The end of the alley was a dark and narrow cage. There was a slim opening that maybe led out to the other side, but Luka hadn’t run. She could picture him cornered here, by whatever the piles of dirt and wood used to be. She knelt down next to one, rummaging through the remnants of it. Based on the hint of muzzle and claws she found, she guessed they were supposed to be some sort of wolf or maybe a large dog. There were roots winding through it, tied into a heart, veins, identifying it as the work of a Summoner.
She frowned.
A nature Summoner in the middle of the city? She looked up at the sky, the dark clouds above. The rain had slowed, but not stopped, and was making ripples in the shallow puddles surrounding her. She dipped her fingers into one of the pools, intending to wash her hands clean of dirt, but her skin came away tinted red. It was too dark, too wet, to determine how much blood had been spilled.
She straightened up, and turned towards the door. The blood should make her rush inside, but she was too afraid of what she might find. She was afraid she was too late, but she was also afraid that she wasn’t late enough. If the people who had attacked Luka were still here, what chance did she have?
Hadley had promised backup, but she didn’t know when it would be here, if it was even coming at all.
When she pushed the door open, she tried not to picture Luka dead on the floor, lying in a pool of his own blood. Felled by injuries he was unable to heal, lacking the energy after the battle, after the rain. She inched it open, for fear that it would make a sound, for fear that she was walking into a fight.
The door only whined gently, and the inside was dark, so she stepped inside. She stopped, when she cleared the doorway, and closed her eyes and focused, but heard nothing.
The building was quiet.
"Luka?" she called into the empty space.
No answer.
She hit the light switch, and light flickered on.
Next to the switch, there was a small symbol written on the wall. A gate to somewhere else. She pressed her palm to it, and called her magic, but nothing happened. She needed the key, of course, to activate it, if the mage hadn’t closed it already. At least it made her feel more certain, that they were gone.
She looked around, finding herself in an industrial kitchen. Drops of blood stained the floor, and led out of the room. She followed the trail to the front of the restaurant, which had obviously been closed for a while. The trap had been set here, because the building was abandoned. She stepped slowly forward, her feet hitting the carpet of the dining area.
She spotted the dark shape slumped on the floor, but it didn't immediately register as Luka. He looked dead. Blood streaked the wall above him, but blood was still spilling from his wounds, making the pool around him bigger. She hurried over and dropped to the floor, half slipping and half kneeling in her haste, and felt the still warm blood sticking to her bare legs. His phone lay next to him, the screen still alight and the phone still unlocked. She grabbed it, rather than scrambling for her own, and called Hadley. She waited impatiently for his voice to cut off the beeps, and put her fingers at Luka's neck.
His pulse was weak, but at least it was there. She murmured his name until finally the nature of the silence changed in her ear.
"Luka?" Hadley asked.
"It's me," Alice said, "I'm going to need that backup right now."
She heard faint noises on the other end, but got no response.
"Hadley?" she asked, afraid the connection had been broken, or the signal didn't come through okay.
A moment more passed, then Hadley seemed to return to her.
"They're on their way. What happened?"
Alice had to fight the urge to snap at him. He had been reluctant to send a Healer, and now she might have to watch Luka die. She watched the life spill out of him with every drop of blood, adding to the growing pool around them. She took a breath and kept her voice level.
"I found him, but it's bad. He's unconscious, he's bleeding heavily and he barely has a pulse. I don't know what happened to him."
"If his heart stops, you need to perform CPR," Hadley said. "Keep him alive until the Healer gets there."
"I know, I know." Every time his pulse beat, she was afraid she wouldn't feel another one. "Look, I have to hang up. I need to focus, and I need both hands."
She just heard him start to say her name before she broke the connection. She put the phone down outside the circle of blood.
"You're the one with the medical training and knowledge, Luka. I don't know why you would think this is okay," She muttered, gently. As much to occupy herself as hoping he heard her. Hoping her voice might reach him distantly, might anchor him in the world.
