The rain didn’t stop for hours.
Orla sat on the cold floor of the keep, cradling Stanley’s limp body against her chest as Sasha stitched the worst of the wounds. Jakob crouched nearby, arms wrapped around his knees, eyes hollow.
“He’ll live,” Sasha said, voice tight with urgency. “But only if we stop the bleeding.”
Stanley’s face was pale. Blood had soaked through three layers of bandage. He’d stopped speaking sometime after they pulled him back from the edge, but his breathing—shallow and ragged—remained.
Orla wiped the blood from his brow with trembling fingers. “He gave everything.”
Sasha lit a cigarette, her hands still covered in red. “So did you.”
Outside, Roth’s men had retreated—those who survived. His body lay broken in the dirt, unmoving, and no one had dared retrieve it.
