Page 262 of Alchemised

They didn’t have the manpower for Luc to be deadweight. There was no way that Helena and Purnell could carry him all the way out if there was fighting.

She had a vial and a needle. Her hands were shaking as she filled a syringe. She’d never used this—epinephrine combined with painkillers and a few other things to jump-start his body into action. If it was too strong, it would kill him. It would all be for nothing.

“Come on,” she muttered, and jabbed it through his chest into his heart.

Luc lurched, giving a sudden gasp as his body jolted into violent consciousness.

Helena saw a flash of sky blue as his eyes cracked open.

“Hel?” he croaked, his voice dry. He reached out, touching her face with his bandaged hand as if he couldn’t believe she was real.

“Yes,” she said, trying not to cry. “We’ve come to take you home.”

His eyes rolled around, searching, skimming past everyone clustered around him. “Where’s—where’s Lila?”

“Headquarters,” Soren said, his voice gruff, “waiting for you.”

Luc stiffened. “Is she really—?”

“She’s alive,” Helena said quickly. “We took care of her. It’s your turn now. Come on.”

Luc gave a shuddering gasp of relief. “They said if I went—they wouldn’t kill her. She was—bleeding—so much. Wouldn’t even let me burn it closed. She’s—she’s all right?”

“She’s alive, getting better,” Helena said. “Come on. Take this. We’ve got to go.”

She pulled him upright and he groaned, clutching at his chest.

“What did they do to me?”

“I don’t know. I’ll fix you better once we’re safe,” she said, breaking a tablet in half and pushing it past his lips. She just had to hope he was still strong enough that everything she was doing wouldn’t kill him. “Hold still.”

She pressed her hands on each side of his neck, and used the dissolving tablets to manipulate his physiology, getting his internal systems working the way they needed to.

He’d crash terribly once it all wore off, but she’d be there. She could make up all the difference once they were safe.

“Up now,” she said. He was breathing too fast; she could feel his heart racing dangerously. She tried to slow it a little, but the more conscious he became, the more he comprehended their danger.

She pulled one of his arms over her shoulder and Purnell took the other, and they dragged him to his feet.

“You came …” Luc said, slumping heavily on her.

“You’re my best friend,” Helena said, staring ahead. “Of course I did. Come on. We need to get you out.”

He kept tripping over his feet, his body bearing down so hard that her knees nearly buckled. She was grateful he was not in armour, or she didn’t know how they’d manage. The floor was slick with blood and gore.

“You shouldn’t be here. You’re not—trained,” he said when they were halfway down a flight of stairs.

“Helping you is exactly what I’m trained for,” she said.

Her ring kept burning, again and again. She ignored it.

She had been afraid that after all the fighting to get there, Soren and the others would be too exhausted to keep going, but recovering Luc had reinvigorated them.

However secret the prison had been, it was not so secret that there weren’t plenty of necrothralls now that the alarms had gone off. Not shoddy, damaged necrothralls that shambled and ravaged carelessly; these greys were expertly reanimated, so capable it was hard to believe they were dead except they kept coming no matter how Soren and Sebastian sliced them apart. The narrowness of the hallways and tight corners was both gift and curse.

“I need a weapon,” Luc said, trying to pull away from Helena as Soren was slammed against the wall and crumpled. A necrothrall nearly took his head off, but Sebastian rammed into it, buying Soren enough time to scramble to his feet and decapitate it.

He was fighting left-handed, his right arm cradled against his body.