Chapter Two

Ever

“W hy do you look like you’re about to kill someone?” Luc asks.

“Because I am. Your father probably did this to you on purpose, and if you do not wake up soon, I am going to torture the antidote out of him; all poisons have an antidote, right?” I reply.

“Erm, Ever?” Atlas starts.

“Give her a minute,” Jensen replies, interrupting him and sounding slightly amused. However, I don’t understand why. What about this situation is amusing?

“You’ll torture my dad for me?” Luc asks.

I roll my eyes, “Of course I fucking will.”

“She’s in full spiral mode,” Rage comments.

He is right, but I don’t know why he’s announcing it to the room. Surely they all know that by now? They aren’t new, we have been together for years. They are all well-acquainted with my emotional spirals now. They should be.

Hands on my face turn me so that I am no longer looking at the covers on the bed.

Luc smiles at me, and my eyes widen as it finally clicks that I was so deep into my spiral that I didn’t even realize that I had been talking to him. The guy’s commentary makes sense now.

He kisses me softly and then pulls me into his arms.

“You’re okay right?” I ask.

“I am good. I’m still a bit sleepy, but I'm fine. Are you okay? You were spiraling pretty hard then.” He asks me.

“I’m good now I know you are okay. Do you know what happened? The doctors said that you should have woken up pretty quickly,” I reply.

“Here,” Trick says as he passes the chart from the end of Luc’s bed to him so he can read it.

Luc smirks, “Thanks, dude.”

He shifts me so that I can stay with him but so he can flip through the chart. I must admit that I understand absolutely none of it. But he has had enough training by this point that he seems to.

“Okay, there is not really much here that you haven’t told me. It is curious why I didn’t wake up though,” Luc muses aloud as he reads, “Did my results come back?”

“No, not yet. We're still waiting for them,” Cash replies.

“Has the poison been identified yet?” He asks curiously.

Again, Cash answers with a shake of his head, “No, not yet. We're still waiting for Mr R to get back to us.”

“Did you manage to read anything significant from the file before you dropped?” Peter asks.

Luc nods, as he finally looks up from his chart, puts it down and then wraps his arms around me again, “Yes. I didn’t read much but I did read the location of the port and shipping yard that Hunt was using. The biggest one, according to the file.”

“That’s great.” Trick replies, “Is there any chance that he’s still using it?”

I feel Luc shrug behind me, “I suppose there is a pretty good chance. From the brief glance that I got at the file, it seemed like a massive operation. He would be losing a lot of leverage and a prime port. It is in an amazing location and is pretty much untouchable because of how legitimate the front of the business is. From what I could tell, there were years put into it to make it a safe port in order to keep the illegal side of it hidden."

“Wow, you managed to read a lot in such a short amount of time,” Rage compliments.

“Thanks. I got pretty good at reading things really quickly when I used to break into his office. It was either that or I got caught, and it was not worth getting caught.” Luc replies, and then quickly changes the subject, “There was a lot of information in the file and I'm sure that I missed some things. We will need to go over it carefully before we try to do anything.”

“You’re right, the last thing we need is to go in all guns blazing and risk him escaping. We need as much information as possible so we have the best chance to capture him once and for all.” Atlas replies.

“Maybe we should go back to the house and see if we can find anything else there; I only managed to get the file out. There may be something else in there that I hadn’t noticed,” Luc suggests.

“No one is touching anything in there,” Peter says firmly, staring us all down.

I smile, “Nope, no one is going back in that safe without a full fucking hazmat suit.”

“You aren’t going anywhere,” Trick says looking at Luc, “not for the moment anyway. You need to rest.”

I feel Luc sigh, and I know he is not happy about it but it’s tough, we have no idea if that poison is going to have any long-lasting effects on him, he needs to take it easy.

“Okay, I hear you.” He replies and then changes the subject by adding, “You guys should probably go and get some sleep; I really do feel better, so you guys don’t need to stay.”

I snort, “You really think we’re going to leave you.”

Luc chuckles, “No, I didn’t, not really.”

“He is right though, it’s late,” Cash adds, “we should all probably get some sleep.”

“Good idea, I’m shattered,” Jensen replies, and in the time that it takes me to look at him, he is slumped down in his chair, his head resting on the back of the seat and his eyes closed.

“Has he gone to sleep?” Rafe asks incredulously.

Riot is the closest to Jensen other than me and he leans closer to Jensen, “Yep, he’s asleep. I imagine he is going to start snoring any second now.”

