Chapter 30
Selina
“No!”
Everything inside me seized as Wolfe and Blackout vanished into the whiteout.
I lurched out of the control room, my cast catching the doorframe hard.
The jolt sent pain up my ribs. I half ran, half stumbled down the metal stairs, each step a fresh flare along my side.
By the time I hit the catwalk, the fog had thinned enough to show the brutal break where the platform had sheared away.
The sight turned me cold. Wolfe hung by one hand from the jagged lip, body swinging above churning channels and grinding steel. His fingers clamped a twisted shard of metal, tendons stark under skin.
“Wolfe!” My voice cut through the factory’s roar. I dropped to my knees at the brink and reached with my good arm. The cast dragged against my side, heavy and useless when I needed both hands.
His gaze locked on mine, features taut with effort. “Stay back.” Strain roughened his voice as he tried to muscle up.
The distance felt impossible. Even if he reached me, I couldn’t haul his weight with one working arm. Helplessness burned through me.
“Hold on.” I scanned wildly for anything that could help. “Just hold on.”
His grip slipped a fraction, the jagged edge biting into his palm. Blood slicked the metal. Below, water slammed through concrete channels, dark and violent. The fall alone might spare him. The current or the machinery would not.
A heavy cable dangled from a wrecked control panel a few feet away. I snatched it with my good hand and yanked. It resisted, still caught inside the housing. I braced and tore at it until it gave with a harsh snap. Please be long enough.
Dragging the line back to the brink, I leaned out, ribs blazing. “Take this.” The cast pressed awkwardly against my chest as I lowered the end toward him.
He reached once, missed, then caught the cable. He didn’t try to climb directly. Using it for balance, he swung his weight sideways, legs searching.
His boot found a jutting support four feet down. He shifted onto it, easing pressure on his bleeding hand. Slack rippled through the line as he stabilized on the narrow beam.
“Can you make it?” I watched him test the beam.
He didn’t answer. Using the support as a springboard, he hauled to a higher ledge and then over the lip beside me in one brutal, efficient motion.
We crashed back, dragging in air. Blood ran freely from his palm, a deep gash crossing it. His chest lifted hard as he wrestled his breathing under control.
He was here, solid beside me. Alive. The realization hit like impact.
I went to him without thinking, hooking my good arm around his neck as my immobilized one wedged between us. He caught me, pulling me tight enough to hurt. Warm streaks from his palm smeared my back.
“Don’t you ever…” The words broke. Wet blurred everything. His heartbeat thudded against me, fierce and immediate. “I thought you were gone.”
His breath shuddered against my hair. His hold tightened. I didn’t care. I needed the press of him, proof he’d survived.
“Selina.” The whisper rasped, and he tucked his face into my neck.
Still shaky, I drew back just enough to see him. My fingers traced his jaw, the hard line of his cheek. I let the tears fall. Not hiding from him. Not anymore.
“I can’t lose you,” I said, voice low. “Not after everything. Not when I’ve just found you.”
His pupils swallowed the silver in his eyes. He lifted his ruined hand anyway and cupped my face, thumb catching tears. “You won’t.”
I kissed him. Blood, sweat, life. His mouth was cold from the air and warmed fast. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t careful. It was necessary.
I pulled away first, breath fogging in the bitter air. Fresh crimson seeped through the slice across his palm.
He tried to draw his hand back. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not. You’re bleeding over both of us.” I caught his wrist and turned the hand over. The cut ran diagonally across the palm, deep enough for stitches when we had a safe place to do it. First priority: stop the bleeding.
I folded my scarf into a thick pad and pressed it to the worst of it. He didn’t flinch, but tension pulled through his forearm as I tightened the pressure.
“Hold this.” I guided his other hand to clamp down while I wrapped the remaining length, tucking the ends until it held.
He watched me the entire time, gaze intent enough to knot something in my chest. “We have to go,” he said, steady now. “Blackout…”
I leaned over the broken lip, keeping my balance by bracing the cast to my body.
The drop to the next landing was at least fifteen feet.
