12. Cara #2
“Apparently, nobody waits for permission around me anymore,” I reply.
She smiles faintly. “Did you mean it? What you said about Falcon?”
I know exactly what she’s asking. “I meant what I said.”
“That you’re done?” Sarah asks.
“For now,” I clarify.
She nods without pushing or looking disappointed. “Okay.”
Her easy acceptance makes me curious. “Why did you ask?”
“Because you look sad that he didn’t come,” Sarah explains.
So much for subtlety.
“I told him not to,” I remind her.
“No,” Sarah says carefully. “You told him you were done. That isn’t the same thing.”
“He could have come anyway,” I point out. “He shouldn’t have, though,” I add before either woman can answer.
“I know,” Sarah says. “I mean, I understand.”
She picks at the edge of her sandwich wrapper. “He listened to you,” she continues.
“Yes,” I agree.
“That’s good?” Sarah asks.
“Yes,” I confirm.
“But part of you still wishes he hadn’t?” she asks.
I open my mouth, but nothing useful comes out.
Frankie decides to be helpful for once. “Welcome to relationships.”
“This isn’t a relationship,” I argue.
“That has never stopped feelings from being inconvenient,” Frankie replies.
I take another drink of coffee. “I don’t want him here.”
Neither woman says anything.
I stare into my cup. “I also want him here.”
“Both things are fine,” Frankie says gently.
“You say that a lot,” I mutter.
“Because you keep trying to force everything into one answer or the other,” she tells me.
I look toward Emily’s door. “I can’t trust him.”
“That’s different from not loving him,” Frankie says.
“I know,” I reply.
Frankie laughs softly before I can stop myself from using the phrase again.
“Sorry,” she says.
“You’re not,” I tell her.
“Not even a little,” Frankie admits.
Sarah looks down at her hands. "I think I understand it.
When they first brought me here I hated all of them.
The bikes, the patches, the men outside the house.
I hated Vulture because everybody listened when he talked.
I hated Ice Pick because he looked scary.
" A small pause. "But I also wanted them there.
I'd wake up and check the curtains just to make sure somebody was outside. "
I understand that better than Sarah knows.
“I hated needing them,” I admit.
Sarah studies me for a moment. “Maybe wanting Falcon here and not wanting him here can both make sense.”
Tears sting my eyes without warning. I blink them back. “You’re getting annoyingly wise.”
“You taught me,” Sarah says softly.
“Then I clearly need to stop,” I tell her.
She smiles, and I lean back and think about what Frankie.
Falcon wasn't the reason Emily got shot, I know that.
I think I knew it even standing in the living room telling him I was done.
But his choice mattered, because it showed me the part of him that still scares me.
He hears danger and believes the safest place for everyone else is wherever he isn't.
That's not evil. It's not even cruelty. It's something broken, and I love him too much to pretend it doesn't matter.
"I don't want to spend the rest of my life waiting for a phone call," I say.
"I understand that," Frankie says. "I feel the same with all of the brothers."
"So, what am I asking for, then?" I ask because I haven’t got a clue.
Frankie thinks for a moment. "For him to know the difference between danger he has to face and danger he chooses because he thinks his life's worth less than everyone else's."
The words sit somewhere I don't have language for until she says it. That's it. That's the whole thing.
The door to Emily’s room opens, and a nurse steps into the hallway. We’re all on our feet before she reaches us.
“She’s awake,” the nurse tells us.
Every other thought disappears. “Can we see her?” I ask.
“One at a time to start,” she says.
Frankie points at me. “Cara.”
“Sarah should...” I begin.
“Emily asked for you,” the nurse says.
I stare at her. “Me?”
A smile touches her face. “She said the woman who lies about favorite colors.”
A laugh breaks out of me at the same time as the tears come. I wipe them away and follow the nurse into the room.
Emily looks tiny in the bed. She looks pale, tired, but alive. Her eyes open when I move closer.
“There you are,” she whispers.
My throat closes around the words. “Hi.”
Emily studies my face. “You cried.”
“No,” I say, wiping beneath one eye.
