He knew Abigail was saying the most sensible thing.

If he was desperately trying to save the life of someone important to him, someone who insisted they would be okay even though that wasn't true and knew it, well, that would be another matter.

But Abigail really would be fine.

Nothing would happen to her. Even in the face of the Empire's blue fire, she would come back to life, as usual. So, logically, he was taking a risk... for nothing?

Did it mean that just because she couldn't die it was okay to abandon her to suffer such terrible agony?

Agony that made you beg for death?

No, that couldn't be right. That, under no circumstances, could that be logical. Desmond shook his head, tears in his eyes. Flatly refusing.

Desmond continued the work, but his progress was surprisingly slow. Perhaps it had something to do with his trembling hands.

He felt warm.

He had been feeling it for a while, but he wanted to say that he noticed it became more intense, behind his back. More fire, closer. Sooner or later the first spark would reach the web. Then the flames would quickly spread.

For him, too, there would be no escape.

Still, he would not leave.

That is, of his own free will. He felt something hard wrapping itself around his torso, tugging at him. He knew before he looked that it was Christina's shadows. They yanked him from the spot, getting him out of the way before it was too late.

Desmond didn't care.

He didn't feel grateful at all as he watched Abigail's body being engulfed by blue flames. As his mother began to scream in agony. You're supposed to protect her, Desmond told himself.

He knew perfectly well that she would come back from it, but as he had rightly said he didn't care. That didn't make it any less painful. It didn't make the sight of it any less a complete horror that hammered his heart and chilled the blood in his veins.

Christina, having finally put him in a safe place, released him.

At least she saw her shadows retreating.

But the pressure he felt in his chest did not fade at all. It was as if they were still there, squeezing.

He found it hard to breathe.

"Desmond! Desmond, you have to focus or we're going to die," Christina said. "We're not done yet."

"Yes. Yes," Desmond repeated.

And he got to his feet again, laboriously, though the fact that it took him so long had nothing to do with his miserable state. It had nothing to do with the fact that Abigail's screams had ceased.

And the flames didn't obscure that horrible sight, but rather the contrary.

They exposed every horrible detail in the light. Her skin falling apart. The burnt flesh. The eye is melting inside its socket. He... He... He... He...

He took a deep breath.

He had to focus. Yes, he had to...

About that... About already... He couldn't do anything already, so... Focus. On what? They already had a piece of one of the spider's legs and of the correct side, that is, the sharp one.

Step one. Step one.

And they didn't need Abigail for the next steps. Well, not strictly. Desmond could stand in for the role she should have played.

Or so he hoped.

All our sweat and sacrifice, our battles... It can't amount to nothing.

"What do I do now?" Desmond asked. He didn't expect to be answered with a good idea, but ah how he wished. Because his mind was blank. Completely.

"Do... Do the best you can," Christina replied.

That wasn't... too helpful.

Desmond clicked his tongue, gripped the sword with both hands.

With all his willpower he looked away from Abigail's charred corpse and back at the spider. It hurt. It hurt, but looking at it wouldn't help her any. What he could do to help her was to destroy the thing. Finish what she had started.

"I'll improvise," Desmond said.

He lunged for the spider. There was no plan in his head, not even the beginnings of a plan. Only his fighting spirit, burning in his chest.

Behind him, he heard Amy start working with what they'd gotten for her. What Abigail had died to get him.

Desmond ran straight for the spider, as if he weren't afraid, even though his heart was shaking now. Oh, he had gotten used to fighting without fear, boy did he. He didn't miss that feeling at all.

There was no reason to be afraid for himself, but for the people he cared about. And to protect them, fear was nothing more than a drag.

He had to get rid of it.

Throwing aside all burdens and surpassing himself, he too was an obstacle.

The shadow made the machine spit fire on it. The bastard wasn't being conservative at all, even though the thing had lost a fair amount of fuel before he took control.

Perhaps, as with Abigail, he had lost himself to the power of the Empire's war machine.

Maybe it was just that.

A rat that crawled in the dark, searching for power.

Desmond jumped to the side.

In one powerful leap, he made it to the other side of the street. He rolled to the ground and, using the momentum of the movement, scrambled to his feet before stopping. He couldn't waste a split second.

He hadn't thought, just reacted. Choosing the direction at random.

If he had chosen wrong, he could have ended up trapped in a circle of fire. Trapped as the walls closed in on him. It was getting harder and harder to stay safe, there were flames everywhere. The creature had transformed the normal setting into a fucking hell.

