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I wanted to tell them to look away. I wanted to say: the bullet is in my shoulder and the blade wound is closing and my eyes are red. But I could not speak. And as they crossed the floor toward me, Lex bent his head and said, very low, in my ear: “It’s okay. I’ve got it. Close your eyes.”

I closed them.

“Sir,” said an officer. “Sir, is he injured?”

“He’s got a bad concussion,” said Lex, smoothly. “He got hit with a pipe. He needs an ambulance.”

“Is that his blood?”

“It’s a lot of people’s blood. It’s been a night.”

“Are you hurt?”

“I’m great.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m the best I’ve ever been. Please just get him to a hospital. Please.”

I felt the hands lift me, and the straps, and the cold air of the lot, and the bright blinding flash of red-and-blue lights against my closed lids. And through it all I heard his voice, close to my ear, talking and talking and never stopping: I’ve got you, stay with me, you’re okay, I love you, I love you, I love you.

Behind me, as they wheeled me out, I heard the doctor.

He was sitting on the floor, in handcuffs, with his broken wrist in his lap. Two policemen stood over him. And he was not shouting, or struggling, or raging. He was weeping. Softly, steadily, without shame, the way a man weeps who has been carrying something for a very long time and has just been told he can put it down.

“Elena,” he said. “Elena. Elena.”

I opened my eyes.

I could not help it. I turned my head, in the strap, on the stretcher, in the flashing red dark, and looked at him.

He looked up.

Across the warehouse, across the police and the blood and the wire, two old men’s eyes met.

“She would not have wanted this,” I said.

It was barely a whisper. I had no breath. But I saw him hear it. I saw his face crumple.

“You do not know that,” he said, hoarsely.

“No,” I said. “I do not.”

I let my head fall back.

“But I saw the photographs.”

The doors closed behind me.

Chapter 31

LEX

Wake Up, Bastard

“Wake up, bastard.”

I said it quietly, at four in the morning, in Room 411 of St. Aldric’s Hospital, to a man who was not going to wake up.

He lay on the narrow bed with a thin blue blanket up to his chest and a bandage across his shoulder the size of a dinner plate. His face was the color of paper. His eyes were shut. The monitor over his head beeped in a slow, steady, deeply unconvincing rhythm, and I had a feeling that if I’d leaned over and looked at the readout, it would have said something like unknown species, please consult a priest.

“Wake up, “ I said again. “Come on. I’ve been sitting here for six hours. I’ve had nine cups of terrible coffee and a bag of pretzels and a nurse called Deb who thinks I’m your brother. Wake up and tell me I’m dreaming.”