Shae saw her brother fall as if in slow motion. Later, she wouldn’t remember anything else. She wouldn’t recall throwing herself to the ground under the desk. She would have no memory of the Green Bone guards outside charging into the room with drawn weapons, Koben Opon shouting for them to cut down the remaining two penitents, who were not penitents at all. She would remember only the jerk of Hilo’s body and the pistol falling from his hands, the way her brother’s shoulders struck the wall before he slid to the floor.
The next sound to break into Shae’s awareness was a ragged cry next to her underneath the desk. Ato had pushed himself out from underneath Sando Kin and was holding his cousin’s limp body, clutching his face and keening. “No no no no . . .”
Shae scrambled over to Hilo on hands and knees. He was slumped against the wall, his legs straight out in front of him as if he were slouched lazily after a hard workout. His face was contorted with pain. Shae watched in horror as blood spread across his shirt and pants, pooled around her knees on the hardwood floor.
“Hilo.” She could not say anything else.
Niko crawled over to them. He stared down at his uncle and went completely, terrifyingly still. In that moment, Shae saw another face emerge beneath that of the coolly determined young man her nephew had become. She saw unmistakably the face of the frightened toddler in the airport, the one who would follow her around the house and clutch her legs, full of confusion and loss.
“Niko.” When he didn’t answer, she shouted, “Niko!” He looked at her, eyes blank with fear. She seized his hands and pressed them over Hilo’s wounds. “Do you remember emergency medical Channeling? Try to stop the bleeding. I’ll call an ambulance.” She grabbed her bag and fumbled for her cell phone with shaking hands. Where was it? Gods, please please please. Her thoughts turned into an unthinking litany of pleading. She found it, began to punch in the emergency number.
Hilo shook his head vehemently and grabbed her by the front of her shirt, his hands twisted in the fabric. “Get me home, Shae,” he said, his voice strained.
“We need to get you to a hospital.”
Hilo shook his head again. “I’m not dying in a fucking hospital.”
“You’re not going to die,” she told him.
“Shae,” Hilo said gently, “I can’t feel my legs. I want to go home. I want to see Wen. Please, Shae.”
She began to cry. There was no warning—only the abrupt, hot blurring of vision, the strangling pressure in her chest. Hilo gripped her tighter, more impatiently. “Are you my Weather Man or not?”
All of a sudden, they were surrounded by No Peak Green Bones. Lott Jin was there—When had he arrived? How had he gotten here? Shae did not know. The Horn stared down at them, ashen-faced. Then he shoved Niko aside roughly and shouted, “Suyo!” One of his senior Fists rushed over, dropped to his knees and began Channeling while Lott and several others applied pressure to the wounds.
Hilo screamed in pain and frustration. “Get me home, godsdamnit, that is a fucking order from your fucking Pillar!”
“Do as he says,” Shae whispered. Then she shouted. “Do as he says!”
Several Fists together lifted Hilo and took him outside. He sagged between them, his legs limp, trailing blood as they carried him to the ZT Bravo parked beside the building. They placed him across the back seat, where he lay breathing raggedly, eyes closed. Niko got in with him, cradling Hilo’s head and shoulders in his lap. Shae got into the front passenger seat and hung on to the door of the car, her head pressed against the window glass as if the vehicle were a life raft.
Lott rushed them home. The only thing Shae remembered from the journey was Niko’s voice, almost too quiet to be heard. “Da,” he begged, “don’t leave me.”
Hilo did not answer.
When the car stopped and the doors opened in front of the main house, Anden was there. Someone must’ve called him, to tell him what happened and warn him to be prepared. Even so, when he saw his cousin, Anden swayed violently, as if he’d been struck across the face. He put a hand against the ZT’s door frame to steady himself. Then he went to work. Before they even had Hilo out of the vehicle, Anden was Channeling for all he was worth, forcing blood to clot, raising the Pillar’s body temperature, forcing energy into his heart and lungs. By now, Hilo was barely conscious; his eyes were closed and his face waxen.
Wen ran to the front door, saw her husband, and collapsed to the ground with a wail of pure animal pain.