by W Winters
“What is it then?” I ask her. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Did I tell you about the patient with no name?” she says and her features turn serious. A haunting memory reveals itself in her eyes.
“Just initials?”
“Right. The woman with only initials…” She pauses before telling me the rest. “Somehow… someway, she got hold of a bottle of antifreeze.”
“What the hell?”
“She tried to kill herself. She drank the entire thing and needed an emergency transfusion. Every ounce of her blood had to be drained for her not to die.”
“How could that have even happened? That’s impossible.” She shakes her head only ever so slightly, but her expression holds a different answer. My hands tremble as I walk toward her. I can’t believe it. “When did this happen?”
“Three days ago.”
“How the hell did it happen?” I walk closer to her, unable to contain the horror and shock that a patient in our facility was able to obtain a means to end it.
“That’s the thing,” she says and looks me dead in the eyes. “There is no investigation.”
Chills flow down my arms. All my concerns seem so meaningless in comparison. I’ve never been so grateful for a tragedy.
“She had to have dialysis, the antifreeze did so much damage. We were waiting to hear what kind of inquiries would be made. What paperwork and interviews we needed to prepare for… but Aiden told us that it never happened. To act like there was no incident and not to speak a word of it. So you… you better not tell him I told you.”
“How can there be no investigation?” The question leaves me slowly, barely able to form itself.
“Whoever is paying for her to be there paid for the antidote, the dialysis… all of it with cash and they don’t want any attention brought to it.”
I drop into the seat next to her, processing it all and unable to shake the cold sensation that’s taken over.
“Whoever it is, they want her there and they don’t want anyone to know about it.”
“Did they give her the antifreeze?” I dare to question.
“No. Aiden’s the only one on her charts. After he told us, I followed him to his office.” She swallows thickly. “I think it was an accident. He’s on her charts, bringing her items she asked for. I think he made a mistake. But I don’t understand why he’s not fired. He should have checked it.”
“Aiden? No.” I can’t believe that. Aiden’s better at his job than that.
“I think he fucked up. She’s smart and wants to die. Really wants to die.” She licks her lower lip and then tells me, “But whoever’s paying for all of this? They want her alive.”
A cheerful series of dings in different octaves fills the room, forcing her knuckles to turn white as she grips the chair and then cusses beneath her breath.
“Your doorbell is going to give you a heart attack,” I comment and then look to the large cobalt door. “Who is that?”
She doesn’t look back at me as she stands and tells me, “The person I called.”
There are little moments when you know someone’s screwed you over before they show their cards.
It’s in the way they talk; the way they look at you. Even the way Laura walks right now. Unlocking the deadbolt and opening the door without speaking, without checking to see who it is.
All the while I sit there, denying this feeling of betrayal as if it’s not really happening.
Even when Seth walks through the door, tall, handsome and demanding Seth, I still want to deny it.
“I’m tired of being the last to know,” is all I can mutter, leaning back and hating that the last person I had in my corner denied me a chance to get out of this mess. “I suppose it’s my problem to deal with, isn’t it?”
I can hear her apologies, her pleas for me to understand all the while Seth is saying something, but it’s all white noise. I’m not interested in hearing what her excuse is. She of all people should know I need to get away. She lives in solace. She preaches it to me constantly.
“So, Seth?” I finally speak up although my ass is still firm in the chair. “Seth’s who you called? Or did you go straight to Jase?”
They both speak at the same time.
“You have to forgive me, Bethany – I didn’t have a choice.”
“Jase doesn’t have to know you were thinking about leaving him.”
The chair pushes back against the wall; it would have tipped over if the wall hadn’t been there to block its path because I stood so quickly.
“First off, you always have a choice,” I push the words through clenched teeth at Laura and then turn to Seth. “Secondly, I wasn’t leaving him. I wasn’t running, so fucking tell him for all I care!” I don’t mean to scream.
I don’t mean to lose control. Who the fuck am I kidding? What control did I ever have?
“Beth, please,” Laura says as she reaches out for me and I snatch my arm away.
“How could you?” I can’t look at her. Not because of anger. Because of the hurt that rests across my chest.
“One day I’ll tell you why. Just forgive me,” she pleads with me.
“I love you,” I tell her. “But right now, I really hate you.”
She covers her mouth with one hand and watches me walk to Seth, who hasn’t moved from the threshold.
“Seth.”
“Bethany.” He says my name sweeter than I say his. He even affords me a smile. “Are you ready?”
“No. No, I’m not. I wasn’t expecting you. When I asked my good friend,” I pause to look at her from the corner of my eyes, only to see her leaning against the wall. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her focus is straight ahead at the window rather than at us. “When I asked her to call someone, I wanted to leave. Not go back to Jase.” Before he can respond I add, “Not right now. I just need to breathe.”
“No, you don’t,” he tells me as if he knows what I need. As if he knows what I’m going through.
“I hear things. I see things. I don’t feel okay.” I don’t expect my voice to crack or the admission to stir up so much emotion, but it does.
