“It absolutely counted.”
“Again.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah—”
I flipped him again.
And again.
And again.
Each time he came faster.Smarter.More determined.Sweat soaked through his shirt.His breaths turned ragged.His grin never faded.
“You’re a dick,” he groaned from the floor.
“You’re alive,” I told him.“That’s the main goal.”
He sat up, wiping sweat from his eyes.His voice dropped, serious now.
“Real talk.”
I raised a brow.
“When I finally get a mission, I want it to be with you.”
That caught me.
“Why?”
“Because you won’t let me die,” he muttered.“Everyone else sees a soldier.You see me.”
My jaw tightened.I looked away before he could see what that did to me.
“…Fine.We’ll go together.”
His smile hit like a sunrise.
And for one stupid, dangerous moment, I believed I could keep him safe forever.
I came backto the world in pieces.
Not gently, or with drifting awareness or soft light.I tore my way up through the darkness like a man drowning, lungs burning, heart slamming against my ribs as if it wanted out.
Beeping.
Machines.
The taste of blood and metal.
My eyelids fluttered.Light stabbed into my skull.My body was a dead weight, wrapped in wires and pain and something tight across my chest that made breathing feel like dragging air through broken glass.
“—he’s waking?—”
A voice.Though it’s not the one I wanted to hear.
My gaze dragged across the ceiling.White.Too white.Sterile.The smell of antiseptic and death.