Fletch
FLETCH
“ I ’ve provided you with a colleague I consider well-equipped to handle your situation.” The mayor draws eyes as we stand in the hallway inside the hospital. Because Jada isn’t improving, according to the reports sliding from the machines attached to her.
To me, she seems stable. Despite the fucking destruction of her face, her hand, her entire body. If I look past the purpling of her skin and bloody scrapes everywhere else, I might consider the beep-beep-beep of her machines to be a good sign.
They seem consistent to me.
But as the doctors come and go and the nurses on the floor top up her pain relief, they leave again with shaking heads, and this isn’t going great attitudes.
Minka says to stay positive.
Aubree is like a gray rain cloud, settling heavily on my head and making it difficult to look up.
But they all promise to stay with Jada, and Penny is with an oblivious Mia, so I’m in the hall with the mayor of the city, a dude I probably would never have met if not for Minka’s connection with him. And now, instead of running a city, he’s running a case. Albeit, from the side.
“Egbert Alexander carries an unfortunate name,” Lawrence rumbles. “But he’s an excellent attorney and my best recommendation, considering the circumstances. I’ve briefed him not only on the current situation, but your history with the victim…” He swallows and glances down for a beat. “I caught that history through my assistant, aware the information might have come with a slight, even unintentional, bias, so I sifted through it with that in mind and provided Egbert with what I consider the pertinent details. He’s on the way.” He checks his watch, then looks right when Balladae steps out of a conference room about forty feet along the hall. “You won’t enter that room until he’s arrived, and you won’t answer questions until he can speak for you.”
“Do you think I hurt my ex-wife, Mayor?”
“It doesn’t matter what I?—”
“No.” I cut in sharply. “Do you think I hurt Jada? It’s not uncommon for the lover—ex or current—to hurt a woman. The fact she stole from me in October, essentially emptying my bank account and my medicine cabinet, are reasons I might want to put her in the hospital.”
“No.” He straightens his spine and holds my stare. “I haven’t spent more than a few moments with you since moving to this city, Detective er. Which means?—”
“You can’t know I’m innocent. Not only that, but your career before Copeland would create a prejudice in your mind that would convince you it was probably me.”
“If I were talking to anyone else?” he concedes with a shrug. “Any other situation? Yeah. I’d look at the ex-husband first. It’s obvious.”
“Right. And you don’t even know me. So, for all you know, you’re helping a guy who probably did that to her.”
“I know Doctor Mayet.” His lips twitch with the ghost of a smile, his eyes swinging along the hall as though to ensure she doesn’t overhear him speaking about her. “She doesn’t want me to know her, and she throws up roadblocks at every opportunity. But I like to think I know her heart as thoroughly as I know my daughters’. She doesn’t allow me in to her daily life, but fortunately, I see the bigger picture. That means I know who she is within her soul, and I know, without a single shred of doubt, that she would not associate with someone who could do to a woman what has happened to Ms. Watson.” He dips his hands into his pockets and rocks back onto his heels. “And if, by chance, this was you and you’d experienced some kind of psychological break that led to Ms. Watson’s current predicament, then I believe wholeheartedly Doctor Mayet would not be sitting by your side, defending you to the police and comforting you while you hurt. Frankly, I believe she’d have already punished you for it.”
Stunned, my eyes narrow to thin slits. “Punish me? How?”
He lifts his shoulders, before letting them drop again. “I’m not privy to the details of how she delivers retribution when displeased. But I know she’s not shy when it comes to letting people know her feelings. Especially when those feelings are negative.” He peers to my left and nods when a bald-headed, five-foot-something, round-bellied, and thick glasses guy wanders our way. He’s a nervous being with a heavy briefcase and a tie that sits askew.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover, Detective.” Lawrence brings his hand up, covering his mouth while he speaks. “He’s good at his job.”
“Guess I’ll have to trust you to be afraid of Mayet’s wrath. If you give me a dud lawyer and I’m tied up for a crime I didn’t commit, I’m certain she’ll express her negative feelings. Loudly.”
He chuckles. But as Egbert approaches, he coughs the sound away and offers his hand, waiting for the dude to move his briefcase from his right hand to the left. Then their palms meet. “Thank you for coming at such short notice, Mr. Alexander.”