No. The battlefield is always nothing but fucking hell.

He looked around for Amy and Christina, briefly. He couldn't help but get distracted by it, in his worry.

He sighted both of them on top of the roof of a house.

Safe, as safe as they could be in a situation like this. Where any safe place was only temporarily safe. In fact, it was practically destined to be destroyed.

Now that he was sure of that, that they were both okay, he charged again.

Desmond leaped over a sea of fire on his way to the spider. Of course, the spider didn't miss the opportunity to throw webs at him while he was in the air.

Vulnerable, or at least in theory.

It cut the first one to pieces. The second he deflected, tossing it aside.

There was no third.

Desmond landed.

Right in front of it. Within reach, close, very close. Too close for him to dodge the fire or whatever it threw at him with the same speed as he had while approaching. There was no time or space.

That was what crossed his mind as he watched the creature open its mouth, preparing to spit fire again.

Without hesitation, without thought.

Desmond ran between the spider's legs to position himself underneath it again. Why fix what wasn't broken? He knew it wouldn't be fast enough, and it wasn't. If it weren't for Amy and her ice barrier, he would have ended up roasted.

Like Abigail, he thought, gritting his teeth, the hand he held the sword in.

Instantly the spider shot another web.

But not at him.

He was already out of range of the web or the flames, having positioned himself below, in the blind spot.

It fired the web at the person who had dared to interfere. And it was clever. It didn't shoot the web toward where Amy had been, but in the direction in which the girl ran. Amy's eyes widened like saucers, realizing her mistake.

Too late.

The web hit her with great force and she disappeared, falling behind the building. It wasn't an overly large building or anything. That probably wouldn't kill her. No, it probably wouldn't.

Surely, but his heart skipped a beat anyway.

Christina approached the edge, where Amy had fallen. She was going to go after her. Naturally.

“No!" Amy sounded pained, as if she'd broken something.

Desmond imagined her worse. He imagined her with blood gushing from her mouth, imagined her barely able to breathe, to keep from drowning in her own blood. His treacherous mind mapped out those images.

Christina could see her and Amy had to be okay.

She had to be okay, despite everything, because Christina obeyed, staying where she was. Waiting for her moment.

Waiting for a chance, if he was capable of giving it to her.

Between the creature's legs, Desmond saw the arrival of reinforcements coming down the street. He had no time to get his hopes up or feel excited.

Because before he knew it, they were gone.

The spider put him aside for the moment.

Desmond shouted a warning, but he was too late. A dozen or so soldiers were impaled on one of the seven remaining legs in one fell swoop.

As if the armor wasn't even there.

And the others...

The others were set on fire. Cooked within their armor. He was close enough to witness their eyes melt.

As well as Abigail's.

And he could do nothing but watch. His arms were tied, because it was too late to save them.

But there were still people he could save.

And there was only one way.

I can do it, he thought.

“Face me, you son of a bitch!” Desmond shouted.

——

The battle resumed.

The spider was doing its best, as it had been doing so far, to leave him in the open again, within range of its fire and webs. While Desmond kept running, trying hard to stay under the spider, in its blind spot.

And he was succeeding.

He was succeeding, indeed, but at the moment his efforts were getting him nowhere.

Rather, he was merely prolonging the inevitable.

His agonizing defeat. And the death sentence of Christina and Amy, and the rest of the capital. Because... he didn't know what to do. He simply didn't know.

They hadn't counted on this, even in the worst case scenario.

Abigail had told them that she could touch the spider and immobilize it for ten seconds. Ten measly seconds, but it would have been enough time for Christina to do her thing. Or at least it should have been.

That was what was supposed to have happened, the original plan.

Yet Abigail had died.

Desmond had tried to rescue her, though he hadn't even thought about the plan in doing so, that wasn't what had mattered to him. But Christina had gotten him out of the way.

She had saved his life, yes. And he was grateful.

But if she'd let him have a few more seconds, maybe he could have gotten her out of there... maybe... and now they wouldn't be in this mess.

They couldn't just wait for Abigail to revive and regenerate, joining the battle again.

By then it would surely be too late.

The shadow, after the body it inhabited regained its strength, would become completely unstoppable. Literally speaking. That wasn't an exaggeration at all.

They couldn't let that happen.

But what could he do?

What could he do?

