To Bleed for Him

"When you fall,
So spent from emotion,
She is what
Brings you to your feet.
Where challenges lie,
We're on the verge of destruction,
She pulls you back,
And she gives you wings.

Death won't hold you as tight as she will.

Can you feel her running through your veins?
She will always live forever.
Can you bear the burden?

Can you feel her burning through your veins?
She will always live forever.
Can you bear the burden?"
- Atreyu

"I was to be the one who died tonight!" Antony roared with an aggressive gesture toward the house at his back. "Not her!"

"She's not dead," Ripley said, his voice calm though he leaned heavily against Torryn's car, just barely able to catch his breath.

"She will be if we don't go back for her!" Antony shouted, then turned to Skylar and Becca, huddled off to the side, murder shining in his eyes. "Why would you drag me out of there without her?" he asked, his voice dropping dangerously low. "We all agreed that I might not make it out of this. No one ever said that she wouldn't."

"Look, Antony," Becca began, her expression already filled to the brim with pleading, "I get why you're angry. I really do. But you were in trouble back there, and as your subordinate, I took it upon myself to extract you from the situation. You may view yourself as expendable, but I don't, and I know for a fact that, even though many of your other underlings weren't willing to join us in this battle, most of them want you to come out on top. They want you back. They want you alive."

"We have to go back for her," he said before she had the chance to go on, as he knew by her earnest gaze that she would. "Besides that setback with Caleb, we were winning. If we just go back, we —"

"Are you stupid?" Torryn's mother blurted, and he whirled on her in shock. She stood next to Ripley, lips pursed, brow pinched, and arms crossed. "It's obvious that you're lucky to be on your feet right now, and it ain't hard to see that Skylar and the vampire Barbie doll are in pretty much the same shape. Not to mention Ripley, who was seconds away from being eaten alive when you dragged him out here." Her eyes narrowed further and her expression became more pointed, and Antony couldn't help shrinking back a bit in shame. He'd led a Progeny into a vampire fight. Her rage was completely justified. "But if my ears weren't deceiving me — and I promise you, they weren't — I heard Torryn in there, right before we left, and she sounded just as alive as always. I admit that it'll be a Goddamn miracle if we get her back in decent shape, but I know — you hear me? — I know we'll get her back." She jabbed a finger at the house and went on, impassioned, "That girl will walk through that door on her own two feet, and you little bastards will be waiting to catch her when she faints."

Just then, the sound of shattering glass cut across the air, and Antony was the first to turn. His heart would've leaped in his chest if it had been beating.

Torryn, flat on her back in a bed of glass shards and crushed roses.

Torryn, clutching her knife in a white-knuckled grip, conscious and wonderfully alive.

Torryn.

"Well," her mother said, "I was close."

-?-

None of her punches had hit him. Not a single one of the dozens she'd thrown.

How? She wanted to scream it, to cry it, to wail it upon the wind, but she could only bellow it in her mind. How?!

She drew herself to her feet just as Caleb hopped out of the window after her, and though she did her best to keep from showing him her pain, she couldn't stop a cringe from surfacing. Everything hurt. Every muscle, every bone, every inch of skin where she'd been hit.

Oh, yes. She couldn't hit him, but damn, could he hit her. It was no easy task to send a girl flying through a window halfway across the room.

"You're not doing nearly as well as I thought you would," he said in a silky smooth taunt, and she tightened her already too-tight grip on her knife. "The way Antony talks about you, I thought you'd be a little stronger, you know? A little faster. Maybe a little bit better at taking a punch." He chuckled to himself, stepping slowly toward her and allowing a slip of fang to show from within his borderline-flirtatious smirk. "But it seems I've forgotten that the only thing you've ever been really good at taking is a pair of fangs and a good dicking."

Blind rage sent her forward without a second thought, spurring her punches beyond their natural strength. The first connected with his stomach, and finally, he was sent staggering back; but no pain showed on his face. There was only surprise. The second blow caught him in the jaw, cocking his head just a bit though the cracking of bone never came, and the third found his stomach again. He fell back another step, his back meeting the empty sill of the window, but when she tried to hit him a fourth time, she found that her way was once again fully barred, and he didn't move an inch. Frustration drove her dagger into his stomach — but the tip broke off without coming close to skin or even the cloth of his dark T-shirt. With a cry of anger, she tore at his stomach with what remained of her weapon, but to no avail.

A sudden punch sent her flying, and she landed in the grass some feet away, skidding until the cement of the sidewalk deigned to help her. Pain swelled within her abdomen like a rising tide, and though she hated herself for it, she couldn't stop a soft whimper.

