Page 6 of The Same Backward as Forward
I wrenched my arm from the fisherman’s hand. I had to find a boat. I had to get to my sister.
“Coast Guard’s out there, fighting the fire,” Jackson told me. “Cops’ll be there soon—if they aren’t already. And I’m telling you, Hannah… there’s no way.” He closed his eyes. “Four kids went into the mansion. Only one came out, right before it blew.”
Only one—and not her.Air felt like shards in my lungs. The world threatened to spin.
Jackson caught me by both arms this time, forcing me to look at him. “He’s in agony, Hannah. He’s dying. And if he and his friends cost a member of the Rooney family her life…”
My ears rung. Who the hell did Jackson Currie think he was to talk about my sister beingdead?
Not Kaylie.
Not my Kaylie.
“What do you think happens if I take him to the hospital?” Jackson pressed. “If we so much as call an ambulance or the cops, what do you think happens next?”
I didn’t want to hear that question. I didn’t want to give it purchase in my mind. All I wanted to do was prove to myself that Jackson was wrong. Kaylie hadn’t gone out to Hawthorne Island with those boys. And if she had, she’d survived. She wasdancing—somewhere—with wild abandon. Or she was at home, sleeping curled in a little ball beneath the covers, the way she had since she was a little girl. She was laughing or hungover or both.
She wasfine.
But my brain answered Jackson’s question, all of its own accord, like she wasn’t.What do you think happens next?
My family had a saying:blood for blood. My mother had ordered Rory to keep his hands off the outsiders. She hadn’t been interested in the trouble that the wrath of a billionaire could bring to a town like this and an operation like hers. But if Jackson was right, if a Rooney was dead—if Kaylie wasn’t dancing, wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t laughing; if my sister wasn’tanythinganymore; if Kaylie was dead—all bets were off. The person responsible wouldn’t be safe in a local hospital. He wouldn’t be safe with local cops. My family ran the drug trade and the weapons trade, all up and down this stretch of coast. Theyownedthe cops.
Blood for blood.
If my sister was dead, and one of the people responsible was alive, he wouldn’t be for long.
Chapter 5
I went with Jackson. No part of me wanted to, and a big part of me said to let whoever he’d fished out of the water die—alone, in agony, it wasn’t my concern. But I kept thinking about what I’d been forced to do for my mother the night before. I kept thinking,Do no harm.
I kept thinking about Kaylie—and trying not to.
So I went with Jackson. I didn’t ask or even wonder which of the three outsiders had survived, but when I stepped through the metal door of Jackson’s shack onto a knotty wood floor, when I saw the unconscious body on a pile of blankets on that floor, the first thing I noticed was his hair.
Reddish brown.
It no longer hung in his face. It was matted to skin so pale I thought he might already be dead. Instinct took over, and I knelt beside him. I was in no way qualified to do this. I wasn’t a doctor. I’d never worked in a burn unit or emergency room. I didn’t even have my nursing degree yet.
But I was here, and he was on the floor.
I pressed my index and middle finger to his carotid artery. His pulse was racing. A jolt cut through my body with every beat. I held a hand over his mouth. He was breathing. I lowered my headand turned it sideways, listening to those breaths with my face close to his.
His breathing was labored—but clear.
I pulled back enough for my hand to snake in and put pressure on his chin, opening his mouth. The next thing I knew, a flashlight had been placed in my free hand.
Jackson.“Tell me what else you need,” the fisherman grunted.
I needed a doctor, an actual nurse, anyone with the experience to do this, but barring that, I needed to finish checking my patient’s airways—clear.
What now?I looked for the head wound, pushing my fingers back into a thick and tangled mess of damp hair, prodding gently until I found it.Back of his head.If there was any internal bleeding, we were screwed, but I tried not to dwell on that as I used my fingers to spread his hair, taking measure of the wound.
“I need to clean this,” I told Jackson. “I’ll need something to cut his hair with, a clean washcloth, antiseptic, butterfly bandages if you have them.” I withdrew my hands from the boy’s hair and turned my attention from the head wound to the rest of his body. “Second-degree burns on his arms and over his collarbone,” I noted.
Very little remained of his shirt, but what there was, I tore off, except where it stuck to burns.
“I’m going to have to clean this and dress his wounds. Chest and torso,here…” I let my fingers hover over the indicated location. “Those burns are third degree, but they’re smaller than the others and not on the extremities, which is good—better blood flow, smaller chance of infection.”
