Zoe nearly retched at the sight of the blood. She had begun watching because she wanted to make sure that Kane didn't need help, but she quickly had to turn her head away.
Cracked legs, it's gotten worse.
Her body shuddered violently, and she barely bit back the small sound of displeasure that fought to wrench its way out of her mouth. Kane didn't need to be distracted right now.
Even though he acted on his own most of the time, as her protector he was attuned to her needs and wants, and even more so now that he was in this state.
She suppressed the impulse to look back over, barely.
She did not want him to suddenly stop fighting and start searching for something to mop up the blood with. Although the way he was now he probably wouldn't die, especially with the low amount of zombies there were left, but there was always the possibility, and of course she didn't want to reveal just how powerful he was in front of Michael.
Or anyone, really. Although she knew that there might come a time when she would need to, she very much preferred to keep it between them.
And she knew that that feeling wasn't only from her logical side.
She liked Kane, sometimes more than she should. She knew that. And she wanted this particular piece of information to remain just between them.
Not even the Verteiders knew. None of them had seen.
And she liked it that way.
Zoe wasn't afraid of losing Kane. You couldn't lose a defender unless they died, and that would never happen.
What she was afraid of was losing his heart.
She had seen things happen before, though it was mostly with the professional ones that worked as bodyguards under a company name. Sometimes, defenders came back from missions or assignments changed. Different. You could see it in their eyes. Zoe's heart had always ached for them, and she always longed to go and just... do something. Anything. Hug them maybe, though that would've been a serious breach of decorum.
She didn't know what, if anything, would help. Nothing ever seemed to. Their eyes had remained dead every time she saw the same one twice, though that didn't happen often.
She had given them a name in her mind. The Heartless Heroes.
Something darker in the back of her mind called them simply the lost. There was nothing to them anymore, nothing but a sack of flesh that had years of combat drilled into them, more permanent than a tattoo.
But she chose to refuse that part of her. They may not be entirely present, but they were still heroes. They had paid the ultimate price. Some people thought that that was to give your life. They were wrong. The ultimate sacrifice was to give your soul.
That had become her greatest fear, her worst nightmare. She had spent countless nights worrying that Kane would go through something that he would never quite forget. That that look would be in his eyes. That when he protected her, he would no longer look at her with devotion, or even a smirk, condescending as he was.
Zoe feared that he would begin to look at her listlessly. With no emotion, not even stoicism. Not even boredom.
Simply... nothing.
No joy. No hatred.
Absolute nothing. The lack of everything, even nothingness itself.
A contradiction in its own right. Yet she had seen it. Stared it in the eyes.
Being with the associate families... It was harder than anyone would ever care to admit. She envied the simple folk sometimes. The ones who could come home and engage in normal hobbies. Reading, sports, writing, playing, or talking with friends. She wasn't quite so lucky.
She was Zoe. A senator. And she would fulfill her role.
But that look.
Zoe stared at the blood and gore on the ground underneath the horde's feet. Underneath Kane's feet.
And she worried.
Worried that someday she would become just that.
Worthless to him, like the reddish pain that splattered the ground.
Him giving her that look would be like stabbing a knife into her abdomen and twisting it.
She would sooner imagine her guts spilled onto the ground and stomped on than that look in Kane's eyes.
But the possibility haunted her.