“Oh, no problem.” He pulls back and fixes his glasses as they slip along his nose. “I’ll always take your calls, Mayor Lawrence.” He looks at me. “Detective er. I’m sorry to meet you under these unfortunate circumstances. But I assure you, I’ve read the notes provided and feel confident my colleague and I will provide you with sound representation and advice.”
Lawrence’s brows pinch close together. “Your colleague?”
“Yes. A Ms. Asa called me just a moment after you did. She explained your wishes that we work together on the matter.” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “She said she would be here soon. Once she arrives, we can begin.”
“Ms. Asa?” Lawrence yanks out his phone and swipes the screen unlocked. “I don’t?—”
“Don’t panic.” I shake my head, barely noticeably, side to side, when the elevator nearby dings and the steel doors open. Then the fucking ballerina I’ve long ago learned to fear, and yet, inexplicably trust, steps out with a cross-body bag slicing across her chest, tight jeans cupping her trim body, and a coat that goes almost to her knees. She beams when our eyes meet, then raises a brow when the mayor startles with surprise.
And by startle, I mean his jaw clenches. Because he’s a man who knows how to mask his thoughts in front of an audience.
“Gentlemen.” Sophia comes to a stop on Egbert’s right and offers her hand first to the mayor, then me, then the actual real lawyer. “Sophia Asa. Thank you so much for waiting for me.” She looks me up and down and grins when I scowl. “You needn’t worry, Detective er. I’m more than happy to work with Mr. Alexander today. I’m confident we’ll achieve a positive outcome.”
“How so?” I grumble. “I’m not entirely sure how your presence could be helpful.”
“My presence is always helpful.” She peers along the hall when Balladae taps an impatient foot against the cheap linoleum floor. “Shall we start?”
“Have you read the brief?” Lawrence is neither pleased nor noticeably angry that she’s horned in on our meeting. He’s merely… curious, I guess. “There are intricacies to this case that may prove tricky under rapid-fire questioning.”
“I spent my commute studying every piece of evidence thus far provided.” She looks down at my hands, perched on my hips, and smiles. “Got your phone, Detective er?”
Because she fucking tracks me. And records me. She has me, Archer, Minka, and every other human she deems interesting on a leash shorter than my left arm. Jesus, she has proof already that I was nowhere near Jada when she was assaulted. Asa merely has to wait for her chance to present said evidence and come up with a believable reason for having it in the first place.
Easy, I guess.
Maybe.
“Yes,” I answer, finally. “I have my phone. Always.”
“Good.” She flips her long, brown locks over her shoulder and circles us to take the lead. “The sooner we start, the sooner we can be done. Mr. Alexander, shall we begin?”
“Of course.” He fixes his glasses again and almost has to run to keep up with her long, ballerina legs. “I’m prepared.”
“Detective er?” Balladae bars the door and looks us all over. “Two lawyers and the mayor of Copeland City? Seems unnecessary, don’t you think? Considering the mayor, too, was once a practicing lawyer.”
“I’m not coming in.” Lawrence stops on my right and folds his arms. A metaphor, I suppose, that says he’s not touching this. “And I do not represent Detective er.”
“Two, then?” Balladae looks Sophia up and down, pleased with what he sees, as a sly smile crosses his lips. “I feel as though I’ve met most of the lawyers in Copeland City, considering my line of work. I would remember your face, miss…”
“Mrs.” She shakes his hand and cuts him down with a single word. “Asa. Let’s start, so Detective er can return to Ms. Watson as soon as possible.” She releases his hand and stalks past the guy, unafraid and completely in control of the situation. Like always. “I wish to present to you an irrefutable alibi that will clear my client of any wrongdoing in regard to Ms. Watson’s attack. And, because I’m feeling generous, I’ll also provide you proof that Booth did this to her.” She ignores Elen completely and takes a seat at the table while the rest of us file in. “And in return for my good deeds, you’ll provide us with an update on your investigation.”
