The first bullet struck Lucy in the muscles of her right shoulder. Her hand froze; the knife slipped out of her fingers and clattered to the floor. A second officer fired in the same instant. His bullet hit Lucy in the side, under her rib cage, penetrating kidney and bowel and exiting out her back and slamming into the wall.

The third officer fired and missed her head by less than an inch, but the damage was done.

She was on her knees when Frost reached her. Her eyes blinked in confusion. He eased her onto her back, and he took off his jacket and propped it under her head. He found the wound in her side and kept pressure on it to stanch the bleeding.

Lucy stared at him. “Frost?”

“I’m right here, Lucy.”

“Did you get me off the bridge?”

“Yeah,” he told her, giving her a smile he didn’t feel. “Yeah, you’re safe now. Nothing to worry about. No bridges.”

“I can’t move,” she murmured. “It happens like that sometimes. The fear overwhelms me, and I get paralyzed. Don’t worry, though, it always goes away. I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine,” Frost said.

She closed her eyes. Time passed slowly as he waited for the paramedics, and all he could do was stare at her face and watch her steady breathing. Warm blood pushed between his fingers. He didn’t know how many minutes had gone by when he felt a hand graze his shoulder. It was Frankie.

“Let me take over, Frost,” she told him. “I’m a doctor, remember?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I want to help.”

He let her trade places with him. He got up from the floor, but he didn’t go far. He stood with his arms folded tightly across his chest. The pain at the base of his neck had become needles pressing everywhere into his skull. As he waited, Jess came up next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. They stood silently for a few seconds.

“You know I didn’t have a choice,” she said.

Frost didn’t answer. She was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. Not yet. He didn’t blame her. If anything, he blamed himself. History was full of bad moments that should have gone differently.

“None of this is your fault, either,” Jess told him.

He still said nothing. He didn’t want her to think he was being deliberately cold, but he had nothing to give. Jess got the message, and she left him alone. He watched Frankie, who looked up from Lucy and gave him a reassuring smile. It was a smile without the distance he usually felt from her.

“She’ll make it,” Frankie told him. “These wounds aren’t fatal.”