A DEADLY DRIVE CREATES A WELCOME ALLY
Alberta, Canada — May 1983
He drove the '83 van like a man fighting time itself, his grip crushing the wheel, breath tight, eyes laser-focused on the dark ribbon of frozen highway ahead.
In the cargo area, Connor held Jace tightly against his chest, cradling him as if trying to anchor his soul in place. Ricky knelt beside them, bracing Jace's torso and head, hands trembling.
The jacket Connor had wrapped around Jace's torso kept slipping. Ricky adjusted it without being asked, tucking it back into place with hands that would not stop shaking.
Nathan had pulled himself up onto the back seat and sat turned around, knees pressed against the seat back, watching. Not speaking. Just watching every breath.
Erik stared out the passenger window at the dark, one big hand pressed flat against the door panel. His jaw worked steadily. He had not said anything since they'd pulled out of Pincher Creek.
Connor felt Jace slipping fast.
"He's fading," Connor said. His voice was barely above a whisper. "He's fading."
"Come on, Jace," Ricky whispered desperately, leaning closer. "Fight it, man... fight it..."
Jace's eyes fluttered open, thin, unfocused, and found Connor's.
And then he went still.
His chest stopped.
His heartbeat vanished.
His presence, the psychic warmth Connor always felt at the edge of his awareness, tore away like a cable snapping under too much weight.
"No!" Ricky gasped. "Jace!"
Connor didn't speak.
The loss ripped through him too deeply for words, a tearing open of something that wasn't meant to break. And then he just screamed.
A raw, guttural, soul-crushing scream that seemed to come from somewhere beneath language itself. The emerald amulet at his throat erupted: a concussive blast of green energy that exploded outward through the cargo space without warning.
Ricky was hit first. The blast slammed him backward into the side wall of the cargo space. His head struck hard, vision going white-hot. He collapsed sideways, blinded and gasping.
Nathan had felt it a half-second before the blast: the thread snapping, the void opening, the same terrible absence he had felt twice before. He had barely registered it when the shockwave hit him square in the chest. He was thrown backward over the seat and crashed onto the floor, his shoulder slamming against metal with a crack that drove the air from his lungs. He let out a sharp cry. The blinding green light burned across his sight, and the empathic thread went silent. Not broken, just gone, swallowed by pain and shock and the white noise of injury.
Erik, sitting in the front passenger seat, was jolted violently forward. At six foot six, there was nowhere to go. He slammed forehead-first into the dashboard edge, then cheek-first against the door frame. Pain flared instantly. His temple split just enough to bleed and he reeled, dazed.
Sidney felt the blast hit the steering wheel like a physical punch. His shoulder wrenched with the force. He gritted his teeth, fighting the bucking vehicle.
"Hold on!" he yelled, voice raw with strain.
The van fishtailed, sliding sideways, shaking violently from the shockwave, but Sidney wrestled it toward the shoulder, muscles screaming.
Connor's scream finally cut off, the emerald blast fading.
Sidney dragged the van to a stop with a hard jolt.
Erik stumbled out of the passenger side, blood trickling from a cut above his eyebrow, and rushed to the back. He shoved the barn doors open and staggered at the sight.
Jace lay limp in Connor's arms. His face was bruised and swollen, his skin the flat pale of a man who had just passed. His eyes were dull and lifeless.
Connor held him with both arms, openly sobbing, breathing in sharp, painful gasps.
Ricky groaned softly from where he had been thrown, clutching the side of his head, vision still blurred by emerald afterimages.
Nathan dragged himself up from the floor, blinking rapidly, one hand pressed to his shoulder where he'd hit the metal.
Sidney sat forward in the driver's seat, bracing himself, rubbing at his wrenched shoulder.
And then red and blue lights flickered across the snow, painting the men in harsh color.
A police cruiser pulled up behind them.
"Oh God..." Sidney whispered, still catching his breath.
A tall officer approached quickly, boots crunching on frost, hand moving instinctively toward his holster before he registered the scene in front of him. This was not a threat. This was an emergency.
Erik stepped forward, voice hoarse.
"Officer... please... we need help. There's a medevac waiting in Calgary. He has to get there now."
The officer's gaze swept the scene. Ricky dazed, Nathan injured, Erik bleeding. Then his eyes landed on Connor holding Jace in the back of the van.