“Liar,” she murmurs.
“You’re feeling better, apparently,” I tell her.
“Knox said I can blame the drugs for anything I say.”
“Convenient,” I say, pulling a chair closer to the bed.
Neither of us speaks for a moment. Then she reaches for my hand, and I take it.
“You stayed,” she says.
“Of course I did.”
Her fingers curl around mine. “You kept talking.”
“You asked if you were dying,” I remind her.
“I remember.”
“I didn’t know what else to do,” I admit.
Her grip tightens. “You were scared.”
“Yes.”
Surprise flickers across her face, and it bothers me.
“You never look scared,” she says.
I think about what Frankie told me. Strong doesn’t mean nobody sees.
“I was terrified,” I tell her.
Emily watches me carefully. “I thought if you were calm, I should be too.”
Shit, that’s the danger of pretending well enough.
“I wasn’t calm,” I say. “I was doing the next thing. Pressure, then questions.”
“Yellow,” she says.
I smile. “Terrible color.”
“You said it was your favorite,” she reminds me.
“I lied.”
A weak laugh slips out of her, and it’s so good to hear that my chest aches.
She closes her eyes for a few seconds, then opens them again. “Falcon wasn’t there.”
“No,” I say quietly.
“He came back, though,” she murmurs.
“Yes.”
Emily searches my face. “Are you mad at him?”
“Yes,” I answer, because she’s earned my honesty.
Her mouth twists. “He looked sad.”
“I know.”
“Do you still love him?” she asks.
I stare at her. Apparently, almost dying doesn’t make anyone less nosy.
“Yes,” I admit.
The answer comes without any effort at all.
Emily smiles faintly. “Good.”
“That doesn’t mean anything’s changing,” I warn her.
“I know,” she says.
I narrow my eyes at her. She laughs, then immediately winces.
“Don’t make me laugh,” she complains.
“Then stop interrogating me.”
Her eyes begin to drift closed. “I’m tired.”
“Sleep,” I tell her.
“Will you be here?” she asks softly.
I tighten my hand around hers. “Yes.”
That promise I can make. I settle back into the chair beside her bed.
“I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Her hand relaxes around mine, and within minutes she's asleep.
I stay a little longer, not because she needs me to keep her alive, the machines and the doctors are handling that, but because she asked me to be here, and they are two very different things, and I'm starting to understand it better every day.
When I go back out, Frankie takes one look at my face and moves her bag off the chair beside her. I sit.
"How is she?" Sarah asks.
"Bossy."
"So, back to normal."
"Pretty much."
My phone buzzes. A security update.
Security Phone:
Hospital and compound secure. Emily stable confirmed. North fence repairs complete. No further threat activity. Next full briefing tomorrow morning.
Below it, another line.
Security Phone:
Falcon has stepped back from hospital-contact updates unless requested. Ice Pick remains point of contact.
I read it twice.
Frankie notices. "What?"
I hand her the phone. She reads it and gives it back without a word, which I'm grateful for.
He's not disappeared. He's stepped back, still working, still protecting all of us from the compound, just removed himself from the part that belongs to me right now.
I asked for space and respect, and he's giving me both, and it hurts and it also feels safe, which might be the strangest combination I've ever felt about the same man.
Maybe trust doesn't come back in one dramatic moment. Maybe it comes back like this. A meal sent without a condition attached. Information shared without being asked twice. A man choosing not to walk through a door because the woman on the other side told him she needs him to stay away.
I set the phone down.
Sarah leans against my shoulder again. Frankie steals another brownie. Ice Pick goes back to his position at the end of the corridor. Emily sleeps twenty feet away, breathing on her own.
The Saint’s Outlaws are back at the compound, rebuilding what got damaged. Nobody's alone tonight, not any of us, not even him. For the first time since the shooting, I let myself lean back in the chair and stop watching every entrance. Only for a few minutes, but it's enough.
Maybe healing works the same way trust does. You don't wake up fearless one morning. You just start noticing the moments somebody else can keep watch instead of you.
And you let them.