“Ms. Asa?—”
“You can call me Sophia.” She drags her bag over her head and places it in her lap, only to free a laptop from inside and set it on the table. “I allow such friendliness only because I’ve done my homework and have come to the conclusion that you’re decent cops. Not great,” she amends when Balladae preens under her odd praise, “but worthy of keeping your jobs. I can commend your bravery for asking the tough questions, while simultaneously being displeased that your sights are currently set on my client.”
“You have proof?” Elen comes around the table and sits across from Soph. “Proof of Mr. er’s innocence that is admissible in court?” He pushes his chair in and places his hands on the table. “How?”
“My company—one of a few—is currently performing trials that revolve around stress levels, emotional and mental health, and overall physical health of our current first responders.”
Lie, lie, lie, lie.
“I have paramedics within my study group. Firefighters, police, and military, amongst many more. I even have a fourth-grade teacher,” she adds with a smirk. “Since that, too, is almost like going to war every day. Detective er agreed, months ago, to wear our monitors daily outside of work and during work hours when privacy laws allowed it. That means our systems know precisely where Detective er was at the time of Ms. Watson’s attack, but we also have an overall health analysis to call upon. Heart rate, for example, would be a valuable insight. Since even the most violent offender would have a racing heart when attacking someone. We have state-of-the-art transmitters that will lay out Detective er’s brain activity before, during, and after the time of Ms. Watson’s attack. And we have other, more detailed and scientific methods to call upon and present in court, should you be stupid enough to arrest him for this crime.”
Confused… or perhaps doubtful, Balladae and Elen glance toward each other and have a conversation without speaking words out loud.
Archer and I can do that too, I realize. We do it often when a suspect has stumped us, and we can’t say so out loud.
Finally, they bring their attention back to Soph.
Poor, poor Egbert. He needn’t have clocked in today.
“The fact you’re representing Detective er today, and also own this other tracking company, makes for a conflict of interest, don’t you think?” Elen steeples his fingers. “Who’s to say you didn’t alter the data you’re attempting to present to us?”
“My data will stand up to testing. You choose the operator. Additionally, I never specified Charlie er was my legal client. I never told you I was his lawyer. The fact you didn’t seek clarification before allowing me to enter this room is on you, Detectives.” She reaches into her bag and brandishes a tiny thumb drive, which she places on the table and slides toward Balladae. “The data is backed up on my server, and those servers can be submitted for testing upon a valid warrant, signed by a judge, landing on my desk. However, I encourage you to spend your time and resources on more fruitful lines of investigation.” Mimicking Elen’s pose, she steeples her fingers and tilts her head to the side. “I’m pleased to inform you I have seen the footage that contains Ms. Watson’s attack last night. This would have been on your to-do list, I’m sure, and awaiting a judge’s signature. But I have ways of viewing such things in an expedited manner.”
“How?” Balladae demands. “How could you have possibly seen this footage?”
“Mr. Booth was forced to move residences after his last was collateral in an unfortunate explosion. I’m sure you know this already. And if you don’t, you would have stumbled upon it during the course of your investigation. Booth now resides, primarily, in a home on Baha Street, West Copeland City. Fortunately for us, this new residence just so happens to be near a corner bodega, and considering the owner of the bodega has a brain in his head, the moment he was made aware of his new neighbors, he had a specialist security company come out to install a system that would keep him and his business safe. That security setup caught Jada’s attack in high definition because that’s where it began. Outside, on the sidewalk. The footage shows, clearly, Nathan Booth grabbing Jada Watson by her hair at nineteen-forty-nine last night, following a loud verbal disagreement between the two. The audio is also available for tendering to the courts. Nathan slammed her to the sidewalk a moment later, kicking her in the ribs multiple times, before he picked her up again, by the hair,” she adds, so fucking casually, despite the nausea that rolls through my stomach.
Despite the ache I feel as I picture this scene, shot by shot, in my mind.
“And before she was securely on her feet, he dragged her into the house and sent his guests racing out. This leads me to believe he wanted to do whatever it was he intended to do to Ms. Watson in relative privacy. If we go back through the footage, we can count and account for every one of his guests that day. By my fast estimation, there only remained four people inside that home when Jada was hauled in. Nathan Booth and Jada, obviously, are two, plus two of his known associates: Lorenzo Lombardo and Ryker Stenson. Pull Stenson or Lombardo in for questioning, present to them the footage you’ll receive by close of business today via an anonymous source, since a warrant will take longer to secure, and they’ll fold under the pressure of what they’re seeing.”
