3. The Things I Couldn’t Save #2
The truck. The rain. Carter's hand on my shoulder.
Real. This is real.
The two worlds bleed into one another until I can't tell where one ends and the other begins.
Lightning tears through the sky outside, turning everything white and then gone again, and in that half-second of light I see her—not the chapel, not the dress, not the wrong smile—just her.
The way she looked through that glass. Both hands flat against it. Eyes locked on mine.
Alive. Fighting.
The worlds separate and I drag a hand down my face.
"It felt real," I rasp.
Too fucking real.
"It's over, boss," Carter says quietly. "We'll find her."
Over. The word turns bitter the second it lands. Nothing is over. Not while she's still out there. Not while he's still breathing. Not while I'm sitting in this truck having nightmares instead of putting a bullet in the man who took her.
I drag my tongue over my teeth and taste blood where I've bitten the inside of my cheek. And then I turn to face the rear seat.
Calder lays there. Twenty-three years old. Four years on the job. Never once gave me a reason to question him. Stood with me without hesitation—didn't ask what we were walking into, didn't flinch when it turned violent, just moved when I moved and trusted that I knew what I was doing.
I didn't. He's dead because I didn't.
I let that thought linger for exactly as long as I can stand it. Then I lock it down.
Grief comes later. Guilt comes later. Everything comes later.
Reyes makes a sound behind me. I've heard it too many times over the years—in alleyways, interrogation rooms and the backs of ambulances.
It's the sound of a body reaching its limit.
Wet. Dragged out of him like his body doesn't have enough left to do it properly.
Half breath, half choke—every inhale has to fight its way through blood before it reaches his lungs.
As though something inside him is already giving up.
Mason's got him braced against his thigh, one hand locked hard over the bandage at his ribs. It's useless. The gauze is gone, soaked through, blood slicking over Mason's fingers, dripping into the leather.
Too much blood.
Far too fucking much.
I look at the clock on the dash—she’s been gone for almost an hour. I shouldn’t be here. I should be running. I should be burning the fucking world down. I should have left my men to sort this shit. I should have—
"We're almost there," Mason mutters, cutting through my thoughts. His voice rough, tight in a way I've never heard from him. "Stay with me. Come on—stay with me."
Reyes doesn't answer. His eyes are half open, unreactive. Skin graying at the edges. Lips losing color. Every breath shallower than the last.
Borrowed.
Just like the time I've got left to get to her.
I sit in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead—but I hear every second of it. Every pull of air. Every hitch. Every failure. It fills the truck. There's no space left for anything else.
Except the image burned into the back of my skull—rotor blades cutting through the sky.
"How long?" Mason asks, cutting through my thoughts.
"Five minutes," Carter says, steady, eyes fixed on the road as rain smears across the windshield faster than the wipers can clear it.
Five minutes. Five more minutes she's out of my reach. Five more minutes for him to put distance between us.
I'm already reaching for my phone. Tamara will be on shift. She always is when things go bad.
ER doctor. Discreet. Doesn't ask questions she doesn't want answers to and keeps everything confidential.
Useful.
I hit her contact.
She answers on the second ring. "Sheriff–"
"We're two minutes out," I say, watching Reyes through the mirror. "Gunshot wound to the ribs with heavy blood loss. He's fading."
Reyes drags in another breath behind me. The rattle starting to kick in. I don't look away.
"We’ll be at the side entrance," I continue. "We’ll need a trauma team at the door."
A beat.
Then—"We'll be ready."
I end the call. The truck settles back into engine noise, rain, and Reyes fighting for breath. No one says it. No one says Calder is already dead. No one says if Reyes crashes there's no chance we will get him back.
The town slides past in streaks of wet black and fractured light. Houses dark. Doors locked. People asleep inside, untouched by any of this. While one of my men bleeds out in the back of the truck. While she's out there—with him.
My fists clench. Not now. Focus.
The hospital cuts through the rain ahead, pale and clinical against the dark. Carter doesn't slow for the front. He swings wide, takes us around the side, under the canopy where things get handled quietly.
No sirens. No questions. No record unless I decide there needs to be one.
Tamara's already there. Coat open, hair damp, eyes focused. Another doctor beside her.
The truck barely stops before we're moving. Cold rain hits the back of my neck as I step out.Antiseptic cuts through the smell of blood in the air. Mason's already hauling Reyes out. Carter takes the other side.
"Careful," Tamara snaps. "Flat—keep him flat, for Christ's sake—"
They lower him onto the gurney. Blood coating their hands as they step away. The other doctor—Rachel—steps in immediately, penlight up, checking pupils.
Her expression tightens almost instantly.
"He's circling," she says. "Move."
Circling. One step closer to losing him.
They take him through the doors marked RESUS, fast enough to tell me everything I need to know.
Mason follows a step—then stops himself just before the doors close, breathing hard. His hands hang at his sides, covered in blood that isn't his. He stares at them like he's trying to work out if Reyes is still there. Then the doors shut and it goes quiet.
Not real quiet. Hospitals never are. But compared to the truck—
"What happened?" Tamara cuts through my thoughts.