Page 177 of Hellbent

The best part of me.

Evan took an uneven step backward. And then another. Then he spun and ran to Joey.

Behind him he heard Van Sciver’s laugh, the rasp of sandpaper. “That’s the difference between me and you.”

Evan reached Joey as her legs gave out, catching her as she collapsed.

He flicked out his Strider knife and sheared her jeans to the thigh, exposing the bullet hole. There was blood, so much blood.

The femoral artery, just as Van Sciver had said.

Evan initiated the bone phone. “Tommy, get here. Now. Get here now.”

He did not recognize his own voice.

He clamped his hand over Joey’s thigh.

“Copy that,” Tommy said. “En route.”

“Now. We have to get her to medical.”

Across the stretch of dirt, Evan watched Van Sciver wriggle his shoulders up the side of the Tahoe, shoving himself to a standing position. He fell into the driver’s seat.

The SUV drove off, its momentum kicking the door shut.

“You let Van Sciver … go,” Joey said weakly.

Evan pictured again the serene expression on Jack’s face as he’d stepped from the Black Hawk, and he understood at last what had filled him with such peace.

Joey blinked languidly. “Why’d … come back for me?”

Evan drew in a breath that felt like broken glass. He said, “That’s what my father taught me.”

He bent over Joey, his hand still sealed on her leg. The sound of the Tahoe faded, leaving the valley desolate, overtaken by late-twilight gloom. They were a stone’s throw from the busiest freeway intersection in the world and yet not another human was in sight.

She looked up at him, her emerald eyes glazed.

“You were supposed to jump,” he said. “Across the freeway. Away from all this.” His eyes were wet. “Goddamn it. What did I teach you?”

She said, “Everything.”

Her dark hair was thrown back, exposing the bristle of that shaved strip, the faraway city lights turning a few strands golden, and he realized that at some point over their days and nights he’d come to know the scent of her, a citrus brightness off her skin.

“You’re okay,” he said.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he said.

“You’re worth it,” he said.

Her lips pressed together. A weak smile.

He tightened his clamp on her leg.

Headlights swept the valley, a vehicle approaching. It parked, the glare making him squint.

The door slammed shut. A figure stepped forward, cut from the brilliance of the headlights.

Not Tommy.