Her ribs. He'd broken some of her fucking ribs.

She sat up slowly, clutching her side, but he was on her in a heartbeat. A merciless kick to the face knocked her onto her back, and he circled her, smiling smugly down at her. Vaguely, she wondered why no one was coming to her rescue — but she could hear the shouts and cries in the background, the waxing and waning screams of a heated debate. She could guess who was on either side, but she couldn't tell for sure. The sounds were blending together, just as her vision was growing hazy.

"You know, maybe you're tougher than I gave you credit for," he said softly so that only she could hear him, and she couldn't look away from his face, orbiting her like an ashen full moon overhead. "That room was filled with the pheromones of my underlings, but you took out at least fifteen of them, if I counted correctly, and I don't see a single fresh bite wound." He paused beside her, and his smile faded just a hair. "And now, I've been pumping my own pheromones into the air like pollution from a Goddamn metal plant, and you haven't slowed down once. Even now, I'm flooding you with them, and nothing's keeping you down but a kick to the ribs." She didn't understand what he meant — a kick to the ribs? When? — until he slammed his foot into her side hard enough to send her sliding back a few inches on the walkway. She cried out, rolling onto her side and beginning to curl into a ball, but another powerful kick knocked her onto her back.

She wanted to cry out again, but she couldn't catch her breath. Pain burned through her hotter than before, hot enough that she felt tears beginning to well in her eyes. His foot lashed out again, but this time, what little instinctual drive she had left urged her to catch his ankle. Desperately, she tried to pull him down, but no matter how hard she tugged, she couldn't budge him. She could hear him cackling now, mocking her, not even bothering to shake her off.

Was she really this weak? Or had he just become this strong?

Another kick to her stomach, another sharp stabbing pain in her ribs, and she could feel consciousness beginning to slip away. Her broken dagger dropped from her fingers to the sidewalk with the soft tinkle of steel on cement, and she waited — for the final blow, for her savior, for something.

But certainly not for herself.

-?-

Becca was still shouting at Antony when he pulled free of her grip on his arms and bounded down the sidewalk, having eyes only for that bastard Caleb. Just as the son of a bitch pried his leg from Torryn's hands with another kick to the stomach, Antony rammed into him shoulder-first with all the speed and strength of an undead, and finally, the bastard toppled.

Antony stepped in front of Torryn's hunched form to face Caleb as he rose to his feet, rebounding from Antony's attack with a smile and the grace of the entirely uninjured. "Stop it," Antony all but snarled. "We're leaving. You can keep my Goddamn throne, you can keep my minions, you can keep the house and everything inside of it. I don't care. Just back off."

Caleb's voice rose in a cackle that stung Antony's wounded pride all the more. He didn't want it to end like this. He didn't want to lose his position, even if it had been thrust upon him by his father and mother. He didn't want everything Torryn had just suffered, everything her father and her asshole ex-boyfriend had just suffered, to be for nothing. God, if he could just land one punch!

"If you wanted to make it out of here alive, you should've left when you had the chance," Caleb said, laughter adding a gentle lit to his deep voice. "You should've gone and left her behind. You're not getting out of here again. None of you are."

Antony's gaze flicked past the vampire to the broken living room window, and the pasty faces of a dozen vampires stared triumphantly out at him. He and the others could've tried to make a run for it, but they'd be swarmed before they made it into the cars. And with Torryn's current state…

"Are you all right?" Becca's soft voice drifted up to him, and he turned. The woman was kneeling at Torryn's side, in the process of carefully rolling her onto her back. The sight made his stomach drop.

Torryn's head lolled to the side, her eyes just barely open — and how could they be? Both were already blackened and swelling, and her lashes were matted with the blood that flowed from the lacerations that covered her face. He could barely see any of her pale skin beneath the coat of sticky crimson and slowly darkening bruises, and he wondered just how much of it was from Caleb. His eyes dropped when Becca carefully lifted Torryn's shirt, and he squeezed them shut the instant he saw the mass of bruises that covered the entirety of her abdomen, the splintered bones poking out to create little bumps of purplish skin.

God, what had he let that bastard do to her?

Guilt eating him from the inside out, he turned to Caleb, too tired even to glare. "You can kill me right here, right now, if that's what you want, Caleb. You can take me inside and torture me until you're bored of it. You can do whatever you want. Just let them go."

"And why should I?" Caleb asked, crossing his arms over his chest and eyeing Antony, contemplating. "I could do all of that right now — to your entire party. What's stopping me?"

