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“Rina, let’s go.”

“No! Don’t take me. Please don’t take me away. I’ll be good.”

“Jesus fuck.”

I don’t know who says that, but I don’t care. Carson is dying, and they won’t let me help him.

And then I don’t know anything at all.

When I wake up, I come up swinging.

“Carson! Where’s my husband. Oh my God, he’s dying.” I’m in a car, and someone is holding me, but I can’t find my husband. I’m so dizzy. Why is the world spinning? “Carson!”

I can’t stop screaming his name, and then the darkness moves over me again.

I’m not in a car anymore. There are lights and people moving around, and I’m not wet.

I’m not wet.

I’m not in the cell!

And then it all comes back to me, and I try to sit up, but strong hands hold me down, and I start to wail and cry again. I can’t stop. I can’t see who’s next to me, or who’s touching me, but they killed my husband.

“Gonna fucking kill all of you! Where is he? Where is he?”

I say the words over and over again, and my head is pounding and everything is blurry and my whole body hurts. I can’t stop shivering.

So cold.

So scared.

Carson’s dead.

Oh God, my love is dead, and I will never survive it. I just got him back. Were we not supposed to grow old together?

“Carson! Carson!”

“Go to sleep, Rina,” is all I hear, and then the darkness settles in again.

Fifty-Four

CARSON

“Fuck, she’s breaking my heart.”

“She’s in shock,” Asgood says. We have Rina in our infirmary on the property. None of my brothers or their families have gone home. They’re in the house with Charlie and Mildred, holding it down for me in there until Rina levels out and they can see her. “She’s been through not just physical pain but I’m sure psychological torture to go with it. She saw a bullet fired at you, and you fell down, unconscious.”

“Yeah, only because it was at close range and it pushed me into the wall and I hit my fucking head.”

“She doesn’t know that. She doesn’t know you were wearing armor. She’d already been waterboarded for we don’t know how long, stabbed, beaten, and she was still recovering from wounds sustained a week ago. Her mind will heal, but first she needs some rest.”

“I need her to wake up and hear me.”

“She will. Give her a few hours and we’ll try again.”

Asgood smiles and walks away, and I lie on the bed next to my wife and kiss her head. She looks awful. There’s no way I could let Charlie see her, and he’s been asking questions that I don’t know how to answer. For now, Mildred has been keeping him calm, but I don’t know what to do.

Rina would know.