“Useless piece of shit! I ran! Jumped in Sprite and floored her. They shot after me, but they were laughing so hard, their aim was crap. I left her! I left her there on the dock! I . . . ! Did she know, Dan? Did she know he’d do that?”

“She was gone, Jules. Nothing you could’ve done. Right to have come here.”

“I . . . drove in circles for a while, but I was bleeding and Sprite was . . . so I came looking for you. All I could think of.” Julian lifted his gaze to meet Daniel’s at last. “What do we do now, Dan? What do we do now?”

Daniel combed wet tangles of hair back from Julian’s brow. “We ride out the storm, bro. It’s all we can ever do.”

Which storm did he mean? The one raging outside, or the storm of rage and guilt inside the Nathan brothers? The first would pass on. The second might lessen, but never go away. And I guessed, or maybe hoped, on some future day, those militia guys—if they live so long and Julian can ID them—will be hanging out, eating their lunch or hassling some other citizen, and the world around them will explode and them with it. And I will agree that they deserved it.

Meanwhile, the storm outside shook the stadium until the walls seemed to tilt and the floors roll like a boat deck. I felt more than heard ocean rampaging through the lower tiers. We found Julian a dry corner out of the wind tunnel, a couple of blankets to soften the dank chill of the tiles and a towel for a pillow. Telling his trauma had drained him flat. He swallowed a painkiller, another mug of precious water, and was out almost before Daniel laid him down.

Daniel sat with him for a while, watching him sleep, processing his own dark thoughts. I let him be and busied myself by clearing the mess we’d made tending Julian’s wounds. Hollow, deafening booms echoed along the corridors as the sea pummeled the stadium. The floor shuddered and groaned. Walking steady was a challenge. Dumping the bloodied rags in a hastily labeled waste bin, I glanced into the recovery ward on the far side of the surgery and spotted Spunk, trussed up on a gurney but gleefully harassing a terrified Gimme Shelter girl who’d shown up to help nurse. Poppy stood by, swaying on her crutches like tossed in a gale, glancing at the ceiling like it might collapse with the next wave assault. But there at last, in a dim corner, was Gracie, stretched out on a low cot, her bruised face so frighteningly still that I hurried in to make sure she was breathing.

Poppy clumped over. “She’s out of it, lost a lot of blood. They say she’ll be okay.”

“So much hurt,” I murmured. “So much pain.”

“Better be worth it.”