9. Hyland
HYLAND
WILL YOU LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD – AMIRA ELFEKY
My grip on the phone tightens, aggravation pouring from every part of me. Why does co-parenting have to be so goddamn complicated? I’m putting the past aside. I just wish Jayce would do the same.
Hyland: I’m not cancelling Luke’s visit for the hell of it. There’s no need to create an argument.
Jayce: An argument? The news is reporting every hour on Sabre Security’s latest cock up. A fatality! Luke clearly isn’t safe with you.
Frustration blows from my nostrils.
Hyland: It was an active operation. Everything is under control. Bring Luke over next week.
Silence. She’s ignoring me now.
Hyland: Please.
My short nails drum against the phone case as I wait.
Jayce: I’ll think about it.
Fine. I’ll take that over a straight-up denial.
At the sound of the nearby door opening, I tuck my phone away to greet Doctor Richards. He emerges from the ICU’s quiet room with a frown, wrinkled beneath his coif of silvery hair. I swear, the old dinosaur is fucking immortal.
Arms folded, I tap my foot impatiently. “Well?”
“Good afternoon, Hyland. Pleased to see you too.”
“Give it up, Richards. Did she talk to you?”
Positioning his leather satchel on his shoulder, Richards skates a hand down his floral shirt. It’s another particularly ugly number, the lurid-yellow flowers stark against sky-blue fabric. I’m convinced he dresses in a dark room each morning.
“No.” He sighs.
“Shit. This isn’t good.”
“Ember wants to be here with Tom right now. I’d suggest you appease her.”
I move farther down the wipe-clean linoleum that lines the corridor in case Ember’s listening from behind the closed door. Richards follows with another world-weary sigh. I don’t know why he’s so tired; it’s not like he’s been awake for over thirty hours straight like we have.
“She tore through five men using nothing but a foldable switchblade to gut them,” I hiss out. “It’s a miracle she wasn’t more badly injured.”
“I’m aware of the situation.”
“And?”
“While Ember’s actions are troubling, I cannot force therapy on someone who is refusing to talk. Her brother’s on a ventilator. Allow her some grace.”
“She needs our help!”
“Then listen to me.” He raises an expectant brow. “What happened was extreme, to say the least, but you can’t force her to open up. She needs time, compassion. Patience.”
While his advice makes total sense, I’m struggling to have an ounce of patience right now. Not while Ember’s clammed up like she’s forgotten how to speak and simply stares ahead with dead eyes. She saved our skins, but killing those men did something to her.
Something cataclysmic.
And I’m afraid it’s irreversible.
“You’re sure this isn’t tied to her epilepsy?” I worry my bottom lip. “Like an absence seizure or something?”
“I’d advise a follow-up with her specialist, but it’s clear to me this is a trauma response. Ember spent a long time in survival mode. It’s bound to kick in when she’s triggered.”
My head bobs in a loose nod. Survival mode. Right. Like a crashed computer booting back up in safe mode. The idea of the girl I’m falling for needing to be in that mode at all makes me want to punch the fucking wall.
“Speaking of…” He pins me with an assessing stare. “How are you handling the events?”
“Me? What? Fine. I’m fine.”
“You watched a colleague lose his life,” Richards elucidates.
“Trust me, I know.”
“It isn’t the first time this has happened either.”
His words cause long-gone faces to flash through my mind’s eye. The women and men we’ve lost along the way. Lives sacrificed in the pursuit of justice and a few taken as penance too. Grief is an unfortunate side effect of our work.
Doesn’t make it any easier, though.
“You need to take some time to process your own thoughts and feelings, Hyland. It’s understandable for this to bring up bad memories.”
“No.” I wave him off. “Go give Warner the annoying therapy talk. He’s lost far more people than I have, and I don’t care what he says. He’s not okay.”
“I’ll be having the same conversation with him, but right now, I’m concerned about you.”
“I don’t need your concern.”
“You’re not in shock?”
“No! I’m not!”
My deep yell bounces off the walls, echoing down the corridor to reach nearby hospital bays. Immediately, I recoil and clamp my mouth shut. The acknowledgement in Richards’s gaze only intensifies my humiliation.
“Debrief.” Richards’s tone brooks no argument. “Monday morning, 8am sharp. I want you in my clinical room at HQ, or I’ll be driving back here.”
Gritting my teeth, I nod once.
“Warner, Axel and the Falcon Team will be receiving the same instruction. I want you to keep a close eye on Ember’s behaviour too and call me immediately should further violence ensue.”
“Further… violence?”
“She isn’t herself right now,” he says ominously.
