Crack. The memory of the sound echoes over and over in my ears.

And then Rafe is crumpling to the ground. I didn’t know Rafe Vanguard could crumple.

Time resumes as I see Kaylie running toward him.

And then I’m running too.

Kaylie is trying to stem the flow of blood, but it’s no longer a boutonniere. It’s now a bouquet, and spreading fast. Becoming a field before my eyes.

Rafe is breathing hard, eyes glassy. He manages to grin at me. “I’ll be fine.” I see his mouth form the words. But I can’t hear them. All I can hear is the echo of the crack and the sound of my own pulse in my head.

Kaylie is speaking to me urgently, but I’m in a daze.

Kor just shot Rafe.

He shot him. Why didn’t I let Rafe bring the Guard? This is my fault.

This is my fault.

“Ada!” Kaylie’s yell breaks through my fog. “His Sire abilities are not healing him; he needs your help.”

Yes. I can help.

I crouch down and make shiin with both hands and align the triangle made by my fingers over the sticky flowers. I conduct, pulsing Ha’i over and over.

Please, please, please. I beg the source within me.

But he’s not healing.

“Why isn’t he healing?” I scream, panicked, knowing I’m exhausting my own Ha’i but not willing to stop trying.

“It’s an antimatter bullet,” Kor says. I turn and see him standing, staring at his trembling hand that is still clenching the gun, face pale.

Peggy is agitated, and she starts bucking and flapping her wings. Alfie turns the nozzle of the gas in her direction.

“Don’t hurt it!” Kor demands.

“We have to remove the bullet,” Kaylie says, ignoring the threat of the gas tank, which Alfie has swung back in her direction at the sound of her voice. She tears open Rafe’s shirt. “It missed his heart, but antimatter in his body for too long, close to such vital organs…” She trails off as she uses a blade from her spoon to cut into his marble chest, through his dragon tattoo. Rafe is so far gone that he doesn’t even flinch.

“The bullet punctured his lung,” she says steadily. “I need to drain the air and fluid, so I need you to remove the bullet.”

I don’t know how I do it, but as Kaylie makes a separate incision, I reach into Rafe’s chest. I focus on the sound of her voice giving me careful instructions. My hand is coated in blood as I pull out the bullet, the antimatter scalding my fingers until I drop it, like a shiny red ruby, onto the wet sand.