"Stay with me, son."
"Stay with me."
"You hear me, Eli Carter?"
"You stay with me."
"There's a woman waiting for you."
"She's been waiting for you for eight years."
"You stay with me."
The boy did not answer.
But there was still a heartbeat.
Barely.
They came through the hospital doors at 4:12.
Maggie Whitlock was waiting in the lobby in her wheelchair.
The parka lay folded across her lap.
Her good hand gripped the armrest so tightly her knuckles were white.
The sliding doors opened.
Beau came through carrying the boy.
Maggie made a sound that was not a word.
A sound that came from a place inside her she had kept locked for 15 years.
The trauma team was already moving.
They took Eli from Beau in one coordinated motion.
A heated gurney.
Blankets.
IV lines.
The controlled choreography of people who had done this before.
Maggie wheeled herself beside the gurney as it moved.
She kept one hand on the blanket near Eli's foot.
She talked to him all the way.
"Eli."
"Honey, it's Maggie."
"I'm here."
"I'm here, baby."
"You're not alone."
"You're not alone anymore."
They passed through the doors of Trauma One.
The doors closed.
Beau stood outside in the corridor.
Cyrus stood beside him.
For a long moment, neither man spoke.
Then an alarm sounded inside.
The high, flat tone of a monitor.
The overhead pager came alive.
"Code blue, Trauma One."
Inside Trauma One, Dr. Patel had worked on critically ill patients for 21 years.
Over that time, she developed a particular expression for the moment when she was deciding whether there was anything more medicine could offer.
A slight tightening at the corners of the eyes.
A pause before the next instruction.
The nurses on her team knew that expression.
She had it now.
Eli's heart rhythm had become dangerously unstable.
The team had already intervened more than once.
Active warming was underway.
Heated fluids were being administered.
Resuscitation continued.
Dr. Patel looked at the monitor.
Maggie saw the expression.
Maggie had worked beside Dr. Patel for ten years.
She knew exactly what it meant.
She moved.
She came to the head of the bed on her good leg.
Her wheelchair was somewhere behind her.
The bandage at her shoulder had begun to stain again where she had pulled against the injury.
She put her good hand against the side of Eli's face.
She bent close to his ear.
"Eli."
Her voice did not shake.
"Eli Carter."
"You listen to me."