She leaves the thumb drive on the table and stands, quick as a whip. “I’d say that concludes this meeting. You needn’t question Detective er, because you have proof he was nowhere near your victim at the time of her assault, in addition to proof of who was with her. .” She lifts her chin, so I rise from my seat. “Mr. Alexander. That about does us, I think.”
“Wait.” Balladae snags Soph’s wrist, drawing her ire and a pair of fiery eyes before he releases her again. “You’re a company owner who specializes in, what? Health and wellbeing? Yet you come in here, take the lead, present to us proof of a crime, have access to footage you shouldn’t have, and just so happen to have an airtight alibi for Detective er…? You’d have us believe all that?”
“Mmhm.” She slips her bag over her shoulder and slides the laptop back inside. “I don’t particularly care what you think or believe of me, Detectives. All that matters is you do your job and see the evidence as it’s presented. You can collect all data from the source, so you’re confident nothing has been altered by me, and then you can subject that data to any testing you deem appropriate. Consider me your evidence fairy on this case.” She smiles and steps around her chair. “Then don’t consider me at all. I doubt we’ll run into each other again. Let’s go.” She stalks toward the door and nods her approval when I follow. Egbert is slower, in a state of shock, I think, but he scrambles and jumps up from his chair.
But before he can catch up, I do as Balladae did and grab Sophia’s wrist. I pull her into the hall and just far enough away not to be heard. “A health and wellbeing tracker? Really? You gonna create the data purely to appease the courts?”
“I’m tracking your phone,” she rolls her eyes, twisting her wrist and freeing herself from my grip. “And your watch. And I have ears in your apartment. I know you didn’t hurt her, and the footage from the bodega is legit. The heart rate stuff is mere semantics from this point forward.” She turns to Egbert when he follows and smiles, so wide one could almost believe she’s not some evil warlord set to rule the world. “So sorry for taking over, Mr. Alexander. It wasn’t my intention. It became obvious to me from the onset that the detectives wouldn’t move on from our client until they had satisfied their legal obligations, so to expedite the process, I provided them with the information they needed.”
“No need for apologies, Ms. Asa.” He fixes his glasses, pushing them along the bridge of his nose, and grins. “That was the easiest case I’ve ever run. You make my job exponentially simpler, and having the mayor on my shoulder for this one…”
“He’s a total pussy cat.” Teasing, she wrinkles her nose and turns toward the elevators. We’re one floor and about a hundred yards from where Jada is sleeping… or, ya know, in a medically induced coma. But those would be semantics, too, I guess. “Mayor Lawrence is one of the fairest men I know,” she explains. “I like working alongside him when the opportunity arises. It’s rare, but when it comes, I would never dare pass the chance up.”
“Thanks for your help.” I stop in front of the elevator and smack the call button, then I look at both of them, one lawyer and one jill of all trades. But mostly, I speak to Soph. “I appreciate how quickly you were able to cut to the chase and have me ruled out of the investigation. I barely have time to scratch my ass right now, and I still haven’t told my daughter what’s happened to her mom. So, dealing with the cops and making it so they’re no longer an issue for me is helpful. I appreciate it.”
“A friend of Minka’s is a friend of mine.” Smirking, Soph steps into the elevator and turns to watch me follow, but then she moves forward and bars Egbert’s entrance. “Would you mind catching the next one, Mr. Alexander? I’d like to discuss our health and well-being findings with Detective er. That would, obviously, require privacy.”
“Of course.” He slides his glasses higher on his nose and waves. Five fingers and his palm, presented with eagerness. He’s a fifty-year-old boy scout. And perhaps, he has a crush on the beautiful Asa. “It was a pleasure meeting you both.” He takes a step back but meets my eyes. “I’ll make myself available to you if and when you need it, Detective er.”
“Thank you.” I drop my head and wait as the doors slowly slide closed. Then I look to my left and study the side of Soph’s face. “You practically neutered the man.”
