“Finn. Pull over.”
“I said I’m—”
“Pull the car over right now.” No softness in it this time. No room for interpretation.
He exhaled through his nose. The Suburban drifted toward the shoulder and stopped in the gravel, the engine still running.
I was out of my seat before the truck had fully stopped.
“Out,” I said, reaching across him. My hands found his seatbelt, his arm, his side—a quick, brutal calculus of how to lever him from the driver’s seat without making the bleeding worse.
“Libby—” His voice had gone thin, the authority in it a pale version of what it usually carried.
“Out,” I said again, and opened his door from the inside.
Between the three of us, we got him out and into the backseat. He weighed more than I’d been prepared for—not just his size, but the dead heaviness of a body that has stopped cooperating. He kept his jaw clenched throughout, eyes sliding off whatever they tried to land on, fighting to stay present through what was clearly a significant effort of will.
“Easy—right there—I’ve got you,” Fiona said, her hands finding him, guiding his shoulders down as he settled across the backseat with his head in her lap.
The moment Finn was clear, I slid into the driver’s seat. The engine was still running. My foot found the gas—we couldn’t stay here, couldn’t risk attracting things to the smell of blood.
“Finn,” she said sharply, her fingers at his jaw, turning his face toward her. “Eyes. Look at me.”
His eyelids lifted with visible effort. “Still here,” he muttered, his words slurred.
Then they closed.
His eyelids fluttered, then settled, not opening again. The tension holding him together finally gave way, his face going slack against Fiona’s leg.
“Finn!” Lily’s voice broke on his name, splitting something open in the vehicle’s already charged air.
“He’s lost consciousness,” Fiona said, her tone stripped clean of everything except function. Her hands were already moving, carefully, deliberately peeling the blood-soaked fabric away from his shoulder. “That’s not the worst outcome right now. He’s still breathing.”
She pulled the shirt back and went quiet for a moment.
“Shit,” she said quietly.
“What?” Gripping the steering wheel, I glanced in the rearview mirror. “Fiona. What?”
“It didn’t pass through.” Her voice was flat. “The bullet’s still in there. Lodged deep—I can’t tell exactly where without better light and proper access, but it’s not something that closes on its own.”
The inside of the vehicle contracted around me.
“We have to get it out,” she continued, pressing the balled-up shirt against the wound with both hands, her weight behind it.“And close this up properly.” She looked at him then, just for a second, before turning back to the wound.
“I know,” I said.
“Libby, find something—a clinic, a pharmacy, a veterinary office, anything with medical supplies. Whatever you can find.”
I didn’t cry, because if I started, I was aware—at some fundamental, physical level—that stopping wasn’t going to be an option, and Finn didn’t have time for that. None of us did.
Behind me, Fiona held the makeshift compress against his shoulder with steady, unrelenting pressure. Finn didn’t react to it. Didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound.
“Come on,” Fiona said under her breath, low enough that I almost didn’t catch it. “Stay with me, Finn. Stay right here.”
Lily sat pressed against the door on the far side, her knees drawn up, her eyes fixed on him with an expression that had moved past fear into something quieter and more terrible. She’d gone completely silent—an unnatural stillness for Lily, more alarming than any sound she could have made.
“Is he going to die?” she asked, her voice a thread of sound.