And the gag.
He froze.
Something moved across his face, recognition trying to catch up with what he was seeing. The long hair. The faces. He had a daughter at home with posters on every wall of her bedroom, concert shots, press photos, magazine covers, that he had looked at a hundred times while standing in her doorway telling her to turn the music down. These were "her guys." His daughter's beloved Battle Cry.
"You're..." he said. His voice dropped. "You're Battle Cry."
Nobody confirmed it. Nobody denied it.
"Is that..." His eyes moved back to Connor's arms. To the blood. To the stillness. "...Is that Jason Elias?"
Connor didn't look up. He only tightened his grip.
The officer, Hartman by his badge, swallowed hard. His voice came out unsteady.
"My daughter... she adores Jason Elias. He's her favorite. She..." He exhaled shakily. "What happened?"
Nathan answered quietly, one hand still braced against his injured shoulder.
"He was beaten. Men tried to kill him. He's coded multiple times already. We're trying to get him to Calgary before we lose him again."
Hartman's jaw clenched as he stared at the gag, at the blood soaked into Connor's shirt, at the dark prints still visible on Connor's face.
"There was a call," he said. His voice had gone tight with the conflict working behind his eyes. "About an incident in Pincher Creek. If you're involved, we're supposed to bring you in for questioning. They found a man dead there. Lots of stories, too, mostly drunken ones. No one seems to know anything about what happened behind that tavern."
Connor lifted his head quickly, his amulet had begun to pulse, not in the wild, uncontrolled way of the alley but steadily, deliberately, like a second heartbeat. His eyes were red-rimmed and wet, but his voice, when it came, was clear in a way none of the others had heard from him before.
"You're not taking us anywhere."
He held Hartman's gaze, the amulet pulsing with purpose.
"Look at him. Look at what they did to him, Officer. He has no time for questions. He's already died three times. We don't want another one."
Officer Hartman looked at Jace closely, taking in all of the blood, the damage, the lifeless eyes.
"See him...please!" Connor cried out softly.
The emerald light from the amulet caught Hartman's eyes and held them, not a command or a forced compliance but a direction. A steady, insistent pointing toward what was right in front of him. Connor wasn't making Hartman do anything. He was simply making sure the man could not look away from the truth of what he was seeing.
Hartman looked.
And then Jace's body convulsed hard in Connor's arms.
White opal light erupted from Jace's amulet, bright enough that Hartman shielded his eyes.
Jace inhaled sharply, a muffled, wrenching gasp around the gag, body jerking as life slammed back into him.
Hartman jumped back and emitted a small cry of surprise.
Ricky choked out a sob of relief, half-blinded but smiling through tears. Nathan sucked in a sharp breath. Erik staggered back, one hand pressed to his bleeding forehead. Sidney twisted in the driver's seat, jaw dropping.
Hartman's eyes filled.
"I... I saw him," he whispered. "He wasn't breathing. He was... gone. And now he just..." He wiped at his face. "He just came back. What is he? What are any of you?"
He now stared at the blood stained amulet on Jace's chest that suddenly began to glow and pulse, determined and faint.
"Men who need to get to Calgary," Sidney told him from the driver's seat. "That's all you need to know right now."
The conflict behind Hartman's eyes was gone. What replaced it was simpler and steadier than anything Connor could have compelled.
It was a man making up his own mind.
Connor pressed his cheek to Jace's hair, voice cracking.
"Stay with us... Jason... please...don't go again..."
Hartman drew a long, shaking breath. Then he straightened.
"I'm getting you to Calgary," he said. "No stops. No delays. You follow me. They can damned-well fire me, but I don't care. I'm getting you to the plane."
Erik exhaled, pressing a hand to his bleeding temple. "Thank you."
Hartman shook his head.
"No. Thank you. My daughter will never forgive me if I don't help him." He paused. "And neither will I."
He turned and jogged back to his cruiser. Lights blazed. Sirens split the night.
Sidney restarted the engine, wincing at his shoulder. Ricky repositioned himself in the cargo space, still dizzy but focused entirely on Jace. Nathan braced himself back on the rear seat. Erik climbed into the passenger seat, pressing a hand to the cut above his eyebrow.
Connor held Jace tightly and did not look away from his face.
"We're almost there, Jason," he whispered. "Just hold on."
