Chapter Twenty-Three

Cade

I pace through the waiting room like a caged animal. People keep trying to talk to me. They keep telling me to sit down or asking what happened or if I need anything. They're trying to help, but I just snarl at all of them until they back off and leave me alone. I'm losing my mind. I can't fucking breathe through the fear choking me.

I'm covered in January's blood. It's all over me. Someone forced me to put on a shirt and a pair of scrub pants, but I don't remember who or when. Roman tried to convince me to go wash up, but I just snarled at him until he left me alone.

A few minutes later, he came back with a wet towel and handed it to me. I wiped off what I could, but her blood is still all over me. Every time I see it, my stomach roils and churns.

It feels like it's been at least four damn years since two paramedics took her from my arms. I don't even know if she's alive.

"God," I groan, swaying on my feet. My knees start to buckle, but someone grabs me before I hit the floor.

"I've got you," Roman murmurs, holding my weight because my legs can't support it anymore. He wraps an arm around my waist and hauls me upright. Someone else grabs my other arm and assists him with dragging me to a chair.

I drop heavily into it and then slump forward, putting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. The floor blurs as tears fill my eyes, but I don't let them fall.

I just need someone to tell me that she's okay. That's all I'm asking for, but I guess God isn't doing motherfuckers like me favors right now because no one will tell me a goddamn thing. They just keep telling me that someone will be out to speak to me soon.

Soon isn't now.

It was supposed to be me. He was supposed to take me, not her.

Please, God. I know I don't have a right to ask you for anything, but I'm asking anyway. Please don't take her from me. I need her. I can't breathe without her. I ca–

"Back off, Hernandez," Santiago growls, pulling my attention away from my pathetic attempt at a prayer.

I lift my head to find Santiago standing at the entrance to the waiting room, one arm blocking the door frame, barring Hernandez from entering. Roman steps up beside him and crosses his massive arms over his chest, helping Santiago keep Hernandez away from me. Hernandez doesn't even look at them, though. His dark eyes are focused solely on me, empathy written across his face.

Seeing him standing there shakes loose some emotion other than fear.

"Let him come," I mutter.

Santiago peers over his shoulder at me, clearly hesitant to let him in.

"Let him come," I say again, holding Hernandez's gaze.

"Fuck," Santiago curses and then steps aside, allowing Hernandez to brush past him.

He strides toward me, his boots squeaking on the linoleum floor. "Kincaid, what ha–?"

As soon as my name leaves his lips, I'm out of my seat. Chairs are kicked around and crash to the floor when I grab him by the throat and shove him up against the wall. All the rage I've been trying to find all night crashes down on me. I can't see through the haze of red it leaves behind. I can't think through it.

I don't want to think through it anyway. I desperately want to stop thinking for five minutes.

"Kincaid, goddammit, let him go," Roman demands, trying to pry me off Hernandez.

"You were supposed to be looking for him!" I yell at Hernandez, shaking off Roman's grip. "Goddamn you, Octavio. Where the fuck were you?"

He doesn't say anything. The red haze slowly creeps back, allowing me to actually see him. His jaw is clenched so tight I'm surprised it hasn't shattered. Anger pulses in the depths of his eyes. His body is rigid with tension. He's got his hands up, trying to show he's not a threat, but I can see in his eyes that he wants to fight back.

I wish he would. I wish he'd knock my stupid ass out because I'm in hell, and every single minute without news hurts worse than the last.

"He shot her. He fucking shot her." The words break from my lips in a desperate crack of sound that leaves my throat feeling like it's bleeding. My grip on Hernandez loosens. My knees buckle a split second later. This time, there's no one to catch me.

I crash to the floor as the dam breaks wide open. Pain hits like an explosion, detonating again and again inside my skin. I fall the fuck apart at Hernandez's feet.

I don't care if the cops in the waiting room with me witness it. I don't even care if I survive it. She was so small and so still in my arms. Her blood was all over me, just like Titan's. It was warm on my hands, so goddamn warm. And her skin was so cold and pale.

How's she supposed to breathe when her blood is all over me and she's cold?

"She wasn't breathing," I gasp, planting my fist against the floor to keep myself from collapsing into a ball right there. "They took her from me, and she wasn't fucking breathing."

"Jesus Christ," someone whispers, but I don't know who.

"I traded myself for her. He was supposed to kill me, not her. Why did he shoot her?"

Fuck. Why'd she come back for me? Why didn't she just fucking listen for once in her life and run like I told her to? She was out of there. All she had to do was keep running, but she didn't.

