Still, she lifted a shaking hand to cradle his cheek.Just like a mother would.‘It’s okay,’ she murmured.‘You did good, Brodie.Finn’s taking us to the hospital.He’ll look after you now.’
She turned her head slightly, catching Finn’s eye in the mirror.‘It was self-defence, Finn.Brodie only did it to protect me.’
‘I’m sorry, Lydia,’ Brodie whispered.‘I didn’t know what else to do.He was going to hurt you—’ His voice hitched.‘I killed Red.I stole his ute.I should’ve—’
The kid looked like his universe was caving in.
And maybe it was.
‘You did the right thing.’But Finn’s words felt hollow.
He saw it now.
This—allof this—was his fault.
Again, her eyes found his in the rear-view mirror, glassy and full of something deeper than pain.‘You’ll watch over him, won’t you?No matter what happens next, you’ll stand by my boy?’
Finn couldn’t speak.
Brodie was looking at a manslaughter charge.Car theft.And who knows what other charges would show once the dust had settled—but right now they were both in trouble.Even though Lydia was bleeding out in the back of his troopy, she was still trying to protect the boy like she always did.Trying to make Finn keep his word, as if making it her last handover.
It only made Finn press the accelerator harder, forcing the troopy to roar through the night.She was not dying in the back of his car.
Brodie sat beside her, trembling with adrenaline now, struggling to keep his hand pressed against her wound.How cruel was this world for a boy who’d finally found a life filled with hope, and now it was about to be snatched away from him.
‘Trust in Finn.’Her voice was paper-thin.‘You’re safe with him.Always were.’Again, she glanced up at Finn.
Finn didn’t answer, he just nodded once and made that silent promise.
When the floodlights of Elsie Creek Hospital snapped into view.
Thank God.
By the main doors, the hospital staff stood with a stretcher, ready to move.
Finn braked hard, yanking the troopy to a stop just shy of the front doors, and jumped out.‘We’ve got a critical bleed on the female, Lydia Galloway, aged 51.And a secondary concussion with a shoulder trauma on Brodie Cross, minor, 16 and under my care!’
He threw open the back doors.
The nurses and the doctor moved fast—three around Lydia, one helping Brodie.
As they lifted her onto the stretcher, Lydia reached out blindly with her fingers, grasping for Brodie.
She found his hand and gripped it tight as if scared of letting go.‘You’re safe now, sweetheart.You’re no longer that boy anymore, but a man I’m so proud of.You’re a good man and don’t you ever forget that, no matter what happens.’
Brodie broke into full sobs as the nurses pulled him back.
But Finn was there, holding the kid upright as Lydia was wheeled inside, and the emergency doors closed behind her.
Thirty-one
Finn sat in the chair by the window with his elbows resting on his knees, the silent radio clipped to his police vest.The curtain on the window was half drawn, giving him an outside slice of the night sky—deep, black, and wide as the land itself.
The last time he’d been in this room, it had been to see Bree.She’d just had a baby girl.Little Charlie Riggs, who had hair like her mother.
It was supposed to have been a good day.But all it’d done was remind him of everything he’d lost.Of Liam.A child he never got to watch grow into a man.
And now here he was again.Same hospital.Same ache in his chest.Different kid.
