Chapter 22 Jackson
TWENTY-TWO
Jackson
VIGIL
The world claws its way back into focus, all sharp edges and broken lines.
Pain comes next. Not the fire of impact, not the moment it went in—but the aftermath.
A deep, bone-deep throb that radiates from my hip to my shoulder, heavy enough to pin me to the mattress, like gravity has doubled and I’m the only one who feels it.
I blink. The ceiling is white. Textured. Expensive.
Not a hospital. Too quiet. No PA announcements, no squeak of rubber soles on linoleum. Just the rhythmic hiss-click of an oxygen concentrator and the steady beep of a cardiac monitor.
I try to sit.
Bad idea.
The muscles in my core seize, locking around the injury like a vice. A groan tears its way out of my throat, unauthorized and ragged. Gray spots dance in my vision.
“Easy, tiger.”
A hand presses against my good shoulder. Heavy. Firm.
Brass.
I blink the gray away. Brass is sitting in a chair next to the bed, reading a tactical report on a tablet. He doesn’t look worried. He looks bored.
“You’re alive,” he says, not looking up. “Try not to undo the five hours of surgery it took to keep you that way.”
“Talia.” The name comes out as a croak. My throat feels like I swallowed broken glass.
“She’s fine.”
“Location.”
“Penthouse. Guest suite. Ghost secured the perimeter. We’re locked down tighter than the Pentagon.” Brass finally looks at me. “Which, considering who you pissed off, is necessary.”
I push against the mattress, fighting the gravity of the drugs in my system. “I need to see her.”
“She’s sleeping, Fuse. Let her rest.”
“I need—eyes on.”
It’s not rational. It’s primal. The last thing I remember is the van. The blood on her hands. The terror in her eyes. I need to verify she’s alive.
“You’re a stubborn son of a bitch.” Brass sighs, standing.
“Help me up.”
“Ghost gave orders. Bed rest.”
“Ghost isn’t here.” I grit my teeth, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The room tilts. The floor looks miles away. “Help me, or I crawl.”
Brass studies me for a second, then shakes his head. He grabs my arm—the good one—and hauls me upright.
The pain hits like a white-hot spike driving through my side. I lock my knees, forcing the air in and out of my lungs until the edges of my vision clear.
“You’re going to bleed through those stitches,” Brass mutters, taking my weight. “Doc Summers is going to be pissed.”
“Where is Talia?”
“Main room. North window. She hasn’t moved in four hours.”
We move slowly. Every step is a negotiation with agony. Brass acts as a crutch, guiding me through the hallway. The penthouse is silent, the thick carpets swallowing our footsteps.
We reach the end of the hall. The main living area opens up—a sprawling space of glass and steel, overlooking the Seattle skyline.
She’s there.
She sits in a high-backed leather chair facing the window, knees pulled to her chest, wrapped in an oversized Cerberus hoodie that swallows her frame. A laptop sits closed on the table beside her. She isn’t working. She isn’t analyzing.
She’s just watching the city burn with lights.
“I got it from here,” I whisper to Brass.
“You fall; I’m leaving you on the floor.” Brass releases me, stepping back into the shadows of the hallway.
I take a breath. I steady myself against the wall.
“Talia.”
She spins. The motion is fast, jerky—a threat response. Her hand goes to her waistband before she registers who it is.
Her eyes widen. “Jackson?”
She scrambles out of the chair. She crosses the room in seconds, stopping just short of touching me, her hands hovering in the air like she’s afraid I’ll break.
“What are you doing up? You should be in bed. The tissue damage—”
“I had to check.”
“Check, what?”
“You.”
She stares at me. Her face is scrubbed clean, the grime and blood washed away, but the exhaustion is etched deep in the hollows of her eyes. She looks fragile. Shattered.
“I’m functional,” she whispers, throwing my own word back at me. “Whereas, you are not.”
“You’re shaking.”
She is. A fine tremor runs through her hands.
