“Mariah,” Uri screamed, reaching up to pull her close to him. He fingered the wound.
Arden hiccupped and muttered. She knew what was happening around her. Yet had a difficult time processing the information. She tried to get to her hands and knees, but only flopped sideways, causing her side to burn brighter.
“I’m fine.” Mariah pushed Uri’s hand away. Half her face was now covered with blood. It dripped off her chin. “I think that was our cue to leave.”
“Go.” He pushed her into motion.
Mariah ran hard, under the smattering of cover fire that Uri provided.
Arden turned onto her back, staring up. She tried to regain her ability to breathe. Her body couldn’t quit now. She still had too much to do. It needed to last another hour at least, and then she could rest.
That was when she knew death had found her.
He was an apparition. An angel come to lead her into the next world. He was streaked with soot. His hair pulled up, displaying his sun-star. He moved forward through the muck like an avenging angel, shooting mercenaries with deadly precision.
Arden smiled, happy beyond measure. He’d come to lead her into the next beyond. She knew that skin, knew the tattoo, wanted to place her lips there, to kiss and taste.
That snapped her back.
It was him.
He was real.
How was he alive? Or was this a trick of her mind? She couldn’t process much of her surroundings. Everything seemed funneled through a small hole. It was hard to believe, especially since she’d seen him shot, then watched him fall into the abyss.
It didn’t make any sense.
Uri looked over his shoulder. Then did a double take seeing Dade. He turned, falling backward into the barricade so that he faced Dade and Arden. He raised his phaser, focusing it on the center of Dade’s chest. It was like the same nightmare all over again.
Dade raised his phaser as well, his finger tightened on the trigger.
“Stop,” Arden screamed. She flopped forward, managing to push herself between the two men. It wasn’t graceful, her body jerking. She hoped she could be heard over the explosions before they managed to fry each other.
Dade’s eyes grew wide with horror. “Are you insane?”
Maybe? She knew only that she could not watch him die a second time.
Pain kicked in the second after her panic fled. She screamed out, falling the rest of the way to the ground. The blood from her wound oozed profusely now, pulled open again by her movement. Maybe she did have a death wish. At that moment, she didn’t care. Her breath rattled in her chest as she struggled to make her vision clear. Grasping at the light so she wouldn’t faint.
The move had worked to keep them from killing each other, at least.
“What the hell, Arden?” Uri yelled.
Everyone was screaming while the shots around them kept coming, the noise and the chaos too much for Arden. She focused on the one thing that mattered.
Dade.
He leaned over her. His hands running all over her skin, her face, her arms, and checking her exposed side.
“Is it really you?” she asked.
He nodded. Focused more on checking her wounds than on answering her.
“How?” It seemed like such an important question. Even in the midst of the current hell they were in, she needed to make sense of the senseless, come to terms with the possibility that she might be losing her mind.
“That’s a story for later. We need to go.”
“But you were dead.”
He shook his head. “No, I’d never leave you. I promised, didn’t I?” His brow was pulled in a worried line as he propped her up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dade was glad he’d been to the joint refinery before. At the time, he’d seen it as his biggest defeat. Now he saw it as a blessing. It gave him a plan and a path of escape. Looking at how bad off Arden was, he whispered his thanks to the sun.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
“No,” Arden slurred, her words followed by audible pants.
He had to lean close to hear her, his ear almost pressed to her mouth. But he also wanted to be close enough to make sure she wasn’t aspirating. The factory exploded around them, and he didn’t care. Arden remained his focus. Getting her out of this mess alive became priority number one.
She was fragile, a word he’d not associated with Arden before, because whenever he’d been around her, all he ever noticed was her core strength. That had been tested now. She appeared vulnerable and near death, her pain palpable. Her face leached color, white as a death shroud. She watched him with eyes half-open and haunted. Sweat soaked her skin, mixed with soot and blood, sticking her hair to her face.
His hands protested because of his broken fingers, but he reached forward anyway, taking her wrist to check her pulse. He’d taped and wrapped his fingers, making it difficult for him to count the beats. Her heart rate was slow but steady. That gave him some hope, though she didn’t seem to feel the pressure he exerted. Her fingers lay limp when he squeezed.
The boy next to her glared at Dade as he checked Arden, letting them silently know that he’d rather shoot them both than help. But as long as the boy continued to pick off the encroaching mercenaries, Dade was fine with the glares.
He moved away from her wrist to check her side. The fabric of her suit had been cut open. Blood seeped through it. He reached forward to separate the fabric so he could get a closer look at the wound. It looked as if someone had managed to get the bleeding stopped at one point, but now it sluggishly leaked again.
Her hands came up to push him off, but they never connected with him. Arden’s eyes rolled, and she made a pained sound.
It was clear she wouldn’t be able to stand on her own. Not only that, he also wasn’t sure that she’d stay conscious. Dade left the wound for now. Scenarios played through his head on how he could manage to get them out of there, but first and foremost he had to get her to her feet.
Sliding an arm behind her back, he moved through his own pain to pull her up. He worked as efficiently as he could, feeling every stretch of movement. She didn’t help him in any way, her body’s deadweight and the pull of her working against his efforts. When he managed to get her standing, she stumbled forward into him. He wrapped his arms around her middle, trying to keep from touching her wound.
Arden leaned heavily into his side. She made small noises that reminded him of someone being tortured, interspersed with whine-filled breaths. She opened her eyes, blinking first at him and then her surroundings. Her brow screwed up tight.
“Uri,” she said to the mean-looking boy who maintained his position.