I can’t help smiling; the fact that he can fall asleep so fucking quickly, even in unknown situations and uncomfortable positions, always amuses me. He must have been really tired this time though because he fell asleep even quicker than usual.

“We should probably let the doctor know that Luc is awake,” Riot points out.

“Good idea,” Atlas replies, “and then we won’t be woken up too soon for observations because they can do them while they are here.”

Luc reaches to his left and presses a button that calls the nurse, and I reluctantly get off the bed so they can assess him properly. When I turn to look at him, his pout makes me chuckle.

Leaning forward, I kiss him softly before I say, “I will come back for snuggles in a minute. They can’t check you over if I am in the way.”

“I know that I just don’t like it,” he replies with a smirk.

“I’m going to go and see if I can find some blankets or something from somewhere,” I suggest with a smile.

“I’ll come too,” Rage offers as he stands up and stretches, exposing a strip of his stomach. He catches me looking and winks at me.

“Is everything okay in here?” the nurse asks as she walks in, and then immediately smiles, “Ah, you are awake, good. I will just go and get the doctor.”

Rage and I follow the nurse out of the room and go in search of blankets. This is an organization hospital, so there should be a room on every floor that has blankets and even some simple spare clothes for teams to help themselves to if they need them. When members get brought into these hospitals, it tends to be because something has gone wrong on a job, which means that the situations are often life-threatening or emergency, which means that whole teams turn up at the hospital with nothing but the gear that they have with them.

It just makes sense to have extras at the hospital since they are needed more often than not.

Rage reaches for my hand, threading his tattooed fingers through mine, and squeezes gently, making me look up at him. His green eyes glance my way, and worry is evident in them.

“Are you okay? You fully went down the rabbit hole back there.” He asks me.

I sigh, “Yeah. I started panicking and then I got really mad and of course that meant that I got stabby.”

Rage chuckles, “Okay, I thought so, but I was just checking to make sure that you are doing alright. We have been on the go for a while now, and we haven’t really had much of a chance to check in with each other.”

“I know.” I reply, “Hopefully, we will be able to take a break after this. We should go on holiday or something after we have finally put Hunt away, I think we deserve it.”

Rage’s eyes light up as we continue down the corridor, “Yeah, that would be pretty amazing. Where do you think we should go?”

“We could put it to a vote?” I suggest and then immediately shake my head, “None of us would agree on one place.”

Rage chuckles again, “No, you’re right, we wouldn’t.”

“We’d have to come up with some other way to choose a place,” I muse, enjoying the what- if scenario, “oh, I know. We could all write a place that we want to go on a piece of paper and then pick one from a hat?”

“Good idea,” Rage replies, “it would be interesting to see where everyone would pick.”

“Where would you go?” I ask, aware that our steps have slowed.

Rage pauses as he thinks over his answer and tries to decide where he would want to go. He suddenly smiles, “I’ve always wanted to go to Scotland.”

His answer surprises me, “Really? I would have thought somewhere warm?”

He smirks, “I’m a redhead; we burn.” His words make me laugh, and his smirk turns into a full smile as he adds, “No, I do like the sun, but when my dad was actually at home when I was younger, he would tell me stories about our ancestors, and apparently, we have some in Scotland. He always made it sound pretty amazing, so I would love to go and explore at some time.”

“That is pretty cool. I don’t know anything about my heritage at all. Obviously my dad never told me anything, and I was too busy trying to survive to question it, and my mom, well the first time I saw her since I was a child was right before she got shot in the head, and I didn’t really get a chance to ask her anything.”

“I’m sorry, Ever,” Rage starts to say.

I wave my hand dismissively, “Don’t be. It is what it is; it can’t be helped or changed, although it does make me wonder.”

“About what?” Rage asks curiously.

“Well, I must have grandparents, right?” I ponder. I mean, I have thought about it briefly, but I haven’t really thought about it, “I do know that my father’s parents are dead, but what about my mother’s parents? Are they still around?”

“That’s a good question and definitely something that we could look into,” Rage replies.

The churning in my stomach clearly says that I am not ready for that, and I reply to Rage, “Maybe one day, but I don’t think any time soon. Suppose they are still alive who knows if they actually want to know me and more than that, if I want to know them. It would open a massive can of worms, and I don’t want to deal with any of that, at least not at the moment. Maybe not ever.”

“That is understandable. I think I would probably feel the same as you.” Rage admits.

I frown, “I’m sorry, I put a dampener on that conversation. I didn’t mean to.”

