“Blaine,” Sean tried again.
Eric was coming. “Look. Give it some thought, okay? Think about what Eric would want, think about what’s right. I have to go.”
He ended the call as the driver’s door opened and Eric hopped into the seat. His dark brow was pinched, and he was staring down at his phone in concentration.
“Something up?” Blaine asked, keeping his voice light.
“Yeah, apparently, there’s one more place to check.”
“Ugh, I thought this was the last one.”
“No, well, yeah, it was. But there’s one more after this, just popped up. Apparently, the system had a hard time sorting this one because it wasn’t sure if it was professional or a private residence. Looks like even the government doesn’t know.”
Blaine nodded. “So we’re off then?”
Eric tucked his phone away, starting the car. “Yeah, place called Wojack’s, and it’s owned by a one Anthony Wojack.”
“Oh, well, that’s...succinct, I guess.”
“Yep.”
Eric put the car in drive, glancing at Blaine’s face and hesitating. Blaine looked over at his partner, blinking in confusion.
“You okay?” Eric asked.
Blaine cocked his head. “Uh, yeah, why?”
“You just look...I don’t know.”
That was all Eric said as he dropped the subject and pulled them out of the parking lot. Blaine almost told him but decided to keep quiet for a little while longer. The problem was between him and Sean, and he hoped that the older man would do the right thing. It might be one of the only things that could help him finally get through to Eric.
Then again, Eric had been able to easily read Blaine’s face, which he hadn’t bothered to do in three weeks. Maybe his hope wasn’t as lost as he’d thought.
Blaine stared at the battered front of the building, raising a brow. “Uh, you sure this is it?”
Eric glanced between the cracked windows, thick with dust, and his phone. “Definitely the right address.”
Blaine looked around, assessing the potential threat the neighborhood might serve. He wasn’t too worried about the man standing on the corner with a brown bag in his hand and a scowl on his face. If there was anything he learned while on patrol in the corps, it was the potential threats you couldn’t immediately see that you had to worry about.
“I have the distinct feeling we’re not too welcome around here,” Blaine murmured.
Eric snorted. “Tell me about it. We probably should have had the thirty-fourth do this, they know this beat.”
“Let’s make it quick then,” Blaine said, knowing Eric wasn’t going to give up his chance to find something.
Sure enough, a grin split Eric’s face as he opened the door and stepped out. Blaine rolled his eyes at his partner’s enthusiasm, even if it was nice to see a genuine smile on his face. It reminded him just how much Eric’s dark eyes could light up, and how warm they could glow when he was content with the world.
“The place looks abandoned,” Blaine said doubtfully.
It stood apart from the other buildings on the street. It could have once been a store, but it was officially listed as a private residence. Anthony Wojack had faithfully paid his rent on the place for the past ten years. Eric had run a check on the man, and they would probably have to wait another day or so before everything came back for them to peruse.
Eric stepped up to the door, waiting until Blaine reached him to knock. “Why pay for a place you’re not going to use?”
“A mighty fine question,” Blaine said, waiting for footsteps. “About as fine as the question as to why anyone would stay here and not fix it up a little.”
“This is definitely the place registered for where the Rice Metal was going, Blaine,” Eric said impatiently, hitting the door with the bottom of his fist.
Before Blaine could warn him he was going to break the door, a bang echoed from the other side of the door. Both he and Eric flinched, turning to press themselves against the brick exterior.
“Was that a gunshot?” Eric asked, eyes widening.
“Sure sounded like a gunshot to me,” Blaine admitted.
“Fuck, let’s go,” Eric said, trying the doorknob. “Locked. Of course.”
Which was swiftly remedied when Blaine drove his foot into the doorframe right by the knob. It burst into the building with a shattering crash, shards of wood flying in every direction.
“Jesus partner, a little less Rambo,” Eric muttered.
“Sorry, I thought it was stronger than that,” Blaine whispered.
Eric smirked at him, and for a moment, Blaine thought he saw the man’s eyes dart down toward his legs in appreciation. If it was there, it was gone a moment later as they entered the building, guns raised. The interior wasn