He was covered in wet, stinking clumps of black matter. Whatever the powder had done to the draug, it had certainly killed it, because that was the smell of dead things rotting on beaches.

Richard pulled in a deep, bubbling gasp and opened his eyes. His skin was sunburn-red, stung all over from the draug’s grip, and there were red flecks of hemorrhage in the whites of his eyes. He’d almost suffocated.

One of the bullets Captain Obvious had fired had hit him in the side, probably in the liver; that was bad, but the one that had hit him square in the chest was worse. The wound in front was pumping out bright red arterial blood, and the second I saw it a queer sense of calm settled over me. I knew that sensation. It was my emotions shutting down to protect me from what was coming.

I lowered Richard to the damp pavement and tried putting pressure on the wound, but it was useless. That was a major arterial tear, too close to his heart. I packed the hole with wadded-up ripped pieces of his shirt, but that couldn’t stop it. I was only keeping the blood inside, where it would fill up his chest cavity and kill him from suffocation if his heart didn’t stop first.

“Hannah?” Michael’s uncertain voice from behind me. “We can put him in the back …”

“No,” I said. Richard’s eyes were open, fixed on mine. I could see the stark terror in them, and the knowledge. “No, we can’t move him.” I wouldn’t say, It wouldn’t do any good, he won’t last long, but I could see Richard already knew it. I could feel it in the crushing strength of his grip on my hand. He was trying by sheer will to hold himself here, with me.

He was a good man. A very good man. Brave and kind, and better than Morganville had ever deserved out of the Morrell family.

I should have been able to truly love him. In this moment, at least, I finally did. Completely.

I bent forward and kissed him, very lightly, and whispered, “I’m sorry I wasn’t what you needed me to be. I love you, Richard. You hear me? I love you. I’m sorry I never said it.”

He heard me. I saw his pale, already blueing lips shape the words back. His hand on mine was shaking—a little at first, and then more violently. But he wouldn’t blink, wouldn’t look away from me, until the very last second when he squeezed his eyelids shut, and the last warm blood flowed from the wound in his chest, covering my right hand as my left caressed his forehead, pushing the matted hair from his face.

“I love you,” I said again. “And I’m so, so sorry.”

And then he was still, and gone.

Michael was still standing there. I was dimly aware of him, until he finally moved to crouch next to me. “Is he—”