Hartman's cruiser shot forward, sirens wailing into the dark. Sidney pressed the accelerator to the floor and followed, pushing the van north through snow and frozen highway toward Calgary.
The airport perimeter rose ahead like a wall of glittering frost. Floodlights cut through the blowing snow, casting long columns of white across the tarmac. The night was still black, but the world around them had gone stark and metallic, too bright in places, too shadowed in others.
Sidney followed Hartman's cruiser through a secure checkpoint, his shoulder throbbing with every tight movement of the wheel. The guard waved them through without hesitation. The medevac crew had been alerted. The van rattled. Erik winced as the jostle tugged at the bruising above his eye. Nathan held his shoulder carefully. Ricky blinked hard, still fighting the last of the haze from Connor's blast.
In the cargo area, Connor held Jace and did not speak. His hands were trembling, not from cold but from shock still moving through his nerves. He whispered Jace's name under his breath, not calling him, just anchoring himself.
Hartman's cruiser turned toward a private hangar lit from inside, its large sliding doors already open. Three medevac personnel stood waiting.
And beside them, a woman stepped forward.
Dr. Nancy Oksana.
Even from a distance she carried presence: tall, composed, long black hair twisted into a loose bun that had clearly been done in a hurry. Scrubs beneath a heavy winter coat. A surgical kit bag over one arm.
Sidney exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"Nancy," he murmured. The relief in his voice was old and deep.
Hartman braked in front of the hangar and waved them forward. Sidney eased the van inside. The moment the engine cut, cold silence fell over all six men, a strange vacuum after the chaos on the highway.
Nancy stepped to the driver's side before Sidney had the door open.
"Sidney Greene," she said, tone clipped and concerned in equal measure. "You look like hell."
"And you look like the best thing I've seen tonight," Sidney muttered. Only then did his facade crack, just a hair.
Her eyes went immediately to his shoulder. "You injured that shoulder again." Not a question.
"Later," he said.
"Fine." She relented without argument and snapped back into professional mode. "Where is he?"
"Back," Sidney said.
Nancy moved with the focus of a surgeon. She rounded the van just as Erik pushed the barn doors open. Her breath hitched, not in panic but in recognition, the same practiced read she'd give any patient the amulet had dragged back from death more than once tonight.
"Oh, dear God," she breathed, her expression quickly clouding with anger. "Those monsters."
"We lost him at least twice tonight," Erik told her, voice breaking on the words.
Nancy placed a hand on Erik's arm. "So I've been told, sweet boy." Then, to her staff: "Bring him out carefully. I want vitals the moment he's on the gurney."
Connor tightened his hold instinctively. Nancy crouched, lowering her voice.
"Connor." She didn't say his last name. She didn't need to. He lifted his eyes, disoriented, glassy, lost in a way none of the others had seen him. She touched his forearm.
"I know what you're feeling," she said softly. "I know what it does to a Visionary when a Guardian dies, especially like this. But you did everything right. And now you have to trust me to take him."
Connor froze, chest tight, breathing uneven. He shook his head, pulling Jace closer.
Nancy reached up and touched the side of his face, grounding him.
"Connor," she said, maternal and steady. "Your Guardian needs to be on that plane. Let me help him."
Your Guardian. That was the phrase that broke the dam.
Connor swallowed hard, nodded once, brokenly, and let Erik and Nathan support him as the medics carefully lifted Jace onto the gurney.
Nancy took over immediately, her movements precise and practiced. She leaned over Jace, eyes narrowing at the gag.
"That filth," she muttered. "They bound him like an animal."
Nancy worked carefully against the dried blood and clotted cuts at the corners of his mouth. Even unconscious, Jace whimpered.
"Oh, sweetheart..." she whispered, steadying his jaw. "I'm sorry. I know it hurts."
She slipped the gag free, looked at the ruined cloth, and her eyes went flinty. "Barbarians," she hissed, and dropped it into a biohazard bin.
Hartman, who had stayed respectfully back, cleared his throat.
"He's going to make it, right?"
Nancy didn't look up. "He cannot die," she said simply. "But he can suffer. And that is what I'm trying to stop."
Sidney stepped beside her. "She treated Seamus," he said quietly to the others. Erik nodded, understanding settling across his face.
