I drag and carry Cel, yell at her when she stumbles and tells me to go on and somehow we get underground. If I didn't have to drag her around, I could be much farther away right now. Maybe even out of the city. Part of me wants to leave her behind. She asks me to, demands that I let her go. She doesn't beg, and maybe that's why I keep dragging her with me. But when I tell myself that I know I'm lying. I'll keep her with me until she's dead or we're caught.
I don't understand her. She's a murderer, a killer who works with the corrupt people in charge of this city. She betrayed everything I ever cared about and ran all over my heart while she was at it. But she saved my life today, and the cost is her knee. I don't have the words to truly say just what that means.
It's a mess, too. There's blood and bone shards everywhere and I've used up most of my shirt in an attempt to keep her from bleeding to death. Just jostling it is enough to make Cel cry out in pain, which makes my stomach wrench uncomfortably. So I stretch it out, and rewrap it with some discarded piping as a splint to keep it still.
"Faith, just leave me here." She sounds so tired, like the fight has gone out of her.
"No." She has to understand what she's lost. She'll never be able to run again and it's my fault. I look into Cel's eyes, for the first time since she'd been shot. They're dull and glassy, like she's given up. She knows. That's why she wants me to leave her. Well fuck her. "Why did you help me?"
Cel averts her eyes, and pushes herself into a sitting position. I wipe my hands in my pants and sit next to her. "Cel. Help me understand. What could possibly be more important to you than your life? Than running?"
She laughs. She fucking laughs, and tilts her head back. "You're so stupid sometimes. You ever think I'd be the one to catch you? Always thought it would be the other way around. Kept stumbling around you. Then I let you go when you couldn't take it."
"What makes you think I wouldn't let go after what you did?" My hands are warm and still slick with her blood. I can't get them completely wiped clean, so I just bunch them up in my lap when Cel puts her arm around me.
"Call it a gut feeling." I almost miss it, her voice is so quiet. I stare at her leg, at the implications swimming in the back of my mind. Cel leans her head on my shoulder. "Just let me go, Faith. I don't have anything left now. Even if I don't bleed out I'll be in a brace for the rest of my life. I'll hate you for it."
"What else will is new?" I try to make it sound like a joke, to lighten the mood, but it falls flat and full of bitterness. "At least you'll be alive."
"Alive and half a person." She shifts around, whimpering. I don't call her on it, I let her have her dignity. Something cold is pressed into my hands and I look down at a pistol, then at Cel's face. She presses her forefinger against her forehead. "One shot. Make it clean. Please."
"No!" I push the gun aside, and out of Cel's reach. The last time I'd heard her say please had been when she'd begged me to run before the cops showed up. I'm starting to hate that word. "I'm sorry you got shot! I'm sorry you lost… that you lost everything you lived for! But you can't save my life and then bail on me!"
"Tenacious bitch. Always loved that about you. Hated that too. But loved it." Her hand creeps into my hair and she pressed cold lips against my forehead. "I had a choice, you know. I made the wrong one. I should have-"
"Cel, shut up."
"Make me."
I don't fall for it, and instead drag myself to my feet and take in our surroundings. There's a broken down door and some old bungie cords. I can probably make a sled.
"Faith." I look back at her, the pain in her voice tying my heart in knots. I know what she's going to say next. I don't want to hear it, I can't hear it right now.
"Shut up. We're not doing this! You're not allowed a deathbed confession! You're not dying. And you're going to run again."
"God, you're so stupid. I'm not making it. We both know it. Let me have this! I know I don't deserve it, god knows I don't but let me have his."
I have to kneel down and hold Cel still at the shoulders before she can try to get up. "You're just going to have to hate me." Her eyes have her spark again. They're watery and hard as she looks at me. Let her hate me, it's not like we'd worked out the first time. But if she's hating me, it means she's alive, and I can live with that. We can be in hate with each other.
I'm so tired tired and sick to my stomach and a gamut of emotions are drowning me. Three times, Cel ambushed me, back when we were still friends. Three times she made it impossible for me to escape, three times I begged and pleaded for it. And one time I told her I loved her.
This time I'm the one forcing my lips onto hers. This time it's her sharp intake of breath against my mouth. It's all I can take from her right now, and I don't let her say it. She doesn't have to.
"If you want more than that," I whisper to her. "You just need to hold together until we get to safety."
"Never knew you were into bribery, Connors." Her voice is frighteningly faint.
The words snap out of my mouth before I can stop them. "I'll let you have whatever you want if you shut up and let me save you."
Her eyes spark again, and that cocky grin I love to hate returns. "You're going to regret that."
"You know what?" I push over the broken door and start to drag it over. Who knows what she wants if it keeps her going. "Maybe I won't."