Chapter 94 Giving Up The Empire

• Zane:
• As the paramedics wheel Boris into the ambulance, I trail behind, my legs heavy and my thoughts tangled in guilt and fear. My father lies pale and almost lifeless on the stretcher. The sight claws at my insides. This is my fault—my father’s life hangs by a thread because of me, and my fiancée is in danger, yet I have no idea what I am doing. I am utterly useless.
• “We’ll do everything we can to stabilize him,” a female paramedic says, but her voice is distant, drowned out by the chaos inside my head. I barely register her words as everything in my background blurs, except for the paramedics at the back of the ambulance. One presses the defibrillator paddles against Boris’s chest, calling out instructions to the others.