He tripped—reached out for one of the garbage cans and used it to steady himself. He sniffed blood and was sent into uncontrollable splutters as it flowed into his mouth. He tasted pure iron.

He brought a sleeve up and ran it under his nose to try to quell the constant bleeding. It didn’t work. His sleeve just came away drenched in his own blood.

Shoulda gone home, city boy.

That gruff voice. He didn’t recognize it. Could have been anyone. Literally anyone in Marsden. After all, why shouldn’t he now be public enemy number one. After what had happened. Maybe he deserved it.

No, Sam said strongly in his head, you don’t get to feel sorry for yourself.

“You’re right, Sam,” he said, and then realized he was talking to no one. He needed rest—he needed to try to clean up. The Hamlet. It wasn’t far. Even he, in his broken state, could get there.

He started to walk down the alley. When he stepped on his left leg, a spike of white-hot fire shot up to his brain. He tried to ignore it, skating the wall of the butchers’ with his hand. It took longer than he would care to admit to get to the opening of the alley. When he did, he looked around, hoping against hope no one was there to see him.

No one was.

Small mercies.

He left a trail of nose blood from the alley to The Hamlet and he crashed through the doors trying to block his nose with his sleeve. He kept his head down, not wanting to see the life of the pub and any reaction to his entrance, but he couldn’t help noting the deathly silence as he entered the scene.

And then a voice, familiar. “Robin.” It was Amber.

Robin looked up to see her rush over to him.

“Robin, what happened?”

He grunted something, didn’t even know what it was meant to mean himself.

“Come on. Sit down.”

The scene was fluid, pulsing. He couldn’t concentrate on it. Behind Amber, people were looking now. There was a family sitting at the table by the window, the table where Ethan Pack had attacked him. The golden retriever was there, looking at him.

“Not here,” Robin said, in a voice he didn’t recognize.

“Okay.” Amber put an arm around him. “There’s no one downstairs. We’ll go there.” She led him downstairs to the basement, helping him with every step. Soon, they were down, and she was helping him into a chair. Amber disappeared and Robin slid back on his chair. He lifted up his shirt to see where one of the figures had kicked him and saw that a small amount of blood was rising up under his skin. He had never been great at anatomy but he knew that that wasn’t supposed to happen.