gnawing on the meat so intently he doesn’t notice me.
I take a step toward him and his eyes dart up to mine. The Spam falls from his hands to the mattress and he flinches. “Please don’t hurt me,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around his knees and pulling them against his chest.
“I won’t,” I say. “You can have the meat. There’re peaches, too.”
He lifts his head and stares at me with wide, shocked eyes. “Where’s your mom?”
“She’s asleep in another room.”
I jog to the backpack and pull out three cans of peaches, tossing them onto the bed. “Take these to her and tell her some bad men are coming and you guys need to hide.” He puts the Spam and three cans of peaches into his tattered shirt and jumps off the bed. I sling the backpack over my shoulder and run back to the thirteenth floor.
Bowen is lying on the landing again, eyes shut. His face is so pale that a smattering of freckles stands out on his nose. Even his lips are gray. Arrin is kneeling beside him, staring at his face, and Tommy is gone. Arrin sees me and takes a knife from her pants. She lifts his shirt and puts the blade on Bowen’s stomach.
“No!” I scream, leaping down half a flight of stairs and landing beside them, my feet slipping in blood. I yank the knife from her hand and stare at her, horrified.
“I was going to cut his shirt off, dimwit,” she snaps, taking the knife back. “He’s wearing a Kevlar vest and we’ve got to get it off him.” She lifts his shirt and slices through the fabric. With unsteady hands I unzip his Kevlar vest.
“The vest didn’t work,” I whisper, staring at Bowen’s bloody stomach.
“Hello! You shot him at close range! Vests don’t work at point blank!” Arrin says, rolling her eyes.
I ease his arms out of the vest and cringe. His stomach is so bloody, I can’t tell where the wound is. I take a packet of coagulant from the backpack and tear it open, then sprinkle it over his entire stomach.
He gasps and his eyes open, rolling back into his head. Arrin takes a scrap of his shirt and wipes the blood from his stomach. But when the shirt comes away, covered with blood and white beads, new blood oozes onto his skin so fast, I still can’t tell where the wound is.
“You need more,” she says. “Lots more.”
I open another packet and hand it to Arrin. “You pour it,” I say. I lift Bowen’s head and cradle it in my lap. Leaning down, I kiss his pale lips. They are as cold and unresponsive as clay. Without warning, he jerks away from me as coagulant hisses in his wound. He moans and curls up on his side facing me, clutching his stomach.
“What in the …” Arrin breaks off, face draining of color. She turns her head to the side and vomits on the stairs.
“What?” I ask.
She shakes her head, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “It went clean through him,” she whispers.
“What did?”
She dry heaves and squeezes her eyes shut. “The bullet.” Without opening her eyes, she points a bloodstained finger at Bowen’s back. I lean over his body for a better look.
A chunk of flesh is missing just below Bowen’s ribs, and blood is pulsing out of the wound. I gag once and then make myself take a deep breath. The air smells like blood and death, so I breathe through my mouth.
I grab my backpack and find three more packets of coagulant—all the coagulant I have left.
“Hold him down on his stomach,” I say.
Arrin, eyes still closed, climbs atop Bowen’s shoulders and pushes them to the ground so she is sitting on his back. I open all three packets of coagulant and at once pour the tiny white beads onto the gaping wound.
A scream tears out of Bowen’s mouth, echoing in the narrow stairwell. He arches his back and thrashes, throwing Arrin from him, hands clawing at the ground. I jump on his legs but can’t hold him still.
The coagulant fizzes and bubbles, mixing with blood and expanding to fill the wound. And as it spreads, the bleeding slows. Bowen’s body goes from tense to limp and then sags into the floor. I climb off his legs and put my hand on his cheek. His skin is ice cold and damp, his blue-tinged mouth hanging limply open.
“Bowen?” I whisper.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t even stir.