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“Pretty sure she drove out here with Kate.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah, right, right.”
“It’s going to be fine, Griz,” Wyatt said. “I’m going to be fine. Boomer’s going to be fine.”
“Let’s hope so,” Griz said.
21
When Griz reached the floor of the hospital that his dad was on, the first thing he noticed was that there was no one keeping an eye on his dad.
His heart started to beat more quickly almost immediately, and he picked up the pace as he moved down the quiet, deserted hallway. Pony was supposed to be on watch here. Had he left? Or had Death’s Head come here and taken him out, and his dad as well?
Griz’s nerves were on overdrive as he stepped into the doorway of his dad’s room, ready to fight, ready to see carnage, steeling himself for anything. But his dad was there, as before, tubes running into and out of him, machines beeping softly.
He was just starting to get angry that Pony had left his dad unattended when he heard the prospect’s voice behind him.
“Oh, hey, Griz,” Pony said, stepping out of the shadows from a dark and empty room across the hallway. “I didn’t know it was you.”
Griz noticed that Pony was putting a wicked looking combat knife back into its sheath on his belt, and said, “I didn’t see you outside of Dad’s door keeping watch.”
“Yeah, that was kind of the point,” Pony said.
“Oh, right,” Griz said. “Smart.”
Pony had been hiding in the room across the hallway, in case Death’s Head did show up. If they had, they wouldn’t have known he was there, and he could ambush them instead of Death’s Head ambushing him.
Once again, Griz was impressed with the prospect. He needed to be sure to keep this guy close.
“How’s Wyatt?” Pony asked.
“The wound was a through and through,” Griz said. “Didn’t hit the bone or anything. He’ll be limping for a while, but there shouldn’t be any permanent damage.”
“That’s good,” Pony said. “We got off easy, I think.”
“I’m sorry I got you into that,” Griz said. “I fucked it all up.”
“No, no, no worries, man,” Pony said. “I learned a long time ago, you pick up a gun, you’ve made a choice to take your chances. Shit goes sideways sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Still.”
“Look, we did a lot of raids when I was with the Rangers, and some of them just went to hell. We’d planned it all out, same as the other missions, but… war is chaos, man. There’s no certainties.”
Griz didn’t have anything to say to that, so he stayed quiet for a while. Maybe Pony had a point, but Griz was feeling so miserable about getting Wyatt shot that a part of him felt like he didn’t deserve to have anyone pull him out of that misery, that he didn’t deserve to feel good.
Finally, he said, “Thanks for keeping an eye on my dad.”
“Of course.”
“I’m going to be here for a while,” Griz said. “Take off. Get some rest. You definitely earned it.”
“Thanks, Griz.”
“Do me a favor, okay, Pony?”
“What’s that?”
“Keep yourself available for the next few days,” Griz said. “I may need you again.”
