“So far she hasn’t come over here. I think she’s about to skedaddle.”

“Is skedaddling bad?”

“It means she’s about to leave again, and I can’t follow.”

“Try to stall them. I’ll be there soon, I swear it.”

Galen hangs up and bears down on the gas pedal, ignoring Grom’s hand when it clutches his forearm. “Nalia’s been hurt, Grom. We need to get to her.” To his relief, his brother lets go.

And Galen mashes the pedal to the floor.

7

I WATCH as Rachel hangs up the phone and slumps against her car, sliding down the passenger side door and plopping sloppily into the grass. She presses her hand to her stomach in a way that makes my own stomach twist. Her face is pale, her lips quiver. This is the first time I’ve ever seen this woman in tears. And I don’t like it.

With one hand, Mom drops the hood of our car and claps her hands together to dislodge the miscellaneous car gunk from them. She walks to where I’m standing at the trunk and touches my hand. “See if you can start it now, sweetie. I think the battery cable was just loosed because of the impact.” When I don’t answer, she follows my gaze to Rachel. “You know she just told them where we are, Emma. We have to go.”

I move away from her. “She’s hurt. You have to help her.”

“We have to get away from here.”

“You’re a nurse, for God’s sake! This is what nurses do. We can’t just leave her. You shot her.”

I start toward Rachel, but Mom grabs my hand. “She has a cell phone. She can call an ambulance if she’s hurt badly.”

“She’ll never do it. She won’t risk the interrogation involved with going to a hospital with a gunshot wound. And we don’t want that, either. Every cop in the area will be looking for us. She’ll tell them about us, so they’ll pick us up. Come on, Mom. You know this has to be reported if we do it all ‘official.’”

Mom crosses her arms. “It sounds like you’ve covered for this woman quite a bit.”

I stagger backward and nod toward Rachel. “Help. Her. At least make sure she’ll be okay.” Mom glances at Rachel and back to me. I can tell she’s thinking of arguing some more. But I won’t budge. “If you don’t help her, you’ll have to drag me away kicking and screaming. It’ll be a fair fight this time. No chloroform advantage.” Plus, Mom’s got a nick on her arm from when the gun went off after we hit the embankment. It’s nothing like a gory gunshot wound you see in the movies—in fact, I’m not sure if it’s even a gunshot wound because the hole in her shirt is more like a tear than an actual hole. Maybe she scratched herself on the window when it shattered. There’s no chunky flesh flapping in the wind or anything and the bloodstain isn’t bigger than a fist—and it seems to have stopped seeping through her shirt. My mom is tough and probably wouldn’t show pain if she was actually in any, so I don’t know how serious it really is. I remember then that Dr. Milligan had said Syrena blood clots faster than human blood. That Syrena wounds heal faster. Still, shattered glass couldn’t cut her thick Syrena skin. Is she shot after all?

While I’m studying Mom, she’s studying Rachel. She’s waging war with herself and it’s all over her face:

Leave her.

But Emma will fight.

We have no choice but to leave her.

But Emma will make it difficult.

LEAVE HER.

Finally, she sighs and her face changes from war to resignation. I’m not sure if her conscience weighed more than her flight instinct, or if she just didn’t want to scrap with me out in broad daylight for anyone to see.

Together, we walk the ten feet back to Rachel’s car. The driver’s side door is still ajar and the alerting jingle might just give me an eye twitch. I shut the door before joining my mom and Rachel.

Mom kneels beside her. “You’ve been shot,” she tells Rachel.

“You shot me, you crazy bit—”

“We don’t have time for the ER protocol crap, Mom,” I cut in. “She knows she’s been shot. She’s alert. Help. Her.”

Mom nods. She looks at Rachel’s clenched fist where it’s balled against her lower stomach. “I’m sorry I shot you. I need to look at that. Please.”

Rachel gives her The Stank Eye. Rachel is very good at The Stank Eye.

“I’m a nurse, remember?” Mom says, her voice dripping with impatience. “I can help you.”

Rachel inhales and eases her hand away from her stomach, but I can’t bring myself to look at it so I just watch Mom’s face to maybe gauge how bad the wound is. I imagine dark blood and entrails and …

“What the…?” Mom gasps. As an ER nurse, Mom’s seen a lot of things. But by her expression, she’s never seen this. I’m thinking it must be way serious. Also, I’m thinking I might throw up.

Until Rachel slaps a handcuff around Mom’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Nalia. I hope you understand.” Then she clinks the other end of the cuff around her own wrist. I steal a glance at Rachel’s very clean, very intact, very non-bloody-entrails T-shirt.

Rachel is a smart woman.

Mom lunges for her, hands aiming for her throat. Rachel pulls some karate-chop-move thing and slams Mom against the door behind her. “Knock it off, hon. I don’t want to really hurt you.”

“You … you told Galen you’d been shot,” I stammer. “I heard you tell him that. Why would you lie to him?”