ONE SIXTY EIGHT

I stayed there, stuck against the door like part of the damn furniture, watching with a sick feeling in my gut as Dominic finally took a step back from the bed. It wasn’t a casual movement. It was calculated, deliberate, the way a wild animal moves when it's choosing not to strike, but still baring its teeth.

Gael sat frozen on his knees, his bloody hands resting limply on his thighs staining his jeans, leaving red soaked imprints. He didn’t even lift his head. He looked like a man waiting for the axe to fall,  like he knew better than to ask for mercy, because there was none here to give.

Dominic shifted the gun, the barrel now aimed squarely at Gael’s head, and the air in the room thickened to a suffocating level. My mouth felt dry, my heart hammering so loud against my ribs that it hurt. I wanted to say something — anything — to pull us all back from the brink, but my voice was trapped somewhere deep inside my chest.

"Get up," Dominic ordered, voice like gravel scraping over steel. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t have to be.

Gael staggered upright, moving slow and shaky like he was worried even breathing too fast would get him shot. His hands hovered uselessly in the air for a second, then dropped to his sides, palms open to show he wasn’t a threat.

"Over there," Dominic barked, jutting the gun toward the empty corner of the room.

Gael shuffled backward, his steps clumsy, his eyes never leaving the weapon aimed at his skull. He backed into the wall and stayed there, pressed so flat against the wall he looked like he was trying to disappear into it.

Dominic followed him with slow, deliberate steps. The room seemed to shrink around them, the walls bending inward with the weight of the violence crackling in the air.

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, hugging myself tighter. My fingertips were cold. My body felt too small for my skin.

Tina whimpered from the bed, a broken sound that punched straight through the chaos. I flinched and turned toward her, biting down hard on the urge to run to her side.

Her face was a mess of pain, twisted, pale, shining with feverish sweat. She tossed her head weakly against the pillow, her hands scrabbling at the sheets as if trying to claw her way out of the agony tearing her apart from the inside.

My heart cracked open at the sight.  She needs help. Real help. Like Gael had suggested and if we couldn’t get one soon enough, she was going to die. 

And here we were, wasting precious minutes pointing guns at each other while she slipped further into the grip of whatever infection or fever was sinking its claws into her.

Dominic’s gaze flickered briefly toward Tina, and for the first time in what felt like forever, a sliver of something human flashed across his face. He hadn’t known her for so long but with how caring she had been towards us and how she had almost lost her life trying to save us, it was only human we reciprocated the kindness, Dominic included. He lowered the gun a fraction. Not much. Just enough to buy Gael a breath.

"You so much as blink wrong," Dominic said, voice low and lethal, "and I'll put you down. You understand me?"

Gael nodded so fast it was almost a bow. "I understand," he rasped, his throat working hard. "I’m not trying anything, man. I swear."

Dominic stared at him for another long, punishing second, then finally, finally, holstered the gun back at his hip. But the tension in his body didn’t ease. If anything, it tightened even further, like he was a coil ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

For a moment, nobody moved.

The room was a frozen tableau:

Tina shivering and whimpering on the bed. 

Gael pressed against the wall like a condemned man.

Dominic standing rigid in the center of it all, a soldier holding a collapsing line.

And me. Silent. Breathless. Terrified.

Dominic finally broke the stillness. He turned toward me, his eyes locking onto mine, and for a second, something inside me lurched.

He looked so tired. Not physically, no, Dominic was a machine when it came to pushing past his own limits, but mentally.

There were shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there before. A blankness in his expression, like a man slowly realizing he couldn't protect everyone he loved, no matter how hard he tried.

"Eleanor," he said, his voice rough and cracking around the edges.  "Watch him."

I nodded immediately, too fast, too eager, desperate to do something, to be useful, to prove that I could carry even a sliver of this unbearable weight.

Dominic moved back to Tina’s side, crouching down, his hand brushing her sweat-soaked hair back from her forehead. His movements were so gentle it made my throat ache.

"Hey," he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "You’re okay, yeah?"

Tina let out a weak, broken sob, turning her head toward the sound of his voice.

Dominic’s fingers brushed her cheek in a featherlight touch, and I saw him clench his jaw against whatever he was feeling. Against the helplessness that was so unlike him it scared me more than the gun had.

"We need to get her out of here," I said, my voice sounding foreign and small to my own ears. "She needs a hospital, Dominic."

He didn't look away from Tina.
"I know."
His voice was wrecked.

For a moment, the weight of that single admission crushed the air from the room.

