Crow looked down at the woman sleeping on the ground next to him. Her lips were slightly blue but her pulse was strong. She'd been terrified to let her exhaustion overwhelm her, terrified that he would also give in, or give up, and she would suffocate. But he'd whispered to her quietly that he wasn't going anywhere, that he'd stayed this long, he wasn't going to give up on her now.
Tears had escaped her eyes after that, leaving salty tracks down her cheeks. She, like him, hated having to rely on anyone else. Depending on other people leaves you open to betrayal.
Eventually she had been too tired to keep her eyes open, and he had to rely on her heart rate to tell him when to squeeze more air into her lungs. He'd thought about just stopping and letting her die in her sleep. It was a good way to go, as death went. Better than bleeding out in front of a jeering crowd as your killer just backs away, horrified by what they've done. Better than being beaten to death just because a Watcher gets bored or wants to make an example out of you.
But something kept him frozen in place, keeping the woman he barely knew alive, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. He didn't know how long they'd been there, just that all he had to fight his own exhaustion was sheer force of will.
He distracted himself by examining the scars and marks on her skin. The most obvious one was the one that curled around her eye and across her cheek. It was at least a year old, by his reckoning, but wasn't the result of Ghost fight. Jabs or slashes to the face were largely frowned upon, considered by most to be cheap shots. Because the Ghost Traders were such an honorable bunch of gentlemen. The scar on her face had been made deliberately and meticulously. In all probability it was a protection order from her previous Lieutenant.
His eyes skimmed over the dog bite marks that twisted the exposed flesh on her torso; it wasn't hard to work out why everyone called her Mutt. He did however pause when he saw a different mark just creeping over the crook of her neck. The teeth that had made that were undoubtedly human. It chilled him to think of the sort of situation you had to be in for someone to sink their teeth into you like that.
He counted the scars on her forearm. 18. A fairly high body count, and those were just official kills. His attention was caught by the tattoos on her right forearm. A trio of blue jays, taking off into flight. He smiled. They reminded him of freedom. Then he chastised himself for allowing himself to think about it. Those were the kinds of thoughts that were better off locked in the depths of his mind where they could be forgotten.
He liked the jays though, they were beautiful and vibrant, qualities he hadn't seen in anything in a very long time.
He diverted his attention back to Mutt as she began to stir; her eyes flickered beneath her eyelids before opening abruptly. Almost immediately she panicked. The coniine must have been wearing off because she opened her mouth, trying to draw air into her lungs. He squeezed on the bag and she relaxed again ever so slightly but her heart was racing and she turned her head to stare at him in terror. There was also the slightest hint of surprise in her eyes; surprise that he had bothered to keep her alive.
"Told you I wasn't going anywhere." He murmured and squeezed the bag again. Her lips curved upwards by the tiniest amount and her eyes creased a little as she tried to smile.
After what he judged to be another hour or so, he saw the mask compress against her face a little. He quickly gave her another breath of air but she shook her head just slightly. Her chest fell and then the mask compressed again. He slid the mask away, and as he did so, saw her chest rise by a few millimeters. Then it fell, then rose again. As her second breath left her lungs her eyes widened and he moved the mask back into place and gave her a full breath of air from the bag. Her face relaxed in relief.
