Val took over his line of sight as she leaned in toward his face.
"Hey," she whispered.
"Hey," he said. His voice hurt, and he noticed that his face did as well when he frowned. A hand came up to touch the chip. Except, instead of the chip, he found a bandage.
"We took it out," Rachel said.
Apollo frowned again, despite the pain.
"How?" he asked.
Rachel pointed over to Val.
Val leaned back and sighed. "It was the government," she said quietly. "At least from what I can tell from some tracing. They were behind the hacks and even something in town."
"Something in town?"
"I don't know everything. The people in town were acting weird, and it has something to do with a signal that was interfering with their televisions. Some of the frequencies are linked to some of the things going on with your systems, and those all led back to some government servers."
Apollo shook his head. It was too much to take in.
"Carter?" he asked, not seeing Jenna around. "Jenna said he went down."
"He's not doing well," Rachel said. "The stress was too much. We think it was a heart attack. It looks like it'd been coming for a while."
His eyes found Val again. "Peter?"
She glanced over to the corner and shook her head. "He's here, but that's about it."
Apollo swallowed and wasn't really sure if he wanted to know the next answer. "How many did we lose?"
It was Titus, standing in the corner, who spoke this time. "Three of the younger hybrids, eleven adults and five of Carter's men."
He shook inside. So many. They had lost more than he would have guessed.
A sudden rush of rage filled him. Rem. That bastard Rem had been involved. He'd pay.
"Rest," Rachel said, cutting into his thoughts. "He needs the chance to get well."
Titus nodded and turned toward the door.
Apollo waited until the others in the room had filtered out. All but Val that is. She sat quietly by his bed.
"So you stayed," he said to her.
She leaned down and placed her face next to his.
"I should have never left," she whispered.
At this point it didn't matter. What happened before seemed so very small, especially when he'd been so close to losing her. The thought of it made his stomach turn.
His eyes grew heavy as he stared at her.
"Just stay with me," he whispered. It was the only thing that echoed in his mind. She would be the light in his time of darkness.
Chapter Sixteen
Tears leaked from Val's eyes as they silently walked back from the graves. All those funerals at the same time had nearly done her in, the emotion being overwhelming, but there hadn't been much of a choice. With so many dead and needing to be buried, the best they could do was have a mass service. Her heart still ached at the loss of Dean. He was just a child who never had a chance at full life, dead at the hands of monsters created by the Horatius Group, humans with the morals of monsters.
Her eyes sought Peter throughout the whole service. His face was the same as when Dean had died. She wasn't sure he would ever recover. If he did, he might not ever be able to forgive himself. She knew his guilt. Even if he never spoke the words, his feelings came across loud and clear to her. He needed them to help him through this, and she wanted to be there for him.
She sighed. Apollo placed an arm around her, and she leaned into his warmth.
"It will get better," he said.
Val was surprised to hear him say that. For days he had walked around like he was planning the revenge party himself. She could understand. Every once in a while, when the grief cleared for a moment, rage at the evil of the Group filled her as well. She wasn't even sure anymore if it was her own anger or just her reflecting Apollo's feelings. Either way, they deserved it.
She turned to look at him.
"How?" she asked.
They made their way up the steps of his cabin and sat on the hard wooden chairs outside.
Apollo took her hand and stared off into the setting sun.
"Slowly," he said. "Day by day. And then one day, it will just hurt a little less than all the others."
She sighed. He was right, but it didn't make the grief she was feeling any less at that moment. This was one of the things she'd always feared about loving and caring for others: losing them.
"And what about Rem?" she asked.
They hadn't talked about him, the man who smiled at them the day before he had left them all to die.
Apollo squeezed her hand a tad too hard, and she hissed.
He jerked his hand away and stared at her in shock.