Out of Time
OUT OF TIME
Fionn
“Hard to say goodbye, isn’t it?” a voice says, and I inhale a sharp breath as I turn toward the door. I fumble to hide a tissue but there’s no fooling the sharp, cutting gaze of Sloane Sutherland. Or, more accurately, Sloane Kane. Her eyes shift between me and the backpack next to my chair. “Heading out soon?”
“Yeah,” I say. And then I turn back to Rose to watch the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps. “In a minute.”
I don’t watch as Sloane enters the room. I just want to absorb every moment with Rose that I can. There isn’t a detail I’ve not tried to carve into my memory, from the swirling waves in her hair to the precise angle of her nose to the gentle curve of her dark lashes. I wonder how much she’ll change when I’m gone. How much I’ll miss. I’ll think about her every day. The absence of her will be my first conscious thought in the mornings. My memories of her will be the last thing I think about when I fall asleep. I’ll hear her voice in my dreams. Her teasing laugh. Her broken cry.
How do I know?
Because all those things are already true.
And the only thing that will keep me going through this torture is knowing that my absence will keep her safe.
I swallow as Sloane takes a seat across from me. “Where’s Rowan?”
“Going back to our car with Conor to see if the guy who took Lark really did put explosives in our vehicle like he claimed when Lachlan found him. Didn’t really want to leave it there, just in case.”
“Lachlan and Lark?”
“They just finished up at the police station. They’ll be on their way here soon. Leander’s people managed to sweep through Abe’s apartment to remove anything we wouldn’t want the cops to know. So thank you, Fionn. I know you gave Leander a head start at cleaning up this whole mess,” she says. I nod, blowing out a long breath. “Your brothers … do they know you’re leaving?”
“No.”
“Where are you going?”
I shake my head. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Sloane, I can’t,” I say, brooking no argument. I pin her with eyes I know are bloodshot and framed with dark circles. “Please don’t ask. I won’t tell you.”
Her expression gives nothing away as she nods once. I’m not sure what she’s looking for when she searches my face. Maybe a hint of an answer. Maybe the secrets that live beneath my skin. I know she’s good at carving them from souls, just like I’m good at keeping them.
With a quiet sigh, she shifts her gaze to Rose, lifting a delicate hand to sweep the fringe from her brow. Rose doesn’t stir. “Is she okay?”
“I think so.” I place a kiss on Rose’s knuckles, her hand warmed between both of mine. “Infection is a risk. It’s going to take a while for her to recover. But there doesn’t seem to be any brain ischemia, thank God. She just needs time.”
Sloane nods in my periphery. “I’m sorry you won’t be here for it, Fionn,” she whispers, and the burn in the back of my throat nearly chokes me.
“Me too,” I manage.
“You got her past the hardest part.”
“Did I?” We lock eyes across the gentle rise and fall of Rose’s chest. Sloane is so stoic, or at least she is when Rowan or Lark aren’t around. But I see the wisp of sadness in her eyes that she can’t hide beneath her lethal mask.
“I don’t know,” she says, and we break the moment between us to look at Rose. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
God, I fucking hope so. I just want her to be happy. To be safe. To thrive. To know she’s so fucking loved, even from a distance.
“You saved Bentley,” Sloane says, snapping me out of my thoughts of what the days and weeks and months ahead will be like. When I meet her eyes, she offers a faint smile. “Lark is so grateful.”
I nod. “He didn’t really appreciate it, the cheeky fucker.”
“Yeah. He’s a bit of a curmudgeon. Probably why he and my cat, Winston, seem to get along. Rose told me about Barbara. We could have made it a trio.”
I try to force a smile, but it doesn’t take. All I can think of is Rose, with that fucking raccoon clutched in one hand, her grin diabolical. She laughed so freely when Barbara was gripped to my face under that towel. Christ , what I wouldn’t give to relive that moment right now so I could hear her again. There are so many moments that filter through my mind. Rose’s teasing smile at Sandra’s, the black yarn balled in her lap. Her guileless eyes as she sat on the edge of the bathtub with her injured leg on mine. The love that I could feel in her touch when she traced the lines of my face in the shadows of the haunted house. What if I never see or feel or hear those things again?
Sloane rises, breaking me away from questions that consume me. “We’ll make sure she’s okay. One of us will be here when she wakes up. I’ll give you some time to say goodbye. But I won’t go far.”
I trust Sloane to keep her word, not for my benefit, but for Rose’s. That only makes me trust her that much more. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
She doesn’t react as I turn my attention back to Rose. But she lingers. I can feel her sharp eyes watching, but for what, I’m not sure. “If you’d told me where you’re going, I wouldn’t be giving you this,” Sloane says as she passes me a folded piece of paper. My brows draw tight as I take it with a tentative hand. I open it under her watchful gaze.
Sloane Kane, Data Science Department
Clinical Development Operations
Viamax
Radni?ka cesta 81/18, 10000,
Zagreb, Croatia
“If you want to send her anything, send it to that address in my name. It’s the local office for my employer, Viamax. The internal post will make sure I get it. And I’ll ensure it gets to Rose with the appropriate level of secrecy. I promise.”
I swallow, my eyes darting between Sloane and the paper in my hands. “How did you know?”
“Lark. She called Leander. Managed to get it out of him.” She shrugs when the unvoiced question still lingers in my eyes. “The promise of undrugged muffins sealed the deal. She had to swear on her life she wouldn’t tell Lachlan or Rowan.”