The medics secured Jace onto the plane's hydraulic lift. Nancy followed them up. But before boarding she turned back and stopped. She was looking at Connor. His posture rigid. Shoulders trembling. Eyes unfocused. Hands shaking violently now that Jace was no longer in them.
"Sidney," she murmured without turning her head. "He's in psionic shock."
"I know," Sidney said. "I saw it happen."
She stepped back to Connor and placed a gentle hand against his cheek.
"I'm not leaving him like this," she said. "Not until I get him stabilized too."
Erik touched Connor's back. Nathan moved to his other side. Ricky stepped forward, vision still hazy but clearing. They encircled him without a word, instinctively shielding their Visionary.
Nancy nodded. "Good. Stay with him. Keep breathing with him. I'll tend to him the moment Jason is secure."
Then her gaze shifted to Hartman.
Hartman stepped forward, eyes wet. "I just... I just want to say goodbye before they take off."
A quiet, unspoken question hung in the air between the men who knew what it meant. Connor felt it even through his shock. His eyes snapped into focus for the first time since the highway.
"No," he said. Hoarse at first. Then steadier: "Not him."
Sidney exhaled. Nathan nodded. Erik looked at Hartman with quiet gratitude. Ricky whispered, "Yeah. Not him."
Hartman blinked, sensing something he didn't fully understand but respecting it entirely.
Sidney stepped aside. Hartman climbed the lift and approached the stretcher. He touched the rail, voice trembling.
"My daughter... she loves you, son. You're the star of her whole rock and roll world. You've got to fight." He wiped his eyes. "You come back from this. You hear me? You come back."
Jace's amulet flickered faintly. A soft opal glow.
Hartman stepped back.
"I won't tell anyone what I saw tonight," he said. "You have my word."
Sidney met his eyes. "And one day," he said softly, "you'll learn why that matters more than you know."
Hartman nodded, stepped off the plane, and gave them one last look before walking out of the hangar into the dark.
Nancy climbed the lift.
"Every one of you on board," she ordered. "Now. We're not risking another code."
Connor stiffened at the word. Erik steadied him. Ricky guided him gently. Nathan supported his other side. They boarded together. The doors sealed. The engines started.
As the medevac lifted off into the cold Calgary night, Connor finally exhaled.
But he did not relax. Because the next battle, the one inside Jace's body and the one inside his own mind, had only just begun.
The medevac jet leveled out above the clouds, engines humming in a steady low roar. Outside, the world was a cold, starless void. Inside, the cabin was small, bright, and too quiet.
Jace lay restrained on the main trauma bed, strapped against turbulence. An oxygen mask covered half his face. Warm fluids dripped into his veins. The monitor beside him ticked out his unstable Guardian rhythm, uneven but stubbornly present.
Nancy checked his vitals one more time. She traced the opal amulet with her eyes but not her fingers, respectful of what it was and who he was.
"You're holding on," she whispered. "Good. No more dying tonight, my Guardian. That's enough."
She turned. The rest of the cabin was a portrait of exhaustion and barely contained pain.
Erik sat against the side bulkhead, long legs stretched out awkwardly, a bandage taped over the cut above his eyebrow. Bruising was already blooming purple and blue around his temple and cheek. He stared at the floor, jaw clenched, one big hand absently rubbing at his knees.
Ricky slumped on the bench opposite, an ice pack pressed to the side of his head, eyes still a little glassy. He was trying to latch onto humor like a life raft. It wasn't working.
Nathan sat closest to Jace, his injured shoulder supported by a temporary sling Nancy had fashioned from a folded strap and medical tape. He looked like a man who'd aged ten years in a day. The empathic thread had gone silent when Connor's blast knocked him out of it. He had felt the void open and then lost it entirely in the white noise of pain. He didn't know if that was a mercy or not. His gaze was clear and steady, watching Jace, watching the others, holding the emotional line, but it cost him something visible to do it.
Sidney leaned in the narrow aisle near the galley bulkhead; one hand pressed to his wrenched shoulder. His usually sharp posture sagged just enough to betray the truth: he was drained to the bone.
And then there was Connor. He sat on the bench across from Jace's gurney, arms draped over his knees, hands hanging loosely, fingers still trembling. The emerald amulet at his throat pulsed now and then in small anxious flickers. His eyes weren't really looking at anything in front of him.
