Her nostrils flared. The clinical mask cracked. Just for a second. Underneath it was not anger or fear. It was grief. The old, worn-in grief of a mother who had known for a long time how this would end.
"Paul is at my sister's."
"He'll go to prison, Lydia."
“No. He never touched those girls." Her voice hardened. "Not once. He never laid a hand on any of them. He's a good boy. Hedoesn't understand what happened here. He doesn't understand what my husband and I did for him."
The bunker was quiet except for Noah's breathing. It was slower than before.
"Show me your hands," Lydia said, and gestured with the gun for Callie to stand.
Callie rose from her crouch. She moved slowly. Her right hand came up from her ankle in one fluid motion. Her fingers found the holster, the snap, the grip.
She pulled the Glock and spun.
Lydia fired. The round hit Callie in the chest and the impact drove her backward. The vest caught it but the force of it was a hammer blow to her sternum that emptied her lungs and sent white light across her vision. A second shot caught the top of her head above the right ear, not a direct hit but a graze that opened the skin and sent blood sheeting down her face.
Callie fired twice back. Both rounds hit Lydia in the torso. Lydia staggered backward and collapsed into the chair that sat against the wall near the stairs. The revolver dropped from her hand and clattered on the concrete.
Callie stood with the Glock raised and blood running into her right eye. Her chest was on fire. Every breath felt like swallowing broken glass. But she was alive.
Lydia sat slumped in the chair with her hands in her lap and her chin dropping toward her chest. The flannel shirt was dark and wet and spreading. She looked up at Callie with an expression that was not surprise and not anger and not fear. It was relief.
"Make sure my sister looks after my boy," she said. Her voice was thinner now.
Her hand moved toward the revolver on the floor beside the chair.
“Don’t do it.”
Lydia’s fingers found the grip.
Callie fired once more. Point blank.
Lydia's hand went still. Her head dropped forward. The bunker was quiet.
Callie stood there for two seconds. Maybe three. The blood ran down her face and dripped off her chin onto the concrete. Then she turned to Noah.
He was gray. His lips were blue. His breathing had slowed to almost nothing, long pauses between each shallow intake. Breathing that was measured in minutes, not hours.
"Stay with me, Noah."
She holstered the Glock and crouched beside him. Found a handcuff key from her duty belt. Unlocked the cuffs. His wrists fell apart and his arms dropped to the floor like they belonged to someone who wasn't in them anymore.
She hauled him up. He was a dead weight. Two hundred pounds of unconscious muscle and she got him to his feet by bracing against the wall and lifting with her legs. His head lolled against her shoulder. His feet dragged.
"Stay with me. Noah. Stay with me."
She dragged him to the stairs. Looked up. Twelve steps. All concrete. She pulled his arm across her shoulders and started climbing. One step at a time. His boots catching on every riser. The vest pressing against the bruise on her sternum with every breath. The blood from her head wound running into her eye and she couldn't wipe it because both hands were holding him.
She made it to the top. Through the silo. Out the door. The rain hit them and Noah's head dropped forward and she almost lost him. She tightened her grip and kept moving. Across the field. Through the mud. Past the barn. Across the yard. Every step a negotiation between her body and the ground and the weight of the man she was carrying and the blood she was losing and the pain in her chest that pulsed white with every heartbeat.
She reached the cruiser. Got the passenger door open. Lowered him in. His head fell against the headrest and his mouth was open and the blue in his lips was darker now.
She pulled the second Narcan dose from the kit in the glove compartment and administered it. Nasal spray. Watched his face. Counted. Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.
Nothing. His breathing didn't change. The color didn't change. The morphine was winning.
Naloxone didn't always fully reverse an overdose on the first dose. She'd used the first on Seraphine. This was her second and last. And it wasn't enough. He needed a hospital. He needed advanced care. He needed more than she had in the cruiser.
