Chapter 81
ELI
“Can you take me through what happened again?” The detective holds out a steaming cup of coffee.
When I shake my head, he hands it to his deputy and sits in the chair across from mine in the waiting room.
The walls are apple green, mismatched to the blue and black speckled vinyl floor. Everything is at odds in here. Like someone tried to make it as jumbled as possible to make it easier to focus on something other than the tumult of emotions coursing through me.
So many that the constant slur has given way to numbness. For all the emotions, I can’t feel anything anymore. Everything is falling apart, and I can’t control any of it.
“Where’s Jayden?” I ask again when my eyes center on the clock on the wall behind him.
“He’s getting stitched up,” the detective replies, voice too steady. “We’ll take his statement once the nurse is done. In the meantime, if you could—”
“Take you through what happened. Again.”
“Yes. I know this is difficult, but I want to make sure the story is straight so I can leave you to—to…” A tanned hand gesture around the room when my blurred stare hitches to his.
“It’s not a story,” I mutter, scraping a thumbnail around my bloodstained cuticles. My face drops to my hands as my head hangs between my shoulders. “They’re facts.”
“And we need to get them straight,” he retorts with a sigh, pad in one hand, pen in the other, skimming through the notes he’s already taken as I recount what happened for the umpteenth time. “From when you arrived at the scene. Please.”
There’s a frog in my throat that refuses to clear as I start, “There was blood in the truck. Ryker’s truck. The driver’s seat was stained with it, and…”
After a few seconds, he coaxes, “And?”
“Ryker was shot.” As bitter as it tastes to recount, I add, “He was between Finley and Presley, trying to stop him from hurting her. Presley wanted to know where Salem was.”
“His wife…” The words are a chuff, like they somehow make a difference to what happened.
It doesn’t, so I don’t acknowledge it. “Finley wouldn’t tell him, and when he tried to beat her, Ryker got in the way. He… he protected her.”
Like I should have done.
“What happened when Mr. Hallman protected your girlfriend, Mr. Sylkes?”
“P—Presley… He… umm… he shot him.”
“Where?” The detective demands.
I’m shaking my head as I shrug. “Can’t say. I don’t—I don’t know… Didn’t see…”
“How could you not see it if you were there? If you saw everything else?”
“I don’t know!” The words plug my windpipe, pushing my breath back down my throat until I’m choking on it.
“Okay, you don’t know. So what happened afterward? How did Miss Tomes get shot and her brother killed? What happened?”
My heart hammers into my ribs. So hard that I can’t hear myself think. Everything in my head is a vivid blur of moving limbs and garbled screams.
“Mr. Sylkes?”
“Yes?”
“If you would…”
Biting down on the inside of my cheek, I savor the metallic tang that floods my senses. Focusing on it, rather than the noise in my head.
“We were fighting for the gun, and… and it went off the first time.” Bile blazes up my throat at my words. Flashes of red throb in my head, clouding my eyes.
“That’s when Miss Tomes was shot through the chest and the bullet winged Mr. Morrow’s shoulder.”
I choke on my reply. “Yes… I—I think so… Yes…”
“Which is it? Yes, that’s what happened, or you think so?”
Burying my face in my hands, I desperately attempt to silence the voice in my head, biting and barking that it was me, I did it. It’s my fault.
I give him a nod. “Yes.”
“Yes?” He asks, voice pitching like the answer isn’t right there in front of him. “Yes, what?”
“It’s what happened. Presley and I… We were fighting for the gun, and it went off.”
“Twice.”
“Yes.”
“Talk me through the second shot.”
The pain in my chest spreads through my torso, twisting my stomach. How many more times will I have to tell him what happened? I can’t keep doing it. I can’t keep going back there, and I can’t… I can’t keep seeing it all… I can’t…
“Mr. Sylkes,” he calls my attention to him. “The second shot.”
The tremble of my hands is so strong that it wracks my shoulders. “I was gripping Presley’s wrist and pulling it down. The gun was in my face and… and…” With a shrug, I say, “I yanked his arm down to his chest, and the firearm went off again. It was an accident. It—I—”
The door slams open, cutting me off. Natasha stands in the open doorway, badge in hand, silencing the detective in front of me when he pushes to his feet to protest.
They leave me in silence. Completely alone. Staring at the clock as the seconds trudge by endlessly.
Tick, tick, tick—tock.
The door grates open slowly, and all I can do is keep staring at the clock. When the chair beside mine creaks, a shoulder bumps mine.
“Doing okay, Son?” Brian asks, and the instant I look at him, the dam holding everything together bursts open.
I don’t know what I’m saying or what I’m doing. The tears are so heavy I can’t see a thing when his arms close around me and he holds me in a suffocating hug until there’s nothing left. No tears. No feelings. No emotions.
“One of the nurses is getting an update on Finley, and Jayden is almost done.” A tender smile tugs at his mouth when he tugs a silk handkerchief from his pocket and dries my face.
His son got shot because of me, and he’s here taking care of me like I deserve his affection.
“I’m sorry,” is all I can say between my sobbed hiccups.
Brian brushes my hair back, his fingers tugging through the crusty strands before he offers me a hair tie. “Jayden said you’d need that.”
