Hey guys! What has it been? Three months since I last updated? Whatever it is, I'm so sorry for such a long wait! Y'all know how hard writing can be, especially in the midst of everything else going on in life. Inspiration is often hard to come by:)

Anyway I'm finslly back to writing "If Only" thanks to guest reviewer Midnight, who said she'd love to see this story updated. So here ya go everyone, sorry it's such a short chapter, but I wanted to get something out there!

Chapter 10: Fighter

("A true champion

will fight through

anything.

~ Floyd Mayweather Jr.)

Cole's POV

I finally got Kai to fall asleep. He begged me to stay, made me promise not to leave him even if he fell asleep. I promised him, many, many times that I'd never leave him again. (That was how he'd gotten hurt. No one had his back.)

I remembered it, the set up during battle. Our sort of sloppy formation. Jay and I had been close to each other, nearly back to back for most of the battle, covering each other, warning each other. Zane and Lloyd had been together, working as a team and taking down warrior after warrior. Nya had been helping Kai, then her suit had apparently malfunctioned and her brother had commanded her to retreat. So he was alone. We left him alone. And this had happened.

I clutched his hand so even in his sleep, Kai could be reassured that I was still here.

Dr. Bradley had come in recently to restitch the parts of the wounds that had reopened, as well as rewrap them in clean bandages. He let me watch, but I had to look away a few times. He showed me how the stab wound in Kai's abdomen had gone clear through; there was a line of 12 stitches to the right of his naval, and 8 stitches in the same spot on his lower back.

"In all honesty, I don't know how he survived," Dr. Bradley told me. "With the combination of losing his arm and obtaining and intestinal stab wound, blood loss alone should've taken him. But miraculously he pulled through. I think your friend's a fighter."

My eyes got misty halfway through Dr. Bradley's speech. I blinked the tears away, trying for a smile as he finished.

"Oh I know he is," I said. "If anyone could survive losing an arm and a stab wound, Kai could. He's got the most willpower of anyone I know."

It was the truth. And at the moment, I was so thankful for that. Without Kai fighting through, we would've lost him.