“Dammit!” he heard Chad right behind him, followed by, “No, nothing, it’s the driver, Pain.”
Dave caught up to the man just past the warehouse doors, grabbing him from behind, locking his arms around him.
“Knock him out!” Chad whispered. “Knock the fucker out!”
Dave only had time to blink, when the driver’s voice pierced the air, “Let me go! Let go, you mothe—”
Dave’s fist smashed into the man’s head, cutting off his scream. His body hit the ground before Dave had the chance to grab him.
He looked back over his shoulder, finding Chad standing still, his finger on the earpiece. With a shrug, Dave turned back to the knocked out driver and reached for his jacket, intending to haul him back to the van.
Except his fingers never reached their aim. Metal groaned behind him, and his whole body froze for a second.
Dave spun, finding the big doors half open and Chad standing on the other side like a deer in headlights.
Before Dave could decide if he should run to Chad or slip back into the shadows, another voice pierced the night, this one coming from above—Pain’s voice.
“Dave, get down! Get the fuck down!”
But he didn’t. He couldn’t, because his eyes were on the vehicle that burst out of the warehouse, windows down.
And in the window…
Someone slammed into him just as gunfire ripped through the night. Somewhere in the distance, he heard a scream, a single, drawn-out syllable, lost in the echo of the AK-47 that disappeared inside the jeep.
Dave’s back exploded with pain as he hit the ground. He curled up, holding onto the weight that pinned him down—Not Chad, he realized, too small to be Chad.
Tires squealed as the jeep peeled out of the narrow street and disappeared into the night.
And then it came again, that same one-syllable scream, “No!”
It took him a second to understand.
Dave grabbed Pain’s shoulders and sat upright just as Chad came running, his face wild, completely unrecognizable.
Dave shook her once, waiting for a response, a curse, or an angry tirade. But there was nothing.
“Pain, you okay?” he said, scrambling to his knees.
Someone hit the ground a few steps from him—Marco—and Chad bumped into him when he knelt at Dave’s side.
“No-no-no-no-no…” Chad dragged Pain’s unresponsive body into his lap.
There was a sigh or a whimper, and a great weight lifted from Dave’s chest, but only for a second. Because in the next moment Pain’s body stretched across his lap and Chad’s, and he saw the blood.
“Shit…” Dave breathed, bringing his fingers to the hole in her jacket, not daring to touch it. Just one, in her chest—the exit wound from a bullet through her lung. Belatedly, Dave realized that no bullets had hit him.
His heart went still as he slid his hand around her, her gear torn and slick with blood on her side. Just a graze wound, he told himself, but then his fingers found the holes on her back—one, two, three of them.
He drew a wheezing breath, his throat constricting.
Dave’s eyes found Marco towering above them. He just stared with unblinking eyes, his face a mask of shock.
“Come on, look at me,” Chad said to her.
Dave looked down to see that she, indeed, was looking at Chad, her eyes watery as she gasped for air. “Jane,” she whispered. “We have to… warn Jane.”
“Shh,” Chad said, cradling her close. “You need to heal. Stop the bleeding. We’ll take you home, please, just heal, you can do this, I know you can.”
Pain swallowed hard, wincing. “Jane…” her voice came out more loudly, and she stirred, as if struggling to find a position that didn’t hurt so much.
Chad unbuckled the katana, shoving it aside.
Dave couldn’t watch, couldn’t see the look on his friend’s face as Chad took her shaking hand in his bloodied one—and took in the extent of the damage done by the bullets.
Someone dropped to the ground behind them, and in a second, Jane was elbowing her way to her sister. Dave looked up at her face, at the wide eyes and trembling lips, and bolted to his feet, as if she’d burned him.
“What—” Jane broke off, looking at Chad. “What are you doing? We gotta go, gotta take her—”
“No,” Pain cut her off. “It’s okay.” She reached out her other hand to Jane. “No time.” And then, as if in Dave’s worst nightmare, she smiled.
She smiled, a brief, fragile smile that told Dave she wasn’t going to heal. Wasn’t going to fight this time.
And as he looked at her, all he saw was another, even more familiar face. The face of another girl the Commandos had killed, the girl he had loved, the girl he still loved. Every detail of that night—the weight of her lifeless body in his arms, the blood on her face, how her dress had clung to her pasty skin—it all flashed in his mind’s eye as if it were yesterday. Everything he had pushed, forced down to the very bottom of his soul, piling random things on top of it, building wall upon wall between it and himself, if only to save his sanity—it rushed back up to the surface. It screamed, tearing apart all the walls and protective layers, until it broke free, and broke him, just when he thought he couldn’t be more broken.
He flinched, returning to grim reality, just as Pain’s eyes lost focus. Not again, his inner voice pleaded. Not again, not again, not again, not again.
He blocked out Jane’s sobbing and Chad’s desperate muttering as he took a step forward. Pain had passed out, and probably had mere minutes left, but he couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.
Chad started when Dave reached down and slipped one hand under Pain’s knees and the other under her back, pulling her up.
“Dave?” he said,
