Up front, Tip stiffened and gave off a groan. But he’d definitely been better since Dek brought some of Dya’s blue nasty-based anesthetic. A fingertip’s worth placed on Tip’s tongue had brought him a modicum of relief from the pain. She ground her teeth, aching for him. Wishing she could do something, anything, to ease his suffering.

Kylee blinked against the deep-seated anticipation of disaster; the quetzal instinct down in her bones being to cut her losses—let Tip die. The quetzal instinct was to kill him herself in order to end the suffering. In contrast, her human reaction was to do everything in her power to urge him to fight, to beat this thing.

Quetzals didn’t think of death in the same way humans did. To them, it was a termination of one existence—but one through which their memories and knowledge would be preserved by means of the TriNA molecules ingested and passed down the generations. To a human, death was forever. A cataclysmic event, after which a person—and all that they had learned and experienced—vanished. Gone. Death tore a hole in the soul that could never be filled.

So, what will I do if Tip dies?

Kylee was sick of death. Rocket, Rebecca, Shantaya, Flash, Mark Talbot, her mother, all people she’d loved that had been ripped out of her life with finality. It was the abruptness of the loss that always left her staggering. Aching. Howling at the injustice of it.

On impulse, she leaned forward between the seats, took Tip’s hand, and called, “You hang in there for me. I need you. Understand? I love you.”

Funny it had taken her so long to tell him that.

Madison, in the seat beside her, was giving her a knowing look from behind that mask-like expression she’d adopted. She did that to hide her worry and fear. It might work when it came to others, but with her augmented senses, Kylee could smell it: a subtle shift in Madison’s normal scent.

Kylee tried to will strength into Tip’s cold hand.

Tip had always just been there. Never flashy like the men Talina had loved. Just . . . solid. Reliable. Like a human kind of pillar. There was a lot to be said for that. Made her wonder if there was something wrong with her that she needed to have people die before she could figure out that she loved them?

She bit her lips, squeezed his hand one last time, and sat back in the seat.

“How’s he doing?” Madison asked, the pinch behind her slanted dark eyes. “You can tell, can’t you?”

Kylee leaned close, whispered, “He’s dying. System’s poisoned by that thing in his leg.”