“You’re right. I…she—” Flynn’s throat tightened and her eyes burned. She hadn’t thought there were any tears left. “Sorry. I…sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Allie slid her arm around Flynn’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Sometimes tears are all we have.”

*

“I thought you might want some coffee,” Dell said, handing Flynn a paper cup from the vending machine.

“Thanks.” Steam rose from the surface of the muddy-looking liquid, but Flynn’s fingers were cold.

Dell dropped into one of the nearby plastic chairs. “I let you down. I let Mia—sorry, Mica down. I know sorry doesn’t help, but I am.”

“He was coming, him or someone else, whether you were here or not.” Flynn put the coffee aside. “I’d like you to do something for me.”

“Anything, if I can do it, it’s yours.”

“Make this worth it. Make him tell you the things you need to know to put an end to this, so there is never another Mica.”

“My lieutenant’s making arrangements with the sheriff for transport right now. With what we have on him, he’s not getting out and he knows it. He’ll talk to save his own skin.”

“That’s enough, then.”

“No, it isn’t. You asked me if I could keep her safe.” Dell’s voice was rough with sleeplessness and remorse. “I told you I could, and I let him get by us. I let him get to her.”

“You know,” Flynn said, replaying those moments for the hundredth, for the thousandth, time, “another thirty seconds—a minute, and you might have gotten him before he got to her.” Flynn kept wondering if she’d reached out, if she’d pulled Mica back down onto the bed, if she’d kept her from going into the other room—maybe she could have kept her safe. “I was there and I didn’t stop her from meeting him head-on. Mica never expected to be rescued. Not by you, not by me. She wouldn’t let anyone fight for her.”

“Brave of her,” Dell said.

“Yes, brave. And selfless.”

“Maybe if she’d waited, I would’ve got there in time,” Dell said, “but maybe he would’ve gotten both of you. She had to have been thinking about that.”

“Oh, I know she was.” Flynn studied her hands. She’d washed them, many times, but the blood was still just as visible to her as if it still covered them. Mica’s blood. “It’s hard, isn’t it, when the ones we love won’t let us protect them.”

“It’s hell,” Dell said.

*

Flynn’s eyes flew open at a touch on her shoulder. “Mica?”

“It’s Tory, Flynn.” Tory leaned down, her eyes liquid with tenderness. “It’s time.”

Flynn pushed to her feet, her body stiff and protesting. Her chest ached, her head throbbed with sleeplessness and pain. She followed Tory through the eerily silent halls, where only the drone of the machines broke the stillness. Outside the windows, the sky was black and starless. Shadows followed them as they walked.

“Is there anything I can do?” Tory asked.

Flynn shook her head. “I never had a chance to thank you for what you did.”

“I can’t take very much credit for it,” Tory said. “Allie took all the risk, and without Reese’s directions, I doubt I would have been able to do it. We all did it.”

“Mica told me once that she didn’t belong anywhere,” Flynn said. “She was wrong.”

Tory gently took Flynn’s hand. “Yes, she was.”

Chapter Thirty-three

The cubicle was dark, lit only by the glowing faces of the monitors and a single flat ceiling light set to low. The sheets were very, very white. Mica’s dark hair stood out against the covers like cinders on snow. Her eyes were closed, her arms extended, palms up by her sides. Tubes ran from her arms, from underneath the sheets, from the corner of her mouth. Not even the barest flicker of movement rippled beneath her alabaster lids. She wasn’t asleep, she wasn’t dreaming. Her body, her mind, perhaps her spirit, had drawn in on itself, a protective reflex as she gathered her strength for the ultimate battle.

“I can get you a chair,” the nurse said.

“No, thank you,” Flynn said. “I’ll be fine.”

“You can stay as long as you like.”

Flynn nodded and took Mica’s hand. Her fingers were cool, dry, motionless. Flynn knelt, and prayed for clarity.

*

She’d only ever been swimming once, when she was five, and her mother and her mother’s then-boyfriend took her and her brother and her baby sister to the beach in Atlantic City. The sand was too hot and too stony and hurt her feet. The ocean was so big, the waves so high, she’d been afraid to go into the water. Her mother’s boyfriend had carried her on his shoulders, and she’d felt safe until he’d swung her down and into the water, laughing, telling her she’d like it. The salty water flooded her nose and her throat. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, and the world became a frightening place. She’d reached out for someone to save her and she’d found only more blackness. She couldn’t hear, couldn’t move her arms and legs, couldn’t break free of the crushing weight of the waves. Like now. She reached out for something to hold on to, and warm, strong fingers closed around hers, calming her, anchoring her. She held on tight and the fear swept away with the tide.

