text: "No!" Bill sobbed, holding his dying wife.
  
  Nothing else mattered. He didn't care what Sophia and that damned Archangel were arguing over. His wife was dying. What else mattered? She was growing cold in his arms, her body limp and sticky with her blood. Cynthia, Hikaru, and Rochelle knelt around them, their eyes stained with tears.
  
  "Please, no!" he sobbed. "This isn't what was supposed to happen! We were supposed to be together. The five of us happy and loving each other! That's what I wanted! That's what I shaped my dreams towards!"
  
  Her pain was just an ember inside her, guttering fast.
  
  "She just wanted to save the world!" he screamed at the Heavens. "She just wanted to love us! Why did you take her away from us?"
  
  The pain inside her was dying, and once it had faded, Juanita would follow.
  
  "I fought and bled and dragged myself through Hell to reunite with my wives! How can you take her away now?"
  
  Only a spark of pain remained.
  
  I can feel her pain. How?
  
  He drew it into himself. He reached through the cords that bound them, their love, and touched her pain, pulling it into him. Her power had come from their love united, and he was not going to let that love die. Like a coal fanned to life, the pain exploded inside her, and he drew it all into him. His chest felt sliced open, his ribs cracked, and his organs destroyed. Agony pumped through his veins as his collapsed lungs drowned in blood.
  
  I can save her just like she saved me.
  
  He drank it in and she squirmed in his lap. Warmth grew inside her as life was rekindled. He absorbed it all. He would save her. He would have all the girls of his dreams. He would have the future he wanted.
  
  He would have Juanita at his side again.
  
  Her eyes opened, staring up at him. She smiled.
  
  Adriel laughed in his mind. A single, gray feather floated down before him and...
  
  Darkness fell on Bill.
  
  He dreamed...