“But—”
Sloane waves my concern off. “She won’t. She knows as much as Leander does that the boys would chase you down and fuck shit up and probably make everything ten times worse than it already will be. Like I said, she’s grateful for what you did for Bentley.”
A shard of hope seems to pierce right between my ribs, stealing my breath. Hope can be beautiful. But it can also be brutal. It can keep your head above water just long enough to drown you in the next wave. I’m scared of what will happen if I hold on to it. But I’m never going to let it go, no matter what tsunami I have to swim through.
I fold the paper and slip it into the interior pocket of my jacket before I take Rose’s hand. “What if she doesn’t want this anymore?”
“I don’t know, Fionn. Some broken hearts can’t be sewn back together.” Sloane’s gaze drops from mine, landing on Rose and lingering there. “But maybe that’s why you have to leave yours here for her.” She doesn’t look my way when she turns and heads toward the corridor. I watch her walk away, Rose’s hand still clutched in mine, the address like a pulse in my pocket, a beacon I can cling to. When Sloane reaches the door, she pauses, resting her hand on the frame.
“Rowan and Lachlan say you’re the best of them. What that means to your brothers might be different than what it means to you,” Sloane says as she looks at me over her shoulder, her hazel eyes bright with a challenge. “So prove it to the only person who counts.”
I give her a resolute nod. Sloane gives me one in return. And then she disappears down the corridor.
My phone buzzes with a message in my pocket. Probably a reminder from Leander. Or the driver. I glance up at the clock on the wall. Five minutes is all we have left. I turn all my attention back to Rose. “Rose,” I say, stroking her hair off her forehead. “Wake up.”
Nothing changes in her. Not the pulse that flows in a slow, steady rhythm beneath the fingers I keep wrapped around her wrist.
The unanswered message buzzes a second time. How two minutes have passed already, I just don’t know.
“Sparrow,” I whisper, hoping the alias will jar something in her subconscious. But there’s still no change in the cadence of her inhalations, no flutter in her eyes. I squeeze her hand. I hold it to my lips. But I know how much blood she’s lost and the power of the medication coursing through her veins. And as much as I want her to wake up so I can have one last moment, I can’t help but think that it might be a mercy for her that she’s unconscious. What’s the point in waking up just to say goodbye again?
My eyes drift to the clock, no matter how hard I will them not to. Two more minutes left. And just like when we wheeled her into this hospital, every second counts.
I press my free hand to her chest, right over her heart. The steady rhythm is imprinted in my flesh, carved all the way to the bone. “Our time is up, Rose,” I say. A tear breaches my lashes and slides down my cheek. “This can’t be some ‘no strings attached, friends-with-benefits’ situation anymore. That’s over now.”
My final hope is that she’ll be so angered by my words that she will wake up, but that snuffs out when she doesn’t even stir. The shots fired over the bow of my ship just land in still water. There’s no volley. No fight to meet me in the fog. She might not be able to see it, but I give her a smile, because even in the dark and silent solitude of unconsciousness, she still sees right through me.
“It’s over because I love you, Rose. I’m sorry I spent so much time and effort trying not to. It was only because I didn’t think it was safe for you. I don’t think I knew how to fit into your wide-open world. But from the very first glance, from the first word, I was caught in your gravity. I wanted to be near you. And I couldn’t bear the thought of hurting you. But, lately, that’s the only thing in our cards, it seems.”
I shift my gaze to the tarot deck resting on her side table. The Lovers card is flipped over and waiting for her.
One minute left.
I know the driver will probably come to find me if I’m late. And I don’t want Leander Mayes or any of his people anywhere near my Rose.
It’s a slash across my heart when I rise from my chair. Another when I lay her hand across her waist. I fear the wound may never heal when I lean down to press a kiss to her lips. Her exhalation warms my skin. I breathe her in, the sweetness of her cinnamon scent marred by the clinical room that surrounds us. She was never meant for a place like this, and yet she keeps coming back to it.
I sweep the hair from her face and try to imprint the image of her into my mind. Then I take a card from the interior pocket of my jacket, glancing over my words, hoping I said enough and not too much.
Dear Rose,
The sparrow is such a simple bird. I always wondered why you chose it, or why it was chosen for you. Because you’re the most exciting, outrageous, intimidating, incredible person I know.
Breaking your heart was undoubtedly the worst thing I’ve ever done. Leaving is the only right thing to do, even though it’s the hardest. I can’t tell you where I’m going or what I’m doing, or when I’ll be back. And I know that’s unfair to you. It might be enough damage done that you can never forgive me, and I understand if that’s true.
So I will love you enough for the both of us. I don’t expect anything in return. I’m so sorry I can’t be with you right now. I promise I’ll be back to tell you I love you in person. I should have told you so many times. Like when we walked home from Sandra’s, and you asked me things no one has ever taken the time to know. Or when I came into the hotel room in Boston and you were standing by the window. I forgot how to even form the words to tell you how stunning you were. Or the time you fell asleep on my chest. I stayed awake so long just to feel your breath on my skin and imagine a life I know now that I could have had, if I had just let my fears go. I’ve loved you all that time, Rose Evans. And I won’t be stopping. Not ever.
Look out for yourself. Don’t cause too much mayhem, if you can help it.
Love,
Fionn
I look up to the clock. I’m out of time.
I leave the card on the side table. I trace the smooth skin of her cheek. And then I lift my hand away.
With one final look at Rose, I turn and leave.