“But I was entirely pleasant in doing so. I’ve hurt larger men in ways they won’t ever recover from. Unfortunately, I probably wasn’t getting into that room without Mr. Alexander’s presence. Well…” she amends playfully. “I’m sure I could have. But I chose the path of least resistance. So…?”
I lower my gaze and stare at the speckled floor. “So, what?”
“You didn’t slip your phone and watch off and actually sneak out to hurt your ex, did you?”
I snarl and bring my eyes up again. “No! Was the thing about the bodega footage less factual than you presented, Sophia? Was it not Nathan? Because if it’s bogus, you just got me in more fuckin’ trouble.”
“No, it was him. But who’s to say you weren’t inside the house already? Or that you’d ordered the hit?”
“I didn’t. Believe it or not, but no matter how fucking angry I get, I’m trying to save her so my daughter can grow up and say, ‘ Yeah, they had it hard, but they did it right. For me. That’s how loved I am .’”
“Noble.” She taunts, too fucking playfully. “But as a woman married to a former addict, I’m here to tell you she has to want it, and she has to have the willpower to stick to it. No matter how accommodating you are, and no matter how many times you swoop in and toss her inside a rehab clinic, if she wants her next hit, then she isn’t gonna choose nobility over crack.”
“Great.” I start forward the very second our elevator stops on our floor, exiting the steel cube and moving fast enough I might be able to lose the too-involved Sophia Solomon.
But, of course, I couldn’t be so lucky.
“I’m just saying,” she catches up easily, “it’s time you start focusing on you and your daughter. Someday, if Jada gets through all this and comes out healthy on the other side, then she can take up her position as Mia’s mother and provide a stable and healthy parental figure. If . And only when she’s clean. But until that point, all this saving you’re doing is nothing more than beating a dead horse with a stick, and that stick is full of splinters that are cutting your hand. You’re making yourself bleed for someone who isn’t healthy enough to even notice, let alone appreciate it. And when you bleed, your daughter bleeds.”
“You done?” I come to a sharp stop and look down at the ballerina whose husband pushes away from the wall, which just so happens to be outside Jada’s room. He’s tall, broad, tattooed, and willing to kill even a cop if he looks at her wrong. “I’ve heard this speech before, Solomon. You think I don’t know this is hopeless? You think I don’t feel the pain and wooziness of blood loss every fucking day?”
“So why keep doing it?” She holds the strap of her bag between her hands and gazes up at me, smiling, because she’s never afraid of anything. No man. No matter how tall he stands or how many guns he wears over his chest. “Call me a cynic, but it almost sounds like you have an addiction, too. An addiction to being the good guy. You want her to get better, but Jesus , you want to be the one they say saved her.”
“Thanks,” I drawl. “You’re my lawyer, health coach, and therapist, all in a single day. Multi-talented woman.”
“I am multi-talented,” she agrees arrogantly. “But I’m also sitting on the outside of this ridiculous mess, and I can see things you think others don’t notice. You’re begging to be the hero in this one, but there are no trophies, Detective. You don’t get a medal at the end. You just… You need to release the rope.”
“The…” Confused, I frown. “What?”
“The rope. Consider this—whatever it is you and Jada have—a game of tug of war. She pulls on her end of the rope, and you pull on yours. Some days, she’s winning, and some days you’re winning. Some days, she’s feeling good, and others, she’s clearing out your medicine cabinet and, soon after, getting the shit beat out of her for not paying her dealer on time. It’s a shitty game, and in the end, no one really wins because beating this other person you claim to love isn’t winning at all. It’s defeating the person you say you’re helping.”
“Listen, Sophia?—”
“But if you release the rope, the game ends. She can’t tug on you anymore if you’re not holding on. And you won’t be caught up in this bullshit if there’s nothing left tethering you to her.”
“Mia is left,” I grit out. “My daughter. You say I should forget Jada? Like she’s someone I met once a lifetime ago and doesn’t matter anymore? But she is half of my daughter’s DNA. How the fuck do you expect me to let that go?”
“Because Mia is half your DNA, too. And right now, both of her parents are drowning. Surely, letting one drown is better than both?”
“Code!” Machines beep and lights blink along the ward. Jada’s room number flashes onto tiny screens, and just like that, nurses mobilize.
