After what feels like hours but is probably only minutes, I catch a glimpse of golden eyes peering down at me through the widening hole. Then a clawed hand reaches down, stretching toward me.

I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.

I strain upward, extending my arm as far as it will go. Our fingers are inches apart, then centimeters, and then⁠—

Contact.

His hand closes around mine with gentle strength, and then I’m being pulled upward, out of the sand trap in one smooth motion. The sunlight is blinding after the dimness below, and I squint against it as I’m suddenly pressed against a familiar chest.

We collapse backward onto the sand, me sprawled across him, his arms wrapped tightly around me. The warmth of the sun feels like a shock against my sand-chilled skin, but it’s nothing compared to the heat of his body beneath mine. Warm this time, not cool like before.

Warm when I’m cold. Cool when I’m hot.

For a long moment, we just lie there, both of us breathing hard. I can feel his heart hammering against my cheek, almost as fast as my own.

“You’re alive,” I whisper, gripping the front of his chest like I’m afraid he might disappear if I let go. “You’re actually alive.”

He doesn’t answer, not with words. Instead, his grip on me tightens, and his chest rises and falls beneath me in ragged, uneven gasps. I close my eyes, letting the sound of his breathing ground me, letting the steady thrum of his heartbeat convince me that this is real.

The adrenaline is still coursing through me, making my limbs tremble, but slowly—too slowly—it starts to ebb. My breathing slows to match his.

When the initial surge of adrenaline finally fades, I push myself up to look at him properly. My hands automatically move to his face, his chest, checking him over, making sure he’s real, that he’s whole.

“You did it,” I say. The wonder in my voice is hard to hide. “You’re okay.”

But he’s not okay. Not at all.

My relief turns to alarm as I take in the state of him. There are angry welts across his skin, deep gashes on his jaw, his chest, and especially his arms. He’s bleeding from multiple wounds, and his blood is dark—almost black—but with a strange, shimmering quality to it, like it’s infused with the same glow that lives beneath his skin.

“Oh gods,” I breathe, my hands hovering uselessly over his injuries. “You’re hurt. You’re really hurt.”

I reach for my bag, which miraculously is still strapped across my body, though now filled with about five pounds of sand. I dump it out, frantically searching for anything that might help. My cell phone (useless), an emergency sanitary pad (even more useless), my last two packets of emergency biscuits, my last water sachet, and a few crumpled dollar bills.

Nothing. Nothing that can help stop the bleeding, clean the wounds, nothing that can save him.

“Fuck,” I say, tears welling up again. “I don’t have anything. I don’t know how to help you. At least back at the camp there’s Alex. She’s a nurse and…”

Fuck. It’s not like I can even drag him back there. I have no idea which direction the bus is in and he’s bleeding badly now, the dark, shimmering blood pooling beneath him, soaking into the sand. His eyes are still focused on me, but they seem dimmer somehow, the gold muted.

And I’m hit with the terrible realization that he might die right here, right now, in front of me. After surviving those shadow monsters, after saving my life again, he might bleed out on this godforsaken desert because I don’t have so much as a bandaid to offer him.

“Please,” I whisper. The uselessness, my uselessness, is pathetic. “Please don’t die. Please.”

To my surprise, he moves, gathering what seems like the last of his strength to push himself to his feet. Before I can protest, he’s scooped me up against his chest again, holding me as if I weigh nothing, despite his injuries.

“What are you doing?” I gasp as he staggers forward. “Put me down! You’re hurt, you can’t⁠—”

“Jus-teen,” he says, his voice rough with pain, and I go silent.

Because in that one word—that single, solitary word that’s all he can say to me—I somehow hear everything he’s not saying. I hear: Stop. Let me do what I need to do.

I can’t…there are no more words.

I stay quiet, pushing back the tears as he staggers forward, past what I only now notice are the bodies of the shadow creatures. All five of them, torn apart, their dark, scaled forms lifeless on the sand, their strange blood mixing with his.

He did that. He fought them all. For me.

“Why?” I whisper, reaching up to touch his face, careful to avoid the gash on his jaw. “Why would you do that for me?”

He doesn’t answer, of course. Can’t answer. But his golden eyes find mine, and in them, I see a determination, a protectiveness, a…something that makes my breath catch.

“Okay,” I say, letting my head rest against his shoulder. “Okay. Whatever you need to do, I’m with you. Just…don’t die, alright? Promise me you won’t die.”

He makes that rumbling sound in his chest—weaker than before, but still there—and keeps walking, each step seemingly more painful than the last. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t falter.

And I realize, with a clarity that cuts through my fear and exhaustion, that when he told me his name—Rok—he wasn’t just telling me what to call him.

He was telling me who he is.

Unyielding. Steadfast. Unstoppable.

Even bleeding, even injured, even carrying me when he can barely walk himself, he keeps going. My fingers curl into the front of his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath my palm.

“You’re going to be okay,” I tell him, trying to put every ounce of certainty I can muster into my voice. “We’re both going to be okay.”

I don’t know if I believe it. But right now, I need to say it. Need him to hear it. Need to believe that there’s a chance, however small, that we might actually survive this place.

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Chapter 16

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THIS IS WHERE THE HERO USUALLY GETS A POWER BALLAD

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JUSTINE

He staggers as he walks.

Each step seems to cost him more than the last, his movements jerky and uneven where before they were fluid and sure. But he doesn’t stop. Doesn’t falter. Just keeps pushing forward, one foot in front of the other, his arms still cradling me against his chest as if I’m something precious.

I can’t take my eyes off him. Off the firm line of his jaw, clenched tight against pain. Off the unwavering focus in his gaze. This miraculous, impossible creature who found me in the sand and has somehow, against all logic, decided that I’m worth protecting.

Worth bleeding for.

And he is bleeding—his dark, shimmering blood has soaked into my clothes, staining the fabric in patterns that might be beautiful if they weren’t so terrifying. But I don’t care about the stains. I only care that each drop means he’s losing more strength, moving closer to a threshold I don’t want him to cross.

The gratitude and pain twisting in my chest is so intense it leaves me speechless. What do you say to someone who’s willing to die for you? Especially when they can’t understand a word you say?

“Thank you” feels woefully inadequate. “You’re an idiot for carrying me when you’re injured” seems ungrateful. “I don’t know what I’ll do if you leave me here” is too raw, too revealing of the fear clawing at my throat.

So I say nothing. Just watch his face, memorizing each alien feature, each mark, each line. Trying to capture the way his eyes had looked at me in the cave, the raw hunger in them mixed with something…softer. Something that made my breath catch and my heart pound even now, despite the exhaustion and fear dragging me down.