Chapter 21
REID
Isit in my truck outside the hospital, engine off, hands locked on the steering wheel like if I let go the whole cab's gonna drift apart.
Not adrenaline. Not the usual post-shift buzz wearing off. Something older. Something with teeth. Seven years of dirt packed over a grave, and tonight the ground shifted.
"You gonna vibrate right out of that seat, or are we gonna talk about it?"
I flinch hard enough to knock my knee into the dash. Tony's leaning against the open passenger door frame, gear bag slung over one shoulder. He's not scrolling his phone. Not halfway to the parking lot already, mentally home with Maria and the kids. He's just standing there. Watching me.
"I'm fine," I say. Automatic. Like a reflex test — tap the knee, get the lie. "Just... coming down. Long shift."
"Bullshit." Tony doesn't move. "I’ve seen you work a pediatric code and then argue with me about the best kind of donut ten minutes later. You compartmentalize better than anyone I know, Reid. But you haven't said a word since we handed off Marcus."
Marcus. Thirty-four years old. Two tours in Afghanistan. Came home to his apartment and tried to swallow a bottle of pills because he couldn't stop seeing his squad leader's bloody face every time he closed his eyes.
"He was just..." I clear my throat. Trying to find the Paramedic Reid voice. The one that clips everything into neat little clinical sentences and doesn't shake. "He was a heavy case. The things he was saying in the rig..."
"It's because he was a Marine," Tony says. Not a question.
I look away. Out the windshield. The red glow of the ER entrance bleeds across the hood.
"Yeah. Maybe."
"Reid." Tony's voice drops. The partner-banter edge just gone, like someone flipped a switch. "I know we don't do the deep emotional dives. I leave that to you and Blake. But I know your history. I know you lost your brother over there."
My hands tighten on the wheel until my knuckles go white. The leather creaks under my grip.
Jared.
It's coming from Jared. Who never got the chance to come home and fall apart like Marcus. Who never got the chance to try pills or therapy or anything else. Because he stepped on an IED six months before his tour ended.
"Marcus kept saying he wished we hadn't found him," I whisper. The words taste like ash. "He was crying because he lived, Tony. And I’m sitting here thinking about my brother, who probably wanted to live so fucking badly in those last seconds."
Tony sighs, a heavy, tired sound. He shifts his weight, leaning closer. "You can't do the math, man. You start comparing who got to live and who didn't, and why... it’ll eat you alive. You know that."
"Knowing it doesn't stop it."
"No. It doesn't." Tony pauses, studying me. "You did good tonight. You talked him down when he woke up swinging. You got him here. That’s the job. The rest of it? The ghosts? That’s above our pay grade."
"Is it?" I finally look at him. "Because it feels like the ghosts are the only thing that matters right now."
Tony holds my gaze for a second, then nods slowly. He knows he can’t fix this with a pep talk. "You sure you're good to drive? I can follow you."
"No." I shake my head. "I'm good. Seriously."
"Go home, Reid. Go talk to Blake. He’s the only one that understands the way you need him to."
Home. Where Blake is probably working in his shop, focused on some restoration project, content in his own space. He served in the same places I did and lost the same person. He would take one look at my face and know exactly what this call did to me.
"Yeah," I say, forcing a smile that feels brittle. "I'm heading there now."
"Text me when you're home. Or I’m calling the cops to do a welfare check."
"Now you're just being dramatic."
"Yeah, I am." Tony slaps the door frame twice—the universal 'shift is over' signal. "Get out of here. Be safe."
Tony heads to his truck, and I just — sit there. Ten minutes. Maybe more. Engine off, windows up, the silence of the cab doing that thing where it gets louder the longer you let it.
Tony's right. I should go home. Blake would get it. He'd put on coffee without asking, and we'd either talk or not talk, and both would be fine.
That's the problem.
He gets it too much. Blake would scoop up whatever I'm carrying and stack it right on top of his own pile, and I can't — I won't do that to him.
Not now. Not when he's finally in a good place.
Work's going well. He's sleeping in his own bed most nights instead of passing out face-down in the workshop.
I can't drag this back to him.
My phone sits on the passenger seat. I could call someone else from the crew. But they weren't there. They didn't hear Marcus asking why we saved him. They didn't see his eyes.
I could call my dad.
But we don't have that kind of relationship anymore. Haven't since Mom died.
