Chapter 22 #3
“This place is a gossip,” Levi grumbled.
“I’ve had a few female visitors. Something about almost dying makes everyone need to assuage their guilt for all their shitty choices.
I’m tired of listening to everyone’s regrets.
Break me out. You’re a damn god in here.
We could walk right out, and I doubt anyone would say a word. ”
I rolled my eyes. “I am not. Kumar would never let me take you this soon.”
“You are. Fuck, I know, but every day I stay my health score drops. You aren’t here to lie for me now.”
“Levi, your arm was ripped open to the bone. You had internal bleeding. You received a blood transfusion. You have to stay a bit longer.”
Levi deflated. “I know.”
“But seriously, how’s your arm?”
“It’s fine, I’ll recover. Thanks to you.”
Tears spilled at last, hot and quick. “I was afraid.”
Levi held a hand out, open—waiting, his dark blue band visible.
“I wasn’t. I always believed in you, Sasha. I had no intention of being the one to prove to the others, but I knew you could do it.”
My hand found his, and he squeezed it fiercely. I returned it, conveying all the things I still didn’t have the right words for.
“Thank—”
“Sorry, I’m—”
“Sasha,” Levi began, his eyes finding mine.
All of my guilt died in my throat as his words filled the room.
Everyone had come to assuage their guilt and shitty choices.
I swallowed the words, saying the only thing that needed to be said.
“I’m happy you didn’t die. I should have come sooner.
It wasn’t you. I just couldn’t—I didn’t know how to come back here. ”
“I know.” Levi smiled at me, truly smiled. It made him look younger, like the child he never got to be. “You’re here now.”
“Why are you smiling?” I demanded, crying harder at the sight of it. “You almost died. Your time in the Force is in question.”
“Nothing. I’m happy you’re my partner, Sasha,” Levi said simply.
“I got my call sign.”
“I heard, Beast.” He snorted. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice.”
I settled into the chair, my body relaxing for the first time since our descent. “What would you have chosen?”
“Phoenix,” Levi told me. “You don’t give up. You’re keeping hope alive, Sasha.”
We sat in a comfortable silence, my blinks growing longer, until Levi cleared his throat. “I want to talk about it.”
I sat up straighter, shaking off the drowsiness.
“Isla and I had a thing,” he said. “I met her trying to get into Haven when the doors were about to close. They had started rejecting people because we were at capacity. She was all alone and in bad shape. So I lied at the shack, said she had family inside, and got her in. I brought her here to the Ward. She asked me to come back so I did. A lot. We became really close. I encouraged her to go into the Force. Trained her. I loved her.” Levi faced the ceiling, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Then Hayes got injured above, and I was distracted, withdrawn. I just needed some time to sort it all out in my mind. She met Patrick when she was training for Auction. Suddenly what we had wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t enough. She chose Patrick. Patrick won’t ever choose her, not fully.
” He turned, his face vulnerable and open.
“Why?”
“There’s no simple answer. But it’s been years, and nothing has changed between them.”
“Is it hard being in the same unit?” I thought of all the times something between Patrick and Isla seemed to be brewing. Damien and Rumi provided a buffer as Levi withdrew. How did they all work together so well?
“In the beginning, yes. Sometimes, it still is. When I watch her choose something that only hurts her.”
“And Patrick?”
Levi shrugged. “He didn’t know about us when they started. He’s apologized profusely since, not that he owed me one. Neither did she, we weren’t—we saw it differently. The whole world was ending. I didn’t think we needed to title it. She did. But Patrick is good for the unit.”
“Hayes chose them even with all of that?”
“Hayes believes in people, sees things other miss. He built a great team. I have learned to compartmentalize it. There was me and Isla prior to Unit Seven. Now there is just Unit Seven. That didn’t stop me from sparring with Hayes until we were both bloody.
He let me have the upper hand the entire time.
Pissed me off more. I love who he is, but sometimes I also hate it. ”
“Hayes asked me to hate him,” I confessed, matching his honesty.
“Again?”
“He told you about the first time?”
The look he cast me screamed, Of course. “Did you put him out of his misery?”
“I told him I couldn’t.”
“It’ll kill him to know he’s still the only one.” My brows pinched. “Everyone has demons.”
I didn’t ask him to elaborate, I couldn’t. “Leave or stay?”
Levi tossed me a pillow, scooting over. I dragged the chair closer, placing the pillow by Levi’s knee. I had slept like this too many times, surrounded by these curtains, to find the position uncomfortable.
The Ward around us was quiet as Levi said, “Thank you for trying. I’m glad I held on.”
I curved my body over the edge of his bed, his identification band inches from mine. I fell asleep in the Ward. I didn’t wait for death to take my seat. I was with life, and for the first time since I entered Haven, it was comforting.