49. Forty-Nine
Waiting for news in this god-awful waiting room is making me feel like I’m being held together with sticks and twine, daring any breeze to come by and rip me apart.
That breeze turns out to be a hurricane, and it comes in the form of one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen.
Ray, his teeth flashing and his dimple pulled in, bent forward in supplication, thanking whatever force might be out there for granting him this mercy.
My entire world right now is cotton and Silas’ scent. I unraveled completely over the past few hours, agonizing over what I would do if Tucker died, knowing it was my fault.
My fault because I took him to that room. My fault because I hesitated a moment too long. My fault because I didn’t get to him in time.
But he’s alive, and I’m wrapped in the safest place in the world, held tightly while my body purges all the pent-up grief and terror of the past day.
A day.
A single day and all this happened.
The last twenty-four hours could have happened over a millennium and there still wouldn’t have been enough time to prepare, to process.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I know without looking it’s Dane. It’s the gentlest touch he’s ever given me, the most cautious and tentative I’ve ever felt him.
“They’re inviting us back. He’s awake.” His voice carries a hint of vulnerability, like he’s not sure how I’m going to react.
I raise my head slowly, fighting against the urge to bury myself deeper, to take solace in the only place I’ve found comfort in this horrific day.
When I finally look up at Dane, I find his eyes, tired and ringed with dark circles, belying the stress he’s been battling, the stress that mirrors my own.
He must feel just as responsible for this as me, just as culpable for harm done to any of us.
I saw that weight lift briefly back at the bunker, right before our world came crashing down again.
Right before John and his men came to reclaim me.
He looked at peace. He looked as if, for the first moment in his life, he was comfortable, secure in having accomplished this step towards the singular goal he’d been working on for so long.
The weariness in his eyes crumbles away any remaining malice, any grudge I may have been harboring against him.
I pull away from Silas’ grasp, turning to look at Dane fully. Taking in the man standing before me and seeing all that he is.
Despite all his hard expressions and firm grumblings, looking at him now, I see a traumatized kid. The one I guessed about when he stumbled blind drunk into my room only a week ago.
I see the agony he’s experienced and everything he’s done to fix it, to ensure this will never happen again. That he would never lose someone again.
And he almost did.
I hold that stare, my face surely telling my own story as clearly as I can read his. There’s an understanding, a silent conversation happening between the two of us, and suddenly I can’t recall a time I’ve felt more connected to another person.
His eyes track my movements, watching as I raise my hand, giving him the opportunity to take it and lead me out of this room. Away from the plastic chairs. Away from the linoleum. Away from the fluorescent lights that always seem to be present in the worst moments of my life.
My hand fits into his so nicely, and a twinge of sadness hits me. This is the first time that we’ve held each other like this. Held each other for the sheer act of being together instead of being part of a failed escape or an angry moment of intimacy.
Silas follows behind us, and he carries a level of ease I wasn’t expecting. The rage swirling around him during our debrief has melted away entirely, leaving behind his exhaustion and the swell of relief at the fact Tucker is alive.
Ray’s already gone off to the room to see him, to see with his own eyes that Tuck’s okay. I can’t blame him. If I was less of a shredded mess in the waiting room, I would be right next to him.
When I pass through the door, I see Ray’s back before anything else. Despite the lights and the whirring noises from all the machines, there’s a near palpable aura of relief flowing off of him.
Two more steps into the room, and I see Tucker, his eyes bruised and swollen, and there’s a matching ring of bruising around his neck.
A sob bubbles up and escapes from me before I can do anything to stop it. Through my own tears, I can see his eyes starting to water, his lip wobbling slightly.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. His voice is so wrong. It’s broken and rasping, too quiet and too somber to be coming from the man who I know so well.
My heart clenches, unable to accept everything he’s been through today. When I register his words, they hit me like a punch to the gut.
He’s sorry?
No. He’s so wrong. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I’m the one who didn’t protect him.
I can’t say the words, can’t force them out through my clenched jaw, but I shake my head, causing another torrent of tears to spill free.
“I should have…” I step forward moving to lay my hand on his chest, to feel that he’s alright, but I see him tense, anticipating pain.