Another twenty to the water and the machines below.
Noise pounded—water driving through sluices, gears grinding, alarms wailing.
Steam surged up from below, red pulses from emergency lights strobing through the haze.
“Do you see anything?” Wolfe asked. One hand steadied the small of my back; the other held the makeshift bandage in place.
“There.” A dark form sprawled on a maintenance landing below. “On the lower level.”
Blackout lay on his back, one arm hanging over the side. Even in the dim wash of red, a glossy pool gathered under him.
“He’s not moving,” I said. “I think he’s still breathing.”
Wolfe drew me from the edge. “We need to get down there.”
“Is there another way?”
“Service ladder.” He nodded toward metal rungs bolted into the wall. “Can you manage with that arm?”
I took in the ladder and my useless left. “Not happening. We need another route.”
He swept the catwalk with a quick look and pointed to a maintenance stairwell across the walkway. “That drops to the landing.”
We moved with care over frost-slick grating. I kept one hand on the rail. He stayed close, angled to catch me if I slipped.
Blackout hadn’t moved. Up close, the damage was worse—blood saturating his tactical gear, a deep split across his brow.
I dropped to my knees. Training took over. Fingers to his neck, finding a weak thrum. “Alive,” I said. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Sirens bled into the factory noise, growing louder. Responders tripping the station alarms.
“Time’s almost up,” Wolfe said, checking his watch. “Less than five minutes.”
I didn’t look away from Blackout. “We can’t leave him like this.”
“We don’t have a choice.” The line in his voice tightened. “We can’t take him. He wouldn’t make it.”
I studied the slack, blood-smeared face, searching past the mess for the man behind it. With his eyes closed, the brutal vacancy was gone. He looked younger. Human.
“He fought it,” I said. “You saw it. The glitches. The way he fought the trigger words.”
Wolfe’s jaw tightened. “I saw.”
“He’s starting to break through, like you did.” I examined the head wound with careful fingers. “If we walk away and Dresner gets here first…”
“They’ll reset him completely.” Wolfe’s mouth thinned. “Or worse.”
The choice twisted sharply under my ribs. Doctor. Psychologist. Every instinct screamed not to abandon someone bleeding out. But this was the man who had hunted us, threatened Mattie, nearly killed Wolfe.
And still.
I met Wolfe’s eyes. “No one deserves to be trapped in their own mind. Not him. Not if he’s fighting this hard.”
Blue and red flashed at the far entrance now, flickering against steel and steam.
“Sometimes survival demands impossible choices,” he said.
“The police will stabilize the scene and call for help,” he added after a beat. “It might give him a chance.”
He reached into my pocket and lifted the small device—the SENTINEL emergency tracker. One of the only lifelines to a group that might help Blackout instead of exploiting him.
“Promise me,” I said, fingers closing around his forearm. I held his gaze. “If he survives, we find a way to help him. The way I helped you.”
He didn’t look away. Then a single nod. “I promise.”
I set the beacon on Blackout’s chest and pressed the activator. A steady red pulse answered.
“This will guide SENTINEL to him,” I said. “Damon will know what to look for. If they get here before Dresner’s people…”
“He has a chance.” Wolfe rose and offered his hand. “We have to move. Now.”
I took one last look at Blackout—Xavier Hale. “We’ll come back for you,” I said, barely above the noise. “I won’t leave you in there. I’ll tell your sister.”
Wolfe steadied me as we made for the emergency exit. Every step was a bargain with pain, and I took it.
At the doorway, something made me glance back.
The landing was empty.
“Wolfe.” The word scraped out of me. I froze. “He’s gone.”
Wolfe spun, reaching for his weapon. The beacon lay alone on the grating. A wet trail led from the spot where Blackout had been, straight to the water.
“Did he fall?” I moved toward the rail before Wolfe’s hand checked me.
He didn’t answer, already pulling me into motion. “We can’t stay. Units are coming through the main gate.”
Cold air hit as we slipped into the night. I looked back once, just before the door sealed. The beacon blinked on the empty metal, its red flash skittering across the dark water.