Maggie was the first one to see Quinn. The doctors and some of the other nurses had done their best to keep her up to date, talking to her straight and direct like a nurse and not like a stranger. She’d appreciated that and did her damn best to absorb the information and relay it to Quinn’s mother and sister as she always did as part of her job. She lost any part of that, her clinical professionalism, and she felt like she just might curl into a ball and not get back up. She had to stay up for Brandon and Quinn and for herself. It was just like Quinn always said, always keep on the march, keep moving, don’t let the enemy see you wounded. As a two-time military wife, even if the first one was to a professional asshole, she knew how to toughen up and keep on with the mission.

It was late, she and Caddy trying for the last hour to get Jean to please go home and get some rest and Jean not having any of it. She and Caddy were camped out in the waiting area with Boom and old Mr. Varner. Varner nearly getting ejected from the hospital for showing up at the front desk with an M4 carbine and telling security that he’d be standing guard for the night.

All of it. So much chaos and craziness. TV news crew outside. The two lengthy surgeries. The waiting, the praying, the details of Quinn’s old injuries. His body had already been through so much. Shot up two days shy of his twenty-first birthday and then three times after that. The doctor had explained all the scar tissue they’d had to cut through to get to the four bullets. A collapsed lung, a shattered shoulder blade, so much lost blood.

She’d pulled a chair close to him. He was still asleep from the last surgery, tubes running into his nose and an IV drip in his arm. His vitals were good and strong. He could breathe on his own. He’d come awake for a while, right before the last surgery, and had joked about that Indian in the creek being a bad shot. That man getting away, state police and FBI out looking for him statewide.

“Come back, Quinn,” she said. “Come back, please.”

She felt something stir, Quinn’s fingers moving in hers. Maggie started to cry but tried like hell to compose herself, biting her lip. Boom walked into the room, standing side by side with Maggie, placing his good arm around her back.

“How’s your truck?” Quinn said, lips dry and voice weak.

“’Bout the same as yours,” Boom said. “Looks like shit.”

“These folks trying to get us to quit?”

“Yeah,” Boom said. “Pretty fucking dumb.”

“But we don’t quit.”

“Never,” he said. “Our heads too goddamn thick.”