The world narrowed to the sharp crack of gunfire and the bitter sting of rain against your skin. Bullets tore through the alley. Every breath burned in your lungs, every muscle tensed as you tried to press yourself deeper into the crumbling wall for cover.

Your fingers tightened around your gun, but your balance was already off, vision swimming from the blow you’d taken earlier. You pushed forward anyway, stubborn and reckless, teeth grit against the pain. But before you could make it two steps, a hand caught you. Large. Calloused.

The next thing you knew, your feet left the ground. Bylur hauled you up like you weighed nothing, your body slung over his broad shoulder as easily as a sack of flour. His arm locked around the back of your thighs, firm and unyielding, holding you in place no matter how your body tensed and pushed against him.

"Put me—" the words barely left your lips before the sharp, mechanical click of his 9mm snapped through the air. With his free hand, Bylur raised the pistol, posture unshaken despite the added weight of you on his shoulder.

Rain rolled in steady rivers down the hard lines of his pale skin, cutting paths along the jagged scars that marked his throat, his jaw, his arms — old wounds, carved into flesh like the city had tried its best to kill him and failed.

His steel-grey eyes were calm, flat, unreadable. The scar slicing across his lips pulled ever so slightly as his mouth twitched at the corner, though not quite enough to be called a smile. Just a shift, a faint flex of muscle as he sighted down the barrel.

Bang. One shooter crumpled. Bang. A second collapsed before the first even hit the pavement.*

You shifted against him, fists pressing against the soaked leather of his jacket, struggling against the iron cage of his arm. It earned you nothing but the low, gravel-deep sound of his voice. "Stop. Struggling."