She'd been too late.
Tara took a deep breath and dropped her head against her up-drawn legs. Her jeans were torn and bloodied, and both her knees throbbed, though the pain was something distant and irrelevant compared to the ache in her heart that seemed to have felt the same bullet that had punched through his chest.
She had fought her way through a city-wide battlefield to the top of the half-finished Ravenshill skyscraper to stand at his side, and had arrived only to see him die. Her tears spattered on the concrete floor of the stairwell landing where she sat. She wished she'd told him that the grudge between their houses didn't matter. She cared for him—no, loved him. If she had at least said it, maybe it would have been easier let him go.
Maybe he had known. She remembered his face as he had met her eyes one last time: a moment of acknowledgement and longing. And then he had so deliberately stepped in front of his uncle, offering his body as a shield. She had seen him thrown back by the bullet's impact, but had not stayed to see him fall.
Hot vengeance burning her mind, she had whirled on his shooter without considering the danger to herself. Her own clip was empty, so she had cast aside the gun and drawn her knife as she tackled the mercenary thug, sending them both tumbling down the bare stairwell. He had fired at her, the shot grazing her shoulder, but in the end she had pinned him when they reached the landing below, and her blade had found its place between two of his ribs. Rolling off him, she had lain gasping on the landing beside him, unable to move for the pain of her fall.
Some time later, she had heard swift, light footsteps on the stair. She had tried to stir, but had only been able to raise herself to one elbow when the steps paused, and she saw her own comrade Leo above her. He had hauled her to her feet, retrieved her knife, and tipped the dead body out the unglazed window. Tara had been unable to answer his queries in any articulate way, and he had left her on the landing to charge up the stairs. Alone with her shock and grief, she had dropped her still-bloody blade and sunk to the ground.
By now, the sounds of the fighting above had ended, but the outcome of the battle seemed unimportant. She had already lost what mattered most.
Tara heard footsteps descending the stairs. Leo, she supposed, though his tread seemed heavier than usual. Had he been injured? She didn't want to lift her face from her knees; didn't want to let him see her tears.
He stood before her now. "Tara?"
She laughed at herself for imagining his as the voice she most wanted to hear, and the sound came out as a sob.
"Are you hurt?" he asked again, his voice nearer now. He placed a hand on her hair.
She looked up, into the face she'd never expected to see alive again.
"Kyle?" She stared, dumbfounded.
He gazed at her with tender concern; his eyes softened as he saw recognition in her own.
"Kyle, he shot you..." she continued mechanically.
"Oh, right," he said, almost embarrassed. "Uncle made me wear his kevlar. I guess he knew I'd do something stupid."
Tara looked down at his chest to the hole torn in his leather jacket. There was no blood.
"Is he...?" she asked cautiously.
"He'll live," Kyle said, matter-of-fact.
"And your brother, Phil?"
"A broken arm, I think," he told her. "They're taking him to the medic."
"You should be with him!" Tara protested, though she caught his sleeve.
Kyle nodded. "He told me to find you. Said you'd dived down a whole flight of stairs because of me, and it would be my fault if you had all the broken bones, not just one."
She smiled with a shrug, then groaned. "I don't think I'll be moving much if I can help it, but I think I'm intact. Ow," she added as he touched her shoulder.
"Sorry!" he cried, drawing his hand back. "You're bleeding," he added seriously, showing her his palm.
"Oh," she responded, unconcerned.
"Uh, your jacket," he gestured awkwardly at the zipper at her throat. "Would you...?" He mimed for her to open it.
"Right." She did so, amused that he was too polite to presume to unfasten her clothes. Kyle helped her ease the sleeve off her injured shoulder. "It's not deep," he noted, clearly relieved.
"It must be from when he shot at me," Tara mused.
"What?! You're a fool!" Kyle stared at her, eyes wide. "A beautiful, crazy fool," he finished tenderly.
"And that, coming from you," she noted.
He grinned sheepishly. "I'm not completely unprepared this time," he said, producing an injury kit from his jacket pocket and flourishing it. "But I'm afraid your sleeve might have to go."
"Sure." Tara nodded. She watched as he cut off her sleeve and disinfected the gash on her arm.
"I'm sorry I made you think I..." Kyle sounded frustrated with himself. He finished applying the bandage and added, "Are you okay?" He looked up at her, his face very near her own.
"Yes," she assured him. "I am now." She filled her heart with the sight of him. He had a scrape along one dirty cheek, and his hair was mussed and sweaty, but he had never seemed more beautiful. She tentatively brushed damp curls back from his eyes, and he caught her hand and held it against his cheek.
"Kyle, you were right, I—" Her heart was too full to find words. To fill the silence, she leaned closer and kissed him.
He pulled her against him and simply held her. She could feel the stiff kevlar vest under his jacket, though the leather was soft against her face.
"What I mean is, I love you," Tara said, winding her fingers into the hair at the base of his neck. "I don't ever want to waste another chance to tell you."
"I won't let you," he teased, and kissed her again.
As Kyle let her go, he caught at the chain she wore, drawing it free from her neckline. The St. Christopher's medal he had given her hung beside the the jeweled flower that she always wore.
"Your mother will be upset to think you've lost it," Tara said. "You should take it back."
"But I haven't lost it." He let it slip back inside her shirt. "You can always give it to me later if I need it."
"Of course." Tara sighed, surveying the stairs that lead down, flight after flight, from where they sat. "Well, I suppose we should find the others, before all my sore muscles freeze up, and you have to carry me down twenty stories."
"I would, you know," he told her as he stood and then extended a hand to her. "Oof, I think I'll be able to rival you for bruises. I feel like I've been kicked in the chest. By a dragon."
"Dragon?" Tara quirked a brow at him.
Kyle shrugged. "Today's been kind of hellish. It seemed appropriate. Look!" He caught her good shoulder and pointed out the window. The sun was down now, and with the city's power still out, the stars shown bright and near above them.
"E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle," Kyle breathed.
Tara nudged him. "You and your fancy foreign tongues. What does that one mean?"
"It's Dante, the last line of the Inferno." he explained. "'Then we came out to see again the stars.'"
She nodded. "It's all up from here. Or, in our case, down," she finished with a laugh.
"Right." Kyle looped an arm round her so she could lean on him, and they began the descent together.