Kim laughed as Coby struggled to pull his shoes on, his fingers slipping as he fumbled in his excitement. She stopped him, moving his hands carefully so she could help him.

“Geez, you remind me of my eight-year-old getting ready to go to the amusement park,” she chuckled. “Relax, you still have time, kiddo.”

“Sorry, I’m just really excited,” Coby said, letting his nurse get his shoe on all the way, even going so far as to tie it for him. Aubrey came in just then with his paperwork and a bag of bandages and medications for him to take home.

“Hey, sweetie, looks like you’re in a hurry to get out of here,” she said with a fake pout. “Were we really so terrible to be around?”

He laughed. “You were wonderful,” he said. He ran his hand over his bandaged abdomen and around his side. “I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me.”

“We only did what we had to,” Aubrey said, chucking him gently under the chin with one gloved finger. Even after several days of trying, Coby still couldn’t get his shadow scales to cover his body. The staff knew this and continued to wear gloves while dealing with him. “Okay, here’s the paperwork I mentioned, plus all the things you’ll need to—”

The door slammed open, bouncing off the wall, scaring the nurses so badly they shrieked. Coby didn’t have time to react. A large hand grabbed him by the throat and threw him across the room, bouncing him off the wall with a yelp of pain. He crumpled to the floor, his arm around his middle.

He looked up in time to see a large man approaching him, fury in his bright blue eyes. He knew this man. Knew him all too well.

Sy-Ohna.

Oh, shit…

He scrambled to his feet, barely missing the punch aimed at his head. 

“Co-Bieasah, you damned villain, I will kill you!” Sy-Ohna screamed, lunging for him. 

Coby slipped out from his grasp, bolting across the room just as a blast of energy came his way, shattering the countertop. Coby reeled back, stumbling against the medical tray and into the wall behind his bed.

He shook his head, trying to clear the ringing out from his ears. When his vision cleared, Sy-Ohna was on him, his hand glowing with violent energy. 

“Sy-Ohna, wait!” Coby screamed, ducking just as the blast was released, punching a giant hole into the wall where his head had been. 

<You killed them! You killed them all!>

Coby shook his head. <I didn’t! Da-Hana…Da-Hana and his men—>

“Eshay!”

“I’m not lying! Da-Hana, h-he betrayed us! Sold us to humans for money!”

“He would not do such a vile thing,” Sy-Ohna snarled. A stream of water rose from the cup on the table near Coby’s bed, growing as it reached Sy-Ohna’s hand. He wrenched his wrist, the whip slicing through the air and into the wall, chasing Coby to the destroyed counter and the cabinets above.

The nurses screamed in fright, begging Coby for help, to run, to get away. 

He glanced at them, huddled together on the floor, blood trailing down the side of Aubrey’s head from where a chunk of the counter had hit her. He had to do something, anything, to make Sy-Ohna stop before someone got seriously hurt. He reached into himself, trying to draw on the small amount of energy he possessed, finding it too weak to utilize. He released it with a loud exhale, gasping from the effort.

Dammit… 

He gritted his teeth, withholding a sharp inhale as he felt the Flame’s energy just above him. He could draw on that…he could use the Flame to protect the women…he just—

The whip cracked near his head and he grimaced as he felt the sharp needles of water slice his cheek. He moved as fast as he could toward the door on the other end of the room where the chair sat, grabbing it up and tossing it at Sy-Ohna who blasted it away to nothing.

The large Sarathian growled in anger. “Fight me, you coward!” he bellowed. “Stop running away like a pathetic little guppy and face me!”

Coby gritted his teeth. He hated fighting, always had. He hadn’t become an acolyte so he could be a warrior, he had done it to protect his people and serve his god in any way possible. His master had to remind him time and time again that fighting, and sometimes killing, were a necessary part of that commitment. Coby may have come to accept, and even excel at that part of his life, but he didn’t have to like it. Still, he knew that if he continued to run around and do nothing, he and the nurses were going to die. 

Fine…if the warrior wanted Coby to fight, then he would fight.

Sy-Ohna manifested the whip into several arrows and shot them toward Coby. The smaller merman leapt out of the way, landing on the bed before jumping toward the wall, using it as leverage as he launched himself toward Sy-Ohna, fist raised. He struck the warrior in the face, staggering him, before swinging his leg out and connecting with his hip.

Sy-Ohna fell with a yelp, glaring up at the boy, hate blazing in his eyes. Coby didn’t have time to fear him. He grabbed the chunk of countertop that had hit Aubrey off the floor and threw it as hard as he could, hitting Sy-Ohna in the temple. The latter stumbled and fell on his backside, hand to his head, stunned and angry. 

Coby hurried to the women, helping them to their feet. “Are you okay?” he asked, breathlessly. 

They nodded, giving small noises of assent. 

“Get out of here,” Coby demanded. “Now.”

“What about you?” Kim demanded pitifully, her gaze falling to his abdomen. “Coby, you’re hurt!”

“I’m fine,” he said quickly, doing his best to ignore the pain blooming from his sewn up injury. “I’ll be fine. You won’t be if he—”

A large arm swung out, knocking him back. His lower back hit the broken edge of the counter and he fell once more to the ground with a grunt, grimacing as white hot fire shot through his right leg. A scream drew his attention back to the nurses. Sy-Ohna had Aubrey in his grasp, his arm wrapped around her neck, a familiar blade to her throat.

