Chapter 528 | An Unacceptable Alternative [CASTLE BONUS]

Chapter 528: 528 | An Unacceptable Alternative [CASTLE BONUS]

The word came out quieter.

He landed.

The medical team was already moving, spreading across the plaza with practiced efficiency, triaging students and flagging injuries and generally doing their jobs with the competence that comes from years of responding to Hero-related disasters. Radiant stood in the center of it all, seven feet of golden perfection looking profoundly out of place, and his eyes found me on the floor with Sloane’s hand on my face and my shoulder at the wrong angle.

He looked at me for a long moment.

I looked back.

He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, something probably heroic and inspiring and completely useless given my current position on the pavement, and then he closed it again. Whatever had been assembling itself behind his teeth died without an audience, and what came out instead was quieter and considerably less Symbol of Hope.

"Medical," he said. His voice went sideways to the nearest responder. "Him first."

He pointed.

The responder moved before his hand had finished the gesture. She was a woman in white with a trauma kit slung across her back, and she crossed the distance in four strides and dropped into a crouch beside Sloane with the efficiency of someone who has triaged Heroes before and knows exactly how fast things can go wrong.

"I need you to move," she said.

Sloane did not move.

"Miss Fitzgerald," the woman tried again, and her tone was patient in the specific way that suggested her patience had limits and we were approaching them. "I need access to assess his injuries."

Sloane’s hand stayed on my face.

Through the bond I felt her running the math, calculating the odds that this stranger would help versus hurt, running threat assessment on a licensed medical professional because her trust in licensed professionals had taken some significant structural damage in the past forty minutes and was not reassembling itself fast enough to handle the present situation.

"Sloane," I said.

My voice came out worse than before. She looked down at me, and her blue eyes were bright and furious and scared in equal measure.

"Move," I said.

She moved.

Her hand left my face and she shifted backward six inches, just enough to give the medic room to work but not enough to break contact entirely. Her hand found my wrist instead, fingers wrapping around it with enough pressure that I felt my pulse against her palm.

The medic ran her assessment with professional efficiency. Hands on my ribs, careful pressure that made me hiss through my teeth. Fingers on my neck checking circulation. Eyes tracking my breathing pattern, my skin color, my pupil response.

"Pulse is elevated but steady," she reported into her comm. "Respiratory distress present but manageable. Multiple confirmed fractures, probable internal bruising. I am flagging him for immediate transport."

She looked at Sloane.

"He will be fine," she said.

It was a lie, the kind of lie that medical professionals tell family members when the truth is too complicated to deliver in a crisis, but Sloane took it anyway because the alternative was unacceptable.

Radiant moved through the plaza like he was lost. He stopped beside Steele first, crouched down with his cape pooling around him, and said something too quiet for me to hear. Steele looked at him with her good hand clenched and her ruined arm in her lap, and whatever she said back made him flinch.

He stood.

He moved to Dravid next. Cole looked up at him with blood on his face and his broken cane beside him and said absolutely nothing. The silence between them lasted five full seconds before Radiant moved on, and I had the distinct impression that Cole’s silence had communicated more than most people’s entire speeches.

The plaza filled with voices. Medics coordinating treatment, students reporting injuries, faculty arriving through the doors with expressions that suggested they had heard the reports and not believed them until now. The noise built and built until it became a wall of sound that pressed against my skull from the outside.

I closed my eyes.

Sloane’s fingers tightened on my wrist.

"Stay awake," she said.

"I am awake."

"You closed your eyes."

"Resting them."

"Belmont."

I opened my eyes.

She was looking at me with an expression I could not read and did not want to because reading it would require acknowledging that Sloane Fitzgerald, who faced down monsters and masked attackers and her own mother’s expectations with equal aggression, was scared of something she could not punch.

"I am not going anywhere," I said.

It was a promise I had no business making given the state of my internal organs, but I made it anyway because the alternative was watching her count my breaths for the next however long and I had already put her through enough today.

The medic returned with a backboard.

"We are moving you," she said.

It was not a request.

Two more responders joined her, all three of them working with the coordination of people who had done this a thousand times. They counted down. They lifted. My ribs filed an immediate and comprehensive complaint that made my vision white out at the edges, and Sloane’s hand left my wrist because they were moving me and she could not follow.

Through the bond I felt her panic spike.

"Where are you taking him?" she demanded.

"Halloran Medical," one of the responders said. "Standard protocol for student injuries."

"I am coming with—"

"Miss Fitzgerald." Percy’s voice, calm and flat. "You have lacerations on your right forearm that require cleaning and assessment. You will go with the medical team assigned to you."

"Percy, I swear to—"

"Sloane."

I said her name and she stopped mid-threat. She looked at me on the backboard with three strangers carrying me toward the door, and her jaw was set and her hands were in fists and she was approximately six seconds from detonating something expensive.

"Go get your arm fixed," I said. "I will see you in an hour."