Chapter 21
IRIS
The elevator descends into the earth.
It’s a smooth, silent drop on the backup brakes, but my stomach plummets with it, the sudden lack of gravity making me dizzy. The air in the confined metal box is dead and suffocating. It smells of hot, raw metal, sweat, and cordite—the stink of violence.
I’m pressed against the back wall, hugging myself to stop the shaking. It isn’t working. The tremors radiate outward, vibrating through my teeth until my jaw aches.
My hands are empty. I feel naked without the weight of the pistol Varro took from me.
I look up at Cassian.
He’s leaning against the control panel, his eyes closed, his head tipped back against the brushed steel. The brutal, unstoppable force I watched tear through a hit squad is gone, replaced by a man holding his broken body together through sheer stubbornness.
His left arm hangs uselessly at his side. The blood is still flowing, a slow, dark leak that pools on the metal floor. I can’t hear the impact over the high-pitched whine screaming in my ears, but I watch the red stain widen, pulsing outward with every beat of his heart.
He’s dying.
The thought pierces through the fog of my shock like a needle. He took a bullet for me. He walked through a war zone to secure the evidence he needed. And now he’s bleeding out in an elevator while I stand here, useless, paralyzed by the echo of the gunshots.
The elevator slows. I feel the vibration of the brakes engaging through the floorboards.
The floor indicator light flashes green.
My hearing is severely damaged. The world feels like it’s underwater, muffled and distant, reduced to heavy vibrations and visual cues.
The doors slide open.
We aren’t in a basement. We’re in a command center.
The bunker is stark, industrial, and cold. It’s a cavern of concrete and steel, lit by the harsh blue glow of server racks lining the far wall. Rows of monitors show the estate above—mostly static or black screens, but a few show the smoking ruins of the Great Hall.
It feels like the inside of a machine. Sterile. Lifeless.
Cassian pushes off the wall. He stumbles once, his boots skidding on the polished concrete before he catches himself on the doorframe. A grunt of pain distorts his lips, though the sound is lost to me.
He looks at me, his mouth forming a single, strained word. Come.
His voice doesn’t reach me through the ringing in my head, but the physical command in his eyes cuts through the fog.
Without looking at me, he moves toward a stainless-steel table in the corner—a medical station—his steps heavy and uneven. He leaves a trail of red droplets on the pristine floor.
I follow him. I don’t know what else to do. My legs feel like they don’t belong to me. They’re numb, wooden things moving on autopilot.
The elevator doors shut behind us, locking out the rest of the house.
And that’s when it hits me.
The adrenaline, the terror, the noise—it all evaporates, leaving a vacuum my mind can’t fill. The reality of the last hour crashes down on me.
I close my eyes, and the images are burned into my eyelids. The black bore of the suppressor aimed dead at my chest. The spray of blood hitting the stone wall when Cassian stepped in front of me.
A hard knot forms in my throat. I try to inhale, but my lungs are paralyzed. My chest feels like it’s being crushed by a hydraulic press.
I stop walking. I clutch at my chest, digging my fingers into the sweater. The sweater soaked in Cassian’s blood. It’s sticky. Warm.
I can’t breathe.
“I...” I gasp.
Cassian turns. He’s holding onto the edge of the medical table with his good hand, gripping it so hard the muscles in his forearm tremble.
His lips move, shaping my name.
I shake my head. I can’t speak. The room is spinning. The blue lights of the servers smear into streaks of neon. The floor tilts under my feet.
My knees buckle.
I hit the concrete floor hard.
I don’t feel the impact. I only feel the complete lack of air. I’m drowning on dry land, hyperventilating in short gasps that bring zero oxygen.
I wrap my arms over my head, curling into a tight ball.
“Iris.”
His voice is low. Rough.
He takes a heavy step toward me, but his boot drags. A wet, choked sound tears from his chest, and he hits the concrete pillar beside me, his knees finally buckling under the massive blood loss.
The sound snaps me out of the spiral.
The panic vanishes, instantly replaced by a sharp, terrifying spike of clarity.
I scramble over to him, dropping to my knees to keep him from collapsing completely against the pillar. His skin is clammy, covered in a cold, shock-driven sweat. The blood from his torn shoulder is dripping rapidly onto the pristine floor.
He’s bleeding out while I sit here falling apart.
“Your shoulder,” I gasp, shoving my own terror down. I grab his good arm, holding him steady.
He looks down at his arm, as if remembering it exists.
“It’s fine,” he says automatically. The lie is weak.
“It’s not fine.”
His shirt is totally saturated. The blood is pooling on the floor around his knees, mixing with the dust we tracked in.
“You’re still losing blood.” I push myself to my feet. My legs are shaky, but they hold. “The medical station. I need to fix you.”
A faint, tired smile touches his lips.
“Who says I need fixing?”
“Hush,” I quiet him. “Now, get up.”
I reach down and wedge my shoulder under his good arm. He hesitates. Then, he nods. He allows me to help him, putting his weight on me. He’s heavy and warm, and we stand together.
With cautious steps, we make our way to the stainless-steel table.
“Sit,” I command.
He sits on the edge of the table, hissing through his teeth as the movement jars his shoulder. Reaching across his body with his good hand, he pops the quick-release buckles on his tactical vest. The ceramic armor drops to the floor with a dead thud.
I look at the medical supplies laid out on the trays. Gauze. Iodine. Scalpels. Forceps. I don’t know how to use half of this. I arrange flowers. I don’t dress bullet wounds.
But I have to learn. Right now.
