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Finally, they were there, right in front of him, and it took everything in him to not grab the doctor and shake him until the words came out. Instead, he stood as still as possible, steeling himself for the worst.
“Wyatt, Griz, this is Dr. Ashburn,” Kate said. “He’s the trauma surgeon who’s been working on your dad.”
“What can you tell us, Doctor?” Wyatt said for him. “We’ve been dying for news.”
“I understand,” the doctor said. “He’s stable. For now. But we’ve had to put him into a medically induced coma.”
The words had trouble making it past the sudden lump in Griz’s throat. “A coma?”
“It’s so that his body can have a chance to heal,” the doctor said. “It’s his best bet.”
“For how long?” Griz said.
“It’s impossible to say. I wish I could give you better news than this… it’s a miracle he’s still alive. He took two bullets through the back, one passed through and out the front, the other lodged in his spine.”
“Jesus,” Wyatt said.
“Now, the bone itself isn’t shattered, and that’s good,” the doctor said. “Makes neural compromise less likely. But he’s lost a lot of blood, and the shock to his system must have been tremendous.”
“He’s tough,” Wyatt said. “The toughest man I know.”
“That’s good,” the doctor said. “Like I said, he’s stable, but we need to keep him in that coma for at least a few days to give him the best chance of recovering. But even then, you need to be ready for a long road of rehabilitation.”
“Whatever it takes,” Griz said. “Whatever he needs.”
Kate put her arm on Griz’s shoulder. “Dr. Ashburn is an excellent surgeon. Your dad’s in the best hands he could be in, Griz.”
Griz nodded, and stayed quiet for a little while, trying to process everything that was said. He kept seeing it in his head, over and over, playing out like a movie.
The screeching of tires. Spotting the car on the move past the courthouse. Seeing Mal lean out of the passenger window, the black submachinegun in his hands. The feeling in his legs as he tried to run toward Becca, that his legs were too heavy and would never get him there in time. The staccato of the gunfire. And then, relief that Becca hadn’t been hit, followed by the terror at seeing that his father had been shot.
At last, he was able to pull himself out of that and saw that the doctor had left.
Turning to Kate, he asked, “What did that mean? Neural compromise?”
“He’s worried about paralysis,” Kate explained. “But like he said, if the bone is intact, the odds are a lot better that there won’t be any of that.”
“Paralysis,” he said slowly.
It was a word he never would’ve thought could apply to his father. Not his father, who’d never seemed like he’d been hurt by anything. Who had always been there to pick him up, give him advice, act as the best of examples. It simply didn’t compute.
“I know you’re going to want to stay here, Griz, but this is going to be a long haul,” Kate said. “You should go home and get some rest.”
“This is all my fault,” Becca said abruptly.
“No it’s not,” Griz said.
“If I hadn’t seen that guy… if I hadn’t testified… they were trying to shoot me and now…” Becca shook her head and put her hands in front of her mouth, overwhelmed with emotion. “This is exactly what I was trying to avoid. Exactly.”
Griz didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t know what to say to anything. He had no idea where he stood with Becca, but all that had to be put aside for now.
“You two should go,” Griz said. “I have to talk to Wyatt and Devil.”
“Griz,” Becca said.
“I have some things I have to do now, Becca, and you do not want to be a part of it,” Griz said. “So you should go.”
“Please don’t,” Becca said. “Please don’t do this. I don’t want to see you get shot, too.”
