Mia heard herself cry out,gentle hands pulling her from Joaquin and turning her onto her back, pain like a weight on herchest.
“Mia, can you hear me?” A familiar voice spoke to her, hands moving over her. “Shit. Some of this blood is hers. She’s hit. Eight-twenty-five.”
A burst of static. “Eight-twenty-five, goahead.”
“We need another ambulance. Female victim with GSW to her right arm. It looks like she’s lost a lot of blood. I think she must have a collapsed lung or some kind of chest injury, too. She’s having troublebreathing.”
Someone put pressure on her arm, pain bringing her eyesopen.
Julian’s face loomed above her. “I know it hurts, Mia, but I’ve got to slow yourbleeding.”
“No. Help …Joaquin.”
“Just rest, Mia. He’s in goodhands.”
“Jesus! Did Ramirez drag himself this entire way?” That wasMarc.
“It looks like it.” Julian’s voice again. “He took the guy out from here in four shots—one to the pelvis and three to center mass. Her bedroom looks like a warzone.”
“God! That fucker beat the shit out ofher.”
“You should see what she did tohim.”
She must have passed out again because when she opened her eyes next, she was crying out in pain, EMTs with blue gloves touching fingers to her barechest.
“There’s no pneumothorax. I think we’re looking at a fracturedsternum.”
Motion. Brightlights.
She was cold. Socold.
Snatches of conversation drifted aroundher.
“It looks like she put up one hell of afight.”
“We need to make sure her trachea doesn’tswell.”
“They tried to save him, but he was pronounced dead at theER.”
Joaquin?He was …dead?
Pain filled her, her heart seeming to shatter. She couldn’t find the strength to speak, tears rolling down hertemples.
“It sounds like he deserved it. I heard one of the cops saying he’s killed three people, including a brigadiergeneral.”
No, not Joaquin.Andy.
Andy wasdead.
Sirens. People rushing. A nurse putting an IV in herarm.
“Mia, we’re going to give you some oxygen and something for pain, okay? Then we’re going to get a CT scan of yourchest.”
“Joaquin?” she managed tosay.
Then her pain faded along with allawareness.
* * *