He shrugged and pulled me tighter. “I wasn’t the only one.” When I signaled him with a look of panic, he gestured toward the back room, and said, “There are three more victims in there.”
“Damn,” I said. “How many did they kill before you got to them?”
“Five.”
“Any…?” I lowered my head. “Any children?”
He gestured toward the teen. “Besides that kid, no. It looks like some of the adults were protecting them.”
My heart broke. Odds were most of those people just wanted a home. A safe place to live and raise their children. They probably showed up with only the clothes on their backs, and the Fosters took advantage of that.
Medical swarmed in, and we were officially on active duty as Uncle Bob supervised the rescue efforts. We began ushering people out. I leaned down and helped an elderly woman to her feet, then I recognized her as the one who’d been holding Dawn Brooks.
“Where is Dawn?” I asked her.
Shaking a fragile finger, she pointed to a cabinet. “I stashed her in there when the shooting started.”
“Bless you.”
Reyes took hold of her arm as I dove for the cabinet.
“I didn’t even know they had guns here,” she added.
I opened the cabinet door and peeked inside. Huddled in the farthest corner was a tiny ball of curls. “Dawn?” I said gently. She shook and was crying into her dress. “Dawn Brooks? I’m here to take you home.”
She dared a peek at me, her face hopeful. She wanted to trust me, but she’d been through a lot. I didn’t rush anything. I sat beside the open cabinet and gave her time to adjust to my presence. After a few moments, I held out my hand. She eyed it, then slowly reached out to me. I pulled her out of the cabinet and lifted her into my arms.
“Are you uh angel?”
I laughed softly. She did have a gift. The Fosters were right. “I get that a lot. But, no, I’m not. I’m just a girl like you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t fink so.”
Oh yeah. She rocked.
She wrapped her arms around my neck and refused to let go the rest of the night, even as I saw after Shawn, made sure he was the first one taken to the hospital. Even as I asked Diviner after Diviner where the Fosters were. None of them knew. Well, almost none. A couple of the higher-ups knew more than they were letting on, but short of torturing them with a three-year-old in my arms, I saw no way to get the information out of them.
They were devout. Not to their faith or their religion. To the Fosters. Getting information out of them would take some time.
I called Cookie, who was frantic. Worried sick. At her wit’s end. And I’d better not forget it. I’d taken ten years off her life. Ten good years she could have used to explore Europe. But all that was null and void because I’d shaved those years right off.
I loved that woman so.
By 2:00 A.M., things were not calming down at all. It seemed like every emergency services vehicle in a five-hundred-mile radius was on scene as well as reporters and the average lookie-loo. A small hotel-slash-restaurant from Datil, the Eagle Guest Ranch, provided coffee and water and sandwiches to the emergency crew, and a church group from Socorro provided blankets to the Diviners since they couldn’t go back inside to get their things.
Ubie walked up to me. “Pumpkin, you’ve had a long day. Maybe you should go home.”
I was still holding Dawn. We’d wrapped her in a blanket, and she’d fallen asleep, her head on my shoulder, her warm breath on my neck. I doubted I’d ever get the feeling back in my arm again, but it was so worth it.
“I will,” I said, rubbing the doll’s back, “but first, how were you able to just come in? I thought you’d need a warrant or something.”
“Not when you have the permission of the owner,” he said, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. “This guy’s apparently a client of yours?”
I looked over to see Shawn Foster walking forward. After a stunned moment, I rushed toward him. His face was swollen and his lip split open, but he looked good considering what he’d just been through.
“Shawn, how are you here? I thought an ambulance took you to the hospital?”
“I came back. I’m so sorry, Charley.” He glanced around in shock. “If I’d had any idea they would do this…”
“Shawn, this is not your fault.”
“No, I should have warned you. I’m no longer involved in my parents’ delusions, but I have people inside who keep me informed. I knew they were stockpiling guns. I just had no idea.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry. I can’t believe the Fosters, the people who raised you, would do such a horrible thing to you.”
“Yeah, that’s why they’re called fanatics.”
“But how are you up and walking and talking and—”
“Well,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable, “I heal pretty fast.”
“Of course. You’re Nephilim.”
“How did you—”
“Actually, it was Reyes.”
The two of them shook hands. Shawn seemed a little star struck. I could hardly blame him.