If Christina attacked now, there was no chance she would succeed. He had to give her those seconds. Just ten seconds.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It wasn't much, practically nothing, but still he had no idea how to do this.

And he didn't have much time to think about how to do it, either.

Sooner or later Desmond would be just a little too slow and the spider would set him on fire, ending it all. He didn't have time to think or to hesitate, but he couldn't act blindly, either.

He could... He could...

Desmond concluded that he would try to cut off at least three more legs. It was a plan fraught with problems, but it was the only thing he could do, all things considered.

Yes, simply listing the problems was sickening.

For starters, it had taken him three blows to cut off a single leg. And that had been a while ago. Due to the adrenaline clouding his mind, he couldn't tell how much weaker he was, compared to back then. He couldn't tell.

But it was a fact that he was weaker.

Because in this miserable state to which Richard had reduced him, poisoning him, he could only go down.

That was a fact.

Not to mention that even before cutting off a single leg had almost cost him his life and in the end he had been helped by Abigail to finish the job. If he could have done it alone, Abigail wouldn't have been in the line of fire.

Wouldn't have been caught in a spider web and then set on fire.

They wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Even if Desmond did make it, even then, it wouldn't be ideal, complete paralysis. Just the next best thing.

As long as the legs were regenerating, that thing wouldn't be able to get up and move very well either. The second best made the chances of Christina's attack failing quite high still.

And, and... Fuck, he'd rather not think about it. It was really enough to make him sick, and he was already like that.

But, really, what else could he do?

He couldn't do anything else, at least.

Christina had told them that she was the one who made that hole in the beast's heart, grabbing it and lifting it with her shadows, then impaling it on one of those ice spikes on the palace walls.

However, that wasn't an option.

Not with this plan, which was all they had.

Because of the following: even the spider had found a way to break free, the second and third time Christina had tried the same maneuver. Now, with the shadow's will behind the controls, it was simply too dangerous.

They had only one chance.

If they failed, the shadow would break the weapon they had made. And that wasn't the worst of it. They could get another one, even if they lost time.

The really important thing was that the creature wouldn't fall for it again.

It wouldn't trip over the same stone twice. A machine possibly, but a person wouldn't, and that was what they were facing.

So they had to get it right and that was up to him, not Christina or Amy. His and no one else's.

Unfortunately.

A lot of pressure on his shoulders.

At least he could see a way forward. The only way.

The spider was still trying, of course, to expose him, to put him in range. It wasn't succeeding, but that didn't mean Desmond was safe as long as he was in the creature's blind spot.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It was squirming and attacking him with its legs, which ended in pointed, razor-sharp points.

Too many times they came too close, millimeters to be exact, to piercing his skull. And that was it, that would have been it. He was no closer to perfection, to Abigail, than the rest of humanity.

He was like everyone else.

And, like everyone else, he had to fear death.

It was a paralyzing fear, but he couldn't let it paralyze him.

Desmond pressed forward hard, but it only served to confirm his fears. He managed to land the first of the blows to the nearest leg.

He did relatively good damage, but it took him too long to pull the blade out of the crevice.

It cost him so much that he feared he was incapable, having to drop the sword and try his luck with summoning it back. Even though it was within reach of his hands.

Weak.

Pathetically weak, compared to what he used to be.

To what he had been even less than half an hour ago.

And with every second it was getting worse. An endless fall. He couldn't see the bottom. The bottom is death, whispered an inner voice.

Maybe, maybe, but that didn't mean he was going to hit the bottom now.

The second leg fell.

Slowly, bit by bit, but it fell. The spider wobbled and for a moment Desmond thought that even that would be enough to make it fall. However, it wasn't. It regained its balance.

In any case, even if it had fallen, it would have gotten up soon after.

The spider still had six legs after all. It wouldn't be a problem.

But at least that was some progress.

He could do it, despite his physical and emotional weakness. His lack of confidence. He could do it. He could still save them.

A third leg fell.

Desmond realized that his jacket was on fire. He screamed in a high-pitched tone that he was not at all ashamed of. He took off his jacket as quickly as he could and then tossed it aside, barely keeping the blue fire from spreading even further.

He took a deep breath.

It had almost gotten him. Almost. But not yet.

He could do this.

He finally got it. Slowly, but he did it. The spider, with only five legs, collapsed to the ground. Desmond stepped aside to avoid being crushed. However, he didn't even have time to process what he had just accomplished and feel content.

For the legs, all of them regenerated with great speed before his eyes.

