Dawn Patrol

147

Luce lies in Tammy's lap.

Tammy strokes the little girl's hair and sobs. Her hands are hot and sticky with the girl's blood, which runs from the little hole in her neck.

“Stop it,” Tammy says. “Stop it now.”

Tammy presses her hand on Luce's neck, but the blood bubbles around it. She feels stupid, and weak, and dizzy and there's pain somewhere in her body, but she can't figure out where, and Luce's eyes are wide and she can't hear her breath and the bleeding just won't stop. She hears a man's voice saying, “I've got her.”

She looks up and Daniels is there, trying to take Luce from her. Tammy holds her tighter.

“I've got her,” Boone says.

“She's dead.”

“No, she's not.”

Not yet, Boone thinks. The girl is in really bad shape-she's bleeding out, going into shock-but she's still alive.

It's like a dream in the waking moments, part real, part illusion. Everything is still at a distance, as if from the wrong end of a telescope, and he feels as if he's wrapped in cotton, but he knows he has to keep moving if the girl is going to live.

The old Japanese man is already taking his jacket off.

Boone takes it and wraps it around Luce. Then he kneels beside her, runs his hand up her neck, finds the little entrance wound, and presses his thumb into it. He picks her up with the other arm, cradles her against his chest, and starts to move back through the reeds, toward the road, where an ambulance can reach them.

“Stay with us, Luce,” he says. “Stay with us.”

But the girl's eyes are glassy.

Her eyelids flutter.