"Your fight isn't with them. It's with me. And really, what could possibly be more satisfying than seeing me forfeit? What could possibly be more of a victory than knowing you've killed me because I gave in, knowing I couldn't win a fight with you?" The words stung, but nothing would ever hurt him more than the sight of Torryn lying there, half-dead from a beating he could've saved her from. God! He could've saved her! He could've saved them all! How selfish could he be? How stupid?

Caleb smiled wickedly. "You really know how to strike a deal, don't you? Fine. They go free — on the condition that they have to watch you die. Right here, right now, just like you said."

Wide-eyed, he looked down at Torryn once more, watching as she slowly blinked, just barely conscious. His eyes flicked to Becca, and though she shook her head, the sorrow in her expression told him her real answer. She knew that it was a necessary sacrifice, just like he did. But to make Torryn watch?

Steeling himself, he looked at Skylar, watching them from a few feet down the path, and gave a sharp nod. "Take care of her, all right?"

The boy nodded back gravely. "She was lucky to have you."

Caleb stooped to pick up Torryn's forgotten knife, and though the tip had broken off to leave only half of the blade, Antony knew it would still do the job. It would just hurt more. "Yeah, yeah. Sappy, sappy, yada, yada. Sit your little girlfriend up and let her watch this."

Antony turned to watch as Becca obediently — and very gently — sat Torryn upright. She could just barely hold her head up, but it seemed that the lucidity was finally returning to her eyes. "Be good, all right?" he murmured to her, and her eyes flicked to him in recognition, then to the knife in Caleb's hand. If he had a beating heart, it would've stopped.

They were silver. Her eyes were freaking silver, just like her father's.

"Torryn?" he said hesitantly, stunned, but she was already on her feet and in front of him before the last syllable had left his lips. Her fingers were wrapped around the remains of her blade, blood trickling from the cuts developing along her hand as she struggled to pry it from the undead's grip. "Torryn! Stop!"

Caleb caught her wrist, jerked her hand from the knife, and tossed her aside, all in one fluid motion. Her back hit the porch wall, just beside the open doorway, with enough force to shake one of the ornate black lights sideways in its bearings, but no sooner had she dropped to the ground than she was charging forward, right toward Caleb, more quickly than Antony had ever seen her move before.

"Torryn, stop! Please!" he cried, just wanting this to be over with, just wanting to keep her from getting hurt again. He could see the raw agony dancing at the back of her silvery eyes, could see the pain in her every movement, etched into every line of her bloody and bruised face. "Just go, Torryn! I want this to be over!"

She ducked beneath a punch, then a swing of the broken blade, dancing out of reach of a series of kicks before darting around to the man's back. She tried to land a punch, but even though it knocked him forward a step, it didn't seem to have done any damage. He spun on her with a fresh volley of punches, but her newfound bravado gave out halfway through a broad sidestep, and she seemed almost unconscious on her feet for the split second she had before Caleb's fist caught her full-force in the ribs.

Her cry of pain rang in his ears as he lunged, and though logic nagged at him, told him that it would be impossible to overcome this obstacle, he couldn't stop himself, wouldn't stop himself.

If she wouldn't let him die here, he sure as hell wouldn't let her.

-?-

Skylar had just begun to step forward, determined to aid Antony in protecting Torryn, when a blur of movement off to the side caught his attention. One solitary vampire had slipped through the window, sticking close to the wall as he crept closer to the ongoing battle. His eyes were glued to the fight — no, not the fight, just to Caleb.

Was he planning a sneak attack once the vampire got out of the way? Was he waiting for some signal?

But even when the battle shifted, Torryn entering the fray to land punches so powerful that they managed to knock the seemingly invincible vampire back a few paces, he didn't —

Holy fuck. That was it! That was why Caleb couldn't be touched by anyone but Torryn at her most brutal! She had a knack for plowing through telekinetic barriers. Caleb was obviously — so obviously! — enveloped in one hell of a barrier.

And that asshole hovering at the edge of the fight was the one keeping it up.

Becca jumped into the battle, just barely managing to block a punch for Antony's sake. Torryn had begun to cup one side of her battered rib cage with one hand while still attempting punches with the other. Beside Skylar, Torryn's mother muttered something and pulled Ripley back when he started to walk toward the battle.

Not a single one of them noticed the telekinetic in plain sight.

Still shaking the slightest bit from the overuse of his abilities, still aching all over from the physical battle, Skylar pulled himself upright and started on weak knees toward his newfound prey.