Nancy took it all in. Then she moved.
She went to Erik first.
"Alright, my Warrior," she said gently. "Let me see that head again."
Erik managed a faint tired half-smile.
"You demoted me from 'sweet boy' already?"
"Don't push your luck," she said, but her eyes were kind. "Tilt your head." She peeled back the bandage, checked the wound, lifted a small penlight to his eyes. "Still dizzy?"
"Like I had a couple shots too many," he muttered. "Without the fun part."
"Concussion confirmed," she said. "You'll live. You'll hate it, but you'll live. Nothing heavier than a sandwich for a while."
He snorted softly. "Yes, Doctor."
She patted his shoulder and moved to Ricky. He tried on a bright expression that didn't quite fit.
"I'm good, Doc. Just... ringing like a broken snare drum."
"That's not how 'good' works." She pulled the ice pack away. A nasty knot bulged where he'd hit the wall. "Oh, sweetheart. You hit this hard."
"Connor's blast packs a punch," Ricky said. "Should slap a warning label on him."
Her lips twitched. She checked his pupils, watched his eyes track her finger. "Concussed too. Mild to moderate. No passing out, no throwing up if you can help it. And if anything gets worse, you tell me. No acting tough."
"Acting tough is Erik's job," Ricky muttered. "I'm comic relief."
"If you're my comic relief, we need to renegotiate your contract." She smoothed a hand briefly over his hair. "You did well tonight, Ricky."
He blinked.
"Didn't feel like it."
"Trust me," she said. "You did."
She went to Nathan. He looked up at her with quiet, weary respect.
"How's the shoulder?" she asked.
"Hurts," he admitted. "But not the worst of it."
"Of course it isn't."
She checked the sling, tested range of motion just enough to confirm nothing was broken.
"You're the steady one. I can see that."
"Trying to be," he said. "Someone has to keep it together."
"You've done that," she said. "More than enough for one night."
His jaw trembled for half a second before he forced it still.
"You are allowed to fall apart too, you know."
"Not yet," Nathan said. "If I do, I don't think any of us are getting back up."
She studied him, then squeezed his good shoulder.
"You're stronger than you think. But that doesn't mean you're made of stone."
He gave her a small, grateful nod.
And then, finally, she turned to Connor.
For a heartbeat she just watched him. Shoulders rigid. Fingers twitching with every bump of the plane. Breathing too shallow, too quiet. Eyes unfocused, not empty but drowning.
"Sidney," she said softly without looking away. "Has he spoken at all since we took off?"
"Barely," Sidney replied. "A word here and there. Mostly to Jason."
She stepped in front of Connor and knelt to his eye level.
"Connor," she said gently. "Look at me."
It took a moment. His gaze shifted as if fighting through layers of things only he could see. Finally, his eyes met hers. And she saw it: the Visionary fracture. The empathic burnout. The haunted shock of someone who had died four times without ever stopping breathing.
"Hey," she said softly. "Stay with me."
He swallowed but said nothing.
"You're hearing him, aren't you?" she asked. "Hearing Jason?"
His breath hitched.
"He keeps saying..." Connor's voice cracked. "I'm sorry."
Ricky closed his eyes briefly. Nathan's hands tightened together.
"What else are you feeling?" Nancy asked. "Tell me."
He looked down at his hands, at the tremor he couldn't stop.
"Pain," he whispered. "Fear. Like I can't move. Like I can't breathe. Like he's dying and dying and..." His voice broke. "...and it keeps happening. Over and over. I know I'm here. But I'm still there."
"And the man you stopped," she said softly. "When he came at Jace. Sidney told me what he saw."
Connor flinched.
"I didn't mean to... I just... he was coming for me, Jace, and Nathan, and Jace was in my arms, and I just wanted him to stop, and then he screamed and... and he fell and... he didn't move..."
His chest labored, breaths coming fast and shallow.
"I... I killed him. He was going to kill us...all of us. I had to..."
"Connor."
Nancy placed both hands on his shoulders.
"Look at me. Look at me."
He snapped his eyes to hers.
"You did what you had to do to protect yourself and your brothers," she said. "You reacted with power you've never been trained to use. That is not murder. That is survival."
Tears broke loose.
