Her skin glistened with fat beads of sweat. “I’m sorta fucked up here, Patrick.”

I didn’t like the sound of her voice. It was much higher than usual and there was a keening to it.

“Where you hit?”

She lifted her arm and I could see a dark red hole just above her hip and below her rib cage that seemed to breathe.

“How’s it look?” She lay her head against the door jamb.

“Not bad,” I lied. “Let me get a towel.”

“I only saw his body,” she said. “The shape of it.”

“What?” I pulled a towel from the rack in the bathroom, came back into the hall. “Who?”

“The prick who shot me. When I shot back, I saw his body. He’s short but built. You know?”

I pressed the towel into her side. “Okay. Short but built. Got it.”

She closed her eyes. “Screavly,” she said.

“What? Open your eyes, Ange. Come on.”

She opened them, smiled wearily. “’S gun,” she said, “’s heavy.”

I took the gun from her hand. “Not anymore. Ange, I need you to stay awake while—”

There was a loud crash at the front door and I spun in the hall, took aim at Phil and two EMTs as they burst inside the house.

I lowered my gun as Phil slid to his knees in the hall beside Angie.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said. “Honey?” He wiped wet hair off her brow.

One of the EMTs said, “Give me some room. Come on.”

I stepped back.

“Honey?” Phil screamed.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Hi,” she said.

“Step back, sir,” the EMT said. “Step back now.”

Phil fell back on his haunches and slid a few feet away.

“Miss,” the EMT said, “can you feel that pressure?”

Outside, patrol cars screeched to a halt and bathed the windows in lights the color of raging flame.

“So scared,” Angie said.

The second EMT dropped the wheels to a stretcher in the hallway and flipped up a metal rod by its head.

A sudden rattle erupted in the hallway and I looked down and saw Angie’s heels hammering the floorboards.

“She’s going into shock,” the EMT said. He grabbed her shoulders. “Get her legs,” he shouted. “Get her legs, man.”

I grabbed her legs and Phil said, “Oh, Jesus. Do something, do something, do something.”

Her legs kicked into my armpit and I pressed them between my arm and chest, held on as her eyes rolled back white in the sockets and her head slipped off the side of the doorjamb and banged into the floor.

“Now,” the first EMT said and the second one handed him a syringe and he plunged it into Angie’s chest.

“What’re you doing?” Phil said. “Jesus Christ, what’re you doing to her?”

She jerked in my arms one last time and then she seemed to almost float back down to the floor.

“We’re going to lift her,” the EMT told me. “Gently, but fast. On three. One…”

Four cops appeared in the doorway, hands on their weapons.