I startle, the thought of hurting him more turns my stomach, so I place my hand over his, daring to squeeze his fingers slightly. He doesn’t need my touches right now, but I need his. I need to feel him, feel the life flowing through him.
My eyes mist over and the image of Ray on top of him, doing everything in his power to force life back into him, floods back to me unbidden. Ray refusing to give up. Ray refusing to accept Tucker wasn’t going to make it.
I remember begging, pleading silently this would all be over, that Ray would give up and stop pumping away at his lifeless best friend. That he would come to us and grieve this loss rather than prolong it.
The sour and sticky guilt coats my skin just as thoroughly as John’s blood had.
“I was so scared,” Tucker says as loudly as his fragile voice will allow. “So scared he was going to take you because I was too weak.”
“No, Tucker. We’re here. I’m here.”
“I love you.” The rasp has an edge of urgency to it, like he’s worried if he didn’t get the words out now he might never get the chance again.
“I love you.” My words are a whisper, but the loudest truth I could possibly say.
A hand closes around mine in the seconds of quiet following our words, and I look to see it’s Silas silently echoing the sentiment. His firm grasp, saying everything his voice doesn’t.
Stiltedly, I look at Ray across the bed. He nods once, his face soft and flat. His eyes don’t have the twinkle I’m so accustomed to, they aren’t lined with the mischief that almost seems to be a part of his face itself. No. There’s an earnestness to his tear-rimmed eyes that makes all the muscles in my chest squeeze at once.
Without meaning to, I look to Dane and find him watching the four of us from the doorway of Tucker’s room. He’s barely crossed the threshold and his arms are crossed tightly over his chest. He’s tense, every inch of him held tight.
If I didn’t know him, I might have thought this was barely held off rage. But I see him now. I see the guilt and the grief lining each of his features. I see the way he’s taken all of this onto himself, blaming himself for every second of this near disaster.
He meets my stare and drops his gaze, unwilling to be pulled into this.
I scoff, as a light irritation bubbles through my fatigue. He doesn’t have a choice.
He can’t wall himself off and spin and plan and devise every possible outcome for this. It might not be love, but he cares. He cares for me and for them. I’m not going to allow him to hide from that little bit of light.
I let go of Silas and Tucker to step around the bed and plant myself directly in front of Dane.
“You need to come in,” I demand. I don’t have it in me to speak around the issue. He’s going to have to face me. Face this.
A muscle in his jaw ticks before he brings his worried eyes back to meet mine.
“You need to come and be with your family.”
It’s a deliberate word choice, and one I hope lands exactly the way I want it to.
He didn’t lose us. He didn’t lose his family all over again.
His throat bobs, and when his words come out, they’re rough, each syllable strained like it’s being forced out.
“You’re leaving. You fulfilled your part of the deal-”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
That same question from the first day we met, then thick with impatience, now comes out with the smallest tinge of hope. A plea that he’s wrong, that I’m not going to leave. That I’m not going to ruin what he has come to understand is his family.
“I’m where I want to be.”
“We don’t have a home. Not anymore,” he reminds me. His brows drawing together like he couldn’t possibly understand why I would choose to be here with them over anywhere else. He looks like he’s trying to make sure this isn’t some trick. Making sure I mean what I’m saying.
“We’ll build something new.”
I pull the backpack out of his hand, the one I left behind in the waiting room, too focused on Tucker’s state. Everything we own is contained between the two bags we were able to pack in our haste to get here. I don’t have to dig around for long to find what I’m looking for, only a single shirt covering it.
It takes him a moment to figure out what I’m doing, what I have in my hand.
I hand him the hard drive he left behind before we set the place on fire. Everything he worked for, for so long, lying in the palm of my hands. The little metal box he was going to leave behind to be incinerated with everything else.
He clears his throat, the cough sounding painful and strangled, and when words still fail him, he pulls me into him. His arms bind around me in the tightest hug I’ve ever received.
After a while, Dane releases me, taking just a second to stare at me before he wipes the tears from his face.
The world falls away as I look into his eyes. Everything I am, and everything my life could be, narrows down to this moment.
It’s now I truly understand that, despite everything, every gut-wrenching moment, every second of terror, there is no place I would rather be. The threat of losing them isn’t enough to make me run away. Not anymore.
This is it. This is my family.
This is where I belong. With all of them.