“What do I do?” I ask. My hands hover over his shoulder, terrified to touch him.
“Cut the shirt,” he says, his voice incredibly tight.
I grab a pair of trauma shears from the tray and step between his legs.
The intimacy of the position hits me instantly. My thighs brush against his knees. I’m standing in the V of his legs, close enough to feel his breath on my neck.
I snip up the middle of the ruined black T-shirt, splitting it open and gently peeling the fabric back.
Up close, his chest is a memoir of pain. I saw the scars on his back in the gym, but this is different. This is an intimate, brutal record of what he is. Burn marks. Knife slashes. A starburst scar on his right pectoral that looks like shrapnel.
He isn’t just a killer. He’s a survivor of a hundred wars I know nothing about.
I turn my attention to his left shoulder.
The cotton is glued to his torn flesh by coagulating blood, and pulling it over his arm would be excruciating.
Breathing through my mouth, I carefully slide the lower blade of the shears up the seam of the sleeve.
I snip the fabric away inch by inch, freeing his arm before gently peeling the ruined material back from the wound.
The blood starts flowing faster now that the shirt’ pressure is gone. The wound is ugly. It’s a jagged, angry hole where the bullet tore through the muscle, dark red and welling sluggishly.
“Oh god,” I breathe. “Cassian...”
“It missed the main artery, but the muscle is shredded,” he says. “It’s not clean, but it’s not fatal if you pack it.”
“Fixable?” I stare at the hole in his body. “You need a hospital. You need a surgeon.”
“I can’t go to a hospital,” he says. “We’re ghosts, remember? If I walk into an ER, the police come. If the police come, the men who hired the Syndicate find us.”
The reminder steels my spine.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”
“Clean it,” he says. “Saline. Then iodine.”
I grab the bottle of saline and pour it over the wound.
His hand grips the edge of the table so hard the metal groans. His head drops back, thick cords of muscle standing out in his neck. He doesn’t make a sound, but his entire body goes rigid.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”
“Keep going,” he grits out.
I grab the iodine and flush the wound. The smell of antiseptic mixes heavily with the hot scent of blood.
“Pack it,” he says. “Gauze. Into the cavity. You have to apply pressure from the inside.”
I stare at the gauze.
“What about the bullet?” I whisper, terrified of pushing it deeper.
“Through and through,” he grits out. “Exit wound in the back. Just pack the cavity.”
“You want me to... put my fingers inside?”
“Yes.” He opens his eyes. They’re black pits of pain. “You have to stop the bleeding. Do it.”
My stomach rolls, but I lift a thick wad of gauze.
My mind rebels. Every instinct I have screams to drop the fabric, to step back, to not force my hands into torn human flesh.
“Ready?”
“Go.”
I shove the revulsion down and push the gauze deep into the wound.
He roars, a harsh, guttural sound torn straight from his chest.
I feel the heat of his flesh around my fingers. It’s the most intimate, horrifying thing I’ve ever felt. I’m inside him. I’m touching the warm, slick, wrong machinery of his body.
My hands are completely slick with blood. My tears fall onto his chest, mixing with the sweat on his skin.
“I’m sorry,” I gag. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t stop,” he gasps. “More.”
I pack more gauze. I press down, putting all my weight into his shoulder.
“Hold it,” he says. “Thirty seconds.”
I hold it.
His face is draining fast. Still, he nods. “You’re doing great.”
“I’m hurting you.”
“You’re saving me.”
We stay like that, frozen in blood and pain. My hands on his wound. His eyes on mine.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Wrap it. Tight.”
I grab the roll of bandages and start winding the fabric tightly over the wound, under his arm, and across his chest. I pull it taut, securing the pressure, and tie it off.
When it’s done, I step back.
My hands are covered in red up to the wrists. Cassian takes a deep breath and rolls his shoulder experimentally. He winces, but nods.
“It’ll hold.”
Reaching out with his good hand, he takes my bloody finger and pulls me back into him until I’m standing between his legs again.
“Go wash,” he says softly, rubbing the back of my stained knuckles. “There’s a sink in the back.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Promise. Now, go.”
He’s too stubborn to fight, even like this. So, I walk to the small sink in the corner of the bunker and turn on the tap. The water runs cold and clear, and when I stick my hands under the stream, it turns pink, then a dark red as it circles the drain.
I scrub until my knuckles are raw and stinging. I dry them on a paper towel, forcing myself to take a deep, steadying breath.
When I turn back around, my attention drifts to the man behind me.
He’s sitting on the table, slumped with exhaustion, shirtless and heavily bandaged. His eyes are closed, his head dropping dangerously forward.
He isn’t moving.
My breath catches. I drop the paper towel and sprint back to the table, my boots skidding on the concrete.
“Cassian!” I grab his good arm, shaking him. “Cassian, wake up!”
He flinches, his eyes snapping open. He looks lost. Then his gaze finds my face, and his eyes sharpen.
“I’m here,” he rasps, leaning his head back against the wall. “Just resting my eyes.”
I let out a shaking breath.
“We need to sleep,” I say. “You need to rest.”
“I need to check the perimeter sensors,” he argues weakly.
“Varro has the perimeter,” I remind him. “You have me.”
I step closer, placing my hand gently on his good shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”
He doesn’t move. He searches my face, looking for the fear, for the hatred.
He doesn’t find it.
Leaning his head against my stomach, he lets out a deep sigh.
“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”
The fight goes entirely out of him. For once, he lets me be the strong one.
Tonight, I will be his anchor.