"Can I move you?" She asked, knowing no answer would come. "I don't even know if it's okay to move you."
She had taken a first aid course once, but that was years ago. She was also pretty sure it hadn't quite covered what to do in case someone was rapidly bleeding out in your arms. Her mother was a doctor, and would know what to do, but calling her with something like this didn't seem like an option. She wished she had paid more attention, or watched more medical shows on tv. Even though they were inaccurate, it had to be better than nothing. She kept her fingers on his pulse, and a hand pressed firmly against the most severe wound she could see. He had been stabbed, she thought, in the chest, but she had no idea if it was near anything vital. She had no idea, if there was a more pressing concern than the blood loss. The beats were weak and she was sure each one came slower than the last.
She decided to move him when and if she needed to. She would give the team time to arrive. She could do that. The most important thing was keeping pressure on the wound, she knew that much.
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She panicked, when she realized they might not know where she was. If all they had were Mira's instructions, and Hadley's vague idea of where the building was, they might waste precious minutes finding the right place.
The door in the kitchen slammed closed, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
All in all, it took them maybe five minutes to arrive, but they were the most stressful five minutes of Alice's life.
"In here!" She yelled. "Just follow the trail of blood," she added, though not loud enough to be heard.
A group of three people entered from the kitchen. One of them, she assumed the Healer, rushed to Luka's side. She saw the hesitation, before the Healer called her magic. Luka was infected, and she knew it. It took her a few seconds to weigh the risk against the ethics, but every second was priceless for Luka.
Alice was pulled away from Luka by the others, who gently guided her backwards and got her standing, allowing the Healer space to work. She had managed to postpone the shock, while she had something to focus on, but now she started shaking. Her legs felt weak. Her skin felt burdened with the blood covering it. She leaned against the wall, and registered one of the mages talking to her. The woman was looking at her intently, scanning her, while asking her questions, but Alice could make no sense of them. The third member of the group, a man, had withdrawn some steps. He looked like he was pretending to look for a threat no one was particularly worried about. The nature mages were long gone, and Alice had no reason to think they were coming back.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the words.
"---e your name?"
"Alice." Her voice sounded weird to her. Distant. She wasn't sure she had said it out loud.
"Good," she heard, before the woman's words cut out again. She managed to put something together about Hadley having briefed them, but they didn't know much. Which they wouldn't, she thought. No one did. No one but Luka.
"How is he?" she asked. The Healer was still sitting over him, and they were both surrounded by the red neon glow of magic.
The Healer didn't speak, and while Alice knew she needed to focus on the task before her, she couldn't accept silence as an answer. She clutched the woman standing in front of her.
"How is he?" she asked again, her voice quivering ever so slightly.
"He may have lost too much blood," the Healer said. "I don't know yet."
"No," Alice said. "You got to him when his heart was still beating. You can heal him. You have to."
"I can't create something from nothing. If he was conscious, maybe he could…“ she trailed off, shaking her head slightly. "I don't know."
"You don't know? What do you mean, you don’t know?"
The woman holding her pulled her away from Luka and the Healer, pushing her back towards the kitchen.
"You have to let her work," she said.
Alice pulled away from her. She turned and walked outside, away from them. Away from everything. She needed air and space and a reassurance she was not going to get. She paced in front of the door, and found her phone, once her frustration failed to settle.
Hadley answered the phone after the second ring.
“He was wrong,” Alice said, trying to be pragmatic, because they still had a case to solve, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her heart was inside, beating in time with Luka’s slowing pulse. “They wanted him dead.”
She didn’t really want to hear Hadley say it, but he did anyway. “Apparently.”
“They might have succeeded.” It was still raining, but not enough to wash away all the blood on her hands.
“Alice—”
“The Healer said we might be too late. He might have lost too much blood.” She realized that she didn’t actually want to hear his answer. Either he still thought Luka was invincible, or he just didn’t care that much.
“Were they really on their way, when I called?”
“What?” Hadley asked, but he sounded more distracted than surprised.
