Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ELI
“That’s it. We’re packing it in.”
I swung around to look at Maddox, my head throbbing with a pulse so deep it felt like it echoed down my spine. My mouth watered as my stomach rolled. I had to swallow back the nausea before I could say “No.”
That was all I could get out. I couldn’t fucking think through the drumbeats in my skull.
Just that one word was enough to catch the air in my lungs, and I coughed, cranking up the pain in my head another notch until I doubled over, thinking for just a second it was possible I was going to throw up, cough out my lungs, and pass out all at the same time.
“Man, seriously? I can’t believe you’re fighting me on this,” Maddox said.
“You’re done. This was a fucked-up, stupid idea in the first place.
At least Sylvie is in bed where she belongs.
The doctor didn’t want you to leave the hospital.
We had to swear we’d bring you straight home, strap you to the bed, and not let you leave.
And instead, we’ve spent the last, what, ten hours driving around, following every goddamn lead no matter how thin, and we’ve got nothing.
Eli, dude is vapor, okay? Whatever’s fucking your head up, this is not the way to deal with it. ”
I heard him. I did. I just didn’t want to acknowledge that he was right. This was a stupid, fucked-up idea. I was in shit shape. Probably shouldn’t have left the hospital. I definitely shouldn’t have left Sylvie’s side. But the idea that the bomber was still out there—still coming for Sylvie?—
Every time I thought of packing it in, I saw her face, blood streaking from her temple. Her eyes closed.
It had been so close. So fucking close.
I heard her voice. I love you, Eli.
Fucking hell. I hadn’t let it land in the moment, because I couldn’t concentrate on anything but disarming the bomb strapped to her goddamn chest. We’d had no time. I’d barely heard her; I was so focused. I hadn’t taken the time to say it back. But now I couldn’t stop hearing her.
I love you, Eli.
And she’d almost died because I was a fucking idiot. Because I didn’t tell her the truth about Silas. Because I thought I could put everybody in their little boxes. Keep myself safe. From what? Loss? More death? Hadn’t life taught me that nothing could protect me from that?
I forced myself upright and drew in a slow breath, praying it wouldn’t aggravate my lungs into another cough.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll go back. I’ll get some sleep.”
I didn’t fight Maddox for the driver’s seat, alarmed at how grateful I was just to sit and close my eyes for a minute.
I needed a bottle of headache meds and twelve hours of sleep.
The headache pills I could handle. The sleep…
I had to get back to Sylvie. I trusted Miranda and Wren, but being away from Sylvie was like a piece of myself was missing.
I needed her. Wanted her.
The SUV rolled to a stop, and I opened my eyes to see us parked at the curb in front of the building we called the barracks.
“Why are we here?” I hadn’t been back to the barracks since I grabbed my stuff to move into the safe house with Sylvie.
“You’re off duty, man,” Maddox said, sounding resigned but prepared for a fight.
“Then I’ll go back to the safe house and sleep there,” I said.
“No.” He shifted to face me, his jaw hard. “You’re off duty. You need sleep.”
“I need to see her,” I said, forcing the words out, hating that while they sounded like a statement, they felt like a plea. I wasn’t going to beg. But maybe I was. “Maddox, I?—”
He gave a sharp shake of his head and rubbed his palm over his shaved scalp.
“Eli. Go inside. Get a shower and some sleep. Check in when you wake up, and we’ll talk.
If Sylvie sees you right now,” he added before I could interrupt, “you’ll give her a fucking heart attack.
You look like absolute dogshit. You need rest. A shower.
You need to get your head on straight. When you do, we’ll talk about coming back. ”
“You don’t get to make that call,” I said, knowing he was right and not caring. I needed to see her. My head throbbed, and I gritted my teeth.
I needed to kill the fucking asshole who’d almost taken Sylvie from me.
Maddox pulled out his phone. “Do I have to call Cooper? Because he can pull rank.” He rested his phone on his thigh and stared me down.
“I get it, man. I get that she’s got you all fucked up in the head.
I get that almost dying fucked you up a little bit.
