“We’ll deal with them in the morning.” With that, she waved them off and vanished into the rectory.

As soon as Helene was gone, Simone gripped Liam by the injured shoulder, thumb digging into his wound. “You promised answers. Now talk.”

Liam groaned loudly in response.

“Jesus Christ, Simone!” Phillip rushed forward to pry her off. “At least let me patch him up first. Would probably help if we weren’t leaving a blood trail to our hiding spot.”

Liam managed a strained smile. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“They taught me how to do a field dress in basic.” Phillip winced. “Aaaaand I probably shouldn’t have said that.”

“Fine. But then we need answers,” Simone said.

They shuffled up the staircase in single file toward the projection room. Rebeka caught Phillip’s gaze as they entered the messy converted balcony. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For helping us.”

Phillip’s stomach fluttered. “Someone had to, right?”

He settled Liam down against the wall, then started to work his arm free from the shredded sleeve of his jacket. “I’d figured you were army,” Liam said. “Pretty sure I’m the only American moron who isn’t out here on Uncle Sam’s orders.”

Phillip tore open the gauze pack and dabbed a vial of peroxide onto the wad of bandages. “You think you’re a moron? I volunteered.”

Liam relaxed with a grin. “Why’d you go and do a thing like that?”

Phillip flinched. Now it was his own nerve that was exposed. “Felt like the right thing to do, I guess.” A pat, easy answer. He was used to the weight of his decision: the delicious look on his father’s face when he announced he was leaving; the remorse he’d felt every time he built a new circuit diagram for Mr. Connolly, wondering how it might be misused next. But he wasn’t ready to let these strangers in like that.

“Right,” Liam said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

Phillip pressed the gauze to the wound and scrubbed. It had to sting worse than an Oklahoma summer, poor bastard. The blood had started to dry, thick and tacky, on his collarbone, but Phillip could feel the hard nob of the bullet beneath it. Extracting it was a little out of his repertoire, but they had no choice. Maybe it’d be like threading a loose circuit back into place (though he doubted any patient would be much comforted by that analogy).

“You a Dodgers man?” Phillip asked, once he’d let up the pressure on the wound. He needed Liam nice and distracted while he worked the tweezers.

Liam shook his head. “Damn Yankees. Used to go to Dodgers games, though, with my . . .” Only the slightest pause, but Phillip felt it in the way Liam’s muscles tensed. “My pops—oof.”