Page 145 of Pretty Nightmare

Back into Carter.

And he points the gun at Indie.

Three things happen in the same moment.

Maggie shoots.

Carter shoots.

And Indie shoots.

The kick from the gun makes Maggie fall to the left and Donovan fall to the right.

Indie’s bullet grazes the side of Donovan’s head just as Maggie’s hits him true.

And Donovan’s bullet passes right through the dark, dead air between Indie and Nathan.

EPILOGUE - ADAM

TWO WEEKS LATER

We decided not to have a funeral for Donovan.

In the old days this would be a big deal. An Untouchable dying is always a big deal and usually we’d gather on some island and make it a production.

But there is no more Company like that. Oh, we’re still here. Drifting around trying to figure where the fuck we fit into things. But there is no island to meet up at anymore.

So we don’t have a funeral.

But we do make sure certain people who count hear about his death. Get the rumors started. Let them know, one small leftover group at a time, that he’s gone now.

Of course, he’s not gone.

Turns out that Donovan Couture—regardless of what I have thought about him in the past—is a true fuckin’ fighter.

That gun in the waistband of his shorts? It was a tranq gun. I don’t even know where it came from, but that’s what Maggie shot him with.

However, when you get hit point blank to the back of the head, even with a tranq gun, there are severe consequences. And Indie’s bullet did graze him too.

I saw the x-rays. There is a chip in the left side of Donovan’s skull. Right above his ear. In fact, the top part of his ear was shot clean off.

Something ironic happened after the shootout was over. I recalled that I had a doctor on staff, a retired one who didn’t really work anymore. The very same doctor who patched up Indie’s slit wrists all those years ago. I had been paying him a pension for reasons I never fully articulated back when I made him the offer.

But I am one of those people who plans for the worst and fully expects it to happen.

If, at some point, some overly confident and motivated ex-Company kid decided he would like my job and tried to take me out, then I would need somewhere to go if I got hurt.

So that’s who I called that night. He came with two nurses and they moved in to the spare bedrooms along the breezeway.

Donovan has been in a coma since the incident. The doctor tells me the drug Maggie shot him with was a psychotropic. And I spent a good day wondering what Carter was planning with that drug.

But it doesn’t matter now. He literally got a dose of his own medicine.

That wasn’t Donovan’s only injury. You can’t take out a part of a person’s skull with a .357 Magnum and not expect some internal damage, even if the bullet just grazed him.

The doctor—his name is Bolton—came with an entire ICU setup and we put that in the great room.

So that’s where Donovan is now. Still unconscious. Bolton says he might never come out of it. And if he does, we won’t know for sure which personality survived, if any.