Ellie skidded to a stop. She turned in her seat and said, “Stay in the car—and don’t roll down the windows. Understand?”

Grace’s face had gone slack with shock. “You ran him over. You ran—”

“Do you understand?”

Grace flinched, then nodded, trying to catch her breath. Ellie grabbed her rifle and got out, slamming the door behind her.

The heat from the surrounding fires was intense. Smoke filled her lungs and her eyes watered and burned and it hurt to breathe. She moved forward, looking down the sight at Paul. She saw a handgun lying on the road and she saw him lying flat on his stomach and his fingers clawing at the dirt as he tried to pull himself forward, tried to get some distance from the road fire that was moments away from engulfing the crushed shell of the Lamborghini. Paul was heading for the vehicle Sebastian had taken. It was also mangled, the hood crushed but the car still drivable; she could hear the motor running.

The gun was behind Paul. His pants leg, she noticed, was rolled up, over the calf, revealing the ankle holster strapped to it. There was no way Paul could reach the gun, but she kept her attention locked on him as she knelt next to Sebastian’s head. Ellie couldn’t stop coughing.

Sebastian was coughing, too—weakly. He lay on his side, eyes blinking rapidly as he stared down at his hands. They were pressed against the entry wound in his stomach; he was desperately trying to stem the flow of blood that was leaking through his fingers.

“Guidry,” Sebastian said. “I think he shot me. He’s—”

“He’s dead.” Ellie ripped open the front of Sebastian’s jacket, then his shirt, saw that a sizable round had penetrated the vest. Only an armor-piercing round could have done this, she thought.

The blood pooled around Sebastian looked as black as oil in the firelight.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he said, his voice surprisingly strong and clear.

Eyeing Paul, who was focused solely on trying to reach Sebastian’s vehicle, which was never going to happen, not at Paul’s current pace, Ellie craned her head over Sebastian’s shoulder. The back of his Windbreaker was slick with blood and peppered with bullet holes. When she lifted up the Windbreaker and shirt, she saw that more rounds had penetrated the vest, knew that the handgun lying on the road had been equipped with armor-piercing ammo as well.

“Grace?” Sebastian asked.

“In the car.”

The black fabric of the vest, Ellie saw, had been blown apart. When she saw the gaping exit wound in his back, the stomach-churning devastation caused by Guidry’s sniper round, she knew Sebastian had only minutes left.

“Help me up,” Sebastian said. “We need to get out of here.”

Ellie lowered her head closer to the ground, to get away from the smoke, watching Paul as she said, “You’ve lost too much blood. Even if I could get you to the hospital, they wouldn’t be able to save you. I’m sorry.”