Sheltering Dunes (33 page)

A tinny voice said
What is your emergency? What is your emergency? Where is your location? What is…

Flynn couldn’t see Mica. She fumbled for a lamp. If she made herself a target, she didn’t care. She needed to see Mica. Shouts came from somewhere close by, then a bright light struck her in the face, making her blink. Mica lay on her back, her lips parted slightly, her eyes calm. Blood trickled in delicate lacey patterns from a dime-sized hole just under her left breast. Not very much blood at all. Why was she so pale, then?

“Flynn,” Mica gasped.

Flynn’s brain threatened to shut down. Agonizing fear ripped through her. Mica shivered, her eyes starting to close.

“Mica!” Flynn’s shout rang hollowly, a solitary note echoing inside a glass chamber.

“I’m sorry,” Mica breathed, her voice so faint it was as if she spoke in a dream.

“No. You’re fine. You did fine.” Flynn saw herself moving like a player on a ghostly stage. Her hand came down over the hole in Mica’s chest. Warm, thick crimson liquid seeped between her fingers. Mica looked so calm. So pale. The shouts grew louder, the words a tangle of indecipherable syllables. “Help will be here soon. Baby, you’re going to be all right.”

“Hurt?” A sliver of blood trickled from the corner of Mica’s mouth.

“No. Mica, please. Please. Don’t talk. Just rest. You’ll be all right.”

“Sorry.” Mica smiled. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Flynn choked. Her throat was so tight. “Sweetheart, I love you.”

“Flynn,” Mica whispered, her lids fluttering.

“Yes, baby, I’m here.”

Figures raced by them. A voice yelled
Clear
. All Flynn saw was Mica. Mica was everything.

“Think I need”—Mica’s smile faltered and she grasped Flynn’s arm—“a priest.”

“I’m here,” Flynn murmured. “I’m here, baby.”

Flynn kept one palm pressed to the hole in Mica’s chest where Mica’s blood pumped out with each heartbeat, crossed herself, and signed the cross on Mica’s forehead. Mica’s eyes were all she saw, open and trusting and beautiful. She put her faith in Mica’s eyes and prayed.

“Almighty God, look on this your servant, lying in great weakness…”

“EMTs are on their way.” Allie’s voice.

“…and comfort her with the promise of life everlasting…”

Dave said, “Got no pulse.”

“From all evil, from all sin, from all tribulation…”

“Move over.” Allie pressed both hands to the center of Mica’s chest.

“…by the Coming of the Holy Spirit…”

“We need more help.”

“That it may please you to deliver the soul of your servant…”

Reese said, “Bri’s bringing Tory.”

“…mercifully to pardon all her sins.”

“We need her STAT,” Dave shouted.

“Our Father, who art…”

“One…two…three…”

“…forgive us our trespasses…”

“Dave? Where are we?” Tory’s voice.

“…as we forgive those who trespass against us…”

“She’s bleeding out.”

“…lead us not into temptation…”

“We need blood.”

“…deliver us from evil…”

“I’m O-neg. Take mine.”

“…for Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power…”

“I’ve never done a battlefield transfusion.”

“…and the Glory, forever and ever…”

“I have.”

“Amen.”
Flynn closed her eyes and held Mica’s hand to her lips.
Please, baby. Please don’t leave me.

The chapel held four wooden pews on either side of a narrow central aisle. A plain wooden cross hung on the wall behind the unadorned altar. The beige walls were muted in the dim glow of the recessed lights in the arched ceiling.

Flynn knelt alone at the rail. Her solitude enclosed her so deeply, she was only distantly aware of the passage of time. She didn’t turn when she sensed a presence beside her.

“It’s Allie. I’ll go if you want.”

“No.” Flynn crossed herself and rose slowly. Her body seemed foreign, a hollow shell that belonged to someone else. She sat in the first pew. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” Allie said, sitting next to Flynn, “but I wasn’t sure if you should be alone.”

Flynn smiled softly, wondering if she would ever not be alone again. “I’m glad you came. I didn’t have a chance to thank you.”

Allie’s eyes welled with tears. “God, Flynn, don’t. If I could have done more…”

“You gave her your blood. That’s a tremendous gift.”

“I wish Tory had let me give another—”

Flynn took Allie’s hand. “You gave enough. Thank you.”

“Are you all right?” Allie laughed shakily. “Stupid question. Of course you aren’t. Did you eat?”

“No. I’m not hungry.” Flynn looked around for a window. “Is it morning?”

“Not yet. Can I do anything? I feel so useless.”

“Did you get him? Everything happened so fast and then…I never thought about him.”

“We got him.”

“Is he alive?” She probably ought to be jubilant at the news, but she was too cold and numb to feel anything at all.

“He didn’t put up much of a fight once he saw he was outgunned. We apprehended him right outside Mica’s building.” Allie sounded almost apologetic.

“Just a minute too late.”

“Yes,” Allie said. “I’m so sorry.”

Flynn squeezed Allie’s hand. “I didn’t mean it that way. You’re not responsible. He is—do you know his name?”

“Carmen Alvarez. According to Dell, he’s one of La Mara’s top lieutenants and Hector’s right hand. Hector is—”

“I know who he is. He’s the man Mica was with.”

“No,” Allie said. “He’s the man Mia Gonzales was with. Mica has only ever been with you.”

“You’re right. I…she—” Flynn’s throat tightened and her eyes burned. She hadn’t thought there were any tears left. “Sorry. I…sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Allie slid her arm around Flynn’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Sometimes tears are all we have.”

*

“I thought you might want some coffee,” Dell said, handing Flynn a paper cup from the vending machine.

“Thanks.” Steam rose from the surface of the muddy-looking liquid, but Flynn’s fingers were cold.

