Page 1 of Lose Me In The Shadows

1

Now

If Luke were currently capable, he would laugh.

Nothing was funny about the current situation, of course. But as an orphan who’d been through so much shit in his life that for a long time it felt like he either needed to laugh or he would kill himself, the fact that he’d just been shot—twice!—in the shoulder by the woman he loved was darkly funny. He’d betrayed Kara by making her think he was helping her escape, and Kara had betrayed him right back. What made the situation even funnier was that he was the one who’d taught her how to hold a gun; never in a million years had he thought she’d use it onhim.

Pretty fucking funny.

Too bad he was in too much pain and losing too much blood to laugh.

Distantly, he heard the Jeep start up. Was blinded by the head and taillights as Kara peeled out of the long drive and took off.

Stop her, he tried to say.Don’t let the bitch leave.

But the words wouldn’t come.

He was too busy dying. More irony there, more dark humor: he was the medic of the group.

Before he could share the joke, he faded away. Time and place ceased to exist.

Fuck, maybe he was dying.

And then Luke was being jostled. Pain came back, and with it, awareness.

“Fuck!” Conor swore.

Big hands lifted Luke’s shoulders, held his neck in place.

“Through-and-through,” Micah said, and maybe that was relief in his voice, but Luke was too out of it to tell.

Time and space disappeared again. When he drifted back, Micah was no longer behind him. Instead, Conor’s strong hand was stroking Luke’s short hair back from his forehead, murmuring something. And fuck, Luke had to be dying for real, for Conor to be this gentle with him.

Luke must have said something, because Conor’s gentle hold tightened. Painfully, if Luke could feel pain. He was mildly alarmed, but unsurprised that he couldn’t. Luke had tortured and killed enough people to know that even though pain was the foreplay to death, they weren’t actual bedmates. And even though she’d just shot him in the shoulder and broken his heart, Luke still wished that he could stare into Kara’s eyes as he died.

Fuck you. I love you.

“You’re going to be okay,” Conor was saying. “You hear me? You’ll be fine. Micah’s calling Marcus. The Doctor is on his way.”

Don’t we already owe Marcus enough favors? One of these days, he’s going to collect.

But Conor didn’t hear him. Obviously.

“Goddamn it, you idiot, why did I ever listen to you about testing her in the first place?”

Because just like me, you desperately wanted her to want to stay.

But his mouth still wouldn’t work. Which made now as good of a time as any to tell Conor the truth.

I love you, you jackass.Even if sometimes I think you’re so intent on self-destruction, you don’t care if you’ve doomed us all.

He must’ve spoken out loud, because Conor growled.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t say shit like that. Don’t you dare fucking die on us, you asshole. You’re ours. If you leave me, I will follow you into hell and drag you back and this timeI’llbe the one to beatyourass.”

Now that? That was funny.

That time Luke did laugh, once. More of a croak.

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