Jenna gripped the medic’s gloved hand and pulled it from her wrist. “I’m fine!”
“Ma’am, please sit still—”
“Take care of her! Take care of Amber!”
The man beside her on the pew got into her face, blocking the view of her friend on a stretcher in the aisle. His haircut resembled Kevin’s quarter-inch buzz. Kevin’s post-enlisted haircut. Had this guy joined up too? Where was Kevin? She should tell him she was all right. He would worry. He was like that.
“Jenna, stay with me here.”
She blinked a few times. The room still spun faster than her eyes could follow. Her ears still rang.
“Amber is being taken care of.” The medic’s head came into focus. He was bent over her arm, holding her wrist again. “Okay? There’s plenty of help around. We need to take care of you too.”
“But she’s hurt!”
“And this”—he gently lifted her blouse sleeve—“is a figment of my imagination. Mm-hmm, right. What do you do for a living, Jenna?”
She leaned sideways. Amber looked dead. Pale. Motionless. An oxygen mask covered most of her face. A dressing covered that spot on her neck, the spot where blood had trickled. Two medics still worked on her, conversing with each other, talking at her. She didn’t answer. She looked dead.
“Johnson!” A voice barked.
Jenna nearly jumped off the seat. A burly policeman moved along the row ahead, directing his attention to the guy next to her.
“We gotta move out right now. They’re not so sure about that wall.”
A rustling noise came from the stretcher. Amber was talking, her voice muffled, and she tried to push aside the mask.
One of the medics lifted it. “What?”
“Solid masonry.” She rasped. Her eyelids fluttered, but didn’t completely open. “No problem. Bombs went pop, pop. Do about as much damage as a skeeter on an elephant’s behind.” Instantly Amber returned to her deadlike state.
The medics chuckled, put the mask back in place.
Then the policeman was slapping his palms against the pew’s back, gripping its edge, and leaning over it toward Jenna. “What does she know about the bombs?”
Jenna heard the voice and saw the big man’s square jaw, his scrunched lips, but nothing registered. There was too much else going on in her mind. The spinning. The noise.
“What do you know about the—hey!” The cop shouted again, this time to Amber’s group. “I need her ID.”
Someone called out the name of a hospital.
Johnson, the medic with Jenna, still held her injured arm. He’d put something around it. “That one is Amber Ames. This is Jenna Mason, on her way to the same place. They’ll be there awhile.” He moved closer again, his eyes commanding hers to focus on him. “Let’s try to walk, okay? We’ll catch the next stretcher that comes by.”
“Can’t we wait here?” Her legs felt like overcooked noodles. “Amber said the walls are solid. She’s really a smart woman. Knows all about explosives.”
“Yes, but—”
“Jen!” A familiar voice shouted. “Jenna!”
She looked up to see Danny. From the front of the church, he was climbing over pews, making his clumsy way to the middle where she sat. Relief flooded through her. Danny would know what to do.
“Who is this?” The cop wouldn’t let up. He spun around, flung out an arm, and stopped Danny in midstride over the final pew. “Who are you?”
“What? That’s my sister.”
“Who are you?”
“Daniel Beaumont.”
“Were you in here for the funeral?”
Jenna rolled her eyes. Like somebody would wear ratty blue jeans, T-shirt, and Ro-Bo Shop cap for a funeral.
“No,” Danny said. “Excuse me, Officer.”
“How’d you get inside?” A notebook was in his hand now, and he was writing.
“Walked through a door.” Danny sprang over the back of the pew and reached her. “Jen, you okay?” He looked beyond her shoulder. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” the medic replied. “She’s fading in and out a little. Has a bump on her head. There’s a sliver of glass in her arm. Doc will have it out, no sweat. Jenna, let’s take that walk.”
They helped her to her feet. Whatever her last meal had been rumbled in her stomach.
The cop growled something about not letting them out of his sight.
“Danny.” She tried to bring him into focus. “Call Kevin. Tell him I’m all right, but I have to go see Amber at the hospital. Tell him to meet me there, okay? This nice guy here knows where.”
“No worries.”
She began to sink back down.
Danny scooped her in his arms. “Mmph. You gaining weight?”
Probably. Since Kevin had left, meals were not exactly balanced or timely. Since Kevin . . . left. Shipped out . . . Deployed . . .
She rested her head on Danny’s shoulder. “Kevin can’t come, can he?”
“’Fraid not today, sis.”
Jenna closed her eyes.