I get it’s further fucking with you that the dude who tried to kill Sylvie is still out there. It’s fucking with me too.”
“Not the same,” I managed to say.
“Yeah. I get that,” he said. “But Sylvie is covered. Wren and Miranda haven’t left the safe house.
She’s fine. She needs sleep and pain meds and more sleep, just like you.
If you’d agreed to get some rest when we busted you out of the hospital, I would have taken you back to the safe house.
But now…” He gave me a scan. “Miranda said Sylvie’s been drifting in and out of sleep.
She’s calm, she’s resting—getting a little better every time she wakes up.
The last thing she needs is to see you like this.
Your eyes are so bloodshot they’re full red, man.
You look like you just ripped five bong hits, got flattened by a steamroller, and then puked on yourself.
Pain pills, shower, sleep, then we’ll talk. Understood?”
A million comebacks flooded through my head. I settled for giving Maddox the finger and opening the passenger door of the SUV. I almost tumbled to the curb, my body so exhausted it wasn’t taking commands.
“Need me to walk you in?” Maddox asked, without a trace of sarcasm.
We’d all been through shit. A lot of it together.
Sometimes you needed a buddy to take half the weight.
There was no shame in that. Except this time, there was.
Because again, he was right. I was a mess of my own making.
I should have taken my ass home from the hospital and gone to bed.
But I couldn’t stop thinking of Sylvie, unconscious and bleeding, and that asshole still out there, still gunning for her.
I was in rough shape because I’d driven myself there.
I’d get myself to the goddamn front door of the barracks on my own, even if I collapsed just on the other side.
I didn’t. I managed the coded lock, aware that Maddox was still idling at the curb, watching to make sure I got in okay, like an overprotective parent. The big metal door pressed back at me, heavier than I remembered. Fuck, I was weak, the throb in my head relentless.
Pills. Shower. Sleep.
I thought about that sensible to-do list and trudged through the wide-open living space that made up the center of the barracks.
I passed the industrial-style oversized kitchen and the long stainless steel dining table with enough chairs to seat twenty.
Opposite, there was a massive TV with an equally huge sectional sofa, big enough for a guy my size to spread out for a nap or to watch a game with plenty of room left for everyone else.
The office space on the other side of the room had bookshelves, desks, and monitors.
There was even a small gym area off to the side with a padded floor and weights.
And above that, an open walkway that looked down into the central area on two sides.
Off the walkway, there were ten bedrooms, each with an ensuite, roughly half of them big enough to be more like an efficiency apartment.
It was a sweet space, perfect for our team.
And while it was industrial in design—probably why it hadn’t done well as a short-term rental/bed-and-breakfast—everything was top of the line.
I thought about the rainfall showerhead in the bathroom, and in my imagination, I was already there, stripping off my sooty, dirty clothes, standing under steaming hot water until everything—the explosion, the last ten hours of searching—was all washed away.
In my imagination, that was what happened.
In reality, I made it as far as my roughly made queen-size bed before I collapsed face-first. I reached out just enough to drag a pillow closer, shoved it under my throbbing head, and was out.
The headache woke me hours later, still throbbing.
Every inch of my body ached as I rolled to my side and slowly sat up.
I moved as if I’d shatter like glass at the slightest misstep and, shuffling into the bathroom, grabbed a bottle of headache meds from the medicine cabinet and downed them with gulps of water from the faucet, the cool liquid sweet on my still-raw throat.
I stripped my clothes, leaving them piled on the floor, and stepped into the shower.
I didn’t even flinch at the first rush of icy water.
Flinching took too much energy—and I knew from experience the hot came fast. One of the many good things about lodgings in the barracks: an endless, on-demand water heater that didn’t make you wait.
I cranked up the temperature and let the shower wash away dust and dirt, soot from the explosion, sweat—all of it.
My stomach growled, and I tried to remember the last time I ate something.
Maddox had grabbed food while we were out chasing leads, but I hadn’t been hungry, my throat too raw to think about swallowing.
I was way past due. The thought of food wasn’t appetizing, but that was what protein shakes were for.
I didn’t need a meal so much as nutrition.
