Page 98 of Darkness I Become
Dom had brought Lana and Cassie there the night before and gotten them set up in a cabin. They’d also started to convert one of the spare cabins into a medical clinic for Leo.
“All in all, not a bad day,” Leo said briskly at his side.
“Yeah,” Cade sighed. “Could’ve be worse.”
Out of habit more than anything, he unclipped the PID from his belt and checked it wistfully. He didn’t expect to see her, and he certainly didn’t expect her little red dot to appear in the woods, just outside the Post. Maybe twenty minutes away. Less if he hurried.
He audibly gasped, and automatically started running.
“Cap?” Leo called after him, alarmed. “Hold on! What is it?”
Cade ignored him and kept sprinting. He heard a rare curse from Leo behind him, but he didn’t care.
Only Asha mattered now.
All was dark, and there was a ringing in Asha’s ears that wouldn’t abate. The tall grass beneath her itched, and the crows wouldn’t stop circling overhead, cawing incessantly. Soon, she thought idly, they’d have a feast.
She was bleeding. Her black tank top was soaked and sticky, and her vision kept blurring and doubling as she lay facedown in the grass. It was alright—there wasn’t much to see besides the corpse of that idiot Jameson kid.
However much she hated Madigan, she somehow couldn’t muster up enough animosity to blame him for killing her. He’d discovered her plan, had followed her and Zach into the woods by the Post, and after shooting Zach, he’d shot her, too. The bullet had burst through the flesh and sinew between her chest and shoulder, blowing her open. Then he’d left her there for dead. Worse, the Delta had never even replied to her radio calls. She was a failure.
She’d have done the same in Madigan’s position, and if she was honest with herself, she wondered if this hadn’t been her ultimate goal all along. If this entire mission had been some dark death wish, some sad, pathetic form of suicide for a person too cowardly to do it herself. She was a traitor, just like Cade. Just like every person who wanted to survive in this terrible world she’d discovered the day the Cave was destroyed.
As her life drained away, Asha couldn’t help but be relieved that it was almost over. Dying was less than ideal, but at least she might finally know some peace. It was what she’d been desperately seeking all thistime, after all, in her own twisted way. Her only regret was that she’d never see Cade’s face ever again. No matter how much he’d hurt her, she still ached for him. For the foolish trust she’d once had in him.
She tried to imagine his voice—the soft, entreating one he’d used with her after sex. Soothing her, caring for her. She closed her eyes for what she was sure was the last time, trying to hold him in her mind as she met her end.
But then, something changed. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard frantic footsteps approaching, someone’s heavy breathing.
“God fucking damn it, Asha,” a familiar voice gritted out. “Who fucking did this to you?”
She groaned in pain as large hands turned her over in the grass, exposing the blood pooling on the ground beneath her. Her vision blurred again, but there seemed to be a man kneeling over her. Cade’s voice was low and furious as he repeated his question.
“Dunno,” she managed to murmur. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t want Cade to get himself killed for nothing. There was no saving her. She didn’t even have the energy to wonder how on Earth he got there. But if he was the last person she ever got to see, she was glad of it. Even after everything that’d happened, his presence made her feel safe.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” Leo’s voice barked, calm and focused. “Apply pressure while I get my tools out.”
Asha groaned loudly in pain as Cade pressed his hand hard into her bullet wound. Leo worked quickly, with a frantic energy, talking to her in a steady stream, but she couldn’t understand his words. All she understood was that he was pulling her back from the place where she might find peace.
“No,” she mumbled, pushing weakly against him. “Leave me.”
She struggled against them. Cade swore loudly and grabbed her wrists.
“Stop, my angel,” he ordered, in the same measured, calm way he’d once ordered her submission. That tone of his voice that arrested her senses and her ability to reason, that made her trust him implicitly.
As if her body knew its master, Asha stopped fighting him.
“She’s bleeding out too quickly,” Leo said, sounding hollow. “I…don’t think this is fixable, Cap. Not here.”
“Hereis what we have, doc,” Cade snarled. “Save her.Whatever it fucking takes. We did not come this far just to give up now!”
“Look—”
“No!” Cade bellowed, and he sounded almost crazed now, like a wounded animal. “This was not fornothing,Leo! It can’t be. It…it can’t…”
Asha realized distantly that he was crying, and that alarmed her more than anything else did at the moment. She’d never heard him sound so deeply distressed, and it hurt her heart, even after six months away from him.
“Alright,” she heard Leo say definitively. “There’s one last thing we can try. But we’ll have to move her quickly after, back to the camp.”
