Chapter 36
The first thing was sound. A soft, rhythmic beeping. Distant. Then voices. Muffled. Like listening underwater.
A woman’s voice, low and steady. Tori. A man’s, a deep rumble. Blade.
His eyelids dragged like sandbags, every twitch a battle.
He pried one open, and light knifed in. White. Searing. Splitting across his skull. Needles drove behind his eyes. He slammed them shut again.
His stomach pitched sideways, threatening to heave.
A hand closed over his. His fingers twitched.
The motion drew in a sharp breath. Tori.
He dragged his eyes open again, lashes scraping dry.
White glare bled into outlines, then into faces crowding the bedside.
Tori clutching him. Blade standing tall, shoulders squared like he could take the hit for him.
Harlee hovering back, arms knotted across her chest. Jett restless, shifting from foot to foot.
Luna angled sharp, watchful. Corbin standing rigid, jaw locked.
All of them. His kids. His family. Here.
But where was here? The smell was antiseptic. The bed was wrong. He tried to speak, but only a dry, rasping sound came out.
“Stryker? Can you hear me?” Blade.
He wanted to nod. To speak. A tear escaped the corner of his eye, tracking a hot path into his hairline. Frustration. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t talk.
“You’ve been out for almost a year, Stryker. A whole year.” Harlee.
A year? The word didn’t compute. A year was a lifetime. Where . . . where had he been for a year?
His gaze found Tori. She was the anchor in the disorienting sea. She looked different. Older.
He saw an envelope in her other hand. A plain, white envelope that she held like it was both a treasure and a bomb. He didn’t know what was in it, but he saw the question in her eyes.
Memories bounced around the silent chambers of his mind, and with them came the cold, hard face of Dean Barclay.
He knew what he must do. Tell her. About everything. He squeezed her hand again, trying to pour a lifetime of apology and explanation into that single point of contact.
His throat felt like it was full of sand. He forced a sound out, a dry whisper. “T-t-t-t.”
“He’s saying your name, I think,” Jett said.
Yes. Her name. Tori. He owed her the truth, no matter how much it hurt. He looked around at the faces of his family, then back to her. He needed them all to hear this. To understand the burden he’d carried.
“Tori.” His voice was a broken rasp, each word a struggle. “That night . . . in . . . house . . .”
Why was this so hard? Each word exhausted him. He paused, gathering strength.
“Bar . . . clay . . . found me . . . with . . . Nikos.”
“Stryker, stop. You don’t have to do this. Rest.”
But he saw the flicker of pain in Tori’s eyes.
“Yes . . . I . . . do.”
He closed his eyes. Felt himself drifting.
“Turn the lights off. It might help.” Luna.
He pulled his eyes open. Darker. Better.
“Barclay . . . said . . . Nikos saw . . . face . . . A witness.” He took a shallow breath. “The people . . . worked for . . . don’t leave . . . witnesses. Not . . . even . . . children.”
He looked directly at Tori, trying to make her see the impossible geometry of the choice he’d faced.
“He gave . . . me . . . a choice.”
Another tear rolled down his cheek.
“He said . . . he can make the boy . . . disappear . . . into the system . . . brand him a . . . psy . . . psychotic . . . or . . . have him . . . eliminated. Made me . . . choose . . .”
The ugly words hung in the air. Tori held his hand as tears fell down her face.
“He looked at me . . . said . . . Your choice, King. One child gets life . . . One child goes away . . . or he would put both . . . both in the ground.”
The silence stretched. He watched Tori’s face, bracing for the impact. The anger. The hatred. The final, deserved accusation of betrayal.
But it didn’t come.
He watched her process not his betrayal but the impossible choice. The burden he’d chosen to carry so she wouldn’t have to. The hurt in her expression melted away, replaced by a dawning, devastating understanding.
Her hand covered her mouth. Shoulders rounded, as if something heavy finally settled into place. “Oh, Stryker.” The words broke out, carried by breath more than sound. “You saved us. You saved us both.”
It wasn’t an accusation.
It was an absolution.
The forgiveness was so complete, so immediate, it stole the air from his lungs. The twenty-six-year-old weight on his soul finally, blessedly, lifted.
“I couldn’t stop him,” he whispered. “But I could . . . I could make sure you both lived.”
“You did.” Tori’s tears fell freely now. “You did everything you could.”
He saw Blade place an arm around Tori and hold her.
Harlee wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Jett stood straighter, like a burden had lifted from his shoulders too.
His gaze drifted to Corbin and Luna, arms linked.
Luna was here.
When had she come home?
“How long?” he asked, his voice gaining strength. “How long in the hospital?”
“Eleven months, two weeks, four days,” Blade said. “But who’s counting?”
Stryker tried to smile. “What did I miss?”
“Everything,” Tori said.
She squeezed his hand again, and he squeezed back.
Stronger this time.