Pain was the first thing I registered when consciousness returned. A sharp, burning sensation in my chest. My eyelids felt heavy, but I forced them open.

I was alive.

The bullet hadn't killed me. Somehow, impossibly, I had survived taking a gunshot meant for Aurora. My mother's bullet. 

I tried to sit up, but pain lanced through my chest and forced me back down onto the pillows. My breathing came in shallow gasps as I waited for the agony to subside to a manageable level.

That's when I ...