Chapter 32
HARLAN - DON'T GIVE UP ON ME YET
Hospitals always smelled like bleach and regret.
I hated that I knew the way to the ER without asking. Hated that I recognized two of the nurses, and they recognized me. Not because we were friends, but because I was the man who kept showing up after the damage was already done. The man who carried too many names home in files instead of flesh.
I found Ava pacing just outside curtain three. Her arms were crossed so tightly that it looked like she was holding herself together by force. Her boots scuffed the floor with every turn, eyes red, shoulders sharp with tension.
The moment she saw me, she stopped.
And then she broke.
Not loud. Not messy. Just… a quiet unravelling. Like something inside her gave out. She turned away, one hand going to her face. My chest squeezed so hard it hurt. I wanted to gather her up, shield her from everything, but I didn’t touch her. Not yet. Not unless she asked.
“Is she okay?” I asked, voice rougher than I meant.
“Bruised shoulder and back. Cracked ribs. Stitches for a cut to the back of her head,” she said, flat, like listing damage on a wrecked car. Her voice shook on the last one anyway. “She’s lucky. We both are.”
I exhaled slowly. My hands curled into fists at my sides. “I should’ve been there.”
Ava didn’t respond, but I could see her body tense up.
“I didn’t even know the call had come through,” I added, quieter. “The system’s supposed to flag those reports. Domestic disturbances with prior trauma status. That’s protocol.”
Ava's voice was edged when she said, “Your protocol didn’t save Annalise. It didn't do shit.”
That landed like a gut punch. I deserved it.
Ava turned to face me, and her ocean eyes were wet, but her voice was steady now.
Cold. Controlled. Dangerous in the way only truth could be.
“You know how many calls I’ve made like that?
How many times I’ve held the phone while someone whispered, he’s coming back and hoped someone like you was already on the way? ”
I nodded, trying to keep myself composed and not pull her into my arms. “Too many.”
She laughed, hollow and bitter. “You’re damn right, too many. And now Remi’s in a hospital bed because we got there before your people. Because Annalise called us when her calls to you went unanswered.”
I swallowed hard. Images I didn’t want surged up anyway, Ava with the phone clutched to her ear, Remi’s shoulder smashing into that wall, what could’ve happened if he’d gone harder, if the lamp hadn’t been there, if Ava hadn’t been fast enough.
My family bleeding while my officers dragged their feet.
My family...
“I’m working on it, Ava. I’m trying to...”
“Try harder!” she snapped, voice rising, raw.
“You want me to believe you’re different?
Then be different! Don’t stand there with your badge and your guilt and tell me the system just needs more time.
We are out of time. These girls don’t have time.
Remi didn’t have time when she made the choice to jump on the back of a man twice her size to give me enough time to get Annalise out of that hell. ”
“I know,” I said. My voice cracked.
“No, you don’t,” she hissed. “Because if you did, you wouldn’t still be trying to fix it from the inside while Voss files bullshit reports and watches us bleed. While protocol is twisted and used against those it should be there to protect.”
I stepped forward, lowering my voice, every word pulled straight from the fear lodged in my chest. “I’m building a case. Quietly. I have to be careful. If I make a move too early, she walks clean and buries us on her way out.”
Ava shook her head like she wanted to believe me but couldn’t. “Then tell me, Chief Gray... how many failures are you willing to allow before then?”
That stopped me cold.
Because I didn’t have a number.
I just had names. Faces. Screams down phone lines and blood on the tiles. And tonight, the sight of Ava pacing like she might shatter and the woman whom I now realized I trusted with my life, lying behind a curtain hooked to IVs.
“I’m scared I’m going to lose everything,” I admitted, voice low, unguarded.
Ava blinked, startled.
“I look at what you two have built, what you carry... and I swear I’m trying to be worthy of standing beside you.
But tonight...” My throat closed up. “Getting that call from Reid... Hearing Remi had been taken to the hospital, knowing you two were the ones holding the line while my officers took their sweet time or looked the other way… It gutted me. Because I realized how close I came to losing both of you. And I can’t.
..” My hand shook. I clenched it tight. “I can’t lose you, Ava. Not her. Not you.”
Her expression shifted. Still hard, still guarded. But the fire in her eyes flickered, like she wanted to believe me and hated that she did.
“I love you,” I said. The words ripped out before I could stop them. “I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know how. But I do. And I know I haven’t earned your trust back yet. But I’m asking you to hold on. Just a little longer.”
“Harlan...”
“I’m going to fix this,” I swore, stepping closer. “I will fix it. And if I can’t… I’ll burn it down and rebuild it with my bare hands. But not without you. I can't do any of this without you. So please... don’t give up on me yet.”
She looked up at me, tears brimming but not falling. Her jaw clenched like she was holding back a lifetime of doubt and disappointment.
And then, finally, her forehead fell to my chest, and she let me wrap her in my arms.
I knew this was not forgiveness. Not a full answer.
But something.
A pause in the storm.
Inside the curtain, Remi shifted and groaned.
Ava turned toward the sound, voice soft. “She’ll hate having to stay here even for a night, and she will not agree to eat what they pass off as food here.”
I smiled faintly despite the knot in my chest. “I’ll bring tacos. Hell, I’ll bring half the damn menu if that’s what she wants.”
“You better.”
We stood together in the hallway, tired and frayed but not broken.
And while I held Ava, I let myself imagine the other reality, the one where I got here and it was too late, where curtain three was already closed, where the voices I loved most had been silenced. The thought made my stomach lurch and my vision blur.
I let the feel of Ava in my arms chase away some of that fear. But I refused to let the rest go. No, I’d keep it, carry it, let it sear into me as a reminder.
Of what I was fighting for.
Of who I was fighting for.
And why failure was no longer an option.