She takes a deep breath and pushes herself off the wall, but just a few steps have her head splitting with pain, her breathing labored. 

The pavement’s looking like a great spot for a nap right now, but she knows she can’t. 

She reaches up to touch her temple, and her fingers come away sticky with blood. Damn. She saw her face in the locker room mirror and knew she looked fucked, but she didn’t catch how bad her head’s bleeding. 

Sweat–or maybe blood, she doesn’t know at this point–drips down the back of her neck, soaking into her sports bra. Her mouth is dry and all she can taste is copper weighing heavily on her tongue. 

This…not how she thought she was going to die. 

She takes a few more steps and crumples to her hands and knees, spitting blood onto the sidewalk. Fuck, my head.

Marlow lifts her gaze as much as she can, but even that sends another shockwave of pain through her body, and she drops onto her side, groaning weakly. 

Not how she thought she was going to die. 

Marlow closes her eyes, pushing back all the images that threaten to overwhelm her senses further. Well, it’s been one hell of a run. It was a matter of months, really, until she died. 

She deserves worse. The blood on her hands…

Yeah. She deserves worse. 

Marlow takes a deep breath, feeling herself grow colder. The knife must have nicked a vein or something, based on all the blood that soaked into the sawdust floor of the arena. 

She won’t miss the smell, the blood and alcohol and fear. She won’t miss much about this life. 

Something brushes against her shoulder, and Marlow’s eyes flutter open. She doesn’t have the strength to go for her knife, and instead she just stares into the honey eyes of the man standing above her. 

He immediately crouches down in front of her, and Marlow sees his paramedic uniform. Panic alarms rise in her head, and she tries to scramble away, green eyes wide with fear. 

The man gently raises his hands. He can’t be older than 26, 27, with a soft smile that probably puts most of his patients at ease. “Hey, kid, it’s okay. I’m just trying to help.” He starts reaching for his radio, clipped to his belt, but Marlow raises her knife in a shaky hand, pointing it at him. 

“N-no hospitals,” she stammers out, her mouth feeling disconnected from the rest of her body. “Can’t go to the hospital.”

“You’re bleeding out,” the man says softly. A few strands of hair fall loose from his bun, but he doesn’t move to fix it. “I’m just going to call an ambulance for you, okay?”

Marlow shakes her head and winces. “N-no. Can’t…” She cuts herself off as the pain worsens, squeezing her eyes shut. “Please.”

When she reopens her eyes, the man puts his backpack on the ground, pulling out a roll of gauze. “What if I promise no hospitals? Will you let me help you then?”

“Y-you’re lying.” Marlow balls her hands into fists, dropping the knife. “You’re g-gonna take me when I pass out.”

“No. I won’t.” He gingerly reaches forward, brushing Marlow’s hair back from her face, and she almost–embarrassingly– leans into the touch, but he pulls his hand back and frowns. “Your head is bleeding too.”

“Cause I hit it, dumbass,” she snarls out. “Get away from me. I’m not going to the hospital.”

“What can I do to make you believe me, huh?” He sighs. “Listen. My name is Ray Tehrani. I am a paramedic, which means that I can help you. I’m not on duty right now. If you pass out with no one helping you, you could die or get kidnapped. Let me help you.”

Marlow can feel the world slipping away, Ray getting blurrier and blurrier in front of her. Fear strikes her deep in her heart. The hospital. Getting tracked down and this whole thing ends. Everything. 

She was ready to die. She is ready to die. 

“No hospital,” she says, her words slurring together. “N-no…hospital.”

“No hospital. Alright.” He packs the wound on her leg with gauze, his eyes not once leaving her face. “Can you at least tell me your name?”

She hesitates, just for a second. She could give a fake name, keep her identity safe, but she doesn’t want to die nameless. “Marlow,” she finally whispers. “My name is Marlow.”

“Marlow,” Ray says, tying her upper leg off with a strip of rubber. “Alright, Marlow. My car’s just down the street. Let’s get you patched up.

She opens her mouth to answer, but she finds herself stuck, unable to speak as the world dims at the edges. She’s slipping, can’t stay awake much longer. Her heart is beating so loud that she can’t hear anything but the blood rushing to her head. It hurts. It all hurts and she doesn’t know if she can trust Ray, but she doesn’t have any other options.

Ray seems to notice her struggle, and he gives her a sympathetic look, but he doesn’t touch her other than binding her leg, doesn’t make any coddling gestures. “It’s okay,” he says loudly, enough to be heard over the pressure in Marlow’s head. “You’re going to be fine.”

Marlow rests her head onto the pavement, staring up at the scars. If this is her last view on this planet…she’ll be okay with that.