He pulls me to a stop and then pulls me close, leaning down and kissing me quickly, “Don’t worry about it; I always want you to say what is on your mind and tell me the truth. You didn’t ruin our conversation.”

“Good,” I reply, “for the record, I would love to go to Scotland with you.”

“You never said where you’d like to go?” Rage replies as we start to move forward again, trying to find the supply room.

I pull a face, “You know I actually haven’t properly thought about it before. I guess I would like to go somewhere warm, maybe somewhere where you can surf; I have always wanted to have a go at that.”

Rage smiles again, “There are lots of places that we can do that. We should look at a few when we get the chance and see which you would prefer to go to.”

“Yeah, I’d like that,” I reply and then stop by the door, “Found it.”

We pull open the door to the supply closet and walk inside. It is roomier than you would think it would be, and as always, I am shocked by how well stocked it is. There are shirts and sweats in every size you could think of, all black because it is a neutral color and does not show up blood stains. If given a choice, agents would always choose to wear black. I suppose you could also find these things in a good hospital, possibly at a push, probably not. What really sets this place apart is that there are also weapons in here, just in case there is a need to stock up or something goes wrong.

There are bags in here, already packed up and ready to go. They are sorted into sizes of clothing and even the climate. It is not unusual that as soon as people get sorted out and healed up, they go on another job immediately, or their team has to go on a job while their member is in the hospital. This room is pretty much a just in case room, and they are in every hospital. I love working for the organization and I love that we have ended up here, we could have very easily ended up on the other side of the law. Having said that, we don’t have too much control over when a job needs to be done, and if we are the best ones for the job or even just the closest, then we are expected to go.

It is just how it is.

We quickly load up on enough blankets for everyone, and then we head back down the hallway and back to Luc’s room. It doesn’t take us very long and we end up heading in just as the doctor is coming out.

“What did he say?” I ask as we enter the room and start handing out the blankets.

“I’m good,” Luc replies. “They aren’t sure why I had the reaction that I did, and they would like to keep me in for a while longer to make sure that there are no adverse effects, but they don’t think that there will be. I am pretty sure I can convince them to let me out tomorrow.”

“That’s great news,” I reply, relief flooding through me. “And before you even think of arguing, yes, you are staying in until they clear you completely.”

Atlas chuckles, “I told you she wasn’t going to let you leave before that.”

Peter yawns as he taps away at his laptop before he closes the lid, and puts it down next to his chair, “We all told him that you would insist that they properly cleared him before he left. I am exhausted.”

“Well, you were all right,” I agree, with a smile.

We all settle down, and Trick lowers the lights so that it’s dim. I lay a blanket over Jensen so that he doesn’t get cold and kiss him on the cheek before I go around to everyone and kiss them good night.

“Come here, Firecracker,” Luc states, lifting his blanket and holding out his arm for me.

I repress a yawn as I toe off my shoes and climb in next to Luc, laying my head on his chest as he wraps his arm around me and brushes the hair back on my head so that they don’t tickle his face anymore. My eyes drift closed as I take a last glance at all my men and Peter and make sure that they are all okay.

Peter smiles, “We're all good, Ever. Everyone is here, and everyone is safe. Get some rest because one thing I know for certain is that there is no guarantee how long we are going to be safe for.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Riot mutters, his eyes closed, and his blanket pulled up under his crossed arms.

I sigh. Unfortunately, Peter is right. We often go through phases of having relatively quiet moments, where we do our jobs and get to relax for a decent amount of time between the jobs, and then there are periods of time where it’s one job after another, with barely any time to recuperate between jobs or anything. We end up feeling strung out, and Trick has to put his foot down in order to get us to actually stop. We can’t help everyone, and we want to try, but there are many agents at the organization that are incredibly capable and able to do the jobs. It is easy to think that we have to take on everything, but we don’t, we are still learning that.

Of course, that’s not to say that we don’t have skills that are sometimes needed, skills that are unique to us and our team, but not as often as you would think.

The problem is that the most recent issues have been more personal, meaning that only we can deal with them. We don’t want other people dealing with our personal stuff. Especially everything to do with my mom and her link to Hunt. It would actually be quite nice to go back to not dealing with personal shit for a while, but I guess that is going to have to wait until after we have dealt with Hunt. Then maybe we can get back to doing cases that have absolutely nothing to do with us.

“Night, guys,” I mutter, my eyes already closed.

I smile as they all reply in their own sleepy voices before I feel sleep drag me under.