Push your chair, brother. Take you for walks in the park. An inch. Two. Behind him on the hardwood was a smeared trail of red. The room was so damn big.

Richard’s arm was failing; his uninjured leg cramped. Blinking to stay conscious, he tried to remember why he was bleeding across this wasteland.

The phone. Dial 0, the operator, and ask for the police. The phone on the nightstand looked impossibly far away, as if viewed through the wrong end of a telescope.

“Dylan!” Richard screamed. Dylan didn’t move and Richard was out of air.

Rest. He would rest a moment. Leaning against the bureau, he watched the orange light pulsate deeper, then paler. It made him sleepy.

Don’t sleep; stay awake, he warned himself. Never sleep; your hand will come loose. Sleep is death. He would just rest a second or two; then, when he was stronger, he would continue his journey to the telephone, to 0 and rescue.

“Water,” he croaked, seeing in his mind the parched desert crawlers of late-night TV Westerns. He was so thirsty he could have cried. He licked his lips and tasted Vondra. After he’d left her, he’d showered and brushed his teeth, but the taste was still there.

Vondra. He had been with her when he should have been with Dylan. He had not been a good brother. Now Dylan was going to die.

The thought was intolerable, more so than bleeding to death.

Anger gave him strength. By inches and screams, he reached his brother’s side. He smoothed back Dylan’s hair and kissed him.

Before he passed out he managed to dial the operator.