“He’s great,” she smiled; Penelope and Tara were in the room too.
“We’re so relieved, Ava,” said Pen. “We’ve been praying like crazy.”
“It worked.” She smiled again, or maybe she hadn’t stopped smiling. “I’m so tired,” she said, pulling back the blanket and sheet on her bed. “You don’t mind if I sleep for a while, do you?”
“Of course not,” said Pen, jumping up.
Ava crawled under the covers.
“We’ll give you a hug and go,” said Tara. “We’re right next door if you need us.”
“You’re being too nice to me. What you all went through was so much worse.” Ava looked at her sister.
“What we all went through was hell, Ava. And now we’re here and together, and the doctor says we’re going to be fine,” Pen told her.
“They’ve arranged for therapists to come and talk to us before we leave too,” said Tara.
“Get some rest,” said Pen, kissing her forehead. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Are you okay?” Ava asked Aine after they left.
“What if Dad comes back for you?”
Ava wished she could tell her he wouldn’t. She wished she wasn’t just as worried as Aine was that he would.
—:—
“Where the fuck is she?” Razor spat at Gunner when he walked through the door.
“I don’t know.”
“She almost killed me.”
“We don’t know that. In fact, I’m almost positive it wasn’t her.”
“Why?”
“Wrong caliber.”
“They recovered the bullet?”
Gunner pulled it out of his pocket. “The surgeon dug it out of you.”
“I don’t even want to know how you got it.”
“Part of an attempted murder investigation.”
“If it wasn’t Raketa, where is she?”
“I’m afraid that whoever shot you, took her.”
Razor nodded. One thing that he and Gunner had always agreed to do was listen to each other, even when they were fighting mad, even when they couldn’t be further apart in their opinions. He respected the hell out of his friend, and if Gunner believed Raketa wasn’t the one who shot him, Razor did too. It helped a lot that he had the bullet that almost went through him, though.
“Petrov is still out there,” said Razor.
“I know.”
“That means Ava isn’t safe.”