Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue. Pretty please?

Chapter One

The jump was sloppy and the jumpscar was still hanging in the air, when Griffin returned to my apartment, not the mention a good deal of the dirt he was standing on. I felt irritation at the dirt he'd left all over my nice new rug, followed by a good deal of relief at the knowledge that Griffin was still alive (with jumpers, you never really know). He gave me a tired sort of half-smile, then collapsed. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. I was at his side in an instant, and turned him over, since he'd fallen face first. That was when I found the blood. It had already soaked through his shirt and was in the process of irreversibly staining my new rug. I put my hands on his chest, trying vainly to stem the bleeding, before I realized it was hopeless. I pulled them away, covered in his blood. I grabbed a blanket off one of the nearby sofas and pressed it to the wound, distantly noting its depth and severity. I'd worked as an EMT in a hospital in New York before my… ability manifested itself and I'd had to move around a lot, living like a jumper, only without the ability to move with ease. At first, Griffin had tried to help me when he could, but as I grew more proficient with my skills, we'd drifted apart. I guess, no, I knew, that he didn't need me, and, I, well, I was definitely surviving on my own. Luckily, my talent isn't as common as a jumper's, or I'd probably have Paladin-types after me. My talent was a lot easier to keep secret as well. I looked at Griffin's unconscious face, and could see a level of pain and panic there I'd never seen before. I knew that he had known how bad his wound was before he'd passed out. I probed his mind a little deeper for details of what'd happened. I remembered how difficult Griffin could be, even in his subconscious, so I closed my eyes to concentrate better and immersed myself in the memory.

"Holy shit!" Griffin thought as he dodged another swipe of Roland's knife, trying desperately not to get hacked in half. He didn't remember what he'd said to Roland, but it'd really pissed him off. It seemed that his nasty habit of saying whatever was most likely to get him sawed in half by a large, angry Paladin had returned. He smirked at Roland, then jumped behind him, landing a couple of good blows on him with his bare fists (his usual baseball bat having been ripped out of his hands a few minutes previously), but Roland was fast, really fast for an old dude, and he'd already spun around, and grabbed him by the arm, twisting it around behind his back and pushing it up, hard. SHIT! He heard something snap, and a blinding bolt of pain shot up his arm from the elbow. Roland, however, wasn't done with him, not by a long shot. He punched Griffin in the face, so Griffin kicked him in the stomach and they both fell back, panting. Griffn's nose was bleeding, and he could feel one of his eyes swelling shut. Not to mention that he only had one good arm, seeing as Roland had surely broken the other one. HE tried to move it a little and almost screamed. Shit. He'd have to finish this while he could still could. Roland was getting up, settling into a painful-looking crouch, panting like a dog. Ha. Griffin hoped He'd broken at least three of his ribs. Looking at the rage in his face, he changed his mind. He hoped He'd broken all of them, otherwise he'd be in for quite a fight. He took a deep breath and prepared to jump again. That was when he made that first big mistake. He'd already pulled that trick of jumping directly behind his adversary once, and Roland was ready for it. The second was thinking that even injured and very winded was thinking that Roland would be an easy target. As I his jump put him right behind his enemy, Roland spun around, swinging his knife high, and the force of his jump, and the cruel, cruel force of gravity carried him down right on top of it. The blade sank into his stomach and curved up, carving a deep arching gash from the left side of his stomach to his right collarbone. Even before he'd had a chance to fully react, before the pain had really hit, he was jumping again, backwards, toward the one person he had left in this world, who cared, and would do anything to protect him and would take care of him when he couldn't take care of himself. And, despite his most optimistic thoughts, he knew that he needed help.

Even before he'd actually landed from the jump, he could feel the blood rushing out of him, leaving his body. He could feel death, actually waiting to take him. There was a lot of blood. It was everywhere, dripping down his clothes, already pooling on the floor. He landed from his jump, hard, and his knees buckled. All the adrenaline that'd kept him going for the last few hours left him in a rush, and he hit the floor. Pain washed over him in waves, each one leaving him gasping for air, breathless in the agony. Darkness was closing in fast, but just before it did, he felt cool hands under his head, lifting it off of the floor. As his bleeding, dying body was shifted from its position, the world exploded into brilliant red agony, followed by blackness.

I couldn't get anything else out of him. The pain and loss of blood made the memories fuzzy and hard to decipher. I frowned as I realized that he'd passed out almost immediately after jumping to my place. Unconsciousness that soon after the injury was a very bad sign. I grabbed him around the waist and heaved him onto a nearby couch. Already his breathing was harsh and uneven. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Shit. Internal bleeding. If I was going to save him, I'd have to do something, and fast.