One of the things I enjoy is a good dark story that shows what could have been. You get all the oomph and queasy feeling of something gone wrong, but that's okay, because it's just a version of what could have happened. I like this. I felt the emotional slap in there. Your writing style in this one is very sparse and dead-on Boone. You start reading between the lines just as much as what's there. The two lines that kill me are "she was hurt, bad" and "Gannon would have helped her." Oh man. Great job.

I like the title as well. Fitting.