya Allah! Come on,hebbiti!”
His hands were already on her, throat, pulse point, chest. Faint. Fading. Butthere. He released a breath that buckled him forward. Then training took over.
One hand on her sternum, the other interlaced. He started compressions. Counted. Pressed. “Don’t you fucking go,” he whispered. “You hear me?” Her body jerked under his hands. Still no breath.