I went through the motions—toweling off my hair, pulling on a thermal and cargo pants—eyeing the mound of clothes I’d peeled off and wondering if it wouldn’t be better to just throw them in the trash.
I wasn’t sure there was enough detergent in the world to get them clean again.
Putting it aside as a problem for later, I headed downstairs to find the lights dimmed.
In the kitchen, checking my phone, I realized it was after three in the morning.
I glanced up to see Ryder, Maddox, and Shade’s doors all closed.
Miranda’s and Wren’s were both open because they were with Sylvie.
I grabbed a shaker cup, not wanting to use the blender and wake everyone up, and made myself a double-strength protein shake, dumping in a bunch of ice cubes.
As soon as I had it mixed, the cold, thick liquid soothed my throat and filled my empty stomach.
As I drank, I stared down at the screen of my phone, stuck.
What now?
I couldn’t call Sylvie, couldn’t risk waking her up. And even if I could, I didn’t know what I’d say. I love you back? I’m sorry I failed to capture the asshole trying to kill you? I’m sorry I pushed you into making a decision that almost got you killed?
I’m sorry I’m avoiding you.
I pushed those thoughts away and focused on the rage still simmering inside for the bomber.
I had no leads to chase, and even if I did, I was grounded—like I was a teenager who couldn’t be trusted to behave.
Fuck that. I wasn’t close to back to normal, but with a few hours of sleep, my head had cleared somewhat.
Enough that I knew I’d fucked up a lot of stuff—but I was alive, and Sylvie was alive.
It wasn’t too late to fix what really mattered. I just had to figure out how.
My thumb hovered over the apps on my phone screen, and before I could think about it too much, I tapped the one for the podcast app.
Evidence & Echoes was on the home screen.
I’d clicked Follow the day I’d met Sylvie, but hadn’t gotten around to listening to an episode.
The last week felt like a lifetime. It was hard to believe how annoyed I’d been about babysitting some podcaster.
Amazing to think Sylvie had strolled into my life, her appearance so random and yet not random at all.
She’d changed everything.
I tapped the play icon and Sylvie’s voice hit my ears, so familiar, but with an extra layer of polish. This was her podcaster voice, and it drew me in.
“—though when Detective Henson spoke to the eyewitness, he ended up going back to his original evidence file. Eyewitnesses lie, sometimes even when they don’t mean to. But evidence doesn’t lie, and Detective Henson knew the truth was in that evidence file?—”
I tapped the pause button. Evidence doesn’t lie.
God, I was an idiot. I hadn’t gotten it, not really. Not until now.
Sylvie, looking through the files she’d found at the data broker’s warehouse. Evidence told her the truth, but it should have been me. She shouldn’t have to go through files to learn about the team or Silas. I should have told her.
She wasn’t angry about Silas. She was angry that I hadn’t trusted her.
That my lies about the case and my interest in Emily Shaw’s murder left her feeling like there was no one she could trust. Like, my feelings for her couldn’t be real.
I’d thought I was keeping myself safe, and instead I’d taken her safety away.
Fuck.
I rinsed the shake cup, shoved my phone in my back pocket, and grabbed my jacket.
My vehicle was back at Sinclair Security, but the walk wasn’t far.
I could use the fresh air, and I needed to get to Sylvie.
Now. The headache pills had kicked in by the time I hit the sidewalk.
Not all the way—they weren’t enough—but I didn’t want narcotics to dull my reaction time any more than it already was. I could handle the pain.
I could draw a breath now without coughing, which was a huge improvement, though the walk of a few blocks left me weaker than I expected.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been hit on the head, or the first time I dealt with smoke inhalation.
A lifelong affection for explosives intersected with those two events more often than I’d like, but it had been a while, and I couldn’t remember the last time I felt so physically shaky.
It wasn’t enough to stop me. I keyed in my code to the side door, glad to see the light flash green so I could let myself in. For a moment, I’d wondered if Maddox had locked me out, but his decree that I was banned hadn’t gone that deep.
Now I just had to see if I could get through to Sylvie. I didn’t think it would be as easy as getting into the building.