The shadow had done the same thing as the other time, with the crack in the heart. Accelerate the regeneration, somehow.

His soul fell to his feet.

“No! Damn it!”

Was there really nothing he could do? Were they really doomed?

He couldn't give up, let himself fall. But neither could he think of what he could do at this point. Even if Desmond tried again, the shadow would simply regenerate the spider's legs.

It would accomplish nothing. Not like this.

And he had already established that he couldn't do anything else.

Yes, him. But he received help from the least expected source possible. A golden whip sliced through the air, wrapped itself, like a living thing, around one of the spider's legs.

The spider emitted a guttural sound that sounded like a wild growl, even though it was a machine. Not a living thing.

It pulled on the whip... and achieved nothing.

Of course, it wasn't a whip, it was a construct of magical energy. More of those whips shot out from everywhere, wrapping themselves around the spider's legs, several of them on each, very tightly clenched.

He watched the golden masks descend around him.

Maybe they didn't understand what he was trying to do, but they had offered him just the help he needed. It wouldn't last long. The spider was struggling against his bonds and sooner rather than later it would be free of them like nothing else.

The spider, that war machine of the Empire, was death itself after all.

It wouldn't be trapped for long...

But, even if it was only ten seconds, that was just what he needed. Christina was also watching the events from close by. She had made sure to stay close all this time, moving between the rooftops.

She didn't need a warning, of course.

The piece of the leg that Desmond had cut off first was encased in ice. And held between the shadows Christina controlled.

Christina attacked, hurling that ice encased leg towards the heart of the beast.

Once it touched the crystal, it spun it with more and more speed, like a rock drill. Sparks flew everywhere. Desmond raised his hands in front of his eyes, but kept peering between the gaps in his fingers.

He couldn't miss this.

“Now, Amy!” Christina gave him the signal.

Amy was nowhere near.

Not within sight, at least. Maybe she was still in the back, where she'd thrown the web at him, though he was sure Christina would have released her before she left.

In any case, she didn't need to be nearby.

And the signal got through to her just fine.

The ice exploded as the leg kept spinning, spinning, spinning. The shower of ice joined the shower of sparks. And it wasn't the only thing that exploded. The heart too, spilling a sea of blue fire.

The golden masks turned and ran.

Desmond too, of course.

He watched as two of the golden masks failed to make it. As they were caught and consumed by the flames. Maybe they deserved to die, but those screams... they brought back too many bad memories for him to be happy about it.

Speaking of which, he wasn't fast enough either. But what caught him wasn't the fire.

He took a hit and before he knew it he had lost consciousness.

——

Desmond regained consciousness. The first thing he noticed was the burning smell. The second thing was the pressure of the heavy weight on his back, crushing him to the ground, making it difficult to breathe.

Speaking of which he couldn't see too well either. His vision was blurry from the pain. From the tears.

But he could see enough to notice the mangled spider in front of him.

They had succeeded, yes, by destroying the heart. That was one of the last things he remembered.... In the explosion, parts of the spider must have broken off. And right now he was buried under that rubble, struggling to breathe.

He couldn't see what was underneath him, but that had to be it.

What else could have done that to him?

The debris spanned from his neck to his feet. Practically his entire body. His freedom of movement was almost nonexistent.

There were flames nearby and they were getting closer and closer. Because they were hungry.

Because they were looking for anything to devour.

He saw the black smoke rising from the smoking ruins of the spider, slipping between the gray smoke and the normal colored fire coming out of that carcass.

The smoke reached the ground and recomposed itself into the form of that shadow. Just as he remembered it from his nightmares.

No, not exactly.

It was still a humanoid monster, all dark, but the first time he saw it, it had no features at all. Now it had eyes with slitted pupils.

And a big smile. It wore a very big grin as it approached him.

Crap.

They had gotten it out of there just as they had intended, but the explosion didn't seem to have done any damage to the shadow. And now it was closing in on him. Ready to kill him, when he couldn't even move.

In this prison of rubble.

How easily things had gone awry again. He hadn't even been able to rejoice in his victory. It had all come crashing down too quickly.

By now, he supposed he should be used to that.

The shadow was closing in on him. Desmond was trapped and couldn't move. So that thing would kill him with impunity. With a big grin on its face. And then it would go off to slaughter the people dearest to him, just for the pleasure of knowing that it would make him suffer. Even if he would be dead by then.

Move. Move, damn it, you've got to move.

