Would it wake him? Kill him? Do nothing at all? She'd watched too many beasts drop tonight from the smallest graze of her nails, her blood seeping into theirs and shutting them down like poison in the veins. But this one was already hurt. Already barely breathing.
Maybe it would help.
Maybe it would finish him.
Her hand moved without permission, nails lifting toward the tiny, broken wing.
Then she stopped.
Her jaw clenched so hard her teeth ached.
'Her body was poison.'
That wasn't a guess anymore. She'd seen it too many times tonight—Veer bleeding from a single scratch, beasts in that corridor dropping faster than bullets alone could explain, the way her blood on their skin turned them sluggish, wrong. Whatever was inside her didn't discriminate. It just 'worked'. And this Sparrow, this fragile, half-dead thing in her hand, wouldn't survive even a taste of that.
Kaya's fingers curled into a fist, nails biting into her own palm instead.
