He had a minute, at most.
He had tried it countless times since Chad told him about how Marco was really saved the night the Beasts stormed the building. Countless cuts, fractures, and scratches—all for naught. No matter how hard he tried, how long he sat hunched over some unconscious fighter, like a gargoyle, it just didn’t work. He couldn’t tap into another person’s energy field. He hadn’t even been able to wake them up, let alone heal something.
There had been too much doubt. It permeated his every cell, wrapped itself around every reason in his head, and told him to give up.
No time for doubts now. This was the only way.
The memories rushed past him, while he descended deeper and deeper, to the quiet place where only the here and now mattered. And the beeping. The beeping was all there was.
Doc breathed out, wiping his mind clean. Pain’s skin felt cold against his, but he didn’t let himself dwell on the fact. Instead, he focused on the faint whisper of a heartbeat under his hands, the fading presence that pulsed in sync with the sound. Her body must have healed as much as it could on its own, or she wouldn’t be breathing by now. Beep. Beep. Beep. Fainter with every beat. He reached out to it, spreading the net of his own power, searching for something to grasp. Anything.
Silence. Then the scream of the flat-lining machine pierced his ears, yanking him back into reality.
“Dammit!” His palm hit the gurney.
Pain’s scarred, blood-smeared back filled his vision, and a sound built in his throat, barely human. “No,” he growled, pressing his hands into her skin again.
He shook his head, took a deep breath, and tunneled into his mind once more.
Chapter 26
Dave nearly jumped out of his skin when the staircase door smashed into the wall, and Marco burst into the hall, wild-eyed and panting.
“Where is she?” He stared at Dave even as he strode to Tiffany.
“You can’t go in,” she said.
“Like hell I can’t.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, raising a brow. Marco backed off and cleared his throat. “She still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s not good enough!” Tiffany didn’t balk at his anger, so he turned on Dave next. “And you? What the fuck were you doing there? She told you to stay in the van!” His voice boomed through the hall, drawing attention to their group.
“And I stayed in the van.” Dave tried hard to keep his voice calm, not to anger Marco even more, not to give away the blame he was drowning in. “But she also told me to keep an eye on the driver, who bolted because his feet weren’t tied properly.”
Dave pushed himself up to his feet when Jane, Ryan, and Chad caught up to Marco. Jane hurried straight to Tiffany, her voice low, her eyes gleaming with tears as she spoke to the nurse.
Marco grabbed Dave’s jacket, glowering at his face. “One: he wouldn’t have bolted if you really kept an eye on him. Two: I don’t give a shit. When she tells you to stay in the van, you stay in the van.”
Dave glared at him as he tore Marco’s hand off his jacket. “So what was I supposed to do?” he shouted, his self-control gone. “The driver was running about, with the Commandos right there.”
“And to hell with him,” Marco snarled in his face. “They don’t care about him. It’s you they want, you idiot.”
“Keep it down,” Tiffany cut in. Her voice snapped Dave out of it long enough to see Skull join them in the hall, ice covering his long coat.
Dave took a deep breath, curling his fingers into fists. He tried not to dwell on how they were sticky with Pain’s blood.
“I couldn’t just let him go,” he said in a calmer tone. “I didn’t know what he would do, so I ran after him. Who knew they’d come out at that moment?”
“She knew!” Marco threw up an arm, pointing at the waiting room doors. “She knew, and that’s why she told you. To stay. In the fucking. Van. And I told you the same before I left.”
Dave sighed, closing his eyes for a second, the night’s trials catching up with him. “You think I don’t know it’s on me? You think you need to explain that to me?”
Marco rocked back on his heels, putting a few more inches between their faces. “Oh well, that makes it okay then. It’s okay if she dies, as long as you realize it’s your fucking fault.”
“That’s enough,” Dave heard Skull’s deep voice as if from underwater, his own emotions overwhelming his senses. A steady beat had started deep inside him, a second pulse making his guts vibrate. He focused on pushing the feeling down.
“Get out of my face,” Marco hissed. “Get out of the damn building, this town, because if she—” he broke off, swallowing hard.
“I said, that’s enough!” Skull stepped closer to them.
Dave couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t blink, could barely breathe as he stared at Marco, eye-to-eye. His blood boiled in his veins, and something was rising inside him, a wave of murderous energy that fired up his every nerve.
But Marco just couldn’t shut up at this point.
“Like it’s not enough you got one girl killed, you gotta put Pain in a grave, too.”
That did it.
Dave’s fist smashed into Marco’s face before he could realize what he was doing, and a heartbeat later, something hit his head with the force of a freight train.
The air whooshed as he flew into a wall, his vision going black. It only lasted a few seconds, but even as his