“I saw the hesitation. They knew he was infected.”
“Of course they knew. I couldn’t risk a Healer unless it was vital.”
“If he dies, we have nothing.”
Hadley sighed, but she couldn’t read his mood over the phone. “I know. I assure you, I wasn’t gambling with his life.”
“No,” she said, "but I think you forgot that there's a person beneath the legend." She might have been tempted to do the same, if she hadn't just been forced to bear witness to his humanity.
She might have failed Luka, but so had he.
She hung up. She regretted making the call, regretted thinking that Hadley would offer her reassurance. She stood in the silence of the alley. Diluted blood still swirled in the puddle she was standing in, or maybe it was new, since she was still dripping with it. Going back inside was more than she could handle, so she waited. For something, anything, to happen, so the moment might stop seeming frozen in time. She felt like she was in limbo, like the fate of her future, all their futures, was about to be revealed.
But the wait was endless.
An eternity later, Alice was seated in the back of a car, heading back to the Academy. They had folded down the seats, so really, it felt more like sitting in the trunk, but it had made it easier to get Luka inside.
Luka was alive, barely. He was lying next to her, his head in her lap, still unconscious. The man from the team was driving, while the woman was sitting in the passenger seat. The Healer was sitting with them in the back, the red glow of magic still flowing between her and Luka. Alice didn't pay too much attention to it, but thought maybe he still had minor injuries that needed healing. In the end, the Healer had managed to stabilize Luka, and Alice had been assured that with some rest, he should be fine. They were going to the hospital, despite Alice's protests. She had tried to insist that they took him home, but was brushed off. They had orders, they said. Alice thought of the detachment she had heard in Hadley's voice, and it frightened her that she didn't know what he was planning. She watched Luka silently, having given up discussing with the team a long time ago.
She ran her hand idly through his damp curls, comforted by the silky texture of his hair. He hadn't woken yet, hadn't even stirred. She kept her other hand on his chest, making sure he was breathing and his heartbeat was strong. It was strange, seeing him this vulnerable and fragile, and a part of her felt like it was a betrayal. Like she shouldn't be there, shouldn't be seeing him like that. But she had saved his life. She had earned it.
Her emotional state was still fragile, she still felt frayed, and focused instead on Luka. He was alive, and strong, and he was going to recover from this.
She wasn't conscious of time or space, not until they slowed down and passed through the gates into the Academy. They didn't enter through the front gates, but through another entrance that led directly to the hospital. Cars weren't generally allowed on Academy grounds, except for here and on the parking lot near the dorms.
Once the car stopped, Alice barely had time to react, before Luka was pulled away from her. She got out of the car, still dazed, and followed them inside. They were barely past the entrance, when a hand on her shoulder halted her. She turned around and faced Hadley.
"What's going on?" She asked. "They said they were ordered to bring him here, but if he's fine, then he can go home. He should go home."
"He's infected, Alice." Hadley said gravely.
"I know, but..." she started, but Hadley wasn't done.
"We can't let him leave."
Alice frowned. "What are you saying?"
His eyes turned hard, and an icy dread settled within her. She didn't let her expression change, careful to look confused, but neutral.
"He has to be isolated with the others. You should be able to understand, why we can't let him keep working this case. The risk it too great."
"So, instead of letting him work the case, and possibly die, you want him isolated and drugged, and no one working the case?"
The second the words left her mouth, she knew what he was going to say. She turned away from him, refusing to look at him, when he transferred the burden to her shoulders.
"You'll work the case," he said, predictably, but she hadn't been ready for the feeling the words would invoke in her. She felt damned, lost. Afraid. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands. She couldn't speak.
"You'll have all the help you need." Hadley continued.
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Not knowing how to say no. She walked past him, into the hospital.
She wasn't going to do anything until she saw that Luka was safe. She couldn't do anything until she had time to deal with the shock of it all. She felt Hadley's eyes follow her, but he didn't try to stop her.