Page 83 of The Hitman’s Final Job

The festival has stopped.

My son is on the ground, my hands are red, and Silas is gone and I am kneeling on Main Street in Pine Ridge, saying the same words over and over into the silence where the fireworks used to be.

You’re going to be okay.

You’re going to be okay.

You’re going to be okay.

The ambulance arrives.

The paramedics ask me to move back, but I don’t want to move back. Every part of me wants to stay between Rowan and everything else. Clayton puts his arms around me and helps me move because the paramedics need the space because they know what they’re doing and I don’t.

I stand and watch them work. My hands are sticky with my son’s blood. Rowan would faint at the sight.

“Sir,” one of the paramedics says. “Are you hurt?”

I look up.

“No,” I say. “That’s his. It’s my son’s blood.”

She nods and goes back to Rowan, and I watch them as they say he’s stable but they need to move quickly.

He’s alive. He’s still alive. They’re keeping him alive.

“Sir.” A different voice.

Dale Briggs puts his hand on my arm. “Vaughn. Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” I say.

“The ambulance is going to take him,” Dale says. “You can go with him. Okay? You can go with him.”

“Where’s Silas?”

He shakes his head.

“Go with Rowan,” he says. “I’ll find Silas.”

They load Rowan into the ambulance.

I get in beside him.

The doors close, and the ambulance moves.

I hold Rowan’s hand and say his name and wait for him to open his eyes. I’m not a religious man, but I pray. If ever I’ve done something good for this world, I need to collect and I need my son to be okay.

I pray.

Then the paramedics ask me to move, and they start doing compressions on his chest. They call out numbers. The noise is too much. My son’s looks like he’s peacefully asleep.

Please wake up, Rowan. Please.

TWENTY-SIX

SILAS

I barely register Vaughn moving toward Rowan because I’m scanning the crowd for a sign of the shooter.