Page 11 of The Company We Keep

"I don't — Fuck.Fuck.Fuck, Carrow,get here."

He'd been parking the sedan. He reversed and got back on course.

"What's up, Vashvi?" Herron asked.

"One block east. You'll see."

"What is it Vi?" Wayles cut in. "Coffee, come on." Carrow could hear the sounds of Wayles’ movement over the line, opening his sliding door to talk to the hired driver.

"Hold your position, Coffee. We need you to stand by, Wayles," Carrow said.

He arrived at the same time Herron did, both pulling up and facing each other.

"I've got you covered," Vashvi said, cool again, the panic washed out of her voice carefully. "You're clear, but I don't know about that blast — just be quick about it, boss."

There was no way they'd have been slow about it — because they'd found Nick Short.

He was spilling halfway through a window that had been busted out from the blast. The block in front of the building looked like the scene of a natural disaster, and Nick's body was askew in the way that Carrow saw sometimes in pictures taken after earthquakes. He'd lost his shirt somewhere in the chaos, exposing the crest of dark tattoos that spanned his torso, and his body was arranged in a way that was unnatural and angular.

Carrow was already thinking of him as a body. That was the only way he could move forward. He was glad that it was him and Herron on the ground — no one else needed to see this. Wayles would be screaming at Coffee, begging the driver to take them to the block.

"Leta, re-route. Eastern safe house. Get McBride on the line."

"Roger," Leta said.

"Someone tell me what thefuckis happening," Wayles growled into the comms, "before I shoot Coffee in the leg and hijack my own fucking van."

"Nick's hurt, buddy," Carrow said. "You and Coffee need to get to the house. Help McBride get set up."

He knew there would be a fight in the van, Wayles arguing that they should go see if they could help and Coffee refusing to disobey a direct order from his employer. Coffee was a good driver, and he was also an important babysitter when things like this happened.

Herron took a pulse without moving Nick.

This was not the first time either of them had dealt directly with carnage. Nick was on his way to being carrion, pulse or not. His left side was chewed to shit by shrapnel, his leg mangled and disgorging what looked like all of the blood in the man's body. His hand was simply gone — neatly severed in that odd way that disasters seemed to have. They could chew you up or slice you with a surgeon's clean precision. Or in Nick's case,both.

"Faint," Herron said, finally. "He's alive. We've got to get him in the car."

Nick was bigger than either one of them — taller than Carrow and heavier than Herron by far — and they found themselves soaked in his blood as they half-dragged him to the sedan. Herron abandoned their bike, slipping behind the driver's seat, knowing that Vi would ride the bike they leftbehind to safety and Carrow would want to be in the back seat with Nick.

"Ansel." The voice was smooth and faint in Carrow's ear. McBride. He retrieved the comms device.

"Vi, get on the ground and get going. Leta, I'm flipping over. Herron's still on the line."

He moved the dial to a private channel with the doctor. Wayles couldn't hear this.

"I need you to meet us at the house," he said, this time to McBride. Only Herron could overhear them, and he knew that as long as Vashvi wasn't involved, they wouldn't deviate from his orders. Herron already had them halfway to the highway. "It's Nick."

"Shot again?" she asked.

"Caught in his own blast," Carrow said, realizing as he said it that he didn’t know if that was true. "He's bleeding out."

"Bring him to me," she said, sharp. "I'm already set up for you here."

"The eastern house is closer — we havezerotime on this," he said.

"I'm not going to be able to handle much if I'm mobile — you know that."

"You're not going to save him," he said. "You're going to make him comfortable —ifhe makes it there. And then we'll need you at the house for Wayles."

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