Chapter 24
Chapter
Twenty-Four
COOPER
“The rain to the wind said,
‘You push and I’ll pelt.’
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged—though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.”
Robert Frost
Th-thump. Th-thump. Th-thump.
One foot forward.
Two feet forward.
Keep going.
You can do this.
All I heard was my heart unraveling against my ribcage and the sound of my frazzled breaths echoing in my ears.
It felt like I was in a dream, a time lapse, a fractured new world.
Every step I took felt like one step backward, and the hospital doors looked farther and farther away with each forward movement.
Maybe I wanted it that way. Maybe I never wanted to step foot in that hospital, or to allow reality to consume me.
I wanted to pretend.
Kate and Abby were alive—barely. They were both in critical condition and their respective prognoses were uncertain.
James didn’t make it.
My partner had died at the scene after being shot three times in the chest. One of the bullets went straight through his heart, and it was likely he hadn’t felt a thing.
It was only a small solace.
The news still rippled through me and crackled like fireworks as I made my way toward the hospital entrance. My body ached from the tense drive home. I’d received updates from my father and Sheriff Reynolds as I’d sped down the expressway, pushing one-hundred miles per hour.
It was the worst few hours of my entire life.
When my mother had died, at least I’d had closure. I’d seen it coming and I’d been there, right be her side, when she’d taken her final breath.
Today was different. Today was a completely different kind of pain. I’d been helpless, hundreds of miles away, unable to do anything but keep on driving. All I could do was wait out the agonizing hours and hope for the best.
I pushed through the revolving doors with blurry eyes and a sour stomach. The receptionist stood from her chair with a sympathetic expression, and I didn’t know why she was moving in slow motion and speaking in clipped and gargled phrases.
Was she under water? Was I under water?
“Cooper.”
My name. At least I knew my name.
My head flicked right, a familiar face coming into my line of sight.
“Son,” Dad said.
I squinted at my father, my perception muddy. My vision tampered with.
Why did it feel like I was falling?
Because I was falling.
My world had come undone and it was taking me down with it. I collapsed to my knees as my father rushed forward, crouching down in front of me.
“My son,” Dad whispered softly, showing more emotion, more affection, in that moment than he ever had before.
Strong arms wrapped around my shoulders, and it was a comfort I didn’t know I needed. I was used to being the strong one. I was used to being valiant, brave, and untouchable. I’d always been the one to carry the sword in two capable hands as I fought through murk and mud and long, dark nights.
I’d carried it all on my own.
Breaking against my father’s shoulder, I realized it had been decades since I’d last cried.
I thought back to a summer morning when I’d been just a small child, running through the backyard with a popsicle in one hand and a tiny toad in the other. I’d had dirt on my face and grass stains on my shoes as I’d dashed over to the playset, where Kate had been gliding languidly on a swing.
“Check it out, Sis! Look what I found!” I’d shouted, excitement coursing through me.
Kate had halted her motions, jumping off the swing and racing toward me. “What? What is it?”
I’d unfolded my sticky hand to show my sister the little creature I’d discovered in the thick grass.
But it hadn’t been there.
My hand had been empty.
“I don’t see anything,” Kate had said with a pout. “I thought you found something cool.”
“I did!” I’d insisted, my tone pitching with earnestness.
I’d traced my steps. The little toad must have hopped out between my fingers. Traipsing back through the lawn, my eyes had frantically searched for the baby toad.
And then, I’d stopped abruptly, my attention snagging on a horrible sight.
I’d found my new friend
But he hadn’t been alive.
I must have dropped him while running over to Kate, and then I’d stepped on him along the way.
The toad had been dead.
Squished and gutted by my Ninja Turtles sneakers.
I’d knelt down, examining my crime and choking on my guilt. I had cried all day, unable to erase the memory from my mind. And in that moment, I’d decided that I wanted to protect things.
Things I loved. Things I held dear.
All things, big and small.
I’d made it my mission at six years old that I would become a great defender.
That baby toad would have justice.
I latched onto my father, weeping into his shirt collar and purging years-worth of bottled-up grief. I cried for my mother. I cried for my sister. I cried for my partner.
I cried for Abby.
I cried for every fallen hero, every lost soul, and every innocent life I never had the chance to save.
I cried for the toad.
