“What about you?” she asks Cal. “Why aren’t you hurt?”
“Just got lucky, I guess,” he says with a shrug.
She frowns. “You came up with Benji and Abe? Dougie said he didn’t see you in the Ford.”
“He was there,” I say, sounding snappish. “Christie, we need to get going. Can you call Doc Heward? We need a Life Flight waiting for us when we get back into town. If he can’t get one because of the storm, then you’ll need to drive us over to Glide to the hospital.” She nods and goes back to her SUV.
My gaze follows Cal as he walks back over to the space where the Ford fell through. He stands near the edge of the bridge, looking down into the water. His shoulders slump, and it’s odd that I already know what he’s thinking. Abe turns with me as I move to face him.
“It’s not your fault,” I say, that twinge in my chest so fucking loud and strong I think my heart is going to burst. Holy fuck. I really do love him. Shit.
He shakes his head miserably. “If only I’d gotten here sooner….”
“You got here in plenty of time,” I say with a snort. “We’re okay.”
“But the truck!” he says as he turns back to us. “It was so cherry.” He sounds so forlorn I almost laugh at the absurdity of it.
“The truck?” I say, trying to scowl. “That’s what you’re worried about? You sure know how to make a guy feel appreciated.”
A small smile forms on his face.
Love, I think again in unfathomable wonder as it starts to rain.
The first bullet strikes him high in the chest, near his right shoulder. A look of confusion dawns on his face as he takes a step back. The red blossoms quickly against his white T-shirt, and I think of roses.
I hear the unmistakable cock of a hunting rifle expelling a shell.
The second bullet clips the side of his head, really no more than a graze, but the blood that arcs from it is plentiful as his head rocks back. He takes another step back, his heels skittering along the edge of the bridge.
The rifle is cocked again.
The third and final bullet is a gut punch, and I can hear him exhale heavily, his hands going to his stomach, blood spilling out over his fingers. He looks at me, and I can see the surprise on his face underneath all that pain. He’s never looked more human. No blue lights. No wings.
It feels like he teeters on the edge of the bridge forever. The blood from his head wound drips down his face and into his stubble, and it looks like he’s wearing a mask of smeared red. It feels like forever we stand there.
But forever does not occur, no matter how hard I wish it so.
His gaze meets mine, and under the pain, under the shock and anguish, I see something just for me, something Michael first mentioned what seems like years ago. Out of everything I see and feel—my brain scrambling to process the horror before me, my feet finally starting to move, the hoarse scream that tears from my throat— what I see in him shatters everything I’ve known.
Love. He loves me back.
But I’m not quick enough.
He closes his eyes and turns his face to the sky. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
He trembles once. Takes a breath.
And slips off the edge of the bridge.
There’s no sound as he falls. No shout. No cry. No groan. Nothing. One moment he’s there, and the next he’s not. I trip over the rubble from the crumbled divider and fall forward, sliding on rock and dust. I almost sail right over the edge. I catch myself on a rebar, the steel tearing the flesh of my palm. My head hangs over the edge of the bridge. I force my eyes open.
There’s nothing but the river below, moving as it always has.
“No,” I say. “That’s not….”
I will always be with you, he’d said to me once.
“No.” Something begins to rise within me, a terrible anger. “No.” It rolls over me in waves, and I can’t stay afloat. “No.” Rage and fury, amassing as one.
Nothing comes up from the river below. It’s raining harder now.
I lift myself up from the ground. There’s a roaring in my ears.
I turn.
Sheriff George Griggs stands beside an open rear door on Christie’s SUV, a rifle in his hands, pointed at me. He must have been hiding in the