“I can’t turn it off,” she says, her voice cracking. “The loop. The shooter. The angle. I keep re-running it in my head. Every time … Every time I calculate the trajectory, you die.”
“I didn’t die.”
“Statistically, you should have.” She wraps her arms around herself, digging her fingers into the fabric of the hoodie. “You took a one-hundred percent probability of a lethal impact and transferred it to yourself. That is … It is illogical.”
“It was tactical.”
“It was suicide!” The shout echoes in the quiet room. Tears spill over her lashes, hot and fast.
I ignore the pain in my side. I push off the wall and close the distance. My good arm wraps around her waist, pulling her into me. She resists for a second, stiff with fear, and then she crumples against my chest.
“I hated it,” she sobs into my shirt. “I hated the blood. I hated the way you looked at me before you closed your eyes. You promised me ‘after,’ Jackson. You don’t get to break that.”
“I’m here.” I rest my chin on the top of her head, breathing in the scent of soap and her skin. “I’m right here.”
“Why?” She pulls back enough to look at me. Her golden eyes search mine, desperate for an answer that makes sense in her world of data and patterns. “Why did you do it?”
“Because the math changed.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does.” I lean my forehead against hers. “For three years, my value was zero. I was a weapon. Expendable. If I broke, Cerberus would replace me. If I died, the mission would continue without me.”
I run my thumb over her cheekbone, tracing the line of her jaw.
“Then you started talking about probabilities and patterns. You looked at me not like a gun, but like a person.”
“Jackson—”
“You became the constant.” The words grind in my throat. “The variable I couldn’t lose. If the choice is between a world with me in it and a world with you in it … I choose you. Every damn time. The math is simple.”
She stares at me. Her lips part. The analyst is silent. The woman is reeling.
“You love me,” she whispers. It’s not a question. It’s a conclusion. She kisses me.
It’s gentle. Careful. She kisses me like I’m made of glass, her lips soft and testing. But underneath the gentleness, there is a fierce, possessive heat. She isn’t just kissing me; she’s verifying I’m real. She’s claiming the territory.
I groan, the sound vibrating in my chest. The pain in my side flares, a sharp reminder of mortality, but it pales compared to the sensation of her body against mine.
She breaks the kiss, resting her forehead against my chin. “You need to lie down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re gray. Your heartrate is elevated. And you’re leaning sixty percent of your weight on me.” She steps back, slipping her arm around my waist to support me. “Back to bed. Now.”
“Bossy.”
“I prefer ‘assertive command presence.’”
She helps me back down the hall. I lean on her more than I want to admit. The adrenaline of seeing her is fading, leaving the wreckage of my body behind.
We reach the room. She helps me sit, then lift my legs onto the mattress. She adjusts the pillows, checks the IV line, and scans the monitors.
“Talia.”
She stops fussing. “What?”
“Stay.”
She hesitates. “The chair—”
“No. Here.” I pat the empty space beside me. It’s a narrow hospital bed, barely wide enough for one, but I don’t care.
“I’ll hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
She climbs in carefully, terrified of jostling me. She curls onto her side, fitting herself into the small space between my body and the rail. She rests her head on my good shoulder, her hand settling lightly over my heart.
“This okay?” she whispers.
“Perfect.”
The tension that has held my muscles rigid for three days finally unspools. The pain is still there, a dull roar, but it’s manageable. Because she’s here. Because I can feel her breathing.
“What happens now?” she asks into the dark.
“We heal,” I say. “We recover.”
“And Phoenix?”
“Still out there.” My hand finds her hair, stroking the dark strands. “We hurt it. We exposed it. And when we’re ready, we finish it.”
“Together?”
“Together.”
She relaxes against me. Her breathing evens out, slowing into the rhythm of sleep.
I watch the monitor. The steady green line traces the beat of my heart.
One. Two. Three.
It’s not just a pump anymore. It’s a clock, counting down the time I have with her.
And I’m going to make every second count.
I close my eyes. For the first time since Syria, I don’t see the dust. I don’t see the dead children.
I see golden eyes, and I sleep peacefully.