Page 102 of Fighting For You

"I'll give you a chance to come clean. Go to Josie. Tell her yourself." I stood up. "But if you haven't done anything by tomorrow, I'm going to have to."

I walked out and closed the door behind me.

Jesse was back from the OR and in a bay on the locked-down floor when I checked on him two hours later. His vitals were stable. The surgical team had closed the wound and the bleeding had stopped.

I was adjusting his IV line when his eyes opened.

"Nora."

"Don't move. You're out of surgery. You're okay."

He swallowed. "I'm sorry, Nora. About Ian. About everything."

I stopped.

"It was for him." His voice was rough from the tube they'd had down his throat. "The guys who did this. The ones outside. They came for us because we went after the crew that killed Ian. We were trying to make it right."

"Jesse."

I pulled the chair beside his bed and sat down.

"We had to do something, Nora. We couldn't just let them walk around like nothing happened."

"And now you're in a hospital bed with a stab wound. There's a man with a gun in the parking lot. The whole building is locked down." I looked at him. "Did it make it right?"

He didn't answer.

"I'm not your sister. I know that. But I wish I had said this to Ian when I had the chance, so I'm saying it to you now. This doesn't end. You go after them, they come after you, somebody else ends up on a gurney or in the ground. It just keeps going."

Jesse's chin trembled.

"I want to remember my brother as he was. Eating cereal on our couch. Fighting with me over the last chicken tender. Teasing me about becoming an old maid. Being my little brother." My voice cracked but I held it. "Not this. Not a reason for someone else to get hurt."

He was quiet for a long time. The monitor beeped. The IV dripped.

"I'm sorry, Nora."

"I know you are."

I squeezed his hand once, then let go and stood up.

The radio at the charge desk crackled across the floor. Andy Walsh's voice, clear and sharp.

"2-David-7. Shots fired. Active shooter is down. Repeat, active shooter is down."

The department went still. Every person on the floor heard it. Josie put her hand on the desk and closed her eyes. Then she picked up the phone and called security.

It took LVMPD another forty minutes to sweep the parking lot, the structure, and the perimeter before they gave the all-clear. The locks disengaged one by one down the corridor. The bay doors opened. The air from outside came through the department for the first time in hours.

Gang Crimes came through the main entrance twenty minutes after the lockdown lifted. Detective Kieran Thorne and three uniformed officers spoke to Josie first, then to security.

The uninjured gang members from the waiting room were cuffed and walked out one at a time. The second kid from the ramp was cuffed to his bed rail with an officer posted outside.

Thorne pulled a chair up to Jesse's bed. He read Jesse his rights while Jesse stared at the ceiling. When Thorne asked if he understood, Jesse nodded.

I stepped out of the bay and let the curtain close behind me.

Knox was in the parking lot when I walked out that night.