Small Favor

We got into the battered Hummer, and I seized a paper cup of coffee waiting for me next to a brown paper bag. I grabbed the coffee, dumped in a lot of sugar and creamer, stirred it for about a quarter turn of the stick, and started sipping. Then I checked out the bag. Doughnut. I assaulted it.

Thomas began to start the car but froze in place and blinked at the doughnut. "Hey," he said. "Where the hell did that come from?"

I took another bite. Cake doughnut. White frosting. Sprinkles. Still warm. And I had hot coffee to go with it. Pure heaven. I gave my brother a cryptic look and just took another bite.

"Christ," he muttered, starting the truck. "You don’t even explain the little things, do you?"

"It’s like a drug," I said, through a mouthful of fattening goodness.

I enjoyed the doughnut while I could, letting it fully occupy all my senses. After I’d finished it, and the coffee started kicking in, I realized why I’d indulged myself so completely: It was likely to be the last bit of pleasure I was going to feel for a while.

Thomas hadn’t said a damned thing about where we were going-or how anyone was doing after the events of the night before.

The Stroger building, the new hospital that has replaced the old Cook County complex as Chicago’s nerve center of medicine, is only a few yards away from the old clump of buildings. It looks kind of like a castle. If you scrunch up your eyes a little, you can almost imagine its features as medieval ramparts and towers and crenellation, standing like some ancient mountain bastion, determined to defend the citizens of Chicago against the plagues and evils of the world.

Provided they have enough medical coverage, of course.

I finished the coffee and thought to myself that I might have been feeling a little pessimistic.

Thomas led me up to intensive care. He stopped in the hallway outside. "Luccio’s coordinating the information, so I don’t have many details. But Molly’s in there. She’ll have the rest of them for you."

"What do you know?" I asked him.

"Michael’s in bad shape," he said. "Still in surgery, last I heard. They’re waiting for him up here. I guess the bullets all came up from underneath him, and that armor he was wearing actually kept one of them in. Bounced around inside him like a BB inside a tin can."

I winced.

"They said he only got hit by two or three rounds," Thomas continued. "But that it was more or less a miracle that he survived it at all. They don’t know if he’s going to make it. Sanya didn’t go into anything more specific than that."

I closed my eyes.

"Look," Thomas said. "I’m not exactly welcome around here right now. But I’ll stay if you need me to."

Thomas wasn’t telling me the whole truth. My brother wasn’t comfortable in hospitals, and I was pretty sure I’d figured out why: They were full of the sick, the injured, and the elderly-i.e., the kind of herd animals that predators’ instincts told them were weakest, and the easiest targets. My brother didn’t like being reminded about that part of his nature. He might hate that it happened, but his instincts would react regardless of what he wanted or didn’t want. It would be torture for him to hang around here.

"No," I said. "I’ll be fine."

He frowned at me. "All right," he said after a moment. "You’ve got my number. Call me; I’ll give you a ride home."

"Thanks."

He put a hand on my arm for a second, then turned, hunched his shoulders, bowed his head so that his hair fell to hide most of his face, and walked quickly away.

I went on into the intensive care ward and found the waiting area.

Molly was sitting inside, next to Charity. Mother and daughter sat side by side, holding hands. They looked strained and weary. Charity was wearing jeans and one of Michael’s flannel shirts. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she didn’t have any makeup on. She’d been pulled from her bed in the middle of the night to rush to the hospital. Her eyes were focused into the distance and blank.

Small wonder. This was her greatest nightmare come to life.

They looked up as I came in, and their expressions were exactly the same: neutral, distant, numb.

"Harry," Molly said, her voice hollow, ghostly.

"Hey, kid," I said.

It took Charity a moment to react to my arrival. She focused her eyes on the far wall, blinked them a couple of times, and then focused them on me. She nodded and didn’t speak.

"I, uh," I said quietly.

Molly raised her hand to stop me from speaking. I shut up.

"Okay," she said. "Uh, let me think." She closed her eyes, frowning in concentration, and started ticking off one finger with each sentence. "Luccio says that the Archive is stable but unconscious. She’s at Murphy’s house and needs to talk to you. Murphy says to tell you her face will be fine. Sanya says that he needs to talk to you alone, and as soon as possible, at St. Mary’s."

I waved a hand at all of that. "I’ll take care of it later. How’s your dad?"

"Severe trauma to his liver," Charity said, her voice toneless. "One of his kidneys was damaged too badly to be saved. One of his lungs collapsed. There’s damage to his spine. One of his ribs was fractured into multiple pieces. His pelvis was broken in two places. His jaw was shattered. Subdural hematoma. There was trauma all through one ocular cavity. They aren’t sure if he’ll lose the eye or not. There might also be brain damage. They don’t know yet." Her eyes overflowed and focused into the distance again. "There was trauma to his heart. Fragments of broken bone in it. From his ribs." She shuddered and closed her eyes. "His heart. They hurt his heart."

Molly sat back down beside her mother and put her arm around Charity’s shoulders. Charity leaned against her, eyes still spilling tears, but she never made a sound.

I’m not a Knight.

I’m not a hero, either.

Heroes keep their promises.

"Molly," I said quietly. "I’m sorry."

She looked up at me, and her lip started quivering. She shook her head and said, "Oh, Harry."

"I’ll go," I said.

Charity’s face snapped up and she said, her voice suddenly very clear and distinct, "No."

Molly blinked at her mother.

Charity stood up, her face blotched with tears, creased with strain, her eyes sunken with fatigue and worry. She stared at me for a long moment and then said, "Families stay, Harry." She lifted her chin, sudden and fierce pride briefly driving out the grief in her eyes. "He would stay for you."

My vision got a little blurry, and I sat down in the nearest chair. Probably just a reaction to all the strain of the past couple of days.