Surprisingly—to me—I retained consciousness. I stared up through the shattered remains of the roof at the blue sky, thinking how beautiful a day it was. But that could only go on for so long.

Shadows began forming at the edges of my vision, and these twisted into faces that began swarming around me: they were the faces of all those who had died because I’d failed to shoot Jesus Abadia when I’d had the chance. It was a large crowd. They were all screaming wordlessly at me like all the other echoes of my past did. I closed my eyes to block them out of my mind, but they stayed with me as I drifted away into blackness.

My next conscious memory was of Rink leaning over me and shaking my shoulder.

“You alive, Hunter?”

“Wish I wasn’t.”

“You hurting?”

“Nah!”

Rink laughed at my bravado, but I meant it. I was so seriously injured I was beyond pain. Rink immediately jammed his fist against the pulsing wound in my upper thigh and started to shout for a medic, but then I was gone again, surrounded by those angry victims of Luke Rickard. At least he wasn’t there, or maybe we’d have taken up where we’d left off and fought our way through all the sub-levels of hell. Thinking of Rickard finally stilled the voices of the dead: when next their faces swam in my vision they were nodding in gratitude. They’d died horribly, but at least I’d avenged them.

The peace that came with that realization allowed me to sink into oblivion. But that only lasted until Jimena and her boy decided to scream at me instead. I knew their deaths would never be resolved in my heart.

My next bout of wakefulness was when I was loaded into a chopper and strangers began fussing over me. Rink was still with me, hovering over my shoulder like my personal guardian angel. Walter was there too, and he was frowning at me.

“I’ll try not to bleed all over the place.” There wasn’t that much blood left in me, so I was confident I could keep my promise. Walter leaned in and squeezed my shoulder. For a second there he looked remorseful. I winked up at him. “Don’t worry, I’ll pull through.”

“You do that, son.”

“Can’t let you take all the shit for this, can I?”