“Hey,” he says then reaches out to brush my shoulder, and I notice how that gets Laura’s attention, how she watches him touch me.
He squeezes my shoulder gently when he tells me, “It’s going to be all right.” His voice is soothing, his dark eyes calming. “Come on, come with me.” Seth holds out his hand for me to take once he’s released his grip, as if he’s some sort of savior. “Jase doesn’t know, but you should tell him what you’re feeling.”
Guilt isn’t something I expected to feel.
“If she wants to, she will.” Laura speaks up for me, and when I look back at her over my shoulder, I can see her swallow and it’s not until I nod that she nods too.
I already forgive the two-timing bitch. I don’t understand, though. I’ll never understand why she sold me out.
Seth’s eyes stay on Laura’s a moment longer as he speaks, right before he looks back down to me, letting his hand fall to his side. “He’s going through something right now. He’s making mistakes and focusing all his time and energy on you. It’s causing problems.”
“He shouldn’t.” I refuse to be used as an excuse for someone else.
“I know that. He knows that too.”
He starts to say something else but I cut him off. “I’ll drive home myself.”
“I wanted to show you something.”
“I don’t want to see anything, talk about anything, or do anything at all but have a moment to just be away from all of this,” I practically hiss. “What can’t you understand about that?” Anger and desperation twine together. “I’m not okay, but I’m trying to be.”
“I wanted to show you something. But it can wait. We have time. Plenty of time. If you want to go home, know that I have to keep an eye on you.”
“How’s it feel to be a babysitter?” I can’t help the snide comment although I immediately apologiz
e. “I’m not usually such a bitch,” I comment after he accepts.
“You could tell me whatever it is. I could go there myself.”
He only shakes his head.
“If you could be a non-problem… he has enough of them.”
“Wouldn’t me leaving be exactly that?” I already know the answer before it’s fully spoken.
“The fuck it is.” His quick response and even scorn at the thought throw me off. “He needs you by his side.” His statement strikes me at my core. The emotional crack destroys what little resolve I have left.
“I just don’t know if I’m the woman that can be by his side.” I almost tell him I don’t know if I can be by anyone’s side. Especially not now, with every day passing and the warning my mother gave me sounding louder and louder in my mind.
“Well, he chose you. And between the two of us, I know you are.”
Jase
“How could you be so fucking reckless?”
I don’t answer my brother. The silence is deafening as my shoulders tense and I lean against his desk with both my fists planted on the edge of it. He refused to wait for this meeting and demanded it happen right now; that’s how I knew he was aware of my fuckup.
Neither of us say anything. I can feel his eyes on me as he turns from the windows in his office and slowly takes his seat. The smell of polished leather and old books invades my senses as I do the same, sitting across from him and feeling the disappointment flow through me.
The need to check on Bethany rides me hard as I sit there. All I can think about is Bethany and how I hurt her.
Seth’s watching her though. She’s fine. I’ve been telling myself that repeatedly since I left her. That, and that she’ll forgive me. That she just needs space.
She loves me. I remember that she told me she did once. The reminder doesn’t feel so truthful anymore.
“It’s unacceptable.” I say the words so he doesn’t have to. “What I did could have cost us everything.” All I can think about is Bethany, and all he can think about is the mistake I made. The first one in a long damn time.
“The fucking FBI is breathing down our necks and you do that?” Carter doesn’t hide the rage as he slams his fist down.
I don’t react. This is how he is and how I knew he’d be. He can scream all he wants. What’s done is done and his display of anger won’t change that.
I don’t say anything for the longest time, until finally, “I know,” is somehow spoken from my lips.
“What the fuck were you thinking, leaving like that? You drove in public while covered in blood. It would have taken a single phone call. We don’t flaunt this shit. It’s one fucking rule none of us has ever broken.” His chaotic breathing has lessened. The cords in his neck are no longer as tense.
In this moment, he reminds me so much of our father. Maybe because he’s focusing his rage at me for the first time that I can ever remember. “Everything we do is with reason and intention. Careful. Meticulous. We don’t leave evidence.” Every word is spoken calmer and more relaxed. He even sits back in his seat before running a hand down his face.
“What were you thinking?” he asks again.
“I don’t know.”
My answer is quick, as is his rebuttal. “Bullshit.”
“Bull-fucking-shit,” he repeats and with his words, the sky darkens behind him. The night is settling in, as is his disbelief. My knuckles rap in synchrony on the wooden armrests of my chair as he looks at me, and I look at him.
“You always know what you’re doing. You’re always in control, yet you did it anyway.” His voice is calm, his composure returned. Tilting his chin up, he asks me, “Why? You had to have known she’d see and that you were risking everyone else seeing just so she could see.”
“I shouldn’t have-”
“But you did. You wanted her to see you, Jase. There’s no other explanation. You don’t fuck up like this. None of us fuck up like this.”
My brother’s words hang heavy in the air. Waiting for me to accept them.
