Page 108 of The Devil's Scars

“And… wait.” Something else was swimming on the edges of Scars’ memory now. “There was… there was a guy. In the back room, on the floor. That was him? Gil?”

“Yep. The police are still figurin’ it out, but it looks like he had some kind of homemade explosive that went wrong somehow. Maybe he set it off early, maybe it was faulty. They’ll have answers in a few weeks, probably. But seein’ as the guy is dead, it ain’t really a major priority, since nobody’s on the run or anythin’ like that.”

“Was he dead when I grabbed Keira and walked away from him? When I left him in the fire?”

Wolf studied his friend. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“No. He was still alive.”

“So…” Scars closed his eyes. “So… he died later. After I ran.”

“The coroner said from what she could see from the state of his lungs, he died of smoke inhalation.”

“Right.”

“How you feelin’ about that?”

“About what, exactly?” Scars opened his eyes again, and Wolf saw pure steel. “About choosing an innocent baby and myself over a murderer? About leaving him there to choke to death on the fire and smoke of his own creation? About making him pay fair and square for his actions? About basically killing him by choosing not to help him?”

“Yeah.”

“I feel fine about it, Wolf. I feel good. I can look at myself in the mirror, and I won’t be losing sleep.”

“Yeah. I can tell.”

“So. Anything else?”

Wolf hesitated, decided not to say anything about Willa right now. That could wait, it was a lot of information, and anyway, Wolf wanted to talk about something else first.

“It’s pretty incredible, but the only person who got hurt bad was you, Innis. You –you must have felt the fire on you as the ceiling came down on your back. Did you? Do you remember?”

“Yeah.” Scars took a deep and steadying breath, winced as the skin on his back pulled. “Tell me how bad it is. No sugar-coating.”

“Subtle ain’t exactly my style,” Wolf said. “I’m lackin’ in that gene, big time.” He sighed a bit, then launched into it:

“You’ve got third-degree burns on your back, and mostly second-degree on the backs of your legs. Your hair was on fire too, but the boys got that out before anythin’ too bad happened. So you got a haircut, and a few scorch marks, and you got a few new scars on your head, but nothin’ too bad on your face.”

“Nothing more than I already have, you mean.” Scars made a feeble joke, though the last thing that he felt like doing was laughing. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. Well…” Wolf paused. “Your head and face are OK, considerin’ everythin’, but your back and legs are a whole different story. You – you went straight into shock right there in the parkin’ lot, and you – you seized in the ambulance.”

“I did what?”

“You went into cardiac arrest. You – your body couldn’t handle it, Scars. Your brother said that extreme burns like the ones on your back do that, pretty often. Burns are like… they’re just so damn hard on the human body. But it’s not like I’m tellin’ you anythin’ that you don’t already know…”

“Sam,” Scars whispered, horrified, suddenly seeing yet another nightmare scenario in full technicolor. “Please tell me that he wasn’t working the E.R. when I was brought in…”

“No. He’d just finished his shift and was in the cafeteria havin’ a coffee and relaxin’. He got the call from the head nurse and by the time he got to you, a team was already workin’ on you, so Sam stepped back and let them get on with it.”

“Is he – how is he?”

“Pissed at you for bein’ a hero and dashin’ into fire yet again, so brace yourself for that conversation, boy.”

Scars laughed, a real laugh this time. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“I bet.” Wolf smiled back. “So… that’s it, really. Can I get Zee now?”

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