With the tight squeeze of my chest around my racing heart, I snatch the hair tie from him. Fisting it tightly in my hand like it’s a piece of Jayden I’m holding on to.
“The detectives won’t be coming back to talk to you. The crime scene team found a camera in Ryker’s truck. Everything they need to close the case is in the footage, so you can relax now. It’s over.”
“Over?” The thrum of my pulse stutters. Over.
A grin cuts Brian’s face. “Yes, Son. Everything is going to be okay,” he tells me, voice lined with the pride glowing in his bright blue stare.
“For real…” The words are a whisper that he echoes as Natasha walks into the room with Jayden and a petite nurse at her side. “For real.”
Without pause, I go to Jayden. His arms engulf me at the same time as I pull him into me. Burying my face in the crook of his neck. The instant I breathe him in, the tension unwinds from my limbs. The fire in my lungs burns hotter with his scent pulsing through my veins.
It seems like an eternity since I’ve held him. Last time I saw him, he was getting in the ambulance with our girl while I got in with the cops.
When we got to the hospital, Fin was taken straight to surgery, Jayden was taken to get stitched up, and the detectives accosted me.
“Your shoulder… is it okay?” I ask, pulling away to get a good look at him.
He’s wearing matching scrubs to mine since the detectives asked for our clothes for evidence. The shirt is too tight around the shoulders, and the pants cut off somewhere between our ankles and calves. Still, it’s better than the hospital gown alternative.
“It was just a surface wound.” Jayden rolls his shoulder when I give him a dubious frown. “A few stitches, that’s all.”
“Eighteen stitches, and some antiseptic cream,” the nurse says, coming closer. Her face is bright, hopeful, and kind as she beams up at Jayden, “The OR nurse will be right out to update you.”
It’s obvious he’s worked his charm on her, and like the rest of us mere mortals, she didn’t stand a chance.
“Is Finley okay?” I know she can’t give us any more information, but I’m desperate to know the extent of the damage, the—
“Hey,” Jayden chirps, wrapping his arms around my shoulders from behind as we both shift towards the open door. “Our girl is a fighter, Sweetheart. Ain’t no way she’s going anywhere except home with us.”
His lips press to my temple with a firm kiss, and I melt into him as another nurse in surgical garbs greets us.
“Hi, I’m Nurse Martinez, and I’m assisting Dr. Phelps in the OR. Miss Tomes lost a lot of blood, which has slowed the surgery down. However, we stopped the bleed in her chest, her lung has been repaired, and the blood has been drained.”
“So all the damage is fixed?” I ask, gripping JJ’s arms tightly to steady myself for her answer.
“Dr. Phelps is performing a pleurodesis.” It must be obvious that we have no idea what that means, because she adds, “The procedure prevents the lung from collapsing again. We’ll use a sterile powder to irritate the surface of the lung and create scar tissue that will stick it to the chest wall.
It’s all fairly simple and will stop fluid or air from building up around the lung in the future. ”
“So, Finley will be okay?” Jayden asks.
“So far, so good.” With another reassuring smile, she adds, “Dr. Phelps will give you more information when the surgery is over.”
“Will we be able to see her? When it’s done?” I need to put my eyes on our girl so badly that my chest aches with it.
“When Miss Tomes is out of recovery, yes.” I want to tell her that Finley is not a Tomes, she’s… a part of me and Jayden. She’s a Sylkes and a Morrow…
“And we’ll be able to take her home?” Jayden’s hopeful tone pulls a chuckle from the nurse.
“Miss Tomes will need to stay in the hospital until the lung has stuck to the chest wall. Dr. Phelps will be able to talk you through what comes after surgery when he’s done.”
The instant she leaves us, I turn into Jayden. Clinging onto his body like my life depends on it.
Because it does.
Because, without him and our girl, I wouldn’t have grown into the man I am today.
I know that man is rough around the edges, and he still has a lot to learn and grow. Nonetheless, I’ve never been stronger or felt more hopeful. Like, there is a big, wonderful future ahead of us, with more possibilities than we’ve ever dared dream.
Hours later, when we’re both sitting at our girl’s side—Jayden in the armchair while I’m on the footrest, leaning back into his lap where one of his hands is playing with my damp hair that I washed in the bathroom sink with hand soap, and the other is clasped around mine, holding our girl’s hand—it finally settles in.
Years of questioning everything about myself, who I am, what I did and didn’t do. Years of shutting everyone out so they wouldn’t see the devastation left inside me, and…
“It’s over. It’s actually over,” I whisper as Fin stirs awake.
Bright blue eyes flutter open, darting wildly about the room until they find Jayden and me. They’re oddly clear; bottomless like the warmest ocean, even with the dark circles beneath them.
My heart has never beat so wildly as when they pause on mine, and a smile quivers at the corners of her mouth.
“Thank fuck it is,” Jayden rasps, wrapping his arm across my chest when we scoot closer to our girl.
“You found me,” Finley croaks, tears flooding her gorgeous eyes.
“We’re never letting you go, Angel,” I tell her at the same time as Jayden retorts, “I told you, Lucky. We’ll always find you.”
No matter what happens. Wherever we are. Everywhere we go.
We will always find a way back to each other.
Because, together, we’re not just happy and stronger. We’re whole.