“Shit!” I practically toss Sophia aside and sprint toward Jada’s door, but Archer bolts out first, expecting me, maybe, and slams his hands to my shoulders, holding me back. Nurses run to Jada’s bed, shouting orders amongst themselves. Sera plasters herself to the wall, pale-faced and wide-eyed, while Aubree and Minka stand too close. Helping, but not. They allow the nurses, and when a doctor enters the room, him too, to do their jobs. But they watch on and nod their approval when a cart is wheeled through the door, and a humming sounds all the way to the hall.
“!” Archer shakes me, tearing me back to him, to now, when I realize him saying my name was not the first word he’s spoken. “Back up!”
“What happened?” I hardly fight him, but I let him hold me up as the nurses tear Jada’s gown open, revealing too much of her. But it’s not erotic. There’s nothing pleasurable in seeing her like this—when her belly and chest are black and blue. The skin over her ribs is bright red in some spots and grazed in others. Someone rubs paddles together while everyone else shouts words I don’t fucking know.
But I’ve seen movies. I’ve watched TV shows.
The paddles mean her heart has stopped… again. And when a doctor moves to the head of her bed with a steel tool and long tubing, it doesn’t take a genius to know they’re gonna try to breathe for her.
“Clear!”
More doctors rush in. Too many bodies in too small a space, so Tim snags Aubree’s hand, who grabs Minka’s, and drags them both through the packed room and into the hall. They file out, one by one, and though Aubree is with Tim, the fucking mafia heir, she squeezes between me and Archer and wraps me in a hug that could almost heal.
Any other time. Any other place.
The doctor presses the paddles to Jada’s chest and zaps her, popping the too-thin woman what seems like a foot off the bed. But that’s probably just my imagination. “Turn it up,” he shouts, prompting a nurse who turns to the machine.
“And clear!”
“We need to move,” Aubree coaches, putting her weight against my chest and pushing. Though I don’t move. “!” She looks up into my eyes. “We have to move. If they need to rush her out of there, they need the hall clear for her bed.”
“Shit!” Minka spins on her heels. “Fifi’s still in there.”
“Sera?” Tears burn my eyes, and my throat closes up, threatening to choke me to death and end this whole fucking day. This whole nightmare. “Sera needs to?—”
“She needs to go with Minka.” Aubree pushes harder, exhaling when I allow a step back. Then another. “She’ll be fine, and Jada is getting the help she needs.”
“Turn it up!” the doctor shouts again. More power. More pain. A dead fucking heart too sickly to last, and a body too broken to qualify for a new organ. Because the girl who was a prima ballerina made poor choices directly following my request for a divorce.
Me. This all ties back to me.
“…”
“I shouldn’t have jumped straight to divorce after I caught her out with Fox.” Desperately, I search for Archer. “I could have saved her before she needed saving.”
“No.” Helping Aubree, he fists my shirt and walks, so I have no choice but to go with him… or fight. And I have nothing left for the latter. “There’s no going back.” He shoves me to the wall on the opposite side of the hall and scoots Aubree out of the way, so it’s just him and me. Eye to eye. Nose to nose, almost. “We’ve worked through this, , and you’re not at fault for the choices she made.”
“We always knew she was the type to look for an easy path.” I reach up with a jerky hand and swipe my cheek. I could swear it tickles. “We knew who she was, Arch. As if me walking away was gonna end well. Like she’d sit back and think, ‘ Well shit, he’s right. I should be a better person .’”
“You didn’t make her cheat,” he snarls. “And you sure as fuck didn’t hand her that first taste of whatever drug she started with. She knew how to do things properly, and she knew what would happen if she chose wrong. We’ve seen it,” he shoves me back again when I try to move off the wall. When all I hear is a solid fucking beeeeeeeeeeeeep . “She knew what happens to people who choose drugs over hard work. She went in with full knowledge of how it would go.”
“So she deserves to die for it?”
“No. But you don’t deserve to take the blame for it, either. This was her path, and these were her choices.”
“Here.” Minka emerges from the room and tosses Sera our way, so Tim sweeps her up and grabs her wrist before she turns and runs. Because she looks like she might, and there’s nothing I can do to stop her.
