Lily stood at her elbow, holding the phone’s flashlight with both hands, her arm extended at the exact angle Fiona needed, her hand trembling only slightly.
“Keep it right there,” Fiona instructed, not looking up. “Exactly there.”
“I’ve got it,” Lily replied, her voice steady and quiet, stirring a pang of pride in my chest.
I stopped just inside the doorway.
“Bullet’s out,” Fiona announced before I could ask. “Checking for fragments now.”
“Okay,” I said, releasing the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“I found antibiotics,” she added, tilting her head toward a tray on the counter. “Veterinary grade, but they’ll work. And saline—I’ve already started an IV.”
“Oh, thank God,” I murmured, my voice softer than intended, hushed by the room’s quiet intensity.
Lily looked up at me then, her eyes wide.
“He didn’t even flinch,” she whispered, her gaze fixed on Finn. “The whole time… Is he supposed to be that still?”
“For now, yes,” I said, keeping my voice low for her sake. “Still is good.”
It was true. Yet, seeing him lie there motionless didn’t make it any easier. Both realities coexisted without diminishing each other.
“One more minute,” Fiona said, shifting her weight and adjusting her angle slightly. “Then I close it up.”
“I need to check the windows,” I said, my voice low. “Make sure we’re secure.”
“Go,” she replied without looking up, trusting me to handle it as she handled the task before her.
I moved back through the hallway, grabbing a chair from the reception area as I went. Methodically, I worked through every room, climbing to check each window latch, testing it, climbing down, and moving to the next. The windows were small and set high, mirroring the one I’d used to enter—not easy access, but not impossible if something outside became determined.
Each time I stepped up, my eyes scanned the dark outside for movement, for shapes. The land behind the building remained empty. The treeline held steady. The darkness stayed dark.
When the last window was secured, I stood in the hallway and listened: Fiona’s low murmur from the exam room as she talked Lily through something. Nothing out of place.
Then I started thinking beyond the next ten minutes. We weren’t leaving tonight, which meant we needed somewhere to sleep.
I found the storage room and paused in the doorway, taking inventory. Packaged dog beds, still sealed, stacked in a column against the back wall. Clean. Unused. Better than the floor in every measurable way, and not worth being picky about.
“Good enough,” I said to the cat, who had followed me and now sat in the hallway, observing my decision-making with polite neutrality.
I dragged the beds into the two windowless exam rooms, spacing them to accommodate three people without beingcramped. The linen closet, surprisingly well-stocked, held sheets still in their packaging and a stack of folded blankets on the upper shelf—items someone had ordered and never used.
By the time I brought everything back to Finn’s room, Fiona straightened, rolling her shoulders.
“Closure is holding,” she said, her words clipped with exhaustion. “Last stitch is in. Now for the antibiotics.”
I looked at her hands, still steady even now. I didn’t know what that cost her.
“How is he?”
She set the instrument down and briefly pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead, the closest she’d come to showing exhaustion since we’d carried him in.
“Bleeding’s stopped,” she said. “That’s the most important thing right this second.” She looked at his face, then back at me. “He lost a lot of blood before I got it under control. He’ll be out for a while, and it’s going to hurt like hell when he wakes. But the wound is clean and closed, and the antibiotics give us a fighting chance against infection.”
The relief that moved through me didn’t arrive neatly. It came in uneven, almost painful pieces, each part landing before I was ready for the next.
“I’ve got beds set up,” I said. “Both rooms off the hall.”