“She doesn’t need to see what I do. What I’m capable of.”
“You wanted her to, though.”
“I won’t do it again,” is all I answer him, still not wanting to accept I’d do something so stupid and reckless. “I was emotional. I was caught up in the past.”
“You wanted her to see,” he repeats and I lift my gaze to his dark eyes.
“It doesn’t matter. It’ll never happen again.”
He looks like he wants to say something else. Like the words are just there, right on the tip of his tongue, toying with the idea of falling off.
The room is silent though. For a moment and then another.
“She doesn’t need to see that,” I tell him, content with that truth and then I crack my knuckles one at a time. “I won’t do it again.”
“She already knew, Jase.” I pin my gaze to my brother’s. “Even if she doesn’t admit it. She already knew.”
“Knew what?”
“What you were capable of. She knows what you do. She already knows. You’re right that you don’t need to show her. But you’re wrong to think she didn’t already know.”
With an open palm, my hand moves to the harsh stubble surrounding my mouth and then to my jaw.
“Some part of you wanted to know what she really thought of it all. Is that it?”
I ignore his question. “I scared her.”
“She should fear what you’re capable of. It’s new to her.” Carter leans forward on his desk, resting his elbows on the hard wood and it gets my attention as what he says registers.
“What do I do now?”
A flicker of a grin shows on Carter’s face. “Because I should know what to do when the woman I love fears me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What are you saying then?”
“I’m saying I fucked up, she’s scared, and I don’t want her to run.” My voice lowers of its own accord and a confession escapes as I say, “I can’t let her run.” With my head lowering, I think back to the way she looked at me before closing her front door. She looked back at me the way she did in the restaurant. Like it may be the last time.
“She’s not the only one afraid then, is she?”
“I’m asking for advice, Carter. It’s not something I care to do often,” I comment, hating the way something in my chest twists with agony.
“She’s not like us; she didn’t grow up in this world.”
“She fixes the ones we break though. Addiction and loss… she stares that in the face every day.”
“You think because she works at the Rockford Center that she could handle seeing you covered in blood?”
“I wasn’t covered in it,” I say. My rebuttal is useless.
“Not to her. She doesn’t see this. This is different. It’s not something she can control with a bed, pills and a conversation.”
“Neither is loss. Loss isn’t controlled.” The need to defend her overrides my sensibility.
Carter’s gaze is assessing. Running my hands through my hair, I question my own sanity.
“She’s under your skin.” Carter’s tone verges on discouragement.
“Which is right where I want her to be,” I admit freely, correcting him. “I’m not letting her go.”
“Then don’t allow her to see what frightens her without first giving her a way to handle it. You blinded her to what’s going on, then showed Bethany her own worst fears without warning. What did you think would happen?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I mutter, staring at the dark red in the carpet beneath our feet.
“Start using your head again. How’s that for advice?”
It’s hard to hold back from rolling my eyes. “Any other advice you want to offer?”
“Promise her she doesn’t have to be a part of this world if she doesn’t want to. You should have never come back like that… She’s seen already, she knows and she hasn’t walked away.”
“What if
I can’t hide it all from her? What if I don’t want to hide it?” The truth is buried in the questions, something that loosens the tension. Something that makes me feel like I can breathe again.
“She knew before, Jase,” he repeats himself again. “You’re fooling yourself if you think she didn’t know who you were and the world you inhabit before.”
“Knowing isn’t the same as seeing,” I comment and regret what I did. I regret losing it and putting her in a place to be shocked and frightened. “I’ll do better.” I make the promise to her, although Carter’s the one who hears it and the one who gives a single nod.
“Do you know how I knew I should fight for Aria, rather than let her go?” Carter asks me and I wait for his answer. “Without her, I just can’t go back to being without her. There is no version of my life where I’d be okay knowing she wasn’t with me and not knowing if she was okay. I needed to make sure she was loved. I couldn’t move forward not knowing if she would be loved if I weren’t there.”
There’s that word again… love.
“If you want her, make her see that. She knew what she was getting into. She’ll be exposed to more of our world over time and she’ll learn to deal with it in a way she can. She didn’t run, though. She’s not going to leave you, Jase.”
“Is that why you called me in here?” I ask him, watching the wind blow the trees in the distance behind him. “To give me advice and watch me sit here with my tail between my legs?”
The leather groans as Carter sits deeper in the wingback chair. “Romano’s been indicted.”
“Indicted?”
“The FBI agents that have set up camp aren’t going to be leaving anytime soon. They’re fucking everywhere.”
“Did they find the explosives on the east side?”
“No, we got there first. Any evidence of an association with him has been wiped. But they’re digging. So we need to be careful.” I don’t miss the way Carter looks at me when he says the word careful.
“You think he’ll pay them off?” I ask.
“I think he’ll try. I would.”
His phone vibrates on the desk, halting the conversation momentarily. With a glance he sits up, and messages back. It must be Aria. “I’ve got to go; do you have anything else?”