It would be up to him to end this fight.

-?-

"Torryn, please!" Antony cried, over and over. "Torryn, stop! Just let me finish this!" He'd said it so many times that she wasn't sure if he was still speaking or if it was just an unending loop in her head.

How could he try to do that to her? To himself? How could he try to leave her here, alone, after all they'd been through together? How dare he give in so easily! How dare he give in at all!

Her rage kept her moving, even through the relentless pain and the frequent blows, and on a stroke of luck, she managed to snatch her broken knife from Caleb's fingers right before another punch knocked her to the ground. The weight of the blade felt heavy in her hand, familiar, and she was on her feet again in a heartbeat, throwing herself right back into the battle.

She watched as Caleb sent Antony spinning with an angry backhand, and she danced out of the way of the vampire's falling body. Becca was quick to follow, and as she fell, Caleb following her back as if he intended to land the final blow, Torryn, dagger in hand, launched herself into the air and onto his back. He staggered beneath her sudden weight, already tugging at her arms as she wrapped them around his neck, but she was quick to thrust the jagged tip of her broken blade into his throat.

She'd just started to drag it sideways through his throat when her back suddenly met the side of the house. She let the knife slip from his throat, but she held fast to his neck. A fresh burst of pain exploded within her as he rammed her against the wall again, and the pressure on her ribs blackened her vision for a moment.

When she returned to herself, she was on the ground, propped up by the side of the house. Instinct brought her arm up, and a powerful kick reverberated through her bones, jolting her into alertness. She leaped to her feet, adrenaline still pumping through her veins to spur her on, and she ducked beneath another punch, then another. She tried to land one of her own, but the result was the same as before — he didn't even flinch. It only gave him an open invitation to knee her straight in the ribs, and she crumpled, on the verge of unconsciousness.

"You're on your own again, little girl," he rumbled as he knelt before her, and she could just barely make out the outline of his smirk through the haze that coated her vision. For the first time, she noticed the pheromones that permeated the air all around her, could feel their light, welcoming tickle as they drifted through her. The haze thickened. "Now, if you know what's good for you, you'll just let yourself go. If you act just the way I want you to, I might even decide to keep you instead of putting you down." She felt his fingertips against her skin, brushing the hair away from her throat, and she swallowed. She needed to fight him. She had the power to fight him. But…

"Where are they?" she asked breathily, still and malleable as a doll as he pulled her upright and leaned her back against the house.

"There's still a little bit of my army left, honey," he said gently. "Your little friends are a bit busy fighting for their lives right now, and they're not doing so well."

"No," she whispered, but he paid her no mind. She felt his fingertips gliding along her throat once more, and as she focused on his face, she could see the hunger dancing in his eyes, his pupils fully dilated.

"You remember how it feels, right?" he murmured. "The saliva? It'll soothe all the pain away, even what's been done to your ribs. You'll like it. I promise."

Her eyes drifted past him to the menagerie of miniature fights taking place on the lawn, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't spot Antony, Skylar, or Becca. Her father, though, lay at the end of the sidewalk, seeming unconscious, and her mother was crouched at his side, eyes darting around the battlefield as if she intended to protect him should any stray vampires come her way.

Can't she see me? Torryn wondered weakly. Can't any of them see me? I need help. Please. Anyone…

She could feel the damp heat of his breath along the side of her jaw now, and anticipation thrilled through her, guided by what little of the pheromones' influence she'd allowed to take hold of her system. She could just let it happen. She could let him soothe her, just as he promised. Even if he did kill her in the end, at least she wouldn't hurt anymore.

But she suddenly registered the familiar weight of the dagger in her palm, and her fingers closed tightly around it. What was she thinking? She hated Antony for even considering giving up. How could she go and do the same thing? How could she ever think of letting this piece of shit feed from her while his minions tore through the people she loved?

"Caleb," she said softly.

"Yes, my love?" he purred, his voice right beside her ear, his breath dangerously hot on the side of her throat.

She leaned close to his ear, rested a hand gently on his shoulder, and whispered, "Go fuck yourself."

She plowed her foot into his stomach with all her strength, and he fell back with a cry, sliding several feet across the grass.

And it wasn't until he'd stopped his impromptu journey that she realized what she'd just heard: a cry of pain.

She'd hurt him.

Maybe he wasn't invincible after all.