Coby’s knife. The ceremonial knife of the acolyte.

“No,” he breathed, shaking his head. “No, Sy-Ohna, don’t do this, the healers…they’re innocent!”

“They tended to a murderer!” he snapped. “They are traitors and must pay the price.”

“Don’t!” Coby yelled, clamoring to his feet and barreling toward Sy-Ohna, grabbing for his middle and throwing them both on the bed. Sy-Ohna released his grasp on Aubrey, but not before the knife made its way across her skin, blood spurting from the deep laceration.

Kim screamed and dove for her, pressing her hand against Aubrey’s throat to stop the bleeding the best she could while the other nurse twitched and gurgled in her arms. She glared up at the two struggling on the bed, Coby throwing punch after punch at the larger merman’s face and shoulders.

“Coby!” she shrieked when Sy-Ohna, fed up, flung the smaller boy off him, into the overhanging cabinets. The doors buckled, swinging open, revealing the contents within. Including the one thing Coby didn’t want him to find.

Sy-Ohna spied it immediately, his eyes wide. “I knew it,” he snarled. “You thief!”

Coby shook his head, trying and failing to get back to his feet. “No,” he coughed, blood splattering on the floor. “No, I saved it. Da-Hana was going to give it to—”

“Stop lying to me, heretic!”

Coby winced, the insult hurting worse than his wounds. “I’m not…” he managed through a throat choked with blood. “I serve…our god Poseidon faithfully. I’m protecting it as I am charged to do…”

“You stole it for your own use, you powerless worm,” Sy-Ohna hissed. Coby tensed, his head whipping up, fear in his bright blue eyes, catching the sneer that grew on the warrior’s face. “Yes, I noticed,” he chuckled derisively. “You have no energy to draw from. At least, none that would be useful to you.”

Coby gulped, reaching for the counter to pull himself up, his arm around his middle, shaking with pain and terror. 

“You will be nothing when I am done with you,” Da-Hana’s words came back to him. “You will be a corpse, living or dead.”

He felt the blade plunge once more into his left side, felt his energy drain away as though from an uncorked bottle. It was only thanks to that energy that the wound managed to heal at all. Still…Da-Hana’s cursed blade had done its job.

Coby’s dagger opened Da-Hana’s throat right after.

Coby gritted his teeth, hating that the warrior could sense his weakness, feel how little energy he had remaining within him. What he did have, he only managed to regain thanks to Ash. The rest was slow in returning, leaving him as Sy-Ohna said…powerless.

Sy-Ohna glared at him before turning his gaze back to the pouch in the cabinet. Coby followed his gaze, felt the Flame’s energy flow around him, but not into him. His stomach dropped. Even now, he was not permitted to use it.

He gulped, hot tears of despair burning his eyes. 

Another sound from down the hall caught his attention, and his heart stopped. 

No…Ash!

He prayed that Sy-Ohna wouldn't hear them, that he couldn’t hear Abel’s deep voice and the sudden urgency that filled it. Something was wrong out there…something Sy-Ohna must have done. Considering how distracted the larger merman was by the sight of the Flame, it was unlikely he was paying attention to what was happening at the reception desk, but the panic still gnawed at Coby’s gut.

The panic formed a giant knot that threatened to strangle Coby when he heard Ash ask if Coby was okay and that he was going to check on him. 

NO! Ash, please! Stay away!

Sy-Ohna would not hesitate to use Ash as leverage to trade for the Flame, or kill him outright before taking it anyway. Coby couldn’t allow that. He couldn’t allow the Flame to fall into this beast’s hands, and he would die before he saw Ash hurt.

His eyes flew around the room, looking for a weapon, something to put Sy-Ohna down before Ash walked in and became the beast’s next victim.

Before he decided to kill Nurse Kim, too.

“You remind me of my eight-year-old son,” she’d laughed not a few minutes before.

She had a family…one she had to return to. Coby’s eyes landed on the tool he needed, determined that Nurse Kim would go home, even if Nurse Aubrey no longer could. She deserved that, deserved to be with her loved ones. She did not deserve to die here at the hands of a crazed monster.

He gritted his teeth and, with all the strength he had left, lunged forward, grabbed the pole used to hold the IV bags, and swung it with all his might, connecting solidly with the side of Sy-Ohna’s head, dropping him instantly. The curved hooks ripped through his flesh, leaving two deep gouges that spilled forth his blood. The large merman was unconscious before he hit the floor.

Coby dropped the pole, gasping for breath, before his legs finally gave out and he crumpled to the floor beside the bed. 

It was over.

Somehow, once again, he had won. His gaze fell on the nurses, Kim’s tears falling unchecked down her round face, Aubrey cold and still in her arms.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

She shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said softly, turning her hazel eyes on him. “You did your best.” Her eyes dropped to his stomach, growing wide as her mouth fell open. “Coby, your wound!”

“What?” Coby looked down, a dark stain of blood growing on his new shirt. He lifted it, exposing the soaked bandages. “Ah, shit,” he mumbled, dropping his shirt and leaning his head back against the bed. “Ash is going to be so mad.”

Kim gently set Aubrey’s body down and scooted over to him, grabbing for the bag of medical supplies that had been dropped during the fight. “I’m sure he’ll understand,” she said, cutting off the soiled bandages.

Coby snorted softly. “This shirt was his favorite.” 

The last thing he saw before he succumbed to darkness was Ash running for him, screaming his name.

**