*

Pulse racing, Flynn searched for any sign that Mica was aware. She’d felt Mica’s fingers twitch, she was certain of it. Tory had explained that the bullet had lacerated the left pulmonary artery and Mica had nearly exsanguinated. Even the blood Allie had given her right there on the floor of Mica’s apartment hadn’t been enough to keep her blood pressure in a safe range. The surgery to repair her artery had gone well, the surgeon had said, obviously pleased with himself. The bullet had passed through her body from front to back and, other than that one lethal laceration, had done no significant damage. Now that the tear in the artery was repaired, he had said, she should recover very quickly. If the rest of her recovered, that is. If the blood loss and the hypotension hadn’t caused irreversible brain damage. The initial EEG had been inconclusive, according to Tory. There was brain activity, but disorganized and erratic. The abnormal function could have been due to any number of things—the stress, the anesthesia, the shock to her system. Or it might mean that Mica was gone. Flynn should prepare herself for that, Tory had said.

Flynn told them they were wrong. Mica would never give up so easily. Tory had nodded and said from what she knew of Mica, she agreed. Tory had said Mica needed to know Flynn believed in her too.

“I’m here, baby,” Flynn said quietly. “You’re safe. Just concentrate on getting better. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

*

Somewhere in the center of her chest, a fire burned. Every breath scorched her lungs, and she wanted to flee from the pain. She’d been running forever, it seemed. First from the life she seemed destined to inherit, then from Hector, then from the men Hector sent. She was tired of running. So very tired. She didn’t fear the water as much as she had when she was small. She could let the cool comfort engulf her, carry her away, put out the fire. If she just let go, stopped fighting. Went under.

Mica struggled against the seductive undertow that pulled her farther and farther from shore. Without fire, there was no heat, without heat, there was no life. She knew how to fight for what she wanted. She knew how to fight for what she needed. She remembered soft lips, strong hands, the protective curve of a warm body holding her, keeping her safe. There was the fire. There was the passion. She held on to her anchor and swam against the currents. Swam toward the flame.

*

“Mica,” Flynn said urgently. “Mica, I’m here, baby. Everything is all right.”

Mica’s eyelids fluttered. Flynn leaned over and brushed her fingers through Mica’s hair. “It’s all right. You’re in the hospital. You have a breathing tube in and you can’t talk. I’m right here, everything is all right.”

Mica started to thrash, and all the bells and whistles and alarms started blaring.

“You’re in the hospital, Mica,” Flynn said steadily, calmly. “You are all right. I promise, I’m right here.”

Mica’s eyes flew open and her gaze fixed on Flynn. Flynn’s breath caught, fearing to hope. Recognition flared in Mica’s eyes, and Flynn smiled.

“Hello, baby. Welcome back.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Tory, weary from only a few hours’ sleep for the past several nights, arrived home from her daily trip to the hospital in Hyannis a little before seven p.m. Her spirits lightened at the sight of Reese’s SUV in the drive. She parked and hurried inside. Reese, still in uniform, sprawled on the sofa. Reggie played with Jedi on the floor amidst a mountain of plastic blocks.

“Hi.” Tory kissed Reese and curled up next to her.

Reese wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “How are things?”

“No big changes, which is good at this stage. Any news?”

“I talked to Rebecca Frye this afternoon,” Reese said. “Alvarez is looking at hard time in a maximum-security federal prison, and he’s starting to see the big picture. Hector and the other La Mara leaders are going to view him as a liability, and that does not say good things about his life expectancy.”

“I thought one of La Mara’s honor badges was to do time without giving anyone up.”

“That’s true,” Reese said, “but that mostly pertains to low-level members who don’t know enough to be a threat to the leaders if they talk. If someone like Alvarez, who knows a lot about the organization, cuts a deal to shorten his time or to get moved out of the general prison population, he could take down some important gang members.”

“Wouldn’t it make the La Mara members uneasy if one of them was arrested and then ended up being killed in prison?”

Reese rubbed Tory’s back. “As long as nothing ties Hector or any of La Mara’s leaders to the execution, a death in prison is just business as usual. Rival gang members square off against each other all the time. Being shivved in the shower is a routine occurrence.”