His brother didn’t move.

From boy scouts and television, Richard knew if he took his hand away from the gaping wound on his inner thigh, he would bleed out. For a heartbeat or two he considered letting go, lifting his hand, and watching his life pump out of his body. It seemed so eager to leave him, and there’d been so much carnage, why not give in? Drift into the abyss?

Dylan moaned softly. Despite the muffling effect of death dreams, in the absolute stillness of a snowy midnight it grated loud in Richard’s ears. He hadn’t killed him-his brother was alive.

Dream evaporated; abyss ceased to beckon. Suddenly Rich wanted to live. “Brother,” he whispered. Dylan’s eyelids twitched. Richard saw a flash of white eyeball, startling in the drying red mask. “Wake up, buddy. Please.”

Using one hand and his uninjured leg for propulsion, the other hand clamped tightly over his wound, Richard tried to move across the bedroom floor. Fabric and blood stuck him to the hardwood. By inches-one, three, five-he moved toward Dylan. The effort was so great there wasn’t room left for thought. Each tiny movement brought a calamity of pain. The pain had ceased to be localized; his entire being was on fire.

Don’t. Pass. Out. He forced the words through the clamor of nerve-death in his mind.

Dylan’s head lolled off the edge of the mattress at an unnatural angle.

His neck was broken. Dylan would be in a wheelchair, peeing through a tube. A ragged end of strength rippled through Richard. Dylan would be helpless; he would need his brother. More than anything Richard wanted to be there.