Abby
My eyelids flickered as a wash of artificial light spilled across my vision. A soft hum buzzed in my ears, mingling with beeps and whistles that made me shrink into the pillow.
I was awake.
I was…alive.
Am I?
I wondered for a moment if I was dead. Maybe this was the afterlife.
Purgatory.
I shifted on the bed as pain shot through me, then winced when a needle tickled my vein and medical tape tugged at the hairs on my arm. Every limb ached and pulsed like lightning-hot fire.
Going still, I registered a presence sitting beside me. Familiar, masculine. I inhaled a bitter breath as I blinked back to reality. “Cooper?” My tongue was a lump of sandpaper in my mouth as my voice cracked.
Cooper.
I missed him. Wherever I’d gone, I had missed him terribly.
“Abigail.”
I turned my head toward the man on my right, realizing it was someone else. I knew the man, but it wasn’t Cooper.
It was my brother.
“Ryan?”
Okay, maybe I was dead. I had to be. There was no way my estranged brother was sitting at my bedside, saying my name, holding my hand. I wriggled my fingers against his, partly to make sure I could move them and partly to confirm his existence.
He felt real.
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s me.”
I swallowed back a knot in my throat that tasted like a tumbleweed. “What are you doing here?”
Before he could respond, memories rushed back to me. Terrifying, gruesome memories. They filtered through me like a drug and zapped my heart. I gasped, squeezing Ryan’s hand as my body reacted to the onslaught of bloodshed and horrors swirling around my brain.
Kate.
James.
Cappy.
The accident.
Everything tumbled through me at once, leaving me breathless as I started to cry. “Are they okay?” I croaked out.
Ryan clutched my hand, scooting forward on his chair. “Shh. Take a deep breath.”
“I-I need to know. Please. Are they dead?” I was wrecked with anguish, mourning, and guilt. “Oh, God, are they dead?”
A nurse raced into the room, and Ryan lifted his head. “She’s remembering again,” he said as the nurse slid over to the side of my bed and fiddled with my IV line.
I shook and shuddered as something cold began to glide through my veins. A calming wave sluiced over me, my body instantly relaxing. “Please,” I whispered, my plea directed at the nurse, my gaze lazily following. “I need to know if my friends are okay.”
The nurse only smiled as she continued her task. “Just rest,” she replied before turning to leave the room.
I looked back at my brother, taking in his features for the first time. He’d aged a bit, but he was the same Ryan. Handsome and distinguished with sandy hair and a crooked smile, just like mine. I reached for his hand again, and he took it. “Tell me, Ryan. Please. I have to know the truth.”
The truth.
It seemed as if I’d been shielded from the truth for almost half my life—I’d been lied to, betrayed, and deceived. And for what?
Protection? To preserve a cushy, guilt-free future?
My breath ruptured on the inhale. I didn’t remember everything about the accident.
Some things, some images, some nightmares, were still buried, and I wondered if they always would be.
Maybe my brain was also trying to protect me.
Maybe all the things I’d seen that night were just too much for one person to carry.
But I remembered the precise jerk of the steering wheel. I heard the screams and the sound of metal crushing against metal. I recalled Cappy bellowing his sorrow into the night as the rain had pelted down on us like razorblades.
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the memories away.
Ryan ran his thumb along my knuckles when he noticed my panic climbing. “Your friend is alive, Abby. Kate. She survived,” he finally confirmed. “They think she’s going to make it.”
Oh, thank God.
A silver lining amid the shadows.
I swallowed, then asked with hesitation, “James?”
Ryan’s expression fell. His eyes drifted from mine, his grip on me tightening.
All he did was shake his head, and fresh tears burned my eyes.
James.
James Walker was a soldier who’d been shot down in battle, and it was a battle he had no business fighting. It was my battle. My war.
The thought sickened me.
“Abigail…” Ryan pulled his hand from mine and straightened in his seat, running shaky fingers through his shaggy mop of hair.
“I’m so sorry for abandoning you. The more time that passed by, the harder it was to face you.
I had a lot of anger and resentment, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
” He closed his eyes, his knee bobbing up and down.
“But I never thought about how you must have felt. You were grieving, too, and we should have fought through the pain together. I made you go through it alone, and it’s a cross I’ll bear for the rest of my life. ”
More tears spilled down my cheeks. I wiped them against my shoulder with a sniffle as I drank in his words.