In the meantime, we drive.
The snow thins out as we drop down off the mountain. The road goes from white to slush to wet black. Afon takes the highway ramp and the truck shudders up to speed. The trees blur by as I keep my hands on the wound and watch the dog breathe.
In and out. In and out.
"Talk to me," I plead.
"About what?"
"Anything. I need noise. If it's quiet, I'm gonna lose it."
He's quiet for a second anyway. Then he says, "I found him in the spring. He was a stray, half-starved, hanging around the edge of the clearing. Wouldn't come near me for weeks."
"What changed?"
"I left food out. Then I left it a little closer. Then a little closer." A muscle twitches in his jaw. "One morning, he was just on the porch. Like he'd always been there. Like he'd decided."
I look down at Wolf. "He's good at that. Deciding things."
"He is." Afon's hand tightens on the wheel. "He decided this morning, too."
Wolf shudders once, hard. I press down and talk to him. Soon, he settles. The blood doesn't pump anymore. It just seeps, slow and warm, and I tell myself what Afon told me, that seeping is better than pumping, that seeping means he's got time.
I check the clock on the dash a hundred times. It barely moves.
We get there a little after one.
It's a squat, brick building off a county road, a gravel lot, a sign that saysANIMAL EMERGENCYin red letters. There's a man waiting at the door before Afon even kills the engine—an older guy in scrubs, with two younger people behind him and a rolling table.
Afon's out of the truck and around to my side before I can get the door open. He scoops Wolf up out of my lap, off the seat, against his chest, and the dog cries out. Afon rumbles a low sound back at him, almost like a word.
"Easy," I think he says. "Easy, boy. I've got you."
The man in scrubs takes one look and says, "Bring him this way." No hello. No paperwork.
Lukas called ahead, alright.
I climb out on legs that don't want to hold me. My hands are red to the wrist. Afon carries Wolf inside and lays him on the table. The people in scrubs close in around him, fast and quiet, hands and gauze and a needle starting in on their bloody work.
"Gunshot?" the older man asks.
"Shoulder," Afon confirms. "About three hours ago."
The man nods and starts feeling Wolf's chest, his belly, peeling back his lip to look at the gums. "Heart rate's up but he's perfusing. Good sign." He glances at the two younger ones. "Let's get a line in and get him back."
They move him onto a gurney. Wolf's head lolls as his eyes begin to cloud over with exhaustion. His eye finds me, then Afon, then me again.
"Go," I tell him. "Go get fixed, you big goof."
Then they wheel him through a set of swinging doors. The doors swing shut, and he's gone.
It's just us now, standing in a little waiting room with plastic chairs and a coffee machine. Behind us looms a bulletin board full of flyers for lost cats. Blood pools on the floor where it dripped off Afon's sweater. There's blood on me, too, his and mine and the dog's all mixed together. I glance at Afon to see a dark patch where the bullet graze has opened up again. I don't think he's even noticed.
"Sit," the older man instructs, coming back through the doors for a second. "It'll be a while. Surgery, then recovery. He's young and he's strong. That's what we want." He looks at the two of us, the state of us, and his face softens a little. "There's a bathroom down the hall. Get cleaned up. I'll come find you when I know something."
I don't last long in the waiting room.
I sit in one of the plastic chairs and Afon sits next to me and we don't talk and the clock on the wall ticks and every tick is a year. I keep seeing it:
