Page 156 of Only the Hunter

I keyed the channel: Shot fired. I’m hit. Check Evie.

I was already running the math in my head—how many seconds Evie had if someone was already in position.

The answer was not enough.

Noah messaged back: Tango spotted. Inside. On the move.

Someone’s inside. With Evie.

Evie’s voice cut through the comm.

An intruder.

Coming for her.

The arithmetic collapsed into something simpler. My left arm wasn’t responding correctly. Noah was still working his way toward the building, cutting through yards, vaulting whatever stood in his way. Evie was upstairs in a locked room with someone working her door.

I ran it once.

Sent Noah to the stairwell.

I didn’t tell her.

There was no version of telling her that helped. Information is only useful if it changes behavior. If I told her I was hit, she would adjust—her breathing, her cadence, her thinking. And she needed to stay exactly where she was. Steady. Prosecutorial. Talking.

She needed to stay calm and stay put and use those instincts. She could do all that without knowing I was on the pavement.

So I stayed on comms and directed Noah and told Evie that Noah was four minutes out, and I said all of it in the same voice I use for everything, because the voice is a tool and I know how to use it.

It was all I had left to give her.

Jake reached me somewhere around the two-minute mark. I told him to finish getting to the building before he touched the shoulder, and to his credit he listened, because Jake understands operational priorities even when they’re inconvenient. Brie caught the operative out back when he ran.

By the time the Metro PD rolled in, I was sitting up.

That felt like a win.

Now Evie is beside me on the bumper of the response vehicle, skin pale, sitting close enough that I can feel the warmth from her arm against my good side, and the medic is doing something to my shoulder that I’m choosing not to observe directly. He talks about transport, and I’m nodding in the appropriate places without tracking most of it.

The street is filling. Two Metro PD units. A third easing in. The hum of radios. Contained chaos. Jake stands a few feet off, talking to a detective. Hudson is somewhere with the van, dumped about a mile away—driver location unknown.

Evie isn’t asking how I feel.

I’m grateful for that.

She’s been quiet since she sat down—not the quiet of someone in shock, but the quiet of someone processing. Adding things to a mental case file. Exercising her strength to maintain calm and to act as the situation requires. I understand.

I’m waiting for something I don’t have language for. Not the shoulder—the shoulder is a mechanical problem and it will be solved mechanically.

This is different.

I sent Noah to the building instead of me.

Evie is alive and uninjured.

That suggests my math was right.

But right math and right choice aren’t always synonymous, and I haven’t finished reconciling that yet.