5. Cassia #3
I'm beside him before the decision registers.
My hands are on his wings—gently, carefully—reviewing the damage with the detached, analytical precision that kicks in when my body understands the situation is critical even if my brain is still catching up.
The burns are severe. Both wings sustained heavy membrane damage from the debris impact, and the scorching extends across his upper back and shoulders in angry, blistered patches that weep dark fluid.
Two fresh pulse rounds are lodged in his right side where the combat drone's weapon mounts caught him, and the older wounds—the burns and bullet holes from the market exchange that I treated days ago—have torn open beneath the new damage.
His entire torso is a map of overlapping trauma.
"Clinic," I snap at Junia. "Go ahead and tell Wen to prep the burn kit. The real one, from the crate. And the surgical tray—I've got bullets to dig out again."
Junia peels herself off the wall and runs, hair streaming behind her. I turn back to Rhykor, who watches me through half-lidded eyes bright with pain. His features tighten, hard and ancient.
"You need to stand," I tell him. "You’re too heavy for me to carry alone, and I refuse to leave you on the street."
"I don't need?—"
"Finish that sentence, and I'll find a bullet to put back in you.
" I wedge myself under his arm; his skin still radiates enough heat to make me sweat through my jacket, and I brace myself against his weight.
The sheer mass of him leans into me, and my knees buckle for a second before I lock them and refuse to go down.
"One step at a time. My clinic is four blocks from here, and you're going to make it even if I have to drag you. "
He makes it, barely. His steps are a stifled collapse, his damaged wings trailing behind us, his breath sawing through his fangs. The few people on the streets stare and scatter, pressing themselves against walls as the Dragon limps past with a human woman half his size propping him up.
Inside the clinic, I guide him onto the floor of the alcove—the same floor where he bled out days ago—and begin working.
Wen has the burn kit ready with real supplies this time, like the antiseptic concentrate and the medical-grade burn salve still sealed in their packaging.
I cut away the remains of his tactical vest and peel fabric from blistered skin with a care that makes my fingers ache.
The deep marks and old scars I charted days ago are harder to distinguish now amongst fresh wounds and swollen tissue.
There is new damage over old damage over ancient scarring; his body carries more history than most battlefields.
I extract the two pulse rounds from his right side first, shallow entries, stopped by the dense muscle behind his scale markings, and drop them into the surgical tray with two metallic pings that echo in the quiet room.
Then I turn to the reopened wounds from the market exchange, cleaning and re-suturing the bullet holes I stitched once already, packing the burns that split open during the tunnel fight.
Layer by layer, I work through the damage—old and new, healing and fresh—applying salve to burned membrane and bandaging the worst of the wing tears while sealing everything I can with the unshaken, methodical focus I've relied on to keep my hands from shaking during the emergencies I've ever faced.
But my eyes keep drifting.
I study the markings across his chest—deep flaws earned in battle, each a testament to a victory or a sacrifice I can only guess at.
His breathing gradually levels out while I work, his body relaxing by degrees despite the training that should keep him perpetually guarded.
Above all, I am caught by his scorching focus, tracking my movements with an intensity that should terrify me, yet only makes my pulse trip over itself.
He's watching me watch him; it's a silent, acknowledged game. I know he's aware of my gaze, just as he knows I've caught him in his. And the words remain unsaid, buried in the stillness between us.
"The machines down there," I murmur, focusing on a burn across his left shoulder blade because looking at his face feels too dangerous. "Junia says the code signature matches Legion-era architecture. Something is rebuilding itself under the district."
"I know." Two words that are rough and exhausted, packed with more consequence than a full briefing.
I compress gauze against a weeping burn on his shoulder blade and force myself to keep talking, because silence with him in this room feels heavier than conversation.
"People are going to die if it spreads further. "
"I know that too."
I finish the last bandage and sit back, wiping my hands on a rag. He's lying on his stomach, wings spread carefully across the floor, his face toward me. In the dim generator light, with the fury bled away and the pain softening the hard edges of his features, he looks almost?—
I stop the thought before it forms completely. Instead, I stand up to sanitize my hands. And finish by pulling on fresh gloves.
"You're staying here tonight, maybe longer." I pull a threadbare blanket from the supply shelf and drop it beside him—a laughable gesture given his size, but it's what I have. "Don't move for at least six hours, and stop destroying my clinic. I'm running out of ceiling."
I hear a noise behind me as I turn toward the curtain—a sound, faint and barely audible, roughened by pain and exhaustion. It takes me a moment to recognize it.
He's actually laughing.
I stay facing forward. But my hands, unchanging through the surgeries and the impossible nights in this underground clinic—my hands are shaking.
And this time, it comes from a dread rooting far deeper than fear.