Page 135 of Playing to Win

“Colin…” Andrew was holding him now, laying him back on the cold pavement. “Colin, hold on. The police are here and an ambulance is coming straightaway. They’ll save you, I promise.”

Colin closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again Andrew was still there, still murmuring rubbish about how it was all going to be okay. For some reason his chest was now bare. His head blocked the glow of a streetlamp, giving him a halo. Colin had never believed in angels, but now he had to wonder.

“Andrew,” he whispered.

“Don’t talk, love. Save your strength.”

I used it all to save you, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.“I need to—need to say…”

“No.” Andrew took Colin’s blood-soaked hand and kissed it. “You don’t need to say a thing.”

So Colin shut up and kept his eyes locked with Andrew’s. Around them, the screams multiplied. A lass nearby was sobbing her lungs out, shrieking, “They’re stabbing Yessers! They’re stabbing Yessers!” He heard Katie crying, and Liam and Robert raging, all three of them trying to get closer. He heard the deep, commanding voices of police officers ordering everyone to stand back.

Everyone but Andrew, who held Colin’s hand and Colin’s gaze, anchoring him to this world.

Then the sky suddenly faded—and oddly, so did the streetlamp. As Colin closed his eyes for the last time, he thought,Funny how quickly night falls in this city.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE

ANDREWSTAREDOUTthe hospital window as Glasgow split itself in two.

He fidgeted with the hem of his rough cotton shirt, the top half of the outfit the hospital had given him to replace his blood-soaked clothes. Andrew wished he still had that blue Yes Scotland shirt, the one he’d removed to staunch Colin’s bleeding. At least then he’d have some tangible connection to the man he loved.

His faint reflection in the window made him look like the ghost he should be right now. The ghost he’d gladly become if he could go back in time and give his life for Colin’s, rather than the other way around.

Another reflection moved behind him, the pacing form of his friend John, who was phoning the rest of the Warriors to tell them Colin was fighting for survival on the operating table. Fergus was on his way to join Liam, Robert, and Katie here in the crowded waiting area, where they sat with Colin’s father, grandmother, and sister.

A hand touched Andrew’s elbow. “Did you phone your family, mate?” John asked in a hushed voice.

Andrew shook his head. “What family?”

“C’mon, they’ll find out soon enough from the police or the media.”

Andrew nearly laughed.The media.On the wall-mounted TV,BBC Ten O’Clock Newsspoke of Prime Minister Cameron’s speech, First Minister Salmond’s resignation, and the upcoming Ryder Cup golf tournament, but not a word about the riots spreading through Glasgow from the tinderbox of George Square. It made this night feel more surreal than ever, like he barely shared a reality with the rest of the world.

John nudged him again. “Gies your phone and let me ring them.”

Andrew thumbed in his passcode and handed over the device. “Try Lady Karen, my cousin. She’s listed in my contacts as Killer Shrew.”

“You people are strange.” John gave Andrew’s back a comforting pat as he stepped away.

Andrew went to sit with the others. Emma slid over to make room on the orange vinyl sofa. She hadn’t cried yet, from what he’d seen, but her face was gray with fear.

“Tell me again,” she said, twisting her hands together so hard, her knuckles cracked. “Tell me how Colin saved you.”

Andrew’s stomach soured at the memory, but he shared it again in a whisper. He added no embellishment, for it needed none.

As he’d told the police, he wasn’t sure what fate had awaited him in that black car, where or to whom it would have taken him. But his walk toward it had felt like a death march.

It had all happened so fast, Reggie’s surprise appearance at the edge of George Square, offering a friendly hand to help him away from the scuffle. Once Andrew was within arm’s reach, that friendly hand had revealed a gleaming blade aimed at his kidney. Reggie had ordered Andrew to walk, to not look back when Colin called his name. To act against every instinct.

Get in the car or I’ll cut him too.

Andrew had tried to hurry, but hesitated at the last moment.

“If I’d just done as Reggie ordered,” Andrew told Emma, “your brother would be well and whole.”

“Naw, Colin’s too fast.” She laid her head on Andrew’s shoulder. “He was always gonnae reach you.”

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