My fingers were sticky with blood when I pulled them back. A dozen deep cuts scored his arms, to the bone in some places. Three long slashes banded his chest.

"I thought—" He struggled to breathe, wincing as the wounds on his torso parted with the motion. "I thought you were… Mouse."

My vision swam with tears. "No. No, you're not going to see her for a long time."

"Don't… lie. Carrie." Red bubbled past his lips. "Dahlia knows. Everything."

"I'm so sorry." I stroked his hair back from his forehead, not sure whether the action was too familiar or if I wasn't being tender enough. They taught comforting the dying in med school, but somehow it always got lost in memorizing muscle groups and dissecting cadavers.

Dying. Cyrus was dying. Right now, as I touched him, he faded more with each passing second. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

"I needed…to tell… I know where he is." He coughed and more blood spilled from his lips. I was amazed he had any left.

He couldn't speak anymore. Though he still breathed, his eyes rolled back in his head.

I was alone, with a dying human, in an unfamiliar place. My immortality felt false and traitorous. I might as well have been a fixture in this bathroom, for all my humanity.

I needed Nathan. Desperately needed him. I crawled to the phone in the other room, because it seemed I wasn't abandoning Cyrus as long as I didn't stand and walk away. My hands trembled as I punched in the numbers.

Nathan picked up on the first ring. "Carrie, what's going on?"

A calm wave flowed over me through the blood tie. He'd felt my shock and sorrow; he'd just waited for me to reach out to him for help.

"He's dead. Or almost." Tears spilled from my eyes and my breath caught on a hiccup as I tried to drag it in. I had the fleeting thought that I shouldn't grieve for Cyrus so openly to Nathan, considering their shared past, I dismissed it. No matter what I tried to show Nathan, he wouldn't be blind to my feelings. "Oh God, Nathan. He's going to die!"

"What happened? Can you do anything for him?" The earnestness in his voice brought more tears to my eyes. "Should I bring you the med kit?"

Staring down at my blood-drenched clothes, I felt bile rise in my throat. I closed my eyes. "There's nothing I can do."

Unless…

There was an audible hitch in Nathan's breathing.

"Forget it, forget I thought that." My words tumbled out in a rush as I desperately tried to cover my mental ramblings.

"Carrie… " Nathan's voice held a pitiful note of pleading.