Chapter 53
Wyatt
Leaving Bryn asleep in her room the next morning, I swing my upper body from side to side as I walk down the hall, stiff as fuck from the hospital recliner.
It was better than a simple chair, and I’m grateful for the nurse on the unit who found it for me, but I’ve had better sleep.
Granted, it’s probably not entirely the recliner’s fault.
Yesterday was grueling for so many reasons.
Slipping through the doors to the unit Bryn got admitted to, I turn right and walk down the corridor until I come to an open area waiting room. Once quiet and deserted, it’s now teeming with off-duty firefighters and a couple of paramedics, though.
“Hey,” I greet my entire crew.
Nate’s the first to step forward. “How is she?”
I kept everyone updated well into the night, and Savanna dropped by to check on Bryn and bring Gran and me food, but this is the first the rest of them have been able to come by, finally off shift as of an hour ago.
“Sleeping. Still drugged,” I nod as Quinn, Liam, Brody, Luke, and Hailey all form a semi-circle around me along with Nate. “When the nurses switched shifts, they said they’d probably be pulling back on the sedation to see how she’s feeling without it. Then monitor with some pain meds as she needs.”
“That’s really good news,” Hailey says from beside me, touching my upper arm. “They probably wanted to keep her comfortable overnight to give her body a chance to come out of shock.”
“Yeah,” I agree, running a hand over my unruly curls. “Jordan told me and Gran something similar. It’s just…”
“I know.” She squeezes my arm.
“Where is Gran?” Liam inquires. “Still here?”
I shake my head. “No. She hated me for it, but I sent her home last night on the promise I’d call if anything changed. She texted me at five this morning for updates.”
Luke chuckles without humor. “Jeez, we should have swung by after the MVA. Had a coffee.”
Turning my attention mostly onto Nate, I cross my arms over my chest. Part of me recognizes that I’m bracing myself for whatever emotions come with the answers he might have to my next question.
“What happened with the arsonist?”
There’s an instant shift as Nate transforms from caring friend to lieutenant. “Reggie Bushfield. Twenty-two. Failed out of fire academy. Behavioral issues.”
“No shit,” Liam mutters.
I ignore him. “Do you know anything else?”
“Guy was singing like a canary, apparently,” Quinn scoffs, shoving her hands into her jean pockets. When I look at her, she shrugs. “I used to bang the cop who cuffed and drove him to the station. Made a call. Might make another one later.”
I know she doesn’t mean to get more information.
Nate picks up where she didn’t. “Between Quinn’s info and what I got from Tina, he was targeting SRFD because he got kicked out. Until the night at 10-42.”
“Basically, you busted his fragile male ego, and his little dick couldn’t take it,” Quinn tacks on.
“So, he went after you,” Nate continues. “Which made going after Bryn easy, especially because she was involved in the whole thing to begin with.”
“Savanna thought he’d pushed his chair into her on purpose that night,” I recall. “If he wasn’t already targeting us, why would he do that?”
“Because he’s a piece of shit,” Brody grumbles.
I don’t miss the way Nate’s jaw clenches, his eyes sliding in the big man’s direction, but he says nothing. The tension crawls between us, creeping in and out between the spaces like a dark fog.
Whatever I missed after I left yesterday couldn’t have been good. And I have a feeling it’s because I forced Brody to leave without me to take that victim out. No one has mentioned anything to me, though, and I haven’t had the capacity to ask.
“Worse than a piece of shit,” Liam declares, easing some of the pressure.
“He better be charged for attempted murder,” I state, attention coming back to Nate. “She was chained to that goddamn bed. I pulled my glove off to get the tape off her mouth and it was an oven in there. I don’t—”
Pausing when my throat tightens, emotion burns my eyes. I give it a second before I try again. “I don’t know how—” I take a breath. “How she’s—” Another breath, and I push my thumb and forefinger into the corner of my eyes just as moisture leaks from them on the last word. “Alive.”
Every time I look at her, that’s my thought.
The memory of how hot it was in that room, how thick the smoke was, how horrible it had to have been without any protection covering her or helping her breathe.
It twists my heart, shatters every piece of it knowing she had to go through that and I couldn’t do a thing.
I don’t know if I made the right decision not to pull my jacket off and give it to her.
Not giving her my mask. My training says I did, but my heart says otherwise.
A hand touches my shoulder. I think it’s Nate, but then Brody says, “Because you’re a damn good firefighter.”
Hearing it from him, the one who wanted nothing to do with me in my first days, who didn’t trust me when I started, means more than it would have coming from anyone else. Hell, it might even put a Band-Aid over the deep wound of my decisions.
Brody was the one there for me. We went through that nightmare together. It’s a bond that can never be broken.
I scrub my hand down my face, cheeks wet, and nod. Shakily, I utter one word: “Brother.”
He leans in, bumping his forehead to mine, just like we did when we were wearing our helmets in the pits of hell. “Brother.”