I swore that I wouldn't destroy her this time. I swore that I'd keep her safe, and she wasn't fucking breathing .

"If she dies, someone is going to have to kill me. If they don't, I don't know what I'll do. I can't kill Kaleo. He's already dead. January killed the motherfucker for me. I'll tear this fucking city apart until someone puts a bullet in me."

January thinks I'm not a monster, but she's wrong. She's the only thing that ever kept me from giving in to the rage and hatred that gnashes and claws inside me incessantly. If she dies…if they can't bring her back…I'll dismantle every fucking gang in this city with my bare hands until someone puts a bullet in me. It's the only way I'll stop.

"Don't you dare say that," someone snaps, but it's not one of the cops in the room. It's Mariah, glaring at me with her hands on her hips, tears on her cheeks, and fire in her eyes.

"It's true," I mumble, though I didn't actually mean to say any of that shit out loud. Didn't realize my lips were even moving. It's true, though. Guys like me live and die by the sword. It's what we know. It's what we're good at. And without January, it's the only fucking thing I have left.

"She's not going to die, and neither are you," Mariah growls at me. "She came back for you because she loves you. Jesus Christ, Michael. She tried to kill herself last week, but then she thought about you, and she couldn't go through with it. Every damn time she's wanted to die over the years, she's thought about you. So don't you dare give up on her now."

January tried to kill herself? What the fuck? Why didn't anyone tell me?

"She…what?"

Hernandez steps away from the wall like he's trying to give us space. Roman and Santiago take up positions around me and Mariah, blocking us in to give us a little bit of privacy from the rest of the room.

"I found her in the bathroom the day you told her what happened with Titan," Mariah whispers as more tears spill down her cheeks, leaving behind a trail of mascara. She doesn't bother wiping it away, not even when it drips off her chin and lands in inky black splotches on her white t-shirt. "There was blood all over the place where she hit her head. I thought she was dead. She told me she thought about it, that she tried to take a bottle of pills, but that she couldn't go through with it."

"Fuck me," I groan, another shot of pain piercing my already mangled heart. My girl went through that alone, and I didn't fucking know. I never should have told her about Titan. "I should have been there. It was my fault."

"Bullshit," Mariah snaps, still pissed and crying. "You blame yourself, and January blames herself, but neither of you is responsible for what happened then, and you aren't responsible for her feeling like that now either. Titan loved both of you. He made a stupid decision because he was Titan, and no one told Titan what to do. He went to Kaleo on his own, and then Kaleo manipulated him into a shitty situation. That's not on you. It's not on January. It's on the Diablos who killed him. It's on Kaleo. They're the reason Titan and Ms. Jana are dead. Not January. Not you. It's not her fault she survived, and they didn't. It's not your fault that you survived either, Michael."

I open my mouth and then close it, unable to force out sound as the truth in her words hits me hard.

I think…I think she's right. We survived, and they didn't. That's why we feel so goddamn guilty.

We were happy and we didn't realize how bad things were for Titan, and we've been punishing ourselves for it ever since. We both feel so fucking guilty for being young and in love. We both feel so goddamn awful for not being able to predict the future.

We've been punishing ourselves for seven years for surviving. We cling to guilt and blame and shame just so we don't have to face the truth: We're still alive, but Titan and Jana aren't. And it fucking hurts . That bleak truth hurts like hell.

But even if we punish ourselves for another decade, it won't change anything. It won't bring him or Jana back. They're gone because a bunch of soulless pricks decided their pride and property were more valuable than human lives.

The callousness of that fact is incomprehensible. It's unfathomable. Shit like that…there is no way to understand it. But punishing ourselves isn't going to change it. It hasn't yet. It never will.

"I need her," I whisper to Mariah, the God's honest truth. "I need her to live. I can't…I've been without her for so long. I can't do this without her anymore. I can't move on without her."

I don't want to face a future without January in it. Not because she makes it hurt less or because I'm afraid, but because she's the only thing that makes me happy. I see her, and I feel like I'm home…like I'm safe. No one else has ever come close to making my entire goddamn soul light up just by smiling at me. She does, though. She always has. I need her to live. Not to survive. Not to make it through each day still breathing. But to fucking live . And I'm pretty sure that's what Titan and Jana would want for both of us. For us to live.

Losing them will always hurt. The fact that they were brutally murdered will never be okay. But we can't keep doing this to ourselves. I can't keep doing it to myself and then expect January to do any differently. We have to face this whether we like it or not.

