"It's meat," he says, steady in a way that costs him. "Through and through. Missed the kidney. I can drive but I'd rather not."
"I'll drive."
"Yeah."
We swap. I come around the front of the truck, he slides across the bench, and I get in and adjust the mirror with shaking hands and put both of mine on the wheel.
"Volcai’s men found us. There were two of them," he says, before I can ask. "One on the road, one in the treeline. The one in the treeline got lucky before I found him. The other one won't be a problem." States it like a cold fact. "Beauchamp will have people on the mountain within the hour. It's done."
"Okay," I say, because it's the only word I have.
"Creek at the culvert. Take it slow."
He talks me through every turn. The landmarks, the junction name, the sign for the forestry office, how far past it to pull in. I take it all in and hold it while the rest of me monitors his breathing and his color and the way his hand stays pressed against his side without trembling.
"If I go under, you keep driving."
"Don't."
"Hazel." His hand finds my arm, briefly, warm and certain. "You keep driving."
"Okay. I will. I promise."
I keep both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road and I talk to him because his eyes sharpen on my voice when I talk and I need them to stay sharp. And then, because I have run completely out of patience with careful timing, I say it.
"I love you." My eyes stay on the road and my voice stays level and it still costs me everything. "I've been trying to find the right moment for two days and there isn't one, there's just this one, so. I love you. I've loved you since you decided I was worth more than your contract. I need you to stay awake."
He's quiet long enough that I check — a quick look, his chest moving, his eyes open.
"I know," he says. Quiet. Rough at the edges in a way that has nothing to do with the wound. "Because I love you too." A pause, shorter than the first. "Drive, Hazel."
I drive.
The color drains from his face and his breathing gets careful and his eyes lose focus and find it again with effort, and I talk to him through all of it, and he talks me through the last two turns, and the trees open up at the forestry junction exactly where he said they would.
The gravel lot has two unmarked cars and a paramedic already moving at a run, and Beauchamp. He’s older than I expected, a kind face, exactly the face Rafe would trust. We make eye contact and he raises his hand.
Palm up. Then dropped.
Rafe sees it. I feel him settle. The tension drops from his shoulder.
"Good girl," he says.
Then his eyes close.
I put the truck in park. I get out on the signal. I walk between Beauchamp and the paramedic and I hand over the laptop and the statement and I tell them everything — the Belize shell, the Liechtenstein intermediary, the placement dates, all of it — in a voice that doesn't sound like mine but doesn't stop, while behind me they load him into the ambulance and the doors close and it pulls away.
I watch until I can't see it anymore.
Then I sit down on the gravel because my legs have made their own decision, and Beauchamp crouches beside me and says something I don't immediately hear, and after a moment I say it out loud, to the mountains and the morning and no one in particular:
"He's going to be fine."
I don't know yet if it's true. But I have spent two weeks running from things and I am done with that now, so I'm going to say it like it is until it becomes true.
“He's going to be fine.”
seven
