“Jenna?” Emily called. Jack heard her following him, and he hoped that she had put her camera away, because some moments were meant to be private.
Jenna was on the ground behind the car. It was an old Mazda 6, Jack saw, with one of those fish badges on the back that signified the owner was a Christian. Wonder if it did them any good? he thought, because Jenna was a believer too, he knew. And there she was, dying in a pool of her own blood.
She'd been shot in the stomach. Her hands were pressed there now, as if trying to penetrate to remove the foreign object. She could not lie still; her legs were raised and tensed, her shoulders lifting and falling alternately, and even though her eyes were open, Jack was not sure she could see him. She was in an awful amount of pain, biting her lower lip until it bled to prevent herself from crying out.
“Jenna.” He knelt beside her and leaned over, trying to catch her eye. She saw him, and he knew that she saw. But she was doing something far more difficult than trying to communicate. Every breath she had, every shred of strength, was spent trying to keep herself alive.
“What happened?” Jack asked Sparky when his friend knelt next to him.
“We'd made it down to the ground floor. Stupidly thought we should run across the foyer.” Every word was a gasp. “Someone was waiting behind the desk. Started shooting. She…fell. I dragged her into a doorway, down some steps, then I heard more shooting from up above. Screams. Whoever shot at us didn't follow us down. That's it. Been trying to stop the bleeding, but…” He shook his head. “You seen Lucy-Anne?”
“No,” Jack said. “Rosemary!”
“Is the bullet still in there?” She stood behind them. Emily was beside her, trying not to look at the blood but unable to look anywhere else.
“Don't know,” Sparky said.
“Why?” Jack asked.
“If it is, I can't do anything. Can't—”
“Don't tell me you can't!” Jack stood, cringing at his raised voice but unable to help himself. “After everything, don't tell me that!”
“If it's still in there and I heal the wound, it'll do no good. I can't take bullets out of people, Jack. But—”
“Can't you make her better?” Emily asked.
“If the bullet's gone through, then yes, dear, I can. If not, and I heal it inside, she'll probably develop an infection and die.”
“Sparky,” Jack said. “Help me.” He searched around on the ground, shifting old leaves aside and picking up a fallen branch from one of the neighbouring garden's trees. He snapped a short section from it, eight inches long.
“What are you doing?” Sparky said.
“Seeing if the bullet came out the other side.” He pressed the stick to Jenna's lips, and her mouth opened, teeth biting into the wood. She knew what he was doing.
“Not here,” Rosemary said. “It's too dangerous!”
“Have your bloody gun back.” Jack lobbed the weapon at her and she caught it, uttering a startled cry. She turned to look up at the tall face of the hotel behind them.
“On three,” Jack said. “One…two…three.” He pushed Jenna up by the arm, Sparky pulled one of her legs, and as she turned onto her side she screamed into the wood, biting down hard enough to crack it and send splinters and shreds of bark spitting out.
Jack looked. Her jacket and shirt were soaked with blood all the way around. He lifted them up, exposing her bare back, and used her shirt to wipe across her skin. The blood smeared and smudged, but he found no exit wound there, and no sign that anything had broken the skin.
He hated doing this to his friend. He could see Emily's expression as she watched, and he hated what all this was doing to her, as well. It had gone so wrong so quickly that he could not imagine things ever being right again.
The wood snapped in Jenna's mouth and she screamed, unable to hold it in any longer.
Sparky was in front of her. He looked down at her stomach, turned away, and vomited.