He turned, and he saw Swansong there. She climbed the ladder with only one working hand clenched into a fist, both legs dangling limp, blood covering bare legs to the point someone might think it was leggings she was wearing. Her arm was a stump that she used to embrace one rung before reaching another rung up.

Still she didn’t look at him.

Was this Bonesaw’s work? He had never been injured enough to activate any berserker protocol or some innate programming that had been implanted with memories.

But her forward progress was single-minded, laborious, and marked with wheezing breaths.

She went after Ingenue.

He hopped down and waded into darkness, trusting it to make him even more silent in his movements. He watched for every and any tell. There was no Captain Claw to give him away, now.

He leaped, pouncing.

She twisted, one arm wrapped around the ladder, one leg dropping from a dangling position to rest on the rung and anchor her further. The stump, pointed his way, and the blast that erupted was wider and blunter. It consumed ninety-five percent of him.

“Leister! Claw! Usher!” the Black Goat called out. “We’re going!”

They abandoned him. He was their heavy hitter, their unstoppable force. Bitterness seized him, percolating through what was left of his brain and saturating everything that brain housed.

He got a glimpse of Swansong as she walked past him. Of a belly with the wound in the side opened wider, a ring of black around it to suggest she’d used her power within the cavity to destroy his child. Ribs with bandages lying tattered, bones scorched and flesh raw around the edges. Her arm was a stump.

Her eyes—only one was white from corner to corner, the edges smoking black. The other was ordinary.

Was that somehow how she had seen him?

She made it roughly seven steps before collapsing.

He watched as the darkness dissipated. The surviving members of the flock gathered, two going to her side.

“Yellow costume.”

“You asked before. We got her. She’s over there. Right now we need to get you help.”

“Can’t see her. A little fuzzy. Give her these.”

She handed the scant remains of one broken syringe and another intact one.

“We need to give you medical attention.”

“Take it from someone who died—”

“We’ve all died once,” the boy in black leather said. “Most of us. Not her.”

“I don’t have long. I’d rather do things. Make arrangements. This way. Over here.”

Every utterance was a little more strenuous than the last.

But the two members of Valkyrie’s flock helped her, almost carrying her to the destination. The storage container from before. The one in black went to the one in yellow, who lingered in the background, nursing an injury of hers.

Swansong reached up, and fumbled for a spot on the storage container.