Page 125 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“We need you.” The words crack in her throat. “I need you.”

Blood bubbles on my lips when I try to speak. The medic shouts something about internal bleeding, arterial damage, and too much time elapsed. His voice fades to background noise.

None of it matters now.

Only them. Only this.

“He needs to conserve his strength.” The medic’s hands press fresh gauze to the exit wound in my back. “We’re doing everything we can.”

But we all know the truth. The wound channel tore through too much vital tissue. Nicked the subclavian artery, punctured lung tissue, probably severed nerves that will never heal. Even if I survive the blood loss, I’ll never be the same.

Never be the operator they need. Never be the partner worthy of their love.

Better to go now, while I can still give them something meaningful.

Better to go with words that heal instead of words that destroy.

“Gabe.” The word scrapes out like gravel over broken glass, each syllable a victory against failing lungs.

His eyes find mine, dark with grief and guilt and self-hatred, that I recognize all too well. The same look he wore after our fight, when words we couldn’t take back hung between us like shrapnel embedded too deep to remove.

Blood pools in my mouth. I swallow it down, taste copper and iron, and the metallic tang of dying. Force words past the obstruction in my throat.

“She was never…” More blood. I cough, spattering red across the white gauze. “Just yours or just mine.”

His face crumbles. Understanding hits him like incoming fire—recognition of forgiveness he doesn’t think he deserves.

“Hank, don’t.” His voice breaks on my name. “Save your strength.”

“No.” The word costs me everything. “Listen.”

My vision blurs, refocuses. The medical bay comes into sharp focus—steel walls painted hospital white, emergency lighting casting harsh shadows, the smell of antiseptic, blood, and fear. Ally’s hair falls around her face like a curtain, long, silky waves I’ve run my fingers through countless times.

“She’s yours now.” My voice barely carries above the monitor’s increasingly irregular complaint. “Take care of our girl.”

Ally’s sob cuts through me sharper than any bullet. Her forehead touches mine, tears falling warm against cold skin. I breathe in her scent—vanilla and fear.

“I love you both.” Each word costs me everything left in my chest. Lungs struggling to inflate, heart skipping beats that it can’t spare. “More than my own life. Build something beautiful from this.”

Their hands squeeze mine—Ally’s desperate and trembling, Gabe’s steady despite the grief I can read in his grip. My vision narrows to their faces, memorizing every line and shadow. The freckle on Ally’s left cheek. The scar through Gabe’s eyebrow from a training accident years ago.

Details that matter. Details worth carrying into whatever comes next.

“Don’t let this be the end of your story.” Breath rattles in my chest, spaces between heartbeats growing vast as oceans. “Let it be the beginning…”

The words fade. Everything fades.

Except them. Always them.

The monitor’s steady tone replaces my heartbeat, mechanical and final as a tolling bell.

FORTY-ONE

Where Grief Begins

ALLY

The monitor lets out a long,unbroken tone.