My hand comes up off her neck and finds the side of her head where the blood is.
Her hair is matted with it. The wound underneath my fingers is bigger than I want it to be.
"You're goin' to the hospital, baby."
She tries to pull back from my hand. "I'm fine?—"
I tighten my grip on the side of her head, just enough to keep her facing me. "You're not fine. You took a hit to the side of the head. You need a CT scan and you need it now. You ride in the ambulance with Marlena."
"Silas, I have to be here when you—" Her voice cracks before she finishes.
"You have to be alive when I get back. Promise me."
She holds my eyes. Her mouth pulls. The tears that haven't come yet today get behind her bottom lashes.
My thumb moves across her cheekbone. "Promise me, Hadley."
"I promise."
I turn my head over my shoulder. Phantom is already on his feet behind me. "Prez. She needs a head scan. Don't let her out of your sight until I'm back."
Phantom nods once. "She rides with Marlena. Bex too. I'll be at the hospital with all of 'em."
I bend down and press my mouth to the side of her head. The taste of her blood goes into my mouth and stays there.
I let her go.
I walk out the front door.
Banshee is on the porch boards with Roan kneeling over him, Roan's hands on the shoulder wound, two of Holt's patched men flanking with sidearms drawn for cover. Banshee's eyes are open. He's breathing.
Sirens come up the gravel.
The first ambulance crests the rise at the front gate, the second one behind it, the sheriff's truck behind that.
The lead medic is out of the rig before it stops rolling, jumping the porch steps two at a time, his eyes already on Banshee—the patient he can see from twenty yards out.
He goes to Banshee first.
The second crew is right behind him with a stretcher.
Holt is on the porch with his radio, calling the sheriff's deputy by name, telling him what room of the bunkhouse to enter first.
Phantom passes me in the doorway, going back inside to Hadley and Marlena. His hand finds my back once as we cross—once, hard, the only goodbye we have time for.
I get to the bottom of the porch steps and break into a run.
The barn is sixty yards across the gravel.
I go inside, past the stalls, to the back.
To the black Ford F-250 with a turbo that I keep covered under a tarp for the kind of work I haven't done in ten years.
The tarp comes off in one motion.
The duffle is in the bed under a tool box. I pulled it out of my closet the day Hartley called and I put it in this truck two days ago.
I climb in. The engine catches under me, and I back out of the barn.
