Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sin City belong to their respective creators, Joss Whedon and Frank Miller.
She's bleeding from the mouth, the nose, and an ear. The left eye is black and swollen shut. Her hair clings to her face, wet through with blood, and the choppy way her breath hitches in and out tells me at least a few of her ribs are cracked, if they aren't broken.
I stay quiet. I stay still. I'd stop breathing if I could.
She fixes her good eye on me, greener than life. I can't tell if she wants to cry or scream.
She's wearing that coat, that slick black coat. I can't see if she's hurt anywhere else—can't see if there's anywhere she isn't hurt. When I hold out my hands, she limps to me, each stiff, shaking step full of agony and glass-eyed shock, and when her knees buckle, when her legs go out from under her, when I catch her, the first time I hear her voice is when she gasps through her bloody teeth.
She smells like angels ought to smell.
I'm going to kill somebody for this.