Page 70 of Refractions Of Light
“You’re going to be alright,” Jack tells me although he makes it sound more like a demand. “Are you listening, Leo? You better be listening because I am not doing this with you.” There’s wetness on his face now. He sounds choked up, like he’s trying to swallow whatever he’s feeling, but it’s too big and too heavy and too loud and too much, too much, too much.
I can relate.
Fear explodes across his face when my body spasms and blood erupts from my mouth.
“Leo,” Jack warns. He’s angry, so angry, and afraid. “You hear me? We are not doing this. You’re gonna be fine. Keep breathing. Just keep breathing, and we’ll sort this, okay? We’re partners. We’re partners, and you can’t leave me. You gave your heart to me, you said you did. It’s mine. You’re mine. You don’t get to just fuckinggo!”
From outside, there’s the sound of sirens in the distance. Ambulance? Police? FISA?
Mum must have called someone, even if not Damon.
Jack must have heard the sirens coming before I did. Maybe that’s why he thinks this is all going to be okay. Maybe. Maybe it will be. Maybe. Maybe.
Not.
The only thing worse than the pain is when it stops hurting and the numbness sets in. The bizarre coldness, the frostbite that seems to come from nowhere and eats through my nerves like termites gorging on wood.
It was North who taught me, during one of our random training sessions back in the early days of my FISA career, that when the numbness comes, you know you’ve probably had it.
Pain means life, he said.
Dan scrambles up off the floor from where I pushed him out of the way and looms over us. In his panic, Jack isn’t quick enough to react.
Dan fires off two shots at Jack’s chest, and he’s knocked backwards by the impact, ripping him away from me.
I have a moment to cry out his name around the thick taste of copper in my mouth before the blood loss takes over, my eyes losing focus, everything seeming to move further away, the light dimming around the edges of my vision.
Dan kneels beside me and produces a syringe from somewhere. He jabs it into my neck and pushes the plunger, injecting me with the—not blue, not green—butblackchemical.
The last thing I hear before Liquid Onyx lays siege to my chromosomes is Dan’s voice, wicked sharp and hot, like a knife that’s been held over an open flame.
“Just hold on, Leo Snow. I swear, you’re not going to want to miss what comes next.”
The chilling numbness that was spreading through my body like a winter frost reverses itself and overcorrects. My blood turns to acid in my veins, setting fire to each and every nerve all at once.
I have one final thought—Jack, please, be okay, be okay, please, I need you to be okay, Jack—before my mouth opens and out comes an endless, insidiousscream.