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“No, he fucking did not,” North said as he stomped around the Audi. “That’s an ear lobe, dumbshit. Anybody can rip off an earlobe.”
Auggie let out a ragged laugh. “He had an earring under that mask.” He laughed again, and it made Theo think of horses rolling their eyes. “I just grabbed him and didn’t let go.”
North clapped Auggie on the shoulder, and Auggie staggered. “Not bad, Fun-size.”
12
The police came. John-Henry came. An ambulance came. All of it playing out in front of Kidz Academy.
Theo sat on the back of the ambulance while Frannie, a paramedic he’d known for years, checked Auggie out. Whatever reserves Theo had started with, they were gone now. He was shaking, unable to stop. He kept hearing that sound, the heavy thump of the blow, Auggie’s cry of pain, Lana’s screaming. She was sitting on Auggie’s lap now, unwilling to let go of him and, in the process, making Frannie’s job that much harder. Frannie was a pro, though. She talked to Lana while she worked, and Lana seemed content to snuggle into Auggie’s chest and eat the M&M’s Frannie had given her.
The sound of Auggie hitting the asphalt.
Lana’s trapped screams.
Theo tented his hands over his nose and mouth and tried to control his breathing.
When a hand fell on his shoulder, he startled, eyes snapping open. John-Henry studied him. Light moved over his face; the lazy circles of emergency lights created a perpetual ripple of shadows. Blue. Then red. Then nothing.
“Do you feel up to talking?”
Theo nodded, and he looked over his shoulder.
“Go on,” Auggie said, shifting Lana’s weight. He winced as Frannie cleaned an abrasion on his elbow. “We’re good here.”
Theo stood. His legs shook, and he knew John-Henry hadn’t missed that—probably didn’t miss much, ever.
John-Henry led him down the length of the strip mall, away from the milling bodies of law enforcement and emergency responders, toward the dark, empty storefronts at the other end of the lot. Then John-Henry stopped at a bench.
Theo shook his head. “I’m fine.”
A partial smile touched the side of John-Henry’s face. “I’d like to sit down if you don’t mind. I’ve been on my feet all day.”
Theo wanted to think about that, but exhaustion had snowed out everything in his head. He nodded, and they sat. Voices carried to them from the men and women who had responded to North and Shaw’s call. The words were indistinct. Someone laughed. A car rolled past on Jefferson, slowing to rubberneck at the scene. Old cigarette butts filled a stone planter next to the bench, their smell mixing with the whiffs of diesel exhaust and, closer up, Theo’s own sweat.
“I’m sorry,” John-Henry said.
Theo rubbed his eyes. “What?”
“I’m sorry, Theo. I’m—I’m incredibly sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. And I’m sorry for how I reacted.”
Theo shook his head. He felt like someone had slowed him down, like he was moving at half the speed of everything else in the universe. “What?”
John-Henry offered him a tight smile. “You told me. You told me something was happening. And I didn’t listen.”
“Hold on. This isn’t your fault. You certainly don’t need to apologize.”
“It feels like I do. It feels like I about got you and your family killed.”
My family, Theo thought. And he remembered the spin of the car sliding out of control. Lana screaming. But that wasn’t right; he tried to separate the two moments. She’d been too young to scream in the accident. He waited for the fear that always came first, and for the anger that, more and more frequently, had become a way of living with the fear. He felt nothing. Every fuse blown. He’d hiked a burn the summer before, when Auggie suggested he take a day for himself. Not a big one because wildfires weren’t a huge problem in Missouri. But he remembered the desolation, the emptiness. Everything burned away, and char lifting on the wind.
Somehow, he heard himself say, “This was not your fault.”
John-Henry nodded, like he was willing to let the point go; his face, though, said otherwise. In that smooth, professional tone, he said, “Why don’t you walk me through what happened?”
Theo did. And when he finished, he said, “I honestly don’t know what would have happened if North and Shaw hadn’t shown up.”
“Do you think they were trying to kill you?”
