Ben - Collateral damage
Living with Coleson through the years, I picked up on a few of his security hacks. I never took advantage, I never needed to take advantage, until now.
Each morning and each night, I used my rusty hacking skills to check in on Maggie, to make sure her security was tight and formidable. I wanted to be checking at all times– hell, I could’ve been, seeing as I was on desk-duty until my next assignment– but I forced myself to set parameters. I needed to practice some sort of self-fucking-control here.
As soon as I pulled up the feed this morning, as soon as I saw her figure on my screen, I knew something was wrong.
Why the hell would Maggie follow Hunter out of the school?
She wouldn’t do that, because it looked bad. A young female teacher following a male student across the parking lot? No. She was too smart for that.
Something was wrong
Really wrong.
I could feel it in my chest.
I immediately dialed her number, which I knew by heart, but it went straight to voicemail. I just about threw my fucking phone across the room.
Leaning toward the screen, I dialed Coleson as I watched her sit in the passenger seat of Hunter’s shitty car.
“What the fuck is going on?” I yelled as soon as Coleson answered. “Why aren’t you stopping her? Going with her?”
Silence filled the other end of the line, and I was about ready to explode on him. “She knows what she’s doing,” came his reply.
“What? What the fuck? What’s going on? Tell me, right–”
“Don told us to stand down.”
“Don?” Fury tore through my chest, making me grip my phone harder. “And Don knows about this kid’s connections? He’s letting her walk into the fucking lion’s den?”
“Um, yeah, that’s kind of the point,” he deadpanned. “You’re letting emotion cloud your judgment,” he said in a monotone voice. “ Think about it, Cap,”
“You can’t be serious,” I said, just barely keeping my fury in check.
He was silent.
“You’re using her as bait?! What the fuck , man? She’s going to die.” Oh God, she was going to die. Panic ripped through me. “You don’t care about her at all?”
“My hands are tied.”
“Well unfuckingtie them!” I roared.
“You left!” he yelled back at me. “ You left her, Cap. You don't care either.”
“You know I fucking do. I left for… fuck .” My hand went to my head. “I left for her to have a better chance,” I said desperately.
“Yeah, well, you think anyone would do better than you? You think Don would?” He paused. “You know there’s always collateral damage in cases like these.”
“Collat–” I couldn’t even finish the word. “Does she know that?! Does she know she’s walking to her death?” I flung the door open and tore out of the office.
“She knows.”
Those words almost flew me back on my butt. “What?” I rasped.
“She knows,” he said in a deathly quiet tone. “She’s going with Hunter to save Archie.” He ended the call before I could say anything back.
I moved on autopilot. I needed to get to her.
She knows. She knows. She knows.
Of course she did. And of course she’d go with Hunter. She’d never let her life overshadow how she felt about the kids. It was clear. She put them first, always. It’s part of what made me love her, and–
Love her.
Fuck.
The realization almost stopped me dead in my tracks. I did love her.
More than life.
And she was walking to her death to save a kid’s life.