Koop screamed and charged the woman on the wall…

Connell saw him coming when he was ten feet away, had less than a half second to react. The scream froze her, the words in her ear scrambled her, and then Koop hit her, an open-handed blow to the side of her head. The blow knocked her down, stunned her, and then he was on top of her and there was blood in her mouth and the pistol was gone.

Lucas heard the scream and turned and saw Koop hurtle past the archway to the living room wall, and he screamed "He's here, he's here" into the headset and he ran toward the living room, where Koop and Connell were in a pile. Her pistol skittered across the rug and disappeared half under a couch. Koop's back was toward him, rolling over on Connell. Lucas couldn't use the pistol, not with Connell there; instead he raised it over his head and swung it at the back of Koop's head. Koop felt it coming: he cranked his body half around, one eye finding Lucas, the blow already on the way. Koop had time to bunch his shoulder and flinch, and the barrel hit him on the big muscle of his shoulder and Koop somehow found his feet and was coming at Lucas.

This was no boxing match. Koop launched himself straight up, came straight in, and Lucas hit him hard with a roundhouse left, but Koop blew through it as though he'd been hit with a marshmallow and his arms wrapped around Lucas's ribs.

Lucas and Koop staggered backward, together, wrapped up like drunken dancers, banging around inside the small kitchen, the pressure from Koop's arms like a machine-press around Lucas's chest, crushing him. Lucas slapped him on the side of the head with the pistol, but couldn't get a good swing. Feeling as though his spine might break, he finally pressed the pistol to Koop's ear and pulled the trigger, the slug going up through the ceiling.

The noise of the explosion an inch from his ear blew Koop's head back, stunned him like the blows hadn't. Lucas caught a breath, but a bad one: pain lanced through his chest, as though a bone were being pulled loose. Broken ribs. He caught the breath and hammered Koop once in the face, and then Koop stepped back and caught Lucas in the ribs with a short roundhouse. Lucas felt the ribs go, felt himself bounced by the blow, helplessly pulled his elbows in. He took one blow there, slapped the pistol weakly at Koop's face, cutting him, not breaking him, and Koop was crushing him again, Lucas wiggling, trying to hit, both of them crashing back and forth across the kitchen. Lucas could hear the beating on the outer door, people shouting, strained to look that way, Koop crushing him, crushing…

Connell landed on Koop's back. She had short square nails but big hands and powerful fingers, and she dug them into Koop's small eyes, not more than two inches from Lucas's face. He saw her fingers dig in, way in, pulling at Koop's eye sockets, and thought, deep at the back of his mind, Christ, she's blinded him… And she sunk her teeth into Koop's neck, her face contorted with hate, like a rabid animal's.

Koop screamed and let go of Lucas, and Lucas hit him again in the face, cutting him more, still not putting him down. Connell's fingers went deeper in his eyes and Koop bucked, tried to throw her. Her feet came off the floor and wrapped around his waist, her middle fingers digging into his skull, Koop screaming, twisting, dancing, reeling, Lucas hitting him, closing on him.

Then Koop, with a wild, blind, backhanded spin and swing, caught Lucas on the side of the head, coming in. Lucas lost everything for a moment, like a blown switch knocking out the lights in a house. Everything went dim for a moment, and he lost his feet, rolled back against a cupboard, scrambled up, headed back toward the twisting pair of them, Koop trying to wrench the woman free.

Still she rode him, and she was screeching now, like a madwoman…

The door popped open and Sloan was there with his pistol, aiming at them, starting across, Lucas a stumbling step in front of him as Koop staggered backward, onto the balcony.

Connell felt him bump the railing just below his hips. She looked down. She was actually over. She unwrapped her legs, stood on the metal rail, saw Lucas coming…

And Lucas screamed at her: MEAGAN…

Connell, wrapped into Koop, pumped her powerful legs once, backward, and they both flipped together over the railing and out into the night.

Lucas, two steps away, dove then, actually touched Koop's foot, lost it, smashed into the railing, felt himself caught by Sloan. He leaned over the rail and saw them go.

Connell's eyes were open. She loosened her grip on Koop's head during the fall, and at the end, they were in a splayed-out star shape, like sky divers.

All the way to sidewalk.

And forever.

"Jesus Christ," Sloan said. He looked from Lucas to the railing to Lucas again. Blood was pouring from Lucas's nose, down his shirt, and he was standing with one shoulder a foot lower than the other, crippled, hung over the balcony.

"Jesus H. Christ, Lucas…"

Lucas sat in his vinyl chair, staring at the television. A movie was playing, something about an average American family that was actually a bunch of giant bugs trying to blow up an atomic power plant and one of the kid-bugs smoked dope. He couldn't follow it, didn't care.

He couldn't think about Connell. He'd thought about her all he could, had considered all the different moves he might have made. He made himself believe, for a while, that she was ready to die. That she wanted it. That this was better than cancer.

Then he stopped believing it. She was dead. He didn't want her to be dead. He still had things to say to her. Too late.

Now he'd stopped thinking about her. She'd come back, in a few hours, and over the next days, and the next few weeks. And he'd never forget her eyes, looking back up at him…

Ghost eyes. He'd be seeing them for a while.

But not now.

A door opened in the back of the house. Weather wasn't due for three hours. Lucas stood, painfully, stepped toward the door.

"Lucas?" Weather's voice, worried, inquiring. Her high heels snapped on the kitchen's tile floor.

Lucas stepped into the hallway. "Yeah?"

"Why are you standing up?" she asked. She was angry with him.

"I thought you were operating."

"Put it off," she said. She regarded him gravely from six feet away, a small woman, tough. "How do you feel?"

"I hurt when I breathe… Is the TV truck still out there?"

"No. They've gone." She was carrying a big box.

"Good. What's that?"

"One of those TV dinner trays," she said. "I'll set it up in the den so you don't have to move."

"Thanks…" He nodded and hobbled back to the vinyl chair, where he sat down very carefully.

Weather looked at the television. ”What in God's name are you watching?

"I don't know," he said.

The doctors in the emergency room had held him overnight, watching his blood pressure. Blunt trauma was a possibility, they'd said. He had four cracked ribs. One of the doctors, who looked like he was about seventeen, said Lucas wouldn't be able to sneeze without pain until the middle of the summer. He sounded pleased by his prognosis.

Weather tossed her purse onto another chair, waved her arms. "I don't know what to do," she said finally, looking down at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm afraid to touch you. With the ribs." She had tears in her eyes. "I need to touch you, and I don't know what to do."

"Come over and sit on my lap," he said. "Just sit very carefully."

"Lucas, I can't. I'd push on you," she said. She stepped closer.

"It'll be okay, as long as I don't move quick. It's quick that hurts. If you sort of snuggle onto my lap…"

"If you're sure it won't hurt," she said.