Page 52 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

I topple to the soil beneath him, unconcerned as blood and dirt cling to my knees, staining my torn leggings.

Please be okay.

My chest is aflame, every breath more labored than the last.

I feel like I’m dying in his place, and I barely did anything to help him. Every thought feels more dire than the last.

His chest moves up and down, a breath escaping him.

He’s alive, but only just. As I run my fingers up to his chest, feeling blood leaking liberally, I realize how cold he is.

It’s about as cold as I feel.

Fear seizes my heart as the gravity of the situation dawns upon me. He’s dying, isn’t he? Xeros, the one individual that has shown me how to love, is fighting for life underneath my fingertips.

I love him too much to lose him like this.

“Somebody please help me!”

It burns to yell. I know that I need to do something to help him, but thoughts aren’t forming in my mind, every word more inaccessible than the last.

A ringing fills my ears, until my attention converges on a voice behind me, and the ringing stops.

“He was a worthy warrior.”

I turn far too quickly, feeling my neck strain.

Jeb.

His eyes bloodshot, his blond hair matted, he stands behind me, reaching to comfort me.

The memory of him rejecting me is still brand new to me. I remember turning to face him, hoping for comfort at a more opportune time when I felt completely abandoned by everything, and getting shunned instead.

“And what would you know about it?” I ask, noticing the gathering crowd of observers.

I feel venom escaping me.

“He saved you single-handedly,” I add.

I snarl.

“If it wasn’t for him, you would have been dead. You’d all be dead. And there’d be nobody to remember any of you.”

Jeb’s eyes cast toward Xeros’s body, then back at the ground.

“Well, yeah,” he says. “It’s not exactly human, is it? Can’t exactly compete with that.”

My eyes scan behind me.

I have to apply pressure. I have to make a tourniquet.

His nerves are probably overloaded with pain. I need to gather some herbs and mash something together. There’s a chance I can save him, but I have to act fast.

I can’t fail here. Not again.

“He’s going to die without your help,” I spit, wishing venom were leaving my mouth. “And you’re really just going to fucking stand there and do nothing?”

A man whose name I can’t remember leans down, rubbing my shoulder.

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