But we don't have to face it alone. We don't have to grieve and hurt and fight to survive alone .

I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to be in Washington, dying because the only girl I've ever loved isn't in my arms where she belongs. I don't want her two states away, thinking about killing herself because I'm not here to carry some of that burden for her.

She has to survive this because I can't do this shit without her.

"She needs you, too." Mariah cocks her head to the side before shooting me a glare that would make lesser men tremble. "So get your shit together, Michael, and get up off the floor because I refuse to lose my best friend to that piece of shit. January isn't dying because we aren't going to let her."

Fuck. No wonder my girl likes this chick. She's kind of a badass. And she's right.

January isn't dying. I'm not fucking letting her die. She needs me, and I'm not letting her go. Not today. Not any day.

"Agent Kincaid?" a doctor says what feels like another four damn years later, stepping into the waiting room wearing a paper cap and booties. He's older, with weary lines etched into his ebony skin. His expression is severe, his eyes giving nothing away as they scan over the room.

I jump to my feet and pace toward him with Mariah and Roman hot on my heels. The rest of the room falls silent. I don't even know half the people here. They're cops and federal agents, neighbors, and January's coworkers…all here just so we don't have to go through this waking nightmare alone. They just keep showing up.

I'm humbled and a little taken aback by that…by the fact that people we don't even know are here to lend their support anyway.

"Miss James suffered a single gunshot wound to her abdomen," the doctor—Dr. Becker, like the fucking TV show—says when I step up in front of him. "She lost a lot of blood."

Mariah grabs my hand, her nails digging into my skin as she clings to me.

"Is she-?" I can't even ask if my girl is dead. The word refuses to form.

"She's alive," he says.

A murmur goes through the room as thirty different people all sigh in relief and send up quiet prayers of thanks. My legs tremble beneath me, but I stand firm as relief slams into me, loosening the vise around my heart.

"The bullet punctured her kidney," he says, holding my gaze. His voice is firm, though he talks softly. "We were able to block the arteries in the kidney that were impacted through a procedure called embolization. The damage to the adrenal gland on that side was extensive. We had to remove it."

"Is she going to be okay?" Mariah asks.

His gaze shifts to her before moving back to me. He gives it to me straight, no bullshit. "It's too early to tell. We were able to get the bleeding stopped, but she's in critical condition," he says. "Her vitals aren't where we'd like them to be, but if we can get her through the next few hours, I think she'll be okay."

Mariah's nails dig deeper into my hand. The small pain keeps me focused when all I want to do is put my fist through the wall. She's alive, but he's not sure if they can keep her that way. It's not enough.

"Do whatever you have to do to save her life," I demand, my voice a rough rasp.

Dr. Becker nods once. "We'll keep her under sedation for now. We've got her on a ventilator to allow her body time to heal. She's trying to take breaths over it, which is a good sign. But we'll know more as the night progresses."

"I…thank you," I whisper, pushing a hand through my hair like it'll give me comfort. It doesn't, though, because it's not January's hand brushing through my hair like my mom and Ma Lucia used to do when I was a kid. When she does that shit to me, I feel like I'm home and everything is right in my world. Right now, it's far from right. It will be, though. I'm not letting her die.

"Can I see her?" I ask, hoping like hell he doesn't tell me no. I need to lay eyes on her, even if only for a minute. I need to see for myself that she's breathing. Maybe that'll erase the memory of her lifeless body in my arms as the paramedics took her from me.

"She's in recovery right now. As soon as we have her situated in the ICU, someone will be out to let you see her." His gaze sweeps around the room, taking in the number of cops sitting in the small waiting room. "Ordinarily, we only allow immediate family back there, but I understand Miss James doesn't have any immediate family."

"I'm her family," I practically growl at him. There's no way in hell they're keeping me out of that room. "That girl is my entire fucking world . I'm going to see her. Mariah is, too."

"I understand." His stoic expression doesn't waver despite the anger and aggression I know are rolling off me in waves. "We'll let the two of you back to see her, one at a time. Once she's more stable, we'll evaluate whether additional visitors will be allowed."

"Thank you."

"I'll be keeping a close eye on her, Agent Kincaid," he says, his expression softening incrementally. "I promise you, we'll do everything we can for her."

I jerk my chin in a nod and then shake his hand.

"She's going to be okay," Mariah whispers.

She has to be. There isn't another option.