There's really only one person I want to see right now. One person who didn't know Jared, which means my grief won't crack open hers. One person who gives enough of a damn about me to hold this without it sticking to her after.
I start the truck.
Don't call. Don't text. Just drive. I grip the wheel and try to figure out what the hell I'm going to say when I get there.
Nothing comes.
Her apartment complex is dead quiet when I pull in. Most of the windows dark — it's almost midnight, and normal, functioning humans are asleep. But there's light behind her windows on the second floor.
I cut the engine. Sit there. Listen to the metal tick as it cools.
Is this a terrible idea? We've been dating for — what, three months? Is that long enough to show up at someone's door fucking wrecked?
Is that fair to her?
But the alternative is going home. And Blake will ask careful questions in that measured voice of his, and he'll try to fix it. Try to hold it together for both of us while pretending he's not drowning in his own shit.
But he is. Every damn day. It's not like it used to be. I don't walk into the workshop and wonder if today's the day I find him dead. But that time still feels too close, too fresh.
I should leave. Not drag whatever this is into her space, not smear it all over the thing we've been building.
But my boots are already on the pavement. Door's shut behind me. I'm walking.
The buzzer next to her name is just a buzzer.
Just a little plastic rectangle with her last name printed on a strip of paper.
People press it for normal reasons. packages.
Hey, I'm here for dinner. Totally planned, totally civilized, nobody standing on the sidewalk at midnight because their brain won't shut the fuck up.
I press it before my hand gets the memo from common sense.
"Hello?" Laine's voice through the speaker. Alert. Careful. The voice of someone doing the math on who's ringing her bell at this hour.
"Laine? It's Reid. I'm sorry, I know it's late, but—"
"Come up."
The lock buzzes. Immediate. No pause, no why, no what's going on. Just come up.
Thank fucking Christ.
Stairs. Two at a time. Suddenly I'm desperate to see her face. She's waiting in her doorway when I reach the second floor, wearing pajama pants and an old t-shirt, hair messy like she was getting ready for bed. No makeup, feet bare, looking soft and real and like everything I need right now.
But her eyes are fully alert, focused on my face with the same attention she gives to patients who need help. But I'm not one of her patients. I don't need her to fix me.
Or maybe I do. I sure as fuck need something.
"What happened?" she asks softly.
And just like that, seeing her standing there ready to take care of me, I start to fall apart.
"Laine." Her name comes out broken.
She doesn't ask anything else. Doesn't need to. She just steps forward and wraps her arms around me right there in the hallway.
"We had this call tonight," I say into her hair. My voice cracks. Splits right down the middle. "This veteran who... who tried to..."
Can't finish it. The words are right there and I can't make them come out.
Laine doesn't make me. She pulls back just enough to take my hand and lead me inside. The door clicks shut behind us.
The apartment is dim. One lamp in the corner. Smells like her — that vanilla candle she always has going, something floral from her shampoo.
"Sit," she says, gentle, guiding me to her couch. "I'll make tea."
"You don't have to —"
"I want to."
She disappears into the kitchen. Water running. Cabinet doors. The soft beep of the microwave. Normal sounds. Ordinary sounds. They pin me to something real.
When she comes back with two mugs, I'm sitting on her couch staring at my hands. They're shaking. I don't know when that started.
She sets the mugs on the coffee table and settles beside me. Not across from me. Not at some careful, polite distance. Right next to me, her thigh pressed against mine. One hand on my knee.
This is what I needed. Not just connection. Not just touch. Laine. Specifically Laine.
"Tell me what happened," she says.
So I do. Tell her about Marcus. About finding him unconscious in his bathroom. About getting him stabilized and loaded into the rig. About the way he cried when he realized we'd saved him. How he kept saying he just wanted it to stop.
"What did you say to him?" Laine asks quietly.
"I tried everything. Told him I was military too, that I understood coming home was hard. Asked about his unit, his family. But he just kept saying 'you don't know, you don't know' over and over." I stare at my tea. It smells like flowers. "Maybe he was right. Maybe I don't know."
Her hand moves from my knee to my arm, thumb stroking slowly.
"What don't you know?"
"How to live with it. How to come home and pretend everything's normal when you've seen..." I trail off.
"When you've seen what?"
"Too much death. Too much waste." The words feel thick in my throat. "At least Marcus made it home to fall apart. My brother never got that chance."
Laine shifts closer on the couch, her hand finding mine. "Tell me about Jared."