When they were safe.
When she had a photograph in her hand and time to do it right.
She would not tell him here, in an alley, with men trying to kill her and both of them within an hour of dying.
He had carried his father's memory alone for eight years.
He could carry it a little longer.
"Eli," she whispered.
"Yes?"
"I'm very glad it was you who found me."
He kept moving.
He did not answer.
He could not.
There was something happening inside his chest that did not have words.
Around two in the morning, he heard boots.
He stopped mid-jump and held his breath.
Two sets of footsteps.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Coming down the avenue.
Then turning.
Coming into the alley.
Flashlight beams cut through the swirling snow and swept the dumpsters and doorways.
A voice came through the storm.
Low.
Irritated.
"Boss said she crawled. She couldn't have gotten far."
Another voice answered.
"In this weather, she's a snowbank somewhere. Let's just call it."
"You want to be the one who tells him we didn't check? Go ahead."
The flashlight beam swept closer.
Eli's heart did something it had never done before.
It did not pound.
It went quiet.
Steady.
Cold.
A kind of clarity he had never felt in his life dropped over him like a hood.
He looked at Maggie.
Her eyes were open.
She was watching him.
She mouthed two words.
Bottle. Throw.
He looked.
Six feet from him, half buried in snow, was a thick brown beer bottle someone had left months ago.
He moved without sound.
He picked it up.
He looked back at her.
She mouthed one more word.
Far.
He understood.
He turned, wound up his small, exhausted arm, and threw the bottle as hard as he could.
It sailed over the dumpster, across the side street, and struck the brick wall of the building opposite.
The bottle shattered in the frozen quiet.
"Over there!"
The flashlights swung.
The boots ran.
The two men crashed out of the alley and toward the sound.
Eli pressed himself against the brick beside Maggie and shook so hard he thought his bones would come apart.
Her good hand found his.
She held it.
"Good boy," she whispered. "Good boy. Good boy."
The footsteps faded.
The wind took back the alley.
Eli sat down in the snow beside her.
He could not stand anymore.
His legs simply would not do it.
"Eli," Maggie said. "Eli, look at me."
He looked.
She was crying.
He had not seen her cry before, even when he tucked the coat around her shoulder, even when he pulled her through the snow.