Chapter 12: The Harbor Road

Neil drove out along the harbor road with the windows down and no plan.

He passed the Halvorsen dock without looking at it.

He passed the lighthouse and the long gray beach, and the sky went flat and white over the water.

He told himself he was only breathing.

Thirteen years.

Jude had stood in front of him for thirteen years and never once asked to be thanked.

Neil hated that.

He hated that it had worked.

The first cramp hit him at the old quarry turn.

It was sharp and low, and it folded him over the wheel.

He pulled onto the gravel shoulder and sat with both hands on his stomach, breathing through his teeth.

"Not now," he whispered. "Please, not now."

The second one was worse.

Something warm spread on the inside of his thigh.

He looked down, and his stomach dropped.

He tried to dial the doctor, and the phone slid out of his sweaty hand and under the seat.

He reached for it, and the pain took his breath away.

A truck pulled in behind him, fast, with gravel spitting.

A door slammed.

"Neil!"

Jude had followed him the whole way.

He had kept a quarter mile back, and Neil had never seen the headlights.

He wrenched open the driver's door and went down on one knee in the gravel.

"I'm bleeding," Neil said. "Jude, I'm bleeding."

Jude's face went absolutely white.

"Okay. Okay. I've got you."

"I can't lose it."

"You won't. Look at me. You won't."

He lifted Neil out of the truck in one move and laid him across the back seat of his own.

Neil's head rested on Jude's knee for one terrible second, and then Jude was in the driver's seat and the truck was roaring.

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