Shying Away Part 4

Reavers caught them unawares, and there was no time to wonder exactly how, or who had failed to do the one thing that might have spared Mal and his crew such a woeful fate. All Jayne knew was how one moment Serenity was a mote moving across the dark eye of The Black, and the next she was a tin can full of screaming and blood. One moment the Reavers weren't there, and the next they were. One moment he was sleeping next to Shy in his bunk, and the next he was running backward up the gangway, laying down cover fire for her and Kaylee--the only ones he was able to get to as the ship was overrun--while the three of them tried to make for a shuttle. One moment he was fighting for their lives. And the next, he was down, his spine shattered by a bullet to the neck.

As he lay there dying under a pile of Reavers doing things to him he was mightily grateful he couldn't feel, Jayne heard someone screaming, making high, hopeless sounds with no more human in them than in the rabbit's death-shriek once the fox catches hold. Might be Kaylee. Might be Mal. Hell--it might even be him, he supposed.

One thing he was sure of, though, it wasn't Shy. Her death had been almost as quick as it was horrific once the Reavers pulled her away from where she'd crouched over Jayne--out of ammo and snarling like a bitch over pups--and started taking her skin off. Who'd have guessed they'd fancied tattoos so?

As the world faded out on him, Jayne's last thoughts were prayers to God Almighty--and anyone else who might listen--to roll time back a ways, just far enough that he could take Shy's .32 when she'd offered it to him, take it and put a bullet to her and Kaylee, and then eat the barrel himself.

This here was no halfway decent person’s death. Not by anyone’s measure.

Speaking of Reavers, damned if one didn't lean over to speak directly into Jayne's ear. "It’s okay," It said quietly. "Wake up."

Jayne's eyelids fluttered.

"Come on now, wake up." Louder now, furth