Chapter 175: Idiocy or Bravery
Her hand twitched, searching the floor until it found Snippy’s battered coils. She brushed her fingertips against the Ikona’s trembling body—barely a whisper of a touch.
"Sorry, buddy," she breathed, so soft that even Elias, standing only feet away, barely caught it.
Her fingers slackened.
The light in her eye dimmed.
The shard pulsed harder against Elias’s chest—[2 minutes 30 seconds remaining]—its glow bleeding through the damp, torn fabric of his sleepwear. The green vapor coiled closer, seeping outward from the canister embedded in Vira’s ribs, each wisp a lethal hand reaching for her.
Elias didn’t think. He moved.
He threw himself forward, boots slipping on the blood-slick floor. The gas brushed the edge of his vision, oily and translucent under the flickering hub lights. His shoulder slammed into Vira’s side, and together they hit the ground hard, sliding across the ruined floor. Blood smeared their path in a jagged line, the cold bite of it soaking through Elias’s clothes as he twisted, forcing himself over her body to shield her from the cloud.
Vira’s weight under him was wrong—too limp, too light. Her breath rattled in her chest, barely more than a scratch of sound against his ear.
For a moment, she didn’t move.
Then her good eye cracked open, dazed and bloodshot, finding his face. Confusion flickered there—raw, almost childlike—as her split lips parted, trying to form words.
Behind you.