Earth Mars Love (The Marsikons)

Chapter 31

Marcus was holding Regina tightly in his arms, trying to hold her together. Her deep, gut-wrenching sobs were the only sounds coming from their group, and it was killing him. She was a strong woman, but the sight of your father being on his death bed would crumble even the toughest person. His own throat choked at the sight of him lying on the bed of grass, but he knew, that Kos would do everything to save him.

For the last few days, he'd tried to understand which Regina was real. Was it scary Regina who pulled the trigger pretending to shoot him, or funny Regina who made him laugh? Or was it flirty Regina, who tried to seduce him, only to turn him down in the end? And now he understood. It was all in her. He wondered if she's capable of compassion, and now he had his answer. She was capable of vulnerability, and deeply so. But only for her closest people. Maybe it was a selfish thought, but he wanted her to be with him like that forever. For her to be emotionally open with him, without any inner walls between him and her heart.

He hugged her tighter still, pressing his lips to the top of her head, and felt her shiver. He wanted to stop her suffering. She went through so much already.

When the battle had started, all that Marcus wanted was to do was to shield Regina with his body, to spare her this bloodshed, but three mutants advanced on him at the same time. Thank Mars, he had his modified blades with him, and he quickly switched them to swords.

From the corner of his eye, he saw two beasts advance on Regina, and he froze. He couldn't breathe, afraid that he'll lose her right then and there until he saw, that she'd got the first one down pretty fast. This second's delay had cost him one slice of his opponent's claw on the shoulder. After that he chopped them one claw, one limb at a time, moving between the three of them like a dancer.

While moving, he kept his attention on Regina, and when he saw her shooting the other beast and breaking free of its hold, he sighed in relief and reversed his full attention to defeating his enemies.

When the last of clawed mutants fell in front of him, he turned around and saw Darius' clawed opponent run to Regina. She'd tried to shoot him, but she'd missed his vital organs, eyes. Marcus had died inside a thousand times while he was sprinting to her. But in the end, the fallen beast had grazed her father with the poisonous claw. His own graze felt hot, but thanks to the vaccine they had on Mars, he was immune to it.

"Is he dying?" Regina asked through sobs.

Kos was doing the magic in his lab, while Arthur was lying still; his eyes were closed, and only limbs were occasionally twitching.

"No, if I do everything fast." Kos was making a vaccine from the ingredients, which he had in his kit. "Every mutant claw has a tiny bag with the poison behind it. This poison is the same as Oxyuranus Microlepidotus has. You could know this snake as an inland taipan, and it has the most toxic poison in the world. On both of our planets. It's working even through the skin and kills a person in half an hour," Kos was talking while measuring and combining various liquids, "In our situation, it's good that claw didn't cut to the blood, so we have more time. After poisoning with it, a person suffers from neurotoxic symptoms. Convulsions, coagulopathy, renal failure. And then..."

"Stop it, Kosmas!" Darius barked at him and glared, "She doesn't need to know all of your boring details. Just do your work and shut up."

Marcus was feeling uneasy, Darius was right. Seeing that with her father something wasn't right and knowing what exactly was happening inside his body, were two different things. Regina was already distressed enough and was slowly sagging against him with every Kos's word.

"I'm almost done," Kos put bluish liquid in the syringe, ripped Arthur's shirt, and with fingers had found where his heart was. The syringe had a long, and thick needle and Marcus' blood drained from his face from the look of it.