She slammed the red exit button beside the door, then wobbled and nearly dropped to a knee, gasping in pain. But she recovered as the door opened, the silver hallways of the Marauder waiting beyond. Dex leaped in front of her, arms outspread.

“You have to rest,” he said. “You’re going to rip open your stitches even more. Valen almost reached your heart.”

Andi looked down at her chest, as if just noticing the wound for the first time.

“I wish he had reached it,” she said, eyes wide and reddening with tears that Dex knew she wouldn’t shed. “I don’t want to live without them.”

Already, her blood had soaked through the bandage. Andi wobbled, leaning against the door frame. She had too many pain meds in her system. She hadn’t eaten in days. Dex didn’t even know how she was still standing.

“Move,” she growled. “Please, Dextro. Before I move you myself.”

“Don’t you think I want to?” Dex asked. “Andi, I’ve hardly slept since we left them behind. I’ve hardly eaten, hardly done anything but sit by your bedside and relive that night in my mind.”

Gilly. Lira. Breck.

They’d become important to Dex, too. And he’d betrayed them, betrayed Andi, by leaving them behind. Even Lon, normally so gentle and calm, had looked as if he’d wanted to kill him when Dex arrived on the Marauder with Andi and the general in tow, but without Lon’s twin sister, Lira.

Why had it all fallen to Dex? He couldn’t change the tide of this war alone.

He swallowed hard. “There’s nothing we can do. Nothing. You weren’t conscious. You didn’t see what happened to them. You didn’t see how they changed.”

Dex reached out to grab her shoulders, to guide her gently back to the bed, but Andi screamed in fury, slamming the wall with her fist as she stumbled away from him.

“Damn you, Dextro. Get the hell out of my way!”

“Please,” Dex begged. Already he could feel the weakness inside of him, that hideous fear of losing her again when he’d only just gotten her back. “Please, just let me help you. There’s nothing you can do for them, Andi. Not before you rest and heal.”

“You can’t do this to me,” she whispered. Her voice shook. “Please, Dex. You can’t hurt me like this.”

“I’m trying to protect you.” Because I love you, Dex thought. But the words failed him, and his hands fell to his sides.

“I don’t want to be protected,” Andi said. “Not now.” She turned around, shoulders slumping as she pressed one hand to her chest and shuffled back toward her bed, breathing heavily.