"I felt Jason die," Connor whispered. "Three times. I felt that thread snap and snap and snap. I felt him fall away and then..." His fingers dug into his knees. "And then every time he came back, everything inside him slammed into me. Every fear. Every ounce of pain. Every time he thought he was going to lose us. It's all still in my head. I can't make it stop."
His voice dropped.
"I can't tell which feelings are his and which ones are mine anymore."
Nancy glanced at Sidney. He looked stricken, eyes bright.
"Worst empathic bleed I've ever seen," she murmured. "Stronger than Alen's ever were."
Sidney nodded once, jaw tight.
"Connor's not just a Visionary, Nancy. He's a full empath too. And he loves Jason more than he knows what to do with. Like an older brother."
"I know," Nancy said.
She turned back to Connor.
"Listen to me, my Visionary. What you're feeling right now, most of it isn't yours. It's Jason's. His fear. His pain. His guilt. His apologies. They're still echoing in you because your bond is that strong."
A small, wounded sob broke out of him.
"You are not weak," Nancy continued. "You are not broken. You are overloaded. And that would break almost anyone."
"I have to hold it together," he rasped. "They need me. Jason needs me and..."
"No," Nancy said, gentle but firm. "What Jason needs, what all of them need, is for you to survive this. And you don't survive this by pretending you're not hurt."
"If I fall apart..."
"If you fall apart," she said, "you finally give your mind a chance to release some of this. The only way to calm is through. Not around."
His eyes filled, fighting it. His jaw clenched.
"Connor," she whispered, and this time her voice was a mother bringing a child in out of the rain. "Come here."
She opened her arms.
Connor leaned into her and broke.
"It's alright," she murmured into his hair. "Let it out. You did everything you could, sweet Visionary. You've done more than anyone has a right to ask."
"I couldn't stop it..." Connor sobbed. "I couldn't stop him from dying..."
"You're not a god," Nancy told him, holding his face in her hands, "You do not have the power of life and death. You have talent of the mind that you used to save his life. You did not fail him, Connor."
"I can still hear him," Connor gasped. "Saying 'I'm sorry'..."
Nancy brushed a black ringlet curl off of his face, brushing a finger against his cheek gently.
"I know," she whispered. "He is sorry. But he is also alive. And so are you. And I am going to see to it that it stays that way."
She pulled Connor back to her and hugged him, rocking him just enough to soothe.
"None of you are alone," she said. "You have each other and so many others who love you. Do you hear me, Connor Braydee? You are surrounded with love."
Nathan moved closer, resting a hand gently on Connor's back. Ricky slid in beside him, shoulder barely touching. Erik leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head bowed. They formed a circle around him without a word. Gradually his sobs softened. Not gone. But settling from violent waves into smaller aftershocks.
Nancy held him until his body was too exhausted to cry anymore. Only then did she ease back, keeping her hands on his shoulders. She tipped Connor's chin up to look at her. His deep green eyes were still pained, but there was now more of an alertness that had been missing before.
"There you are," she said softly.
His eyes were exhausted, lashes wet, cheeks streaked, but he was present again. Not lost.
"You with me?" she asked.
Connor nodded slowly.
"Yeah," he said, throat raw.
"You with them?" She nodded toward Jace, toward the others.
He looked around slowly. At Ricky. At Erik. At Nathan. At Sidney. Finally, at Jace.
"Yes," he whispered. "I'm here."
"Good," Nancy said. "That's all I'm asking for right now."
She rose slowly, steadying herself.
"Alright, boys," she said, voice strengthening back into commanding warmth. "For what's left of this flight, you breathe. That's your only job. Let me and my crew handle the rest."
She checked on Jace again, smoothing a hand gently across his hair.
"You too, my Guardian," she whispered. "Enough suffering for one night."
She placed a small kiss on his battered temple and double checked the I.V. line and dosages.
In the cabin, the engines hummed. The monitors beeped. The new Brotherhood of Aelin sat bruised, broken, and bleeding, but breathing. Together. And somewhere deep inside the fragile quiet, healing finally began.
The medevac jet dropped through the clouds and into the hazy glow of Los Angeles. Airport lights glittered across the runways like scattered stars, washed in amber and white.
Inside the cabin, tension wound tight as wire. Nancy braced one hand against the wall as the wheels hit the runway with a jolt. The sudden shift sent a tremor through Jace's fragile frame, his monitors flickering in protest.