Dell dropped into one of the nearby plastic chairs. “I let you down. I let Mia—sorry, Mica down. I know sorry doesn’t help, but I am.”

“He was coming, him or someone else, whether you were here or not.” Flynn put the coffee aside. “I’d like you to do something for me.”

“Anything, if I can do it, it’s yours.”

“Make this worth it. Make him tell you the things you need to know to put an end to this, so there is never another Mica.”

“My lieutenant’s making arrangements with the sheriff for transport right now. With what we have on him, he’s not getting out and he knows it. He’ll talk to save his own skin.”

“That’s enough, then.”

“No, it isn’t. You asked me if I could keep her safe.” Dell’s voice was rough with sleeplessness and remorse. “I told you I could, and I let him get by us. I let him get to her.”

“You know,” Flynn said, replaying those moments for the hundredth, for the thousandth, time, “another thirty seconds—a minute, and you might have gotten him before he got to her.” Flynn kept wondering if she’d reached out, if she’d pulled Mica back down onto the bed, if she’d kept her from going into the other room—maybe she could have kept her safe. “I was there and I didn’t stop her from meeting him head-on. Mica never expected to be rescued. Not by you, not by me. She wouldn’t let anyone fight for her.”

“Brave of her,” Dell said.

“Yes, brave. And selfless.”

“Maybe if she’d waited, I would’ve got there in time,” Dell said, “but maybe he would’ve gotten both of you. She had to have been thinking about that.”

“Oh, I know she was.” Flynn studied her hands. She’d washed them, many times, but the blood was still just as visible to her as if it still covered them. Mica’s blood. “It’s hard, isn’t it, when the ones we love won’t let us protect them.”

“It’s hell,” Dell said.

*

Flynn’s eyes flew open at a touch on her shoulder. “Mica?”

“It’s Tory, Flynn.” Tory leaned down, her eyes liquid with tenderness. “It’s time.”

Flynn pushed to her feet, her body stiff and protesting. Her chest ached, her head throbbed with sleeplessness and pain. She followed Tory through the eerily silent halls, where only the drone of the machines broke the stillness. Outside the windows, the sky was black and starless. Shadows followed them as they walked.

“Is there anything I can do?” Tory asked.

Flynn shook her head. “I never had a chance to thank you for what you did.”

“I can’t take very much credit for it,” Tory said. “Allie took all the risk, and without Reese’s directions, I doubt I would have been able to do it. We all did it.”

“Mica told me once that she didn’t belong anywhere,” Flynn said. “She was wrong.”

Tory gently took Flynn’s hand. “Yes, she was.”

The cubicle was dark, lit only by the glowing faces of the monitors and a single flat ceiling light set to low. The sheets were very, very white. Mica’s dark hair stood out against the covers like cinders on snow. Her eyes were closed, her arms extended, palms up by her sides. Tubes ran from her arms, from underneath the sheets, from the corner of her mouth. Not even the barest flicker of movement rippled beneath her alabaster lids. She wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t dreaming. Her body, her mind, perhaps her spirit, had drawn in on itself, a protective reflex as she gathered her strength for the ultimate battle.

“I can get you a chair,” the nurse said.

“No, thank you,” Flynn said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You can stay as long as you like.”

Flynn nodded and took Mica’s hand. Her fingers were cool, dry, motionless. Flynn knelt, and prayed for clarity.

*

She’d only ever been swimming once, when she was five, and her mother and her mother’s then-boyfriend took her and her brother and her baby sister to the beach in Atlantic City. The sand was too hot and too stony and hurt her feet. The ocean was so big, the waves so high, she’d been afraid to go into the water. Her mother’s boyfriend had carried her on his shoulders, and she’d felt safe until he’d swung her down and into the water, laughing, telling her she’d like it. The salty water flooded her nose and her throat. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, and the world became a frightening place. She’d reached out for someone to save her and she’d found only more blackness. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t move her arms and legs, couldn’t break free of the crushing weight of the waves. Like now. She reached out for something to hold on to, and warm, strong fingers closed around hers, calming her, anchoring her. She held on tight and the fear swept away with the tide.

*

Pulse racing, Flynn searched for any sign that Mica was aware. She’d felt Mica’s fingers twitch, she was certain of it. Tory had explained that the bullet had lacerated the left pulmonary artery and Mica had nearly exsanguinated. Even the blood Allie had given her right there on the floor of Mica’s apartment hadn’t been enough to keep her blood pressure in a safe range. The surgery to repair her artery had gone well, the surgeon had said, obviously pleased with himself. The bullet had passed through her body from front to back and, other than that one lethal laceration, had done no significant damage. Now that the tear in the artery was repaired, he had said, she should recover very quickly. If the rest of her recovered, that is. If the blood loss and the hypotension hadn’t caused irreversible brain damage. The initial EEG had been inconclusive, according to Tory. There was brain activity, but disorganized and erratic. The abnormal function could have been due to any number of things—the stress, the anesthesia, the shock to her system. Or it might mean that Mica was gone. Flynn should prepare herself for that, Tory had said.

Flynn told them they were wrong. Mica would never give up so easily. Tory had nodded and said from what she knew of Mica, she agreed. Tory had said Mica needed to know Flynn believed in her too.

“I’m here, baby,” Flynn said quietly. “You’re safe. Just concentrate on getting better. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

*

Somewhere in the center of her chest, a fire burned. Every breath scorched her lungs, and she wanted to flee from the pain. She’d been running forever, it seemed. First from the life she seemed destined to inherit, then from Hector, then from the men Hector sent. She was tired of running. So very tired. She didn’t fear the water as much as she had when she was small. She could let the cool comfort engulf her, carry her away, put out the fire. If she just let go, stopped fighting. Went under.