Up close, the bonfire debris had spread, thrown when the bomb exploded, so small fires simmered all over. People rushed about, the ones that were moving. Children, their faces screwed up, hands over their ears, crouched near the ground. Little Clara dragged at her mother’s arm, but the woman’s eyes were open, unseeing.
Joe tore his attention away from the devastation and searched for the spot where he’d left his partner.
They’d been sitting right there, between the green plywood house and the one made out of the doors of an old self-driving car, but the spot was empty. That must mean they hadn’t been too injured to move, but wouldn’t they have gone back to Navarro’s house? Why hadn’t Joe seen them? Had he run right past them?
A pair of hands grabbed his shoulders, and he was spun around. Lil. Her face was covered in soot and her sleeve had been shredded, but she looked unharmed.
“Devin?”
She turned her palms up, shrugged, and mouthed, “Help.”
Right. Help. Joe nodded, and Lil pulled him closer to the bonfire, into the thick of the bodies. Across the highway, he made out Navarro giving orders and tending the wounded. Aria stood at his side, assisting.
Lil stepped over someone, Mrs. Fonta, and reached under her shoulders. Joe grabbed Mrs. Fonta’s feet and helped drag her over to Navarro. Her right arm was gone. Her eyes were wide and darting everywhere.
“It’s going to be alright,” Joe said, but he thought it was a lie.
Once they’d delivered her to Navarro, Joe turned with Lil back to the fire. So many people. He hadn’t even realized this many people lived in Purcell. He scanned faces, looking for Devin, for Flix and Marcus, for Peter. Lil jerked his arm, and they picked up someone else, dropped them off. Next person. Next.
On the fifth or sixth trip, Joe passed a slightly built boy of about his height. He finished carrying the wounded person and bolted for the boy, who had stopped and crouched over a body.
Joe touched the boy’s shoulder, and he turned. Blood covered one side of his face, dripped in his eye. Flix.
Joe let out a sound that must have been a cry and pulled Flix to his chest. Despite the blood, Flix wrapped his arms around Joe and held tight. Flix was strong enough to hug, strong enough to help others. Thank you, God.
Blood slicked Joe’s cheek and down his shirt. He pulled back and saw that it was coming from a long cut that ran from Flix’s forehead to his jaw. It looked bad, but no bone showed through.
“Devin? Marcus?” Joe said, making his words slow so Flix could read his lips.
“Okay, both. We moved Marcus, then came to help.”
Joe drew a shivery breath and choked back a sob. Thank God. He gestured to the cut on Flix’s face. “Go see Navarro.”
“Help me first.” Flix pointed to the body at his feet.
Together they carried the person to a long line of still, quiet forms.
Joe moved the wounded and moved the dead. It took hours. His hearing returned slowly, but he seemed better off than everyone except Navarro. Midway through the night, he found Sadie sitting on a lawn chair just beyond Navarro’s makeshift triage unit.
Her dazed eyes wandered, and she listed slightly to the left.
Joe knelt in front of her. “Where’s Peter?”
Sadie shook her head. “We snuck off a bit to make out. That’s the last thing I remember.”
Joe wanted to press, to jog Sadie’s memory, but couldn’t make himself cause her more distress. “It’ll be fine.”
“Who does this?” She gestured to the row of the dead. “There are kids younger than me in that pile. Babies. I don’t understand why someone would hurt babies.”
“I don’t know, sweetheart.” But he could guess. The Sons were playing a dangerous game, raiding northern towns. That injured man whom Sanders had brought into Navarro’s office a week ago. The way the Sons had returned the other night, hollering like they’d done something big. These bombs were retaliation, but he couldn’t say that to Sadie, couldn’t tell her that her own sister had helped bring death to the town. Instead, he kissed her forehead and headed for Navarro, intending to ask if he’d seen Devin recently or Peter at all.
Navarro didn’t give him the chance. “Run back to the house and get all the thread and Antisep you can hold. Pain pills, too. You know where I keep the key.”
“Navi,” Aria said. Her thin hands never stopped working on the stitches she was placing on a man’s thigh. “I can go. It’d be —”
“Joe’s going. I need you here.” Navarro didn’t glance in Aria’s direction; his eyes bored into Joe’s.
Joe didn’t stick around. He sprinted back to the house, where he found Marcus asleep on the sofa. The key to the medicine closet was hidden in an empty bottle of foot powder, and Navarro obviously didn’t trust Aria to protect something so important as the town’s entire supply of drugs. Her eyes had been so empty, so alone, the second before Joe bolted, when her hands finished their work and she had no reason to avoid eye contact.
When they’d lived in Austin, Navarro had doted on her the same way he did Sadie. When Joe visited their house after Navarro stopped working at Flights of Fantasy, he pretended his own father would someday look at him the way Navarro looked at Sadie and Aria. Lil was the disciplinarian; Navarro would do anything for his girls. Navarro’s treatment of them, and how much Joe wished he had someone who loved him like that, was what had made him fork over his whole first year’s pay to help them buy the glasses Sadie needed desperately.
And now Navarro and Aria stood next to each other like strangers. Somehow, seeing Navarro not trust her, that felt even worse than knowing how Aria had hurt and betrayed her family.
This wasn’t the time to dwell
