Chapter 31 #2
I don't look at him. Can't. The fire's easier. Fire makes sense—it consumes, it destroys, it reduces everything to ash, and there's an honesty in that.
"I'm not telling you this for sympathy," I say. The words feel like pulling splinters from under my fingernails. "I'm telling you because you asked how bad, and you deserve a straight answer."
He shifts on the log beside me, and I can feel him recalibrating. Working the problem. That's what Hatch does—everything's a tactical problem to be solved, including me.
"The safety was off by day two." I say it the way I'd describe a wood joint—just a fact, just a measurement. Clinical. Like it happened to someone else. "I'd pick it up. Put it down. Pick it up again. Ran my thumb over the trigger guard so many times I could've told you the serial number by touch."
The owl calls again. Something rustles in the brush beyond the firelight. The world keeps turning, oblivious. That's the thing about almost dying—the universe doesn't give a shit either way.
"What stopped you?" Hatch asks. His voice is steady, but his hands are locked together between his knees, knuckles pale against the firelight. I notice because I'm trained to notice. Because we're both trained to notice.
"I tried to call Reid. I thought I'd say goodbye or some shit. Only he didn't pick up. Then I tried again. And again." I drag a hand down my face, the stubble rasping against my palm. "I gave it a few more hours, and still, he didn't fucking pick up."
My throat closes around the memory, sharp and ugly.
"He was struggling. I knew that. But he always picked up.
He always said he was okay. But he wasn't." I stop.
Swallow. The fire blurs for a second and I blink it clear.
"I put the gun back in the safe after that.
Then headed out to find him." I turn the stick over in my hands, stripping bark with my thumbnail.
Something to do with my fingers. Something to focus on that isn't the look on Hatch's face.
"He was in a bad way, and it gave me something to focus on.
A fucking purpose. I thought if I could just get him back on his feet, if I could just fix him… things would be better."
Hatch is quiet for a long time. Long enough that the fire settles and I have to add another log.
"Why didn't you call me?" he finally says. No accusation in it. Just the question, raw and simple.
I stare at the fresh log catching, edges blackening, the wood fighting before it gives in to the heat.
"Because calling you meant admitting it was real." I toss the stick into the flames. "And if it was real, then I had to deal with it. And dealing with it meant looking at all the shit I'd been burying since Jared, and I—"
My jaw locks. I press my tongue against the roof of my mouth and breathe through my nose until the tightness in my chest loosens enough to let words through.
"I wasn't ready to look at it, Hatch. I'm still not sure I am."
"And now?"
"Now he's happy. He's got Laine." I grip the beer bottle until my knuckles turn white. "But that doesn't mean the job is done."
"So you're staying in that house, watching the woman you love with your best friend, because... what? You think Reid's going to spontaneously combust if you move out?"
"I know he will."
"Bullshit."
I glare at him. "You didn't see him, Hatch. You didn't see him those first six months. He is... he feels things too much. He doesn't have the armor we have. If Laine leaves him? If this goes south? He’ll shatter. And I need to be there to pick up the pieces."
"Reid is a grown man, Blake. He's a paramedic. He deals with life and death every day."
"That's the job. That's not him."
"You're arrogant, you know that?" Hatch says, his voice sharp.
I blink, taken aback. "What?"
Arrogant? The word hits me like a slap. I'm bleeding out bit by bit to keep Reid's life together, sleeping like shit every night just so he can be happy, and Hatch calls it arrogance? He's got no fucking clue what it takes to keep everything from falling apart.
"You think you're the only thing holding the universe together," Hatch presses, leaning in. "You think you're God. 'If Blake Moore isn't there to hold Reid's hand, Reid will die.' It's arrogant, Blake. And it's an excuse."
"It's not an excuse. It's a fact."
"It's an excuse to punish yourself," Hatch counters. "You feel guilty about Jared, so you've sentenced yourself to life imprisonment as Reid's keeper. And now that you're in love with Laine, the punishment is even better, isn't it? It hurts more. So it must be right."
"I'm not punishing myself. I'm protecting him."
He wasn't there. He didn't have to clean the blood off Reid's knuckles after a bar fight. He didn't have to hide the car keys so Reid wouldn't wrap his truck around a tree.
"From what? Life?" Hatch shakes his head. "This isn't love, Blake. This is a hostage situation. And you're the one holding the gun."
My hands curl into fists at his sides. The urge to swing hits him hard and fast—just one good hit to shut Hatch up, to make him stop picking apart everything.
Can't. Not Hatch. The man pulled me out of too many dark places to count. Saved my ass more times than I deserved. And beyond all that respect and history, there's the simple fact that Hatch could probably drop me before my fist cleared my shoulder. I'm a tough motherfucker. I've had to be.
Hatch is tougher.
"I can't leave him," I say gritting my teeth. "I won't. If I leave, and something happens to him... I can't survive losing another brother."
Hatch sighs, a sound full of frustration and sadness. "Then what's your plan? Stay in the house and white-knuckle it until you snap?"
"I won't snap."
"You're already snapping. You're cruel to yourself, and eventually, you're going to be cruel to them."
No. The denial rises up instantly. I want him to be wrong. But I'm afraid he's not. Because the cruelty already started, didn't it. I said that horrible shit to Laine. I was a complete asshole.
"I can control it," I insist, forcing the memory down. "I just need to be more disciplined. Keep my distance. Treat it like a hostile environment. Get in, do the job, get out."
"She's not a combat zone, Blake. She's a person."
"Same difference right now."
"That's not a plan. That's a delusion."
"I'll handle it, Hatch."
The fire's burned down to embers now, glowing red in the darkness. Hatch gave up trying to talk sense into me about an hour ago. He went to his tent with a promise to continue the conversation tomorrow, but we both know there's nothing more to say.
I should go to bed too. But I can't bring myself to move from this log.
Arrogant.
Is that what this is? Thinking I'm the only one who can keep Reid safe?
Maybe. But Hatch wasn't there when Reid was spinning out.
And Laine... Laine is a variable I didn't account for. A threat to the perimeter.
I can control this.
I just need to stop being weak. Stop looking at her. Stop letting myself want her. I need to lock that part of myself away, deep down where I keep the memories of Jared and the desert and the blood.
I push up off the log, knees screaming.
Discipline, I tell myself. It’s just a matter of discipline.
I'll go back. I'll be the protector Reid needs. And I will burn every feeling I have for Laine Mitchell until there's nothing left but ash.