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As badly as I needed answers fro else more I stood and covered his hand with ed hile bedrooht switch on, it turned on the shtstand I left Caleb to stand next to the bed as I stripped off the dusty quilt covering the top of it I urged him to sit and stripped off his shoes and hoodie, then murmured, “Lie down”

He did as I asked and immediately closed his eyes the second his head hit the pilloorked off my own jacket and shoes and went around to the other side of the bed I put ot into bed with him He didn’t resist when I looped my arm over his waist We lay there for several minutes, but I kneasn’t asleep I could feel it in the way he held his fraainst mine

“Did you kill them?” he finally asked, his voice low and barely audible

“No,” I said, because I kneho he was talking about “Only flesh wounds They’ll be okay”

I felt, rather than heard, his sigh of relief

“Who is he, Caleb?” I asked

When Caleb didn’t respond, I fought back the bite of frustration that went through me Two years earlier when I’dAs much as I’d known it wasn’t healthy for hi, a part of row and flourish

And I hadn’t just wanted that for him

I’d wanted it for me, too

“I shot two cops today, Caleb For you We s were… do you understand that? As soon as that guy tells the cops who you are—”

“He won’t,” Caleb whispered

“Won’t what?”

“Tell them who I am”

His couard “Caleb—”

“You lied towould be okay”

Caleb shifted away froet up I used the hand I had at his waist to reach down and grab his right are of the bed with so he could lever hiers around his forearm, his sleeve rode up and I autoan, but stopped abruptly when

Raised skin

Lots of it

I held h so I could see what I knew had to be some kind of mistake

It had to be a mistake