I crouch down. EJ looks up at me, and his face does that thing it does when he's trying not to let on that he's scared, which is go very still and wide-eyed. It’s the same face he had when he fell off his bike at six and couldn't decide whether to cry or laugh it off.
"Hey, buddy."
"I got shot," he says. Like he's reporting a fact. Like he wants to make sure I understand the gravity of what has occurred.
"I know. You're going to be alright."
I hear the bikes before I see them. Four of them, rolling into the street in front of Ruby’s. The Black Saints are known here. Whatever people in other towns might think about a motorcycle club arriving at a diner next to an elementary school, this town knows what it means.
Brick gets off his bike first and Ruby nods at him the way you nod at someone you've dealt with before. He crouches down next to me and looks at EJ's side, and his jaw tightens just once and then settles.
A father I recognize from the school gate, a man named Paul who coaches EJ's football team, puts his hand briefly on Brick's arm as he passes. "Is he going to be okay?"
"He'll be fine," Brick says, and the certainty in his voice is not performance, it's just Brick, and Paul nods and steps back.
I get my arms under EJ and lift him. He makes a sound that he immediately tries to suppress and my chest does something I don't let show on my face.
"The paramedics are still fifteen minutes out, there’s a lot of traffic," Ruby says. "Where are you taking him?"
"New doctor's surgery. Corner of Lincoln and Lexington. It's three minutes on foot."
She looks at Brick. He gives her a short nod.
What matters is the surgery being only three minutes from the school and I can carry EJ.
Nothing matters right now except getting EJ through that door.
I move toward the gate.
CHAPTER 8
Savannah
Ihear them before I see them.
The bikes pull up across the road and the sound of them fills the street. I go to the window without thinking about it. There's some kind of commotion at the diner, people moving fast, customers clustering near the building. I can see four or five bikes pulled up on the curb and a group of men in cuts standing together with the particular stillness of people who are managing a situation.
I watch for a second longer than I should and then I step back from the window.
"Millie," I keep my voice even. "Can you make sure I'm not disturbed for half an hour? I need to finish the notes from this morning."
"Of course." Millie looks up from the reception desk. She's been with me since the second week and she is worth three of anyone else I could have hired. She’s quick and calm, constitutionally incapable of being flustered. "Anything else?"
"No, that's fine. Thank you."
I go into my office and close the door with a soft click. I lean against it and breathe through the emotions warring inside of me.
Three weeks I've been back. Three weeks of routes that avoid the garage, of clocking the bikes before they clock me, of managing the geometry of a small town. All so that I won't turn a corner and walk straight into the one person I'm not ready to walk into. I knew, eventually, it was going to stop working. I just didn't want eventually to be today, in my own surgery, with my white coat on and Millie twelve feet away with nowhere to go.
I breathe in for four counts. Out for four counts. I'm a doctor. I've dealt with worse than this.
The front door opens with a bang.
"Where's the doctor? I need the doctor, now."
My whole body goes still.
I would know that voice anywhere. Ten years and it's still the same, the particular low register of it, the way it carries without him having to raise it. Except, right now, he has raised it and underneath the volume is something I've never once heard in Austin's voice before.
