He knows Nyx - Max, regardless of how little they use their given names - at this point almost better than he knows himself, knows her old wounds and how close she plays her cards to her chest, how tightly she holds onto herself in fear that letting anything in will mean the end of everything she's worked so hard for.

He knows the words she just said - so seemingly small, so light, as bright and as broken as the slowly dying body of hers he's holding - he knows how much it took for her to say them.

"Hold on," he tells her rather than answer, his thumb against her wrist where it can feel the stuttering fading of her heartbeat. "They'll follow the beacon, they'll come for us. You just have to hold on a little longer. I'm not letting you leave yet."

He'll be brave later, when she's safe. There is too much fear in him now for anything else.