"Easy... easy..." she murmured, steadying his IV lines. "Stay with me, my Guardian. We're almost there."
Connor flinched at the spike in Jace's vitals and reached instinctively. Nathan caught his wrist gently.
"It's okay," Nathan said. "He's stable. He's okay."
Connor nodded. His breath quickened anyway.
The jet slowed and rolled to a stop near a private terminal where floodlights illuminated a waiting ambulance and a small team of paramedics in navy jackets. Sidney eased upright, adjusting his sling. His expression pulled back toward something close to command.
"Everyone ready?" he asked.
Erik pushed himself up with a grunt, one hand pressed to the bandage above his eye.
"As ready as we're getting."
Ricky forced a crooked smile.
"We're walking into LAX. I should probably try not to puke."
"Just keep breathing," Nathan said. "One step at a time."
The hatch opened. Warm California air, thick with jet fuel and ocean salt, rushed inside. The paramedics approached immediately, rolling a fresh trauma stretcher. The lead paramedic stepped forward.
"Dr. Oksana?"
"Yes," Nancy replied, already in full command mode. "He coded multiple times before Calgary. Severe trauma. Ongoing instability. I need continuous monitoring during transfer."
"You'll ride with us," the paramedic said. "We've cleared the fastest route to Cedars-Sinai. CHP is escorting."
"Good," Nancy said. "Let's move."
The hydraulic lift descended with Jace strapped tight to the stretcher. Connor stood frozen in the doorway of the jet. The moment Jace left the cabin the psychic echo inside him shifted, stretched, as if someone had pulled a thread tied to his ribs. He staggered. Ricky caught him from the side.
"Hey. Hey, I've got you. Easy."
Connor pressed a shaking hand to his face.
"I can feel him... farther... it's... it's pulling..."
Nancy turned instantly and stepped back up the ramp.
"Connor." She held his gaze. "You are not losing him. Distance can change your perception. That's all. You're still connected. He's still here."
"I don't know how to turn it down," he whispered. "Everything's too loud."
She placed a hand over the chain of his amulet.
"Then you stay with us. With me. With the boys. We'll help you regulate it."
Nathan came to his other side.
"You're not doing any of this alone. Not now. Not ever."
Connor swallowed hard and nodded, just enough to move his feet. They descended together. The noise of the airport pressed at Connor's senses like a physical weight. But the others flanked him tightly, a human shield against the world.
"BP's dipping," one of the paramedics called.
"I see it," Nancy said. "Push warm saline. Keep him level."
Sidney approached her.
"You riding with him?"
"Yes," she said. "Continuous supervision."
"Then we'll follow in the second vehicle."
He winced at his shoulder as he stepped back.
Erik leaned one hand against the side of the ambulance.
"Doc... he's going to make it, right?"
Nancy's expression softened.
"If I have anything to say about it, he will," she said. "And I'll have a lot more to say in the operating room tonight."
Erik nodded, wiping quickly at his eyes. Ricky stood behind him, silent. Nathan kept his arm around Connor, who was staring at Jace like he couldn't bear to blink.
"We need to go," the lead paramedic said.
Nancy looked at the band one last time.
"Follow us. No stops."
Connor took one step toward the ambulance, then froze when Jace was loaded inside. His breath caught, eyes wide.
"Sidney..." Ricky whispered urgently. "He's spiraling again."
Sidney moved quickly and placed a firm, grounding hand at the back of Connor's neck.
"Connor. Hear my voice." Sidney's grip tightened at the back of his neck. "That bond doesn't break at thirty feet. He's in that ambulance and you're going to be right behind him. Eyes forward. Move."
The tremor eased. Just enough. Connor exhaled shakily.
Nancy climbed into the ambulance. The doors shut. Lights flared red and gold across the tarmac as it pulled forward, sirens wailing into the humid Los Angeles night.
The sound stretched something inside Connor, pulled it taut, but Nathan tightened his grip.
"We're right behind him," Nathan said. "Come on."
The band climbed into the follow vehicle. Sidney slid into the front seat. Behind them the runway lights blurred into streaks of white and gold. Ahead of them, Jace was racing toward another chance at life.
And Connor, bruised, shaken, and psychically raw, clung to the bond between them with every shred of strength he had left.