Desmond screamed as if to give himself strength, struggling against the debris. He felt something give way and for a moment he thought he had succeeded.

But he hadn't released the debris, only one of his arms.

During his struggle he had broken an arm. Nothing more, that was all he had achieved with his efforts.

And now he was going to die here? So easily?

No. No. No!

Desmond fought even harder. For what it was worth. The shadow reached out to him. It reached out to grab him by the throat, to tear him apart. At that moment...

Abigail broke through the wall of fire surrounding them, coming to his rescue.

That diverted the shadow's attention.

It dropped its hands and looked at her as if there wasn't a problem, as if it was confident of its victory. And he couldn't really blame it for that confidence, as frustrating as it was. After all, they hadn't given that creature any trouble so far. Not really.

Just minor inconveniences.

It had no reason to think she could defeat it, much less kill it.

But that was precisely what they would do. Here and now.

“I'm going to gut your little boy right before your eyes," the shadow gloated maliciously. "I've had more than enough of you. I will make you suffer. I will make you…”

He couldn't finish the sentence.

Abigail grabbed him by the shoulders, dragged it backwards and pushed it towards the flames that were still pouring out of the spider's shattered heart. Of which, by the way, the only trace was a few broken panes of glass piled on the floor. Which reflected the flames.

The shadow howled in pain. That sound was like music to his ears.

It was affecting the creature. Good. This had always been part of the plan, so he wouldn't know what they would do if even that didn't work.

It was working, no doubt about it. But, against the pain and the flames that were devouring it, the shadow was fighting Abigail to break free. And it looked like it was going to succeed. Sooner or later. She needed help.

His right arm was broken. So... he didn't have to take care of it anymore.

Desmond took a deep breath, gathering strength, gathering courage. And he continued his efforts to get out from under the rubble without any consideration for his broken arm.

At last he succeeded. His arm was almost ripped off and hung down in a strange way. It wouldn't do him any good.

It didn't matter. He still had the other arm.

Praying he wouldn't pass out from the pain first, Desmond ran up to them and rammed the shadow back into the flames, with all the weight of his body and whatever strength he had left. It was enough thanks to Abigail's help, however meager the embers still burning inside him.

They had to keep the shadow creature there, though. Until it was over.

He helped her push.

The shadow's shrieks stabbed into his ears like daggers. It was, like everything else about that thing, inhuman. Certainly more pain than any human being could bear.

And that put a smile on Desmond's face.

Now it was Desmond who was grinning from ear to ear, as the shadow shrieked and writhed like mad, trying to break free. To no avail.

But...

For some reason, its shrieks suddenly turned into laughter.

Desmond tensed like a bow. For a moment he thought the shadow had been pretending, taunting them. That it hadn't really affected it and they had no hope.

But the shadow didn't unravel, escaping their grasp.

Nor did it attack.

Nothing of the sort.

In fact, it even stopped resisting. It just laughed and laughed. As if it had lost its mind. Desmond felt a shiver. He had a bad feeling, how could he not, despite everything?

But whatever the shadow was laughing like that for, it wasn't because it could still win this thing. Turn the tables on them. The flames consumed that terrible abomination until there was nothing left.

Not even the smell of burning floating in the air.

——

The people he hated the most were holding him against the blue fire. He had come all this way solely to get back at them, yet they were winning.

Winning for real this time, it wasn't a mere inconvenience.

The blue fire was devouring him. He had never suspected it, too used to the fact that no one could really affect him. Too sure he was invincible.

But that shouldn't have posed any problem.

It shouldn't, but the blue fire, for some reason, wasn't just devouring him. It was also preventing him from transforming into black smoke and simply moving away from danger. So he was burning, helpless, only able to fight against the grip of his enemies.

Knowing, deep inside, that it was futile. That he would die here.

So close to his revenge.

He wouldn't get what he had been looking for all his life, but on top of that he wouldn't even be able to get revenge on those two. What a cruel joke. His whole life had been a cruel joke... which would be even more emphasized, if it ended in such a ridiculous way.

Oh, he couldn't stand it.

He couldn't.

It was worse than the bite of the blue fire, which was making him scream in pain for the first time in his life. And in the middle of it...

His mind went to a different place.

He suddenly saw a wide place and something like the throne room of an ancient palace. That was what came to his mind, because of the state of the room, its size, the pillars. All of it.

He saw the boy standing in the middle, only he was no longer a boy, but a man. He had a few more years on him.

