The light of that morning allowed Sloane and Jason to become spectators to the end of Tale and his men. There was nothing they could do as the bridge came down. Chunks of concrete and metal blew all over. They hid for a while as the survivors of Astoria sorted things out.
When they thought it was safe, they stole a boat and rowed to the other side of Young’s Bay. Back the way they’d come.
The others from the boats were surrounding two bodies on the ground. Their legs were all she could see.
“Jason!” Wren yelled and ran into his arms when she noticed them approaching.
Sloane stopped and stared, stunned. She had to see Kent for herself. She began walking again.
“No, Mom, don’t,” Wren said, catching her arm.
“I have to see him for myself. I have to say goodbye,” Sloane said.
“Mom, you don’t understand.”
“Wren, let me go.”
“He’s not dead! She’s working on him. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Those sweet words sent Sloane to her knees.
Wren and Jason helped her up and together they walked near the others. They parted for Sloane to see the woman from the bridge sitting on the ground near Kent.
“Someone make a stretcher. We need to get him into the van,” Linda ordered. Chuck and several others scrambled.
His eyes were closed, and he had a gash on his head that the woman was putting pressure on. But that’s not what took her focus; the large red plume of blood on the rags near his side did.
“Is he yours?” The woman was speaking to her.
“Yes.”
She smiled. “Good. He’s going to make it.”
“Sloane?” Kent murmured.
“Come here, honey. He wants you.”
Sloane edged between the two bodies on the ground and crouched down, holding Kent’s hand.
“You made it,” Kent said and opened his eyes a slit.
Tears drained down Sloane’s face. “I did,” she said. “We did,” she added.
“Only…because of him,” he said, nudging his hand toward the other one, unmoving, beside her.
“Is he okay?” Sloane asked but it was the woman that shook her head quickly, no. It was then that someone laid a cloth over Marvin’s head.
“It’s okay…he wanted to go…he just did it with a bang,” Kent said.
Sloane stepped away as they put Kent on the stretcher and took him away. She followed them as a gravelly voice caught up to her and asked, “Pardon me, but did you guys see the man that jumped off the bridge in the end? Did he make it?”
“You mean Davis? The guy they were fighting? No…we didn’t see him after the explosion. I’m sorry.”
The man she would later call Ivan smiled sadly and nodded. That’s when Sloane realized he was carrying a child. She looked up and saw that it was the little girl she had taken care of earlier.
“Is she yours?” she asked.
Ivan shook his head and seemed a bit confused at first. “Uh, he’s actually a boy. And, no, he wasn’t mine, but he is now, I suppose.”
The boy with the dark almond skin clung to him.