Chapter 278: She Had Not Agreed to Lose Him

DOVE’S POV

Edrik was two steps from the workshop when the burst hit the van.

Dove saw the metal side buckle, saw him turn toward the flying door with his hand already reaching for it, and then the yard vanished in dust. The sound hit her chest before it reached her ears.

Something knocked her sideways against the concrete wall. Pain tore through her hip and tail. She hit the floor on one knee, mouth open, unable to drag in a proper breath.

For one horrible second she couldn’t see Edrik.

Then he was at the doorway, one hand gripping the torn metal panel he’d held between them and the blast. His power had kept it from folding straight through him. It hadn’t stopped the whole force of the impact, or the debris that had struck beneath it.

His legs gave way as he reached her.

Dove caught his shoulder and nearly went down under his weight. He forced himself farther through the door, using his arms when his feet wouldn’t do what he wanted. Blood marked the floor behind him.

"Inside," he said, as though she hadn’t watched him break trying to get there.

"I’m here. Keep moving. I’ve got the bag."

She didn’t have him. Not all of him, not the way she wanted. He was too heavy for her to lift, and pretending otherwise would waste the few seconds they had. She dragged the ready bag out of the way, shoved a folded blanket beneath his hip, and helped him pull himself behind the thick concrete side of the doorway.

The torn panel fell with a crash when he let go. Without his touch it was only metal again, dented and ugly and no longer enough to trust between them and another burst.

Dove kept them behind the wall instead.

Outside, men shouted at each other. Through the dusty opening she saw the fox-eared attacker leaning over with his hands on his knees. One of his companions grabbed his shoulder, trying to hurry him. He shook the man off, unable or unwilling to throw again immediately.

That pause was the only good thing in the yard.

Dove crawled to the ready bag and pulled it close. Her left side burned. She looked down long enough to see blood on her skirt, then made herself look at Edrik’s legs instead. He was conscious. His eyes followed her. One hand closed around her wrist with enough strength to keep her from drifting into the terrible blank place her mind wanted to go.

"Dove. Look at me."

"I am looking at you. You are bleeding on my blanket. It’s very rude."

The joke came out wrong, thin and frightened. She didn’t try another.

Edrik glanced toward the side door. "You can get out that way. Along the fence."

"We can. When I work out how to move you."

He didn’t answer quickly enough.

Dove opened the medical pouch with both hands. She remembered the nurse guiding her hands at Thorne’s bed and placed the clean cloths as carefully as she could. Edrik watched her face while she worked. She told him what she was doing because she had needed that at the clinic, needed someone to keep speaking instead of letting the silence fill with everything that might be wrong.

She could do the next useful thing instead of trying to solve everything at once.

The radio lay beside the bag. She pressed the button, gave the workshop location again, and said plainly that one adult man had serious leg injuries after a skill attack. No brave little summary. No pretending he could walk if somebody just encouraged him enough.

The reply broke into static. She repeated herself until a voice said the message had been received.

Edrik held a folded dressing where she placed it while she opened the next. His jaw was tight, but his hands stayed steady. Even now, even with blood beneath him, he watched the doorway over her shoulder.

"Stop trying to guard every direction," she said. "Help me here."

"I am helping you."

"Then stay awake and be annoying. You’re very experienced."

His mouth moved slightly. "You love it."

"More than is good for my nerves."

She let the words sit between them. He didn’t need her to turn love into another joke before he could hear it.

A man appeared beyond the van’s ruined front end. Edrik lifted the gun he’d taken earlier and fired once toward the ground beside him. The man dropped back behind cover. Edrik’s arm remained raised until Dove touched his shoulder.

"I saw him," she said. "I’ve got the doorway while you breathe."

She took the gun only when he let her, keeping it pointed away from them, and placed it within his reach. His fingers found the grip again. She set the spare dressing within reach of his other hand and moved back to his injured leg.

Her tail hurt when she shifted, but the doorway was quiet for the moment. Dove used that quiet to pull the clean cloths closer and move the torn packaging away from Edrik’s hand. Tiny useful things. She could still do them. She needed him to see that she was still doing them.

The van was damaged. The road was blocked. But the food, the water, the cots, the medicine supplies she’d stored were still hers. The blast hadn’t burned away every good decision she’d made for the last two weeks.

She held on to that while she opened the remaining sealed treatment bottle.

Edrik watched her, his expression changing when he understood she was still planning around both of them.

"If they get through," he said, "you go. Don’t wait for me to stand."

Dove looked at him so sharply that he stopped.

"You don’t get to make yourself the part I leave behind."

"Sweetheart."

"No. You can argue when you can chase me around the room. Until then, I’m in charge."

His eyes closed for a second. When they opened, the fear in them was for her, not for the blood or the pain. That nearly broke her more than the injury had.

Dove put her hand against his cheek, just long enough to make him feel her there.

"You promised to come home with me," she whispered. "I am being a complete bitch about holding you to it."

Then she reached for the water that might help her keep him.