blood would soak into the blankets and umbrellas and carpeting until the stain would never scorch away. A final, humiliating tomb, crammed into a vehicle on the run like he’d been nothing. A nobody I had cut down like a rabid animal.
“Cas, I think I got—I think I found Simon,” came Checker’s voice, high and reedy. “San Fernando Memorial, as a John Doe, but the rest of it fits. He’s in the ICU—I don’t think we can reach him…”
“Hold on.”
I rolled each of the twins into a fireman’s carry and hauled them inside, then more carefully tried to move Arthur. He seemed mostly catatonic. I couldn’t tell if he’d torn open his injuries or not. I supported his spine as well as I could and got him back into the front seat.
Juwon had been curled crying beneath him. But when I went back to get him, he staggered up and back, beating at me with his hands. “What happened? Oh my God, oh my God, what happened, what happened!”
“Wait,” I cried. “You’re okay?”
His elbows were scraped and bleeding from where he’d hit the pavement, and the side of his face was pebbled in red also. But he wasn’t comatose in residual panic like the others.
Arthur had tackled him down before he’d seen.
“Get in!” I commanded. “Right now. Checker, get him in there!”
I hauled the spare tire onto the hub, tightened it down, kicked a layer of dust over the blood on the asphalt and then shoved the old wheel and tools into the back after Juwon, who had cowered in next to Checker.
Four minutes and thirteen seconds after I’d pulled the trigger and killed the man I meant to save, we rolled back onto the street and sedately joined the flow of traffic.
Juwon hadn’t gotten into a proper seat. Checker had his arm around him, and Juwon stayed shivering against his foster brother, hitching away from Matti and Roy when they rolled and moaned on the floor.
“Hey. Juwon.”
He twitched and turned red and frightened eyes up to me in the rearview mirror.
“You’re going to have to take the van,” I said. None of this changed the fact that the whole family had been targeted, that I needed to send them somewhere safe. Safer. “We’ll follow for a few minutes to make sure nobody’s behind you. I’ll give you a warehouse address where you can drive it right in, and then you’re to stay there. Take care of your brothers and your dad, don’t leave for any reason, and under no circumstances look in the back unless you want to end up like they are. Got it?”
“I—I can’t—” He was hyperventilating. “I can’t, I can’t do it—”
“Yes, you can. Checker, tell him he can.”
“No, I mean I can’t,” Juwon sobbed. “I don’t have, I don’t have a driver’s license. I failed the test…”
“But you know how, right?”
He jerked his head in a nod.
“You can’t get stopped anyway. Nothing in this car will be explainable to the police, do you understand? Do not take risks, do not crash.”
“Cas,” Checker broke in.
I let him take over. He was better at being comforting even under normal circumstances.
We’re not normal, Valarmathi said in my head sadly. And she said it again—proudly—to Coach, a long time ago, gleefully celebrating how many sigmas off the mean we were. He smiled tolerantly and let her high-five him.
I flexed my own hand against the steering wheel. Push the memories away, bury them back down, the logical part of my brain reminded me, but the mantra lacked any teeth. Don’t be stupid, if you don’t stop, it’ll start taking you back over, you’ll crash the van, you’ll fail, you’ll fail Tabitha, like at the ranch with Simon …
What did it matter? I’d failed Coach—in the final, ultimate fashion. He deserved to have someone remember him. A bastardized wake in my head was a pale mockery of the rescue I’d sworn up and down I would make possible for him.
Arthur wheezed in the seat next to me, a plaintive, pleading sound layered on every breath.
Arthur. I’d just been trying to promise him too. To vow I’d save Tabitha, that if anyone had a chance, if she had a chance, I would make it reality. That he could trust me.
Right before I shot the other person I’d wanted to save.
I’d done it without even trying for any other way. I’d opted for the probability of one against Arthur’s body broken and dying, even when it meant pulling the trigger on a man