-?-

Skylar jumped back a step on the cool grass, dodging a telekinetically charged punch from his mysterious new opponent. Another attack quickly followed, but he maneuvered out of the way again, this time taking hold of the man's wrist as he passed. A quick spin, a swing, and the vampire was face-first against a wall with Skylar holding an arm behind his back. He let his own telekinetic energy swell around them, pinning the man in place, and his mind skipped back to his battle with Torryn the night before — same technique, vastly different intent. Part of him longed to go back to that night, to that fight, to the joy of being so close to her, so in control, but most of him wanted to end this fucker and be on his way. This fight had been going on for far too long.

The man tried to break through his barrier with a surge of his own power, but Skylar reinforced it, stepping out of the shell to give the energy more room to move. "You know, you're not half bad at this," he remarked, and the vampire grunted, now struggling both physically and telekinetically against his invisible bonds. "If you hadn't made it so freaking obvious at the end there that you were watching Caleb like a hawk, I might not have even noticed you." He turned to watch the vampires swarming the lawn, Becca and Antony standing alone in the center of the crowd, and his heart stopped.

Where was Torryn?

The man took advantage of his distraction and broke through the barrier with a fresh wave of energy, and as he whirled, Skylar felt something creeping over him, encasing him. Suddenly, he was rocketed into the air, yards above the ground, and the vampire smiled smugly up at him. "You're not half bad at this, either," he called. "Too bad this ends now." The air around him shifted, and he dropped, hurtling toward the ground.

iOh, fuck. Oh, fuck! By some miracle, he managed to wrap himself in his own power before his body met the ground, but the impact was still hard enough to set earthen debris scattering, a crater forming from his impact.

The use of power weakened him further, and he wasn't sure if he could keep this up for much longer. Kneeling in the hole his body had created, he made a split-second decision. Mimicking the tactic he'd just used to save himself, he encapsulated the vampire in a shell of power, threading it through his cells, deep into his body — and then, he jerked it all outward, like pulling off a million little Band-Aids.

He barely had time to see the rain of blood and oddly colored matter before his strength completely left him, and he collapsed.

He'd won.

-?-

Antony dared to look toward Becca as a body fell to dust before him, the ashes sifting through his fingers as the head he held melted away. The woman ripped through one man, tearing head from body with the same tenacity that he'd been using as his own fuel for the battle. Another fell on her instantly, and he turned to stave off his own opponent, blocking punches and taking swings of his own when he had the chance.

They were down to seven of the twelve vampires who had accosted them on the lawn, proving that he had been right. If it weren't for Caleb and his mysterious invulnerability, this battle would have been nothing but a light workout. Most of his cohorts were living vampires, and they had nothing on either Antony himself or Becca.

Or Torryn, he thought with a fresh pang of guilt.

"She's hitting him," Becca said with a gasp, even as she slammed a woman face-first into the ground, her fingers tangled in the vampire's dark hair. "Antony, she's hitting him!" As he grabbed a man's incoming fist and shoved him back into one of his comrades, Antony followed her wide-eyed gaze, and surprise jolted through him like an electric shock.

Torryn was shaky on her feet, her strength obviously dwindling, but as her broken blade tore through Caleb's stomach, blood spattered, and when he caught her wrist and she used her free hand to clock him in the jaw, Antony could hear the impact. "Holy shit," he said. "She is."

"Go! Help her! I've got these pricks," Becca said, already kneeing a man in the groin and throwing him to the ground with surprising alacrity.

Antony was at Torryn's side in a second, and as she staggered back, wincing, caught off guard by a punch to the stomach, he stepped in to take her place. He blocked a punch from Caleb, then landed one of his own to the man's face, busting his lip open with a fresh spray of blood. He wasn't smiling anymore, and that fact alone brought a smirk to Antony's lips. His own injuries throbbed as he ducked under a punch and threw out an arm to block a knee, but he pushed through the pain, rising with a swift uppercut that sent the vampire arcing back through the air.

"You're not nearly so tough without something protecting you, hm?" Antony remarked smugly as Caleb hit the ground with a grunt. "And what was that?" he asked, stepping toward the man. "Just what was it that allowed you to fight off the two toughest women I know?"

