What might be the strongest person in the world—it was widely debatable among the Trinity—groaned again, and I took that as an okay. It wasn’t like we had another choice. There was no way I could carry him, and I wasn’t positive what he could manage. Not much from the look or sound of it.
He also didn’t want to be out here for a reason, and I had to fight the urge to look toward the sky again. If there was something up there… Fuck, I didn’t want to know.
Fuck, fuck, fuckkkk.
Okay, calm down, we’d figure it out. I would figure it out.
I jumped up, and even though my legs were worn out, I ran as fast as I could toward the outbuilding where the owner had left some things stored. I pushed in the code to the keypad and waited for the lock to turn. It was easy to find the wheelchair in the corner; I hadn’t put anything new in the shed. Covered in dust and spiderwebs, I pulled it out anyway, figuring a little spider bite wouldn’t do shit to a man who was immune to radiation. I was going to have to gamble it, but that was the least of my worries. It might be a blessing to get bit by a brown recluse right now. It’d be an excuse to get the hell out of here without feeling like a total piece of shit. I hated how much of a coward that made me, but it was the truth.
Picking it up and out the door, I set it down outside. Spreading it, I tipped it backward and pushed it all the way back around the house. I was panting by the time I made it to those damn dwindling purple fires. Then I stopped.
Because The Defender wasn’t where I’d left him.
He was on his hands and knees. The man who was so much more than a man, who could break my neck just as easily as a twig, was crawling. Even in the dark and at a short distance, I could tell his entire half-naked body was shaking.
The sight of it stunned me.
I had never seen any of the Trinity even stumble before. Never, ever, ever. Hadn’t I seen him carrying a fully loaded tanker?
Yet here he was, letting out these bone-rattling breaths as he struggled to move one knee, then the other, one hand, then the next, in front of him. Over and over like it was the single most difficult thing he’d ever done. Alarm pierced through my chest and skull and even my freaking soul as I watched him struggle before I snapped out of it and pushed the wheelchair the rest of the way to him.
The Defender dropped his head, panting shallowly, his fingers digging into the dirt.
“How can I…？” Get it together. Get it together. “Tell me what I can do to help you,” I told him breathlessly in the weirdest voice of my life.
I was panicking, okay. I was panicking.
One of the greatest powers on the planet, and more than likely in the universe, couldn’t walk, and he’d fallen from the fucking sky like an asteroid in Armageddon, and there were a handful of small, purple fires smoldering around us.
And this shit was taking place in my yard.
How the hell were these fires purple?
This wasn’t supposed to be happening.
He didn’t answer, but he did manage to put another hand in front of the other until he slapped one onto a footrest, groaning so deep in his throat I was surprised the ground didn’t shake.
Knowing this wasn’t the time to hesitate and figuring the worst that would happen would be that I’d fall face-first on the ground or just, you know, break my back, I ducked under the arm that was on the footrest. “Let’s get you up,” I told him.
I could do this. I’d helped my grandparents countless times. In and out of bed, in and out of the shower, the car, the couch.
He was just…
A flying, invincible, super-fast, super-strong being that was breathing like he’d had half the bones in his body broken.
Was that possible? No. No way.
The Defender said nothing, and I took it as acceptance.
Please, Jesus, don’t let me snap my spine in half.
“Ready? On three. One, two, three!”
He hissed long and low, so painfully that part of me expected him to faint, and I think I might have peed myself a little bit as his weight settled. I tried to stand, but the being leaned into me, and I damn near collapsed.
I huffed and I puffed, and if my house had been made of sticks, it would’ve gotten blown down from the strain he put on me, because oh shitttttt.
What the hell were his bones made of? Concrete? I groaned, my knees shaking, and chances were, I was going to end up with a bulging disc in my spine, but too bad.
I swore he leaned into me even more as his loose hand slapped the armrest wildly, giving me most of his five-hundred-pound weight—at least that’s what it felt like. I strained. I huffed and puffed some more. My knees shook and sweat popped up on my back and under my arms instantly, but the tall man who I was confident now couldn’t stand, moved his feet just enough to tell me he was trying to turn. He was trying to get into the wheelchair.
And that’s when I recognized that my knees weren’t the only things wobbling. His whole body was. His lungs rattled, and I wanted to peek at his face to make sure it wasn’t turning blue, but even that was too much trouble.
We moved together, turning in place little by little. Just as we were barely shifting away from the chair, one of his knees buckled completely, and I knew. I knew he was going down, so I did the only thing I could think of.
I pushed his ass. Or the side of it.
It felt like all muscle too, but that was beside the point.
I shoved him toward the wheelchair just as he started to fall, and it was honestly a miracle that he moved that big frame enough to land butt first onto it. I dropped to my knees at the same time I heard him grunt.
“Oh fuck me,” I panted, tucking my chin down to catch my breath. I was never going to be able to move again. Seriously, how much did he weigh?
He moaned at the same time the wheelchair groaned. He had boulders in his pockets. He had to. Lifting my head, I watched him tilt his head back, his arms going wide over the sides of the chair like he was absolutely exhausted. That terrible wheezing sound was back in his chest.
Waddling over on my knees, I stopped at his feet as I struggled to catch my breath.
I risked a glance up at the sky again and squinted. Then I squinted some more. Had I seen something? A glimmer of… something?
Oh hell no.
We needed to get inside. Now. A strong wind could probably lift the trailer, but it felt safer than staying out here in the fucking open.
I’d just been joking earlier when I thought Things Going Wrong was the story of my life.
I was never going to joke about that shit again.
Struggling back up to standing, I stumbled around the side to grip the handles just as The Defender dropped his head forward to hang loosely. As fast as I could, I turned and pushed the wheelchair forward. I was pretty much bent at the waist, pushing with every single ounce of my strength, heading for the ramp that was fortunately right there. When I was close enough, I started running toward it to build up momentum.
It only barely worked, and my hamstrings were on fire as we did the turns and made it to the door. It only took a second to punch in the code. Then I huffed even more to push him through the doorway and into the kitchen, grateful I hadn’t set the dead bolt there. I’d beat myself up later for forgetting, for being lazy. Setting the wheelchair against the wall right beside the door, I kicked it closed harder than I needed to. I flipped the lock, even though I realized that wouldn’t do shit against someone like him.