Jai put a hand on each of Sonny’s shoulders and shook him gently. “Stop,” he ordered, trying not to scream in the smaller man’s face. “Sonny, you must stop this. Stop this. You have a quiet place somewhere in your rabbit brain—we all do. Ace’s is on the road, yours is under a car, mine is in the middle of nowhere, walking under the sky. Go there. Dream of fixing a new race car. Go there. Stay there. I can get him out—I swear to God I can, but you… you can’t do this. You need to be in your place or I will be too afraid to turn my back on you.”
Sonny blinked once, twice, and the hurt that crossed his features almost sawed open Jai’s heart. “Too afraid, Jai? Of me?”
Jai felt the hot brine of tears, of a wound in his soul that hadn’t had time to heal. “I was there, Sonny,” he said, his voice clogged. “When that stain appeared on your rug. Remember?”
Sonny recoiled like Jai had slapped him.
“Quiet place,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I’ll go to a quiet place.”
Jai set him gently down on the side step of his SUV and turned toward the Forester. With a quick look in the passenger side, he saw that Ace had skidded into a boulder at some point, and the driver’s compartment was too impacted to pull Ace out without opening up the compartment. If he was a fireman, he’d have the jaws of life, but he wasn’t. The only tool he had was a big car he didn’t love and a desire to save a brother whom he did. Ace was blessedly, blessedly unconscious, but his breathing was strong. Jai suspected he might have hit his head when the car struck the rock, but he didn’t want to borrow trouble. What would happen next would be traumatic enough.
He squeezed Ace’s shoulder and murmured, “I will get you out, my brother. You need to hear the story of your glorious flight from someone not in the car.”
And with that he strode to the Tahoe, barking, “Sonny, get in,” relieved when Sonny, eyes glazed, stood up, got in the front seat, and belted himself in.
“You all ready?” Jai asked, backing the Tahoe up with a little room for some momentum. “This will not be pleasant.”
GEORGE GOTthe call right after Ernie had driven off into the desert in the police cruiser, his eyes bruised with exhaustion, his psyche obviously bleeding from too much, too much, too much, everywhere around them.
“George?” Sonny said, sounding young and lost. “You there?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I’m driving the Tahoe on the back desert roads, heading for the garage. Jai says all the guys in the cop cars are going to the hospital in Baker. Is he right?”
George had already called, trying to get a sense of where the casualties of this day would be going. The ones not being buried in an unmarked pit, that is.
“Where’s Jai?” George asked, suddenly terrified.
“He’s got a broke arm,” Sonny said matter-of-factly. “He… he had to drive the Tahoe into the Forester to get it off a rock so we could get Ace out. Ace isn’t… he’s still out. He needs blood, and his head is bruised. Eric’s passed out—Jai says blood loss. But I need to know if I can come get you so you can do shit to people while I get us to the hospital. Can I do that? Is that okay?”
Oh shit. Oh hell. How bad a day could it be if Sonny was the one in charge? In the background, he heard Jai say, “Give me phone.”
And then his voice—that rumbly, impressive, frightening voice. George was in the middle or running around the boarded-up cashier’s cubicle, grabbing the first aid kit, grabbing one of their many flats of water, grabbing a gun to shove in the back ofhis pants, grabbing the keys so he could lock the place up and let Dimitri go into the house to tend to the dog.
“Jai?” he asked, knowing his voice was as wobbly as Sonny’s.
“I am okay,” Jai said. “Broken bones make me vomit is all. Do not panic. Do not cry. We need you.” He paused. “Is Ernie there?”
“Ernie’s, uhm, getting rid of our own little adventure,” George said, keeping his voice steady for Jai’s sake.
“Ah. I am sorry, Little George. This is not the life of peace I promised you.”
“But it’s the life of meaning I wanted,” George retorted, his throat thick. “If you all live, you’ve kept all the promises, Jai. Don’t worry.”
“I do worry,” Jai said, sounding dreamy, like somebody in shock. “I worry, Little George. You are so… so sweet.”
“I’m strong too,” George said, wiping his eyes on his shoulder. “I have to be or I’m not worth the good man I’m with. Now give the phone back to Sonny and let me prep.”
“I’m about twenty minutes out,” Sonny said, and then his voice cracked just like George’s voice was cracking. “If I drive like Ace.”
“Drive faster,” George whispered and ended the call. “I’ll be ready when you get here.” He was rooting through the first aid kit then, staring at the unusual supplies. What was… oh, wait. Seriously? Wait—this was Ace’s handwriting. What was—oh… oh wow.
Out of nowhere, he laughed.
Then he called out, “Dimitri, run into the house and put on pots of water to boil.Now, Dimitri—now.”
“Da,” Dimitri said. “It is time to let the dog out. May I do that while water is boiling?”
