Chapter 249: Her Men Were Not Dying in That Room

DOVE’S POV

The rain hit Dove before she reached the gate, warm against her neck and red when she wiped it away.

For a horrible second she checked Thorne’s face, then Edrik’s, looking for the wound. Neither man was bleeding. Beyond the yard, somebody screamed that the sky had started again.

"Of course it has," she said, pulling the gate toward her. "We were having such a lovely afternoon."

The narrow path beyond it led past the neighboring building to the outside stairs. She could see the clinic’s blue awning over the wall. Yesterday that had seemed close. Today there were armed men inside her bedroom and red water dripping from her eyelashes, which did rather spoil a short walk.

A wooden crate lay across the bottom step. Dove put her hand against its side, reached for the familiar space, and felt it leave the path. For an instant she pictured it beside the shelves, then she was staring at the stairs again. Edrik’s hand stayed against her back while she steadied herself.

"I have you," he said.

"Good. Keep doing that."

Thorne went ahead, testing the first steps with his weight. Above them, a window opened and their neighbor leaned out with a boy clinging to his shoulder.

"Is the clinic open?"

"The side gate is," Dove called. "Don’t go through our house."

Something crashed inside the room they had left. Edrik turned, and his expression changed so completely that Dove stopped looking at his face and watched the stairs instead. She knew what he could do. She also knew he would rather be touching her than anybody who came through that gate.

Thorne pressed his palm to the broken railing. Metal bent beneath his fingers, pulling back against the stair supports. He gave it a hard shake, then reached for her.

"Come on, wife. You can complain about the weather up here."

"I was doing a perfectly good job down there."

She climbed toward him. Rain struck the steps in red bursts, already colored before it touched anything. That was different from the first shower at the diner. Dove noticed, filed the thought somewhere behind stay alive, and kept moving.

At the top, the stairs joined a landing outside a little apartment. The door stood open. A blanket covered a couch, two bowls waited on the kitchen table, and a pair of shoes sat neatly beneath a chair. Somebody had expected to come home.

Dove hated that more than the broken window.

Thorne took them through the apartment and onto the front balcony. A second set of steps led down toward the clinic lane. She could see people crowded beneath the awning, arguing about the rain while a nurse tried to bring a man on crutches inside.

"There’s room," Dove shouted. "Move away from the steps."

The nurse looked up and started pulling people toward the wall. Dove recognized the older man’s red sleeve before she recognized his face. He had bought one of her shirts. Yesterday he had complained about the color.

Today she was grateful she could find him in the crowd.

A shot cracked behind them. Edrik came through the apartment door with her neighbor and the boy following. He caught Dove’s wrist before she turned toward the sound.

"Keep looking where you’re going."

She wanted to argue that she knew how stairs worked. Then she saw his face and did what he asked.

Below, the lane had become a mess of shoulders and wet coats. Some men were trying to help. Others had planted themselves under the awning and refused to move because the rain looked like blood. A child cried somewhere Dove could not see.

Ash stood at the clinic turn with two guards. An armed man tried to get past him. The dragon caught him by the front of his coat and threw him into the men behind him hard enough to knock them off their feet.

Dove stared for half a second. Then Thorne’s fingers closed around hers.

"Down here."

She followed him toward the final steps. A loose sheet of metal hung from the damaged roof beside them, knocking against the wall every time someone ran across the landing.

*Sprout, is there anything I can use?*

*Your supplies are accessible. Your body still requires a clear path.*

*Yes, thank you, I remain annoyingly solid.*

She looked past the men blocking the clinic entrance and caught the nurse’s eye again.

"Tell them the roof doesn’t help if they crush each other under it."

The nurse repeated it more politely. People finally shifted. Thorne glanced back at Dove with a quick, proud smile that made her want this over so she could kiss him somewhere dry and complain for twenty uninterrupted minutes.

The neighbor reached the lower landing with his boy. Edrik stayed one step above them, watching the apartment door. Dove could see the moment he decided another man was coming through it.

"Go," he said.

They went. The roof sheet tore loose as the landing shook. Thorne caught the metal edge, silver strands spreading from his hand to hold it above their heads. His other arm guided Dove beneath it.

"Through the gate," he told her.

She reached the clinic entrance and turned. The neighbor was following. Edrik pushed him clear, then ducked beneath Thorne’s trembling arm.

Across the lane, a man raised a gun from behind a parked truck.

Dove saw him too late to find a useful word. The shot made Thorne jerk sideways. His grip opened, and the metal struck the empty steps behind him with a crash.

He made it one more pace toward her.

Dove caught his arm. She expected him to steady her, as he always did. Instead his weight folded into hers, heavy enough to drive her against the gate.

"Thorne?"

He tried to answer. Red water ran off his shirt, but the spreading dark patch beneath her hand was warmer than the rain.

Edrik caught him before they both fell. Dove kept her hand pressed to his side, suddenly unable to remember whether she had ever told him enough ordinary things. How she liked his laugh. How much better mornings were when he was in them.

"Open the door," she shouted at the clinic. "Open the fucking door."

Thorne’s knees gave beneath him, and this time he did not get back up.