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He found it fast, a long knife wound high on the outside of Lock’s thigh, pumping dark blood. Shade put both hands on it and leaned his weight down hard.

“I need another pair of hands.”

I was closest. I didn’t think about it. I put my good hand down on top of the towel where he showed me and pressed, and the blood came up warm between my fingers.

“Harder,” he said. “Don’t let up for anything.”

I didn’t let up.

He worked fast and sure, and I’d never been more attracted to him. He told Gage to hold Lock’s shoulders down. He told Havoc to quit swearing and keep the light still. He packed the wound and clamped off the bleeding inside it, and his hands never shook once.

I’d seen those hands on me, careful and slow. This was a different man. This was somebody who’d done this before, with people dying around him, and he didn’t even have to think about it.

Lock came around halfway through and swore through his teeth. Shade held him down with one hand and kept stitching with the other.

“They should’ve killed me,” Lock said, low and quiet.

Then he passed out again.

Shade tied off the last stitch and sat back on his heels. He looked at the blood up to his elbows, and then he looked at me. I was still pressing on that towel.

“You can let go now,” he said.

Preacher had been standing at the end of the table the whole time without saying a word. Now he looked around the room, at every brother in it.

“Tomas started a war tonight,” he said. “We’re going to finish it. On our ground.”

Holly took me by the elbow and steered me to the sink behind the bar. She ran the water warm and held my hand under it, and we both watched Lock’s blood swirl pink down the drain.

“You did good,” she said quietly.

I didn’t feel like I’d done good. I felt like I was going to throw up. But I held it together until the water ran clear.

Church spilled out into the main room before the sun was even up. Nobody bothered closing the doors.

“Hiding’s done,” Preacher said. “We’re going to take them out. They’re going to regret ever picking Salvation.”

Deacon had a phone to his ear in the corner. When he hung up, his face was hard.

“I got word to Vega. Told him to come and collect his guns. Every crate, tonight, at the airstrip.” He paused. “He says the pilot comes too, or there’s no deal.”

“No,” Shade said.

That was all. No.

Everybody looked at me.

I knew what they were thinking, because I was thinking it too. But as long as Vega was breathing, I’d never be able to go home. And now Lock was lying on a pool table because of a plane I’d flown.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“No,” Shade said again.

“Hear me out.” I looked at Gage, because Gage was the one who’d have to plan it. “The plane’s sitting where I left it, with its tail facing the road. The left fuel tank’s got a little left in it. The propeller’s bent and it’s never flying again, but if you can get the nose up off the ground, that engine will run for a minute. It takes forever to start, so I’ll need to be in the seat with my hand on the switch.”

Switch nodded slowly. “I can jack it up. What are you thinking?”

“So here’s the thing,” I said. “When that engine’s at full power, the propeller throws everything behind it. Dirt, stones, gravel, a whole wall of it, like a sandblaster. Anybody standing back there can’t see and can’t breathe. Their windshields go.”