I have nothing left for her. I have nothing left for me.
“I don’t…” I heave for air and scan every face that stares back at me. I look at the hospital staff who sprint the halls and the machines wheeled around. It’s like the world is set to fast-forward, and here we are, standing on the outside and watching it happen. “I don’t know what…”
“I should go.” Sera attempts to wriggle free of Tim’s grasp. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Stay,” Aubree argues. But at least she takes her hand from Tim and walks with her back toward the elevators. “You’ll stay with me for a little while.”
“Sera…”
“She’s gonna be okay.” Archer grabs my jaw and drags me back to look into his eyes. “She’s going to be fine. But you need to take a fucking breath.”
My head swims, as the longer Jada’s solid beeeeeeeep goes for, the longer my lungs seize and refuse to work. Stars float in my eyes, and my heart just… well, I don’t fucking know. It hammers, and yet, feels like it’s not anything at all. “Arch…”
“Down.” He claps his hands on my shoulders until my legs give out. Then my ass hits the floor, and my forehead slams against my knees. An explosion bursts in the back of my mind, but it’s the stretch I feel in my neck as Archer shoves my head between my legs that I notice most of all. “Breathe through it, Charlie. Everything’s gonna be fine if you just fucking breathe.”
“I can’t intubate!” A nurse—or a doctor maybe, I don’t know—shouts from Jada’s room. “I can’t get it in. Give me a smaller tube.”
“They said her heart isn’t strong enough.” I swallow the ball of dread building in the base of my throat. Sticky, slimy, and so fucking large, I can’t drag air past it. “They said they wouldn’t fix it because she’s an addict.”
“They will do the best they can.” Minka crouches on my right and sets her hand on my knee. “A doctor will always do everything they can to save a patient. It’s the vow we take, no matter that she’s an addict. They’re trying their best, but you need to take a breath.”
“Shit!” A nurse, or a doctor, or fuck, could be the pastor, cusses in Jada’s room. “Doctor Tran?”
“Tracheotomy,” he announces. Then, as the sound of steel tools clatters and echoes into the hall, he adds, “I’ll cut.”
“Focus here,” Minka croons, stroking my knee and bending closer, so it’s her perfume I smell, not the antiseptic that fills every hospital hall. “Can you hear my voice, Charlie?” She keeps it soft. Gentle. Soothing, even. Which is a stark contrast, considering she’s the fucking vigilante killer that watches over this city; a gargoyle on the corner of every building. What she misses, Sophia Solomon catches. “er? Can you hear me?”
“Where’s Sophia?” Dizzy, I bring my head up again and search the hall. Past sprinting nurses and an orderly leisurely rolling a laundry trolley along the laminate flooring. Men line the hall, guards, though I know they don’t belong to the hospital. And then I find Soph, the deadly ballerina who sees all. Watching. Waiting. Her brown eyes burn into mine.
Gone is her smugness. Her teasing. Gone is her arrogant, I know everything and like being the smartest person in the room attitude, and in its place is a woman who has a heart. One whose fate could have been just like this, if her husband chose differently.
“Mr. er?” A nurse, one I don’t know, crouches on Archer’s other side and jams her thumb into my eyelid, sliding it up and blinding me with a pen light. “How are you doing, Mr. er?”
“He’s alright.” Minka moves her hand to the back of my neck. “Take a deep breath and unstick those lungs.”
“Is she…” Dazedly, I look past my crowd and stop on Jada’s room door. “Is she gonna be okay?”
The long, constant beeeeep stops, the horrifying sound ending, so its absence makes everything else stand out in contrast. Then I look to Minka, hopeful. “She’s okay again? That means they got her back?”
Her eyes well up. They burn red and send daggers straight to my heart. But she doesn’t say what everyone else so clearly understands.
Everyone except me.
“Call it, Doctor Tran.”
“Time of death…” His voice comes a little louder, as though he wanders to the clock, perched high above the only door leading in and out of the room. “Sixteen thirty-nine.”
“Oh God.” Sera’s breath catches and comes out on a choked gasp, drawing my eyes along the hall and to the tears streaming along her cheeks. “Oh, Charlie.”