As Qhuinn stared down at the cabin floor, his brain was firing in a series of disconnected flashes, the concrete notion that his whole family had been wiped out colliding into what appeared to be a very different reality.

He kept coming back to a night long, long ago, when he'd walked through the front door of his parents' to find his family sitting together at that dining room table...and his brother getting that ring that was on his now mangled hand.

You'd think the sight of the guy tortured but alive would be all he'd concentrate on.

"What's going on, V?" he demanded. "How is he?"

"He's alive." The Brother shifted his black dagger around and wiped the blade off on his leather-clad thigh. "Son? Son, can you look at me?"

Luchas just kept staring up at Qhuinn, his perfectly matched pair of beautiful gray eyes bloodshot and crazy wide. His mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out.

"Son, I'm going to have to cut you, okay? Son?"

Qhuinn knew exactly what V was going for. "Do it."

Qhuinn's heart banged like a fist against his sternum as the Brother took that black blade and streaked the point down the outside of Luchas's arm. The guy didn't even flinch; then again, with what was going on for him? Drop in the bucket.

Please be red, please be red, please be -

Red blood welled and seeped out, a brilliant contrast to the staining black oil that he was covered with.

Everyone let out the breath they'd been holding.

"Okay, son, that's good, that's good...."

They hadn't turned him.

V got up from the floor and tipped his head to the side, motioning for a private convo. As Qhuinn went over, he took Blay's arm and brought him along. It was just the most natural thing to do. This was serious shit, and he knew he wasn't tracking - and there was no one else he'd rather have with him.

"I don't have a blood pressure cuff or a stethoscope, but I'll tell you right now - his pulse is weak and erratic, and I'm pretty damn sure he's in shock. I don't know how long he's been in there or what they did to him, but he is alive in the conventional sense. The problem is, Payne's out of commission." V's eyes glowed. "And you two know why."

Ah, so he'd spoken with his sister.

"She's not going to be able to work her magic," the Brother continued, "and we're a million miles from everywhere."

"Bottom line," Qhuinn said grimly.

V stared him right in the eye. "He's going to die in the next couple of - "

"V!" Rhage barked. "Get over here!"

Down on the floor, Luchas's battered body was drawing up into itself, his broken hands curling into his palms, his knees cranking in tight, his spine curling toward the cabin's ceiling.

Qhuinn jacked over and fell to his knees by his brother's head. "Stay with me, Luchas. Come on, fight it - "

Those gray eyes relocked on Qhuinn's, and the agony in them was so shattering, Qhuinn was barely aware of V rushing over and taking the glove off of his glowing hand.

"Qhuinn!" the Brother shouted, like maybe he'd said Qhuinn's name a couple of times.

He didn't look away from his brother. "What?"

"This could kill him, but maybe it'll get his heart beating right. It's a bad shot - but it's the only one he's got."

In the split second before he replied, he felt an overwhelming need for his brother to come through this some way, somehow. Even though he barely knew the guy, and had resented him for years - and then been beaten by him when Luchas had joined that Honor Guard - he hadn't realized until they were gone how rudderless you were on the planet when there was no blood of yours walking the earth with you.

Then again, that void was exactly what had spurred him on during Layla's needing. And what had made him reach for Blay instinctively.

Love 'em or hate 'em, by blood or by heart, family was a kind of oxygen.

Necessary for the living.

"Do it," he said once more.

"Wait," Blay cut in, whipping his belt off and giving it to Qhuinn. "For his mouth."

Just one more reason to love the guy. Although it wasn't like he needed yet another.

Qhuinn angled the strap into his brother's open mouth and held it in place as he nodded to V. "Stay with me, Luchas. Come on, now - stay with..."

Out of the corner of his eye, he tracked that bright white light closing in on his brother's sternum....

Luchas's chest jerked high, his whole body spasming off the floorboards as a brilliant glow shot through him, funneling down his arms and his legs, radiating up to his head. The sound he made was inhuman, a guttural moan that went straight into Qhuinn's marrow.

When V yanked back his hand, that glowing palm raising high, Luchas dropped like the deadweight he was, his body bouncing, his limbs flapping.

He blinked rapidly, as if a stiff breeze were blowing into his face.

"Hit him again," Qhuinn demanded. When V didn't respond, he glared. "One more time."

"This is fucking nuts," Rhage muttered.

V measured the male for a moment. Then brought that deadly hand back into range. "Once more - that's all you get," he said to Luchas.

"Damn straight," Rhage cut in. "Any more and you could make a s'more out of the son of a bitch."

The second shot was just as bad - that battered body contorting wildly, Luchas making that god-awful sound before landing back down in a clatter of bones.

But he took a deep breath. A big, powerful, deep breath that expanded his rib cage.

Qhuinn felt like praying, and he guessed he did as he started chanting, "Come on, come on...."

The mangled hand, the one with the ring, stretched out and grabbed onto Qhuinn's shirt. The hold was weak, but Qhuinn leaned in.

"What," he said. "Talk slow...."

That hand skipped over his jacket.

"Talk to me."

His brother's hand locked on the grip of one of his daggers. "Kill...me...."

Qhuinn's eyes peeled wide.

Luchas's voice was nothing like it had been, nothing but a hoarse whisper. "Kill...me...brother...mine...."