With a light squeeze on my shoulder, Richards trundles off towards the elevator. I watch the doddery old man leave, my gut burning. Why is he making this about me? I can handle loss.
Like he said, it isn’t the first time.
But… fuck. Josh.
I experienced this god-awful feeling during our last large-scale trafficking investigation. That saga was equally as messy. Violence, betrayal and bloodshed defined the Briar Valley case, and now we’re back in the trenches of the same damn fight.
And Josh is dead.
On my fucking watch.
Pulling my phone back out, my thumb hovers over Willow’s missed calls from the last few hours. She must’ve seen the news. I bet she’s pacing up and down in her cabin. I’m about to return her calls when there’s a crash from inside the quiet room.
When I barge inside, the scene pulls me up short. Ember stands in the middle of the small space, blandly decorated in neutral, inoffensive colours. Her shoulders heave as she stares at the smashed vase in front of her, broken glass and shredded flowers littering the floor.
I gently click the door shut. “Ember?”
She doesn’t react.
“Hey, red.”
Nothing.
“Ember. It’s Hyland.”
Tentatively, I inch closer to crowd her shaking back. She doesn’t react when I rest a hand on her hip, thumb skating over the sliver of badly bruised skin that her cropped t-shirt reveals above comfortably loose, grey sweats.
Oscar volunteered to source everyone a change of clothes when we followed medical evac—with Tom in tow—to the local hospital. None of us have been home. Not to rest or debrief. Though we did convince Ember to shower the blood off after her examination.
“I need you to talk to me right now.”
It takes a couple of seconds for her to come alive.
“He’s on a ventilator because of me.”
The hit of relief her broken voice provides is intense but fleeting. Her words are flat, matter of fact. Even I can sense the abject pain underscoring them.
“What happened to Tom isn’t your fault.”
“He was taken to get to me. That’s as close to the definition of my fault as humanly possible.”
“Tom consults for Sabre. He knows the risks.”
“He didn’t sign up to be beaten, starved and locked in a freezing shipping container.” Heartache drips from her tone. “You heard the doctors. Severe pneumonia.”
“I heard.”
“He can’t even breathe for himself right now, and his lungs may never recover. All of his wounds are infected. He’s malnourished, dehydrated. The lot.”
“How exactly is any of this your fault?”
“If I weren’t here, he would be safe!” she explodes, high-pitched and furious. “How the fuck do I live with that? He almost died!”
With gentle hands, I slowly steer Ember to turn around. The sight of her barely open, swollen eyes makes my insides twist. There’s a white strip across her nose, stark against the purple and green bruises that match her arms, chest and ribs.
She’s technicoloured and barely able to move without wincing, but this formidable warrior still finds a way to turn the blame inwards. I don’t know if it’s selflessness or bone-headed stubbornness, but she can cut it out. I’m not listening to this self-deprecating shit.
“You didn’t just save his life, Em. You saved all of us. As much as I fucking hated it, your actions got us out of there. You took down Carlos and his men.”
“I allowed Tom to get hurt.”
“You allowed nothing.” I grip her hip tighter, pinching her chin with my other hand. “Matter of fact, you saved his life. You’re the reason he’s still breathing at all.”
“Fixing my mistakes doesn’t deserve praise, Hy.”
“But bravery and skill does.”
Letting my thumb graze over her lips, they part on a ragged breath that matches the sorrow rioting in her blue-grey flecks. She’s exhausted, hardly able to stand straight from fatigue. But still, Ember doesn’t move to accept my comfort.
“Next time you sacrifice yourself, I’m going to tie you to my bed and spank your ass until it’s fucking raw,” I say gruffly.
Her brow raises. “Is that so?”
“We make decisions as a team. Not alone.”
“I did it for the team,” she replies. “To save it.”
“You infuriating woman. Don’t you get it yet?”
Nestling my forehead against hers, I breathe in the scent of hospital soap. Cheap shampoo. And beneath it, the dark, tantalising essence of our girl. The victim who refused to take that title laying down.
“There is no team without you, red. Not anymore. Sacrificing yourself will never save us. It will be the absolute death of this team… and our family.”
The impenetrable lake that’s frozen over her irises cracks enough for hope to light a dull spark. I latch onto that flash of light and capture it before she can extinguish the flame with her own self-doubt.
Her lips part like they were sculpted for me to capture. My touch is featherlight, careful. The last thing I want to do is hurt her. The world has done that plenty enough, and right now, I want to fucking cherish her. The way she deserves to be.
Fingers gliding through her slightly damp hair, I cradle her head as my tongue slides into her mouth. Her warmth is all the reassurance I need. Ember’s still in there. She’s still the woman I’ve spent months watching, assessing, training. The woman we need.