Dominic knew, he knew we were running out of time, that we couldn’t keep patching her up with rags and prayer and expect her to survive.

But taking her to a hospital meant exposure. Risk. Questions.
It meant trusting people outside this small, crumbling world we had barely managed to hold together.

It meant gambling with her life in a whole new way.

Gael shifted against the wall, and I snapped my gaze to him.
He lifted his hands slightly, palms open, in a gesture of surrender.

"I know a guy," he said quickly, his words tripping over each other. "Private clinic. Discreet. No questions asked."

Dominic’s head snapped up. His eyes pinned Gael like a knife through the throat.

"You’re real generous all of a sudden," he said, the edge of suspicion razor sharp in every syllable.

Gael swallowed visibly, a tremor running through him. "I’m not, I’m not playing you, man. I swear. I just… I don't wanna see her die."

For a heartbeat, the room hung suspended in the balance of that desperate plea.

Dominic stood slowly, towering over all of us, the muscles in his arms flexing, hands fisting tightly at his sides like he was physically holding himself back from doing something violent. His shadow stretched across the floor, swallowing Gael completely in it, and for a moment, no one in the room even breathed.

"If you're lying to me," Dominic said, his voice low — dangerously low, deathly soft in a way that made the air itself seem to freeze, "you'll wish I had killed you here."

Gael flinched like he’d been struck. His whole body trembled like he had spent a whole night out in the storm. He nodded rapidly, his mouth working for a second before words finally stammered out.

"I’m not lying," he whispered, voice cracking like a boy facing down a wolf. "I’ll take you there myself."

The words hung between them, heavy and fragile. Dominic said nothing at first, as if trying to analyze what Gael had said and if he could be trusted after the stunt he had pulled in the morning.  I could hear the clock ticking loudly from somewhere in the house, each second pounding into the silence like a heartbeat counting down.

Dominic stared at him. 

Hard. Unblinking.

And I knew — I knew — that if Dominic even smelled a hint of a lie, he would put a bullet through Gael’s skull without hesitation. The only thing stopping him was Tina. The only thing keeping Gael alive was that sliver of desperate hope that somewhere, somehow, Gael really could get us to help her.

Dominic’s jaw worked, muscles twitching, and for a long, unbearable moment, he didn’t speak.  He just stared at Gael, weighing him. Measuring the worth of his words.

I shifted where I stood, my arms tight around myself, the tension digging so deep into my chest that I felt like I couldn’t expand my lungs fully anymore.  The house creaked again — soft, almost apologetic — and the old pipes let out a groan somewhere deep in the walls.

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime stretched thin, Dominic spoke.  His voice was rough, scraping out of him like it hurt to say.

"Can she make it... till midnight?"

There was a beat where Gael just blinked at him, like the question hadn’t fully registered through his fog of terror. His mouth opened.  Closed. Then opened again, words tumbling out in a stutter.

"I — I — if — if I keep the wound clean enough — " He licked his dry lips nervously, glancing up at Dominic through bloodshot eyes. " — and, and if she doesn't move too much, I can... I can keep her safe. Long enough. Till night."

Another long silence followed. I could feel my heart pounding against my ribs so hard it was almost painful.

Dominic gave a single, sharp nod. Like a decision had finally slammed into place in his mind. He straightened fully, his presence somehow even more massive, more commanding, and he turned slightly, his cold green eyes finding mine instantly.

"You and I need to make a plan," he said, voice low but firm.
"Watch the news. See where in the city the cops have barricaded. We need to know where they’re watching... and where they’re stretched too thin."

I nodded before I even realized I was moving. My legs felt weak, but I forced myself forward, closer to him, drawn by the sheer gravitational pull of his determination.

And then, so swiftly it made Gael jump, Dominic pivoted back toward him.

"As for you," Dominic said, his voice colder than the grave, "I can’t have you causing more trouble."

He stepped closer, "So," Dominic continued, staring down at Gael with all the warmth of a blade poised to strike, "I need to keep you tied and locked away till night comes.” 

Gael swallowed visibly. He didn’t argue. Didn’t plead. Just dipped his head again, like a man accepting a punishment he knew he deserved.

I exhaled shakily, realizing only then how tight my chest had gotten. The house felt colder, somehow — like the decision itself had stripped away even the last lingering traces of normalcy. There was no going back now. Not after this.

Dominic jerked his head toward the hallway, silently signaling me to move. His eyes then dropping to Gael for a brief second, “Start walking.”