1. Ember #2
My limbs have turned into exhausted spaghetti, but I don’t want to admit that he’s right. I couldn’t tear myself free from his arms even if I tried. My body has turned against me.
We cling to each other for several minutes. Hyland doesn’t force me to talk, holding the comfortable silence until I feel my equilibrium returning. But when he inhales, I know I’m in for a lecture.
“If you let anyone be there for you, Em, you could have this whenever you need it. We want to support you.”
“Leave it,” I mumble back.
“We need to talk about your behaviour.”
“Hard pass.”
“We’re going for tough love, then?” Angry fireflies swarm his green stare. “Hiding out down here and beating a punching bag for hours on end until you collapse isn’t helping anyone.”
Indignation solidifies into a silver bullet, ripping through my veins. “It’s helping me!”
“Helping you to do what? Avoid reality?”
“Maybe! Yes!”
Hyland pushes out a sigh, his rigid muscles moving against my frame. Softening. Embracing. Pulling me deeper into a false sense of a security that I really cannot afford.
That doesn’t stop my broken body from craving it, though. Fuck, I want him. I want the comfort he relentlessly provides. Even when he’s pissed, he will crack his big heart open to offer himself up. If things weren’t so complicated, I’d leap at the chance to take the relief.
“I know it can’t be easy to wait for results,” he continues. “Lord knows, I’ve done it enough times on cases. But Tom is safe as long as the bounty remains on your head.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Luis won’t risk hurting him and losing his leverage against you. We have time to find a way around his ridiculous demands.”
“For how long?”
Hyland winces. “I can’t answer that.”
“Then it doesn’t make me feel better. You’ve asked me to trust you yet given me no time frame for when this will end. All while I could bring him home right now.”
“By sacrificing yourself?” he lashes out. “Going back to Gael? To the fighting pits? Is that what you want?”
“Of course not!”
“Then trust us. Trust our team. We will find Tom.”
“I’m trying!” Exasperation bleeds into my voice. “You’re asking for too much.”
“Is that why you’re barely eating? Not sleeping? If Axel didn’t make you take your meds, you wouldn’t even bother. At this rate, you’re going to be dead before we can bring Tom home.”
His parting shot lands with the destructive impact of a megaton bomb. I feel myself recoil, dropping Hyland’s gaze as tears expose my lack of control, blurring my vision.
“Oh, Em,” he hushes. “Don’t cry.”
“Just let me go.”
Pulling against his embrace, I wriggle to escape.
“No.” His arms tighten. “You have to listen to me. Tom needs you alive and well.”
“Tom isn’t here.”
My voice cracks from the weight of too much grief to name. Grinding my molars together is the only thing holding an anguished scream inside as the dam on my emotions threatens to break.
“We’re going to find him,” Hyland insists. “But we can’t do that if we’re too worried about you running off to give Luis and Gael what they want.”
“You asked me to trust you. I’m doing it.”
“You’re free-falling,” he claps back.
“I’m not!”
“What else would you call this?”
“Surviving.” Exasperation gives me the courage to recapture his eyes. “The only way I know how.”
“That was before.” His brawny arms tighten around me. “You’re not alone now.”
Pulling away from him, I mash my lips shut to hold my enraged tirade inside. As much as I want to rant and rave at him… I can’t. He’s right. I’m falling apart at the seams, and I damn well know it.
All I can do is fight.
Fight and fucking survive.
“Ember—”
“No. I’m done talking.”
“Em, please.”
“Let me go! We’re done.”
Forcing my still-quaking limbs to steady, I pull free from him to stiffly draw to my feet. Soreness is setting in now that I’ve stopped to rest, sapping any remaining energy still fizzing through me.
I hear Hyland stand up with a low grunt, and when his hand clamps down on my shoulder, I know I won’t get away easily. He encourages me to turn and look up at him.
“This isn’t over. When your body decides it’s had enough and turns against you, we’ll be having a whole other conversation.”
