We circled back around, going a block out of our way. The guys were gone from the spot, but Lux was still there. Laying on the ground. Bleeding everywhere. Unconscious.

“Is she dead?” Sebastian asked as we knelt next to her.

I felt for a pulse in her neck. It was there, but just barely.

“She’s alive,” I said. “She needs to get to the hospital. We have to carry her there.”

She was heavy. We had to keep stopping every couple of blocks to put her down, even though the twins were pretty strong. After a while, she started making these horror-movie noises in her throat. Scary as it was, at least we knew she was still alive.

We thought we knew where the hospital was, but when we got there, we were wrong. I was getting sweaty and frantic as a pig fucker on a goat farm. The feeling reminded me of when I was a kid and my mom used to get too drunk to cook before my dad got home, so I’d try to do it. And after about an hour, standing over the heat of the stove, knowing how my dad would react if he came home and there was no food, I’d start panicking and sweating. That was how I felt right then. Fucking trauma.

We circled around some more, until, finally, José went off looking for the hospital by himself. We put Lux down against a wall, sitting up. Her head hung from her neck like it was broken. I took her face in my hands and pulled it up so that she looked like she was sleeping with her head leaning back against the wall.

“Lux?” I said. “You’re gonna be fine. I promise this will all be fine.” But even as I said it, I could feel the blood soaking her coat. Was I lying to my dying friend? I had to. I didn’t know what else to do.

After what seemed like forever, José came back. He had found the hospital. We picked Lux up and carried her there, not stopping once. We knew we were there when we saw a giant building with a mural on the side. Even in the dark, the pastel figures of nurses and doctors helping patients shone. I’d taken someone here once before, a traveler kid who had been staying in our squat and OD’d. I swear, the nurses and the doctors hadn’t even seemed like they judged us. They saved his life, then a nurse talked to him a little about getting clean. She didn’t even push him, just asked him if it was something he saw himself doing. They hadn’t even asked me much besides what he’d taken so they’d know what to do right away. Right then, with Lux leaking blood everywhere, I hoped they would be able to help her as much as they’d helped that kid.