One thing hadn't changed, though.

His weapon. The sword in his hand.

The edge of the sword dripped blood. Blood, drop by drop, was falling to the ground. Joining the pools of blood. Both pools of blood.

Because those girls, his little friends, were lying at the feet of that monster.

Dead, lying in pools of blood.

The same blood, he'd wager, that stained Desmond's blade.

And then... the vision ended. An image from the not-too-distant future. One would doubt such a vision, normally, but for some reason the shadow had no doubt.

That was what would happen. He really had seen the future.

How it would all end for his greatest enemy.

So the shadow's screams turned into laughter filled with near orgasmic ecstasy. Convinced that he would get his revenge, even though he would die here, in this pathetic way.

At least he would have that satisfaction. Nothing he could have done to the boy personally could be worse than what he had just contemplated.

That's why he couldn't stop laughing. The pain was no longer even a memory.

——

The shadow finally disappeared. At last.

Unlike that night at the training camp, there was no doubt now. It had been defeated. There would be no third time. That abomination was so dead there was nothing left of it.

Desmond dropped his hands. He turned away from the fire, taking a couple of staggering steps backward.

And he could take no more.

He fell to his knees, breathing hard. His head down too.

They had won, all in all, and what was better, they hadn't lost anyone along the way. But somehow he wasn't able to feel happy or at least satisfied.

Desmond's legs had failed him at the end of all that effort, the adrenaline leaving his system when he recognized that the threat was gone.

But it wasn't about that, his weakness, far from it.

It was about the laughter.

He couldn't get the laughter of the shadow out of his head.

In his last moments, while burning alive and ought to be in agony, he didn't know it had been, because of those screams.... Suddenly he burst out laughing. Desmond felt a shiver, even in the midst of so much fire. Even though his whole body was bathed in sweat.

“That thing... It was laughing in the end," he stammered. "Why was it laughing?”

“It took refuge in madness in its last moments," Abigail answered very calmly, very sure of herself. "You don't need to waste your time looking for a meaning, because there is none. It's nothing.”

“Yes. Probably…”

But Desmond couldn't shake that uneasy feeling. A part of him was screaming at him that there had to be more to it than that, that an answer so simple, so comforting couldn't be true.

Abigail helped him up, letting him lean against him. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to stand at this point.

-We have to get out of here," she told him.

She pulled him out of there. She pulled him up, practically dragging him more than anything else, to the top of the wrecked, smoking war machine that could explode again at any moment.

For the following.

To leap with it as a platform over the walls of fire that surrounded this mess.

To jump up to the rooftops on the other side, and pull him to safety.

Damn, how close it had all been. But at least they'd managed to destroy the machine and defeat the shadow, after all.

He looked over at Abigail, to one side of him. Tired, breathing heavily, but not as heavily as he was. Still ready for whatever it took. Then he looked at Christina, on a nearby rooftop, shadows still twisting around her.

Like black ink.

Amy wasn't in his field of vision, but he knew she was okay. That was enough.

They had succeeded.

They had left the Empire without its most powerful war machine. All well and good so far, but it's not like they'd won the war. It was too soon to celebrate.

Indeed. This was not a battle, but a war.

The capital was full of soldiers wreaking havoc. They had suffered heavy losses and Desmond didn't know the situation, but despite what they had accomplished here, it was possible they would lose anyway.

They had accomplished a great feat, there was no denying that.

But this was not over.

On the contrary, it had only just begun.

And he was like this.

His state was pathetic and pitiful. He had done well to go this far in spite of everything, but he had already reached his limit, hadn't he? He could go no further.

He worked to get to his feet anyway.

Emphasis on work. Even that took a lot of effort and he wasn't sure he was going to make it. Abigail, of course, realized what he was doing.

Worried like a mother who had seen her little boy stumble and fall one too many times, she put her hands on his shoulders, supporting him.

“Don't strain yourself," she said. Or was it more of a plea?

He'd like to listen to her, one way or the other. Really, he would. But...

“Can't stay away from this anyway.”

Desmond swallowed.

He wondered if he should fall back on the last card he had left, the thing that had gotten him this far in the first place. Laying down his life... No, that was the least of it. Putting his sanity, his humanity at risk, asking for more of her blood to make him whole.

He had taken blood and power from one person twice.

Abigail's blood had had a much greater, more lasting effect than that soldier's, besides. So could he take it one more time?

Or would the third time finish him off?