“Fantastic.” I roll my eyes. “Can’t wait.”
“You’re a sarcastic bitch, you know that?”
With a small smile pulling at my lips, I place my hand on top of his and squeeze. “I know.”
His nostrils whistle with a long sigh. “Naturally, you’re proud of that fact.”
“Hard not to be.” My knuckles twinge in pain as I lower my hand. “Why are you even down here?”
“I came to get you. Doctor Richards is waiting for your session, although I’m inclined to think I should take you home to get cleaned up and sleep.”
“I just need a sec, then I’ll be good.”
“There isn’t much about this situation that’s good.” Hyland’s headshake disturbs his long, dirty-blonde locks. “I should be used to it by now. This is a dangerous job.”
My gut twists and wrings, filling with anxiety. It takes great effort to get my tongue to form words.
“Dangerous for you, right? When it impacts your loved ones… Well, that’s different.”
Scanning my face, he tentatively nods.
“You’re right. It is different.”
“Then you should understand exactly how I’m feeling,” I point out in a gentler tone. “I don’t care about me right now. All I want is my brother back. Nothing else matters.”
“You’re wrong. You matter.”
Staring up into the rugged planes of his face—soft olive-green eyes, plump lips and a strong, flat nose—I can feel my own pain looking back at me. Hyland knows better than most the crippling force of unadulterated guilt.
Hiding how twisted up all my chaotic emotions are feels like a futile endeavour. I know he can see straight through any mask I’d attempt to slide on. And honestly, I have nothing left in me to even bother.
Instead, I let it all out. Every last ugly, wretched emotion snarled up inside my nervous system, taunting me to the point of insanity. I let it all paint across my face in what is surely a vivid kaleidoscope of regret.
When his big, scarred hand reaches out to lightly brush along my jaw, heat burns behind my eyelids. Moisture swells up again before I can demand its retreat, pooling against my lower lashes.
“I understand better than anyone.” Sincerity shines through his stare. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit back and let you kill yourself just to save him.”
I hold my breath when the pad of his thumb swipes a stray tear from my skin. The vulnerability is excruciating. He can see it all. Every last conflicting urge taking me for a ride.
“Red,” he rumbles deeply.
“Don’t.”
“It’s okay to let it out. You can lean on us. Let us help you cope.”
Tongue darting out, I lick my lips, but the brief pause fails to conjure a response. There are no words. None that will get him off my back. He’s already peered inside my head.
Brushing aside another tear, his rough thumb moves to my bottom lip, smearing the moisture I swiped over it. I gasp when he pushes inside my mouth then withdraws.
“I need you to hear me, Ember.” His authoritative tone brooks no arguments. “We’re in this together. Trust us. Let us in.”
“I’m trying,” I whisper weakly.
“I need you to try harder.”
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
Nostrils flaring, his whole frame tenses up. “Because I care too much about you.”
Caught in a vortex, I’m drawn into the mossy pools that threaten to drag me beneath their all-consuming surface. The windows to his soul are a deep cavern I’ll never escape from. Not alive, at least.
Hyland doesn’t just see me.
He eviscerates me.
Bulldozes every last defence and pointless boundary I’ve ever put in place to hold the world at arm’s length. His need to protect doesn’t obey the confines of social niceties. Nor does it respect my drive for independence.
“I care about you too,” I admit thickly.
A dark twinkle flashes in his eyes, filling them with a look of determination. Fingers tightening on my face, he leans in to brush his nose against mine, our lips a single, fateful breath apart.
“You do?” he teases.
“Yes, asshole.”
The hand clamping my shoulder slides lower, tracing down my arm then sneaking around my waist. I’m pulled flush against his chest, forcing my chin to tilt upward so I can see him.
Without the need for more words, Hyland’s mouth meets mine. It’s a gentle peck at first. Affirming. Tentative. Exploratory. Testing the waters to see if I’ll punch him in the head or not.
With the pressure of his lips on mine, his declaration takes on a new dimension. This isn’t the man who I taunted while we trained. Back then, he kissed me like he wanted me to feel his self-control shattering.
Now his kiss feels more like a whispered acceptance. It’s the final plea of his broken resolve, begging me to carry his heart carefully because it can’t handle any more loss.
Sinking into his tight embrace, I fist his t-shirt and let instinct take over. For all his lectures, I melt at the slightest brush of Hyland’s lips, firm and attentive in their delivery.
His hot mouth moves on mine, lips pecking faster and faster until the assault escalates into a hard kiss that feels like it might crack my very lungs open just to steal my breath.
With every part of me screaming out for what I know I shouldn’t be allowed, I kiss him back. Tongue darting out. Lips parting. Teeth clashing. Passion rolls over me in one long, intense convulsion, far stronger than any seizure.
Grasping my hip, Hyland’s rough palm slides down to the back of my thigh. He lifts my leg to hook it up on his waist, sending pulses of heat down south where I can feel his muscles against my core.
The low, feral groan that pours from his throat mirrors my own hunger. My arms coil around his neck, lifting me higher so I can rock myself against his bulk, needing some relief from the building pressure.
His tongue wrestles with mine, searching out every hidden corner or part of me he’s yet to claim. It’s all-consuming. Overwhelming. Everywhere, Hyland stamps his touch and taste onto my mouth with utmost finality.
When we finally split apart on a mutual intake of breath, his neck cranes to rest our foreheads together for several serene seconds. All I can hear is my roaring heartbeat hammering in my ears.
“Ember?” He sounds reluctant.
“What now?”
“I think you should step back from the investigation.”
Shocked, I flinch away from him. “Wait, what?”
Hyland wears a pleading mask that does little to alleviate the sting of his words.
“You need to stop. Go home and rest.”
Blinking doesn’t reveal a new sight. He’s still staring at me with rounded eyes, making the most insane request I’ve ever heard. All after kissing the living daylights from my soul.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I blurt out.
“You’re driving yourself into an early grave right now. It has to stop.”
“I’m part of this team! I need to be here.”
“You need to take care of yourself,” Hyland refutes. “Let us do our jobs.”
“It’s my job too.”
“It doesn’t have to be. You need to slow down and take care of your health.”
Even though my lips still tingle with the remains of our kiss, I wrench myself from his arms like I’ve been burned. Frankly, tossing a vat of acid in my face would hurt less.
“Tom is my brother,” I say hotly. “I have every right to be here. You can’t freeze me out.”
“That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“You’re trying to control me!”
“I want to help you.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Ember…”
Hyland reaches for me again, but I’ve already inched farther away. The sweat that’s dried on my skin now feels like a tight, restrictive straitjacket, worsened by the falsehoods his tongue dares to offer.
“No one will ever control me again.” I meet his eyes without a hint of fear. “Do you understand me?”
“Protecting you and controlling you are two different things!”
“Maybe to you. To me? I see another man attempting to dictate my life to me.”
“You know I’d never do that. Especially not after what you’ve been through.”
“Do I?” I snap back. “Listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re asking from me, then and tell me it doesn’t sound like you’re making decisions for me.”
He bounces from foot to foot, visibly itching to close the distance I’ve forced between us. “Let’s back up. That isn’t what I’m doing.”
“You’re calling me unstable! Tell me, have you said the same thing to Warner?”
Stumped, Hyland can’t find the words to argue.
“Right. I didn’t think so.”
Turning my back on his darkening expression, I snatch my discarded water bottle and towel in my rapidly swelling hands, intent on getting the hell away from him.
My sore legs carry me towards the exit at speed, needing as much space between us as possible. I don’t look back until I’ve reached the swinging double doors, finding him unmoved across the room.
“You are either on my side, by my side… or in my fucking way.”
His eyebrows shoot up into jagged spikes, though his mouth still doesn’t move.
“So choose wisely.”