Caleb let loose a thunderous laugh, but Antony shut him up by slamming his fist straight into the bastard's stomach. Blood burst forth from his mouth, and he rolled onto his side to spit out a mouthful of crimson. He chuckled. "Did you think you were the only one with a telekinetic on your side?" His laugh grew louder when Antony's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You're just not utilizing yours as effectively as I used mine." He smirked, looking Antony dead in the eye, and said, "It's kind of funny, really, your rivalry with that human. You're supposed to be one of the most powerful vampires in the city, yet you can't even win your little whore over from a human." Antony plunged his foot into the vampire's stomach as hard as he could, knocking him back a solid foot, but he only coughed and laughed harder. "Admit it, Antony! You're not good enough to rule, and you're not good enough to get the girl!" Another foot met Caleb's stomach, knocking him back even further than before, but this time, it wasn't Antony's. Torryn stood beside him in the grass, and though she looked like hell, covered in blood and cuts and bruises, a permanent grimace carved into her features, she was there, conscious and alive. He wanted nothing more than to hug her, to kiss her, to wash all the blood away, but there was still work to be done.

She rammed her foot into his stomach again, and when his laughter filled the air again, she let loose another kick, shoving him onto his back. "Look, Antony," Caleb said weakly. "Your girlfriend is about to do your dirty work for you. Aren't you proud?"

She planted her foot in the center of his chest and stared down at him, her gaze icy, her face made of stone, her eyes glowing silver. "You needed a telekinetic to protect you in order to even face Antony," she said coldly. "I don't think I need to do his dirty work. I just wanted a bit of payback for my ribcage, you shit stain." She pressed down on his chest suddenly, and a split second passed before the crack of bone and a grunt of pain filled the air. "And I wanted to remind you what a weakling you are one last time before you die. The only way you even came close to killing him tonight was through his own forfeit."

Caleb's chuckle returned, and he grinned to show fangs covered in his own blood. "Defend him until you're blue in the face, little girl. It won't change what happened here today, and it won't change what's bound to happen in the future." She pressed her foot into his chest once more, and his laughter grew louder. "There will be others to face him. There will be others to face you. There will be others gunning for all of your blood. All my death will change is that I won't be around to see it." Torryn lifted her foot from his chest and slammed it into his side one more time, and without glancing at Antony, without pausing to watch Caleb cough up another mouthful of blood, she turned and started across the lawn.

Antony watched her go, then he turned his gaze to Caleb's blood-streaked face. "Any last words?"

Caleb grinned. "See you in hell, Warren."

Without hesitation, Antony knelt and took a handful of Caleb's hair. Even his neck gave pathetically easily without a telekinetic to guard it.

-?-

Torryn paused to watch Caleb turn to dust, then continued to limp her way across the lawn. "Is he all right?" she asked her mother in a rasp, and the woman nodded, though she didn't rise from Ripley's side.

"Pheromones got him before he even came face to face with a bloodsucker," she said, then laughed. "I don't know why he even insisted on coming here."

Torryn nodded and continued her walk. "How are you doing, Becca?"

The woman lifted her head from where she'd sprawled on the lawn amid pile upon pile of ash. "Yep," she said cheerfully. "I'm just in desperate need of a nap, and nowhere seemed a more pleasant place for one than the dusty bodies of my victims!"

"Good to know," Torryn said with a faint smile, then limped along.

"Skylar?" she called after a second, unable to find him even after pausing to scan the yard. "Skylar?" Her eyes finally landed on a hand just barely poking out of a deep crevice in the ground, and she went rigid, fear racing through her like ice in her veins. "Skylar?" she said in a panic as she rushed to his side, dropping to her knees in the dirt beside him. "Skylar? Are you all right? Skylar, wake up." She shook his shoulder gently, then a bit more violently, and just as she was about to say his name again, he let a hand fall to rest over hers.

"Are you okay, Torryn?" he asked in a gravelly voice, opening his eyes just a crack to look up at her, and she felt tears welling in her eyes.

"Don't scare me like that." She wiped at her eyes, hoping to stop her tears from falling, but they were already rolling down her cheeks. "I thought you were dead."

"Now you know what it feels like," he said softly, "to always expect the love of your life to be dead because they insist on running into epic battles on their own."

A sob rocked her body, sending a torrent of pain rushing through her abdomen, and for a moment, she lost her senses again, seeing only black. When her faculties returned to her, she found herself lying across his chest, his heartbeat loud in her ear — the soothing sound of the past. His arm was around her waist, warm and inviting, and though part of her wanted to rise, she couldn't.

And just as quickly as her senses had filtered back into her, they flitted away. The warmth of his body was replaced by a chill that permeated her entire being, terrifyingly obvious now that her adrenaline no longer held her.

"It's okay, Torryn," he said softly, and she shook her head.

"I think I need to go to the hospital," she whispered, numb.

"Torryn?" he asked, worry raising his voice. "You're shivering."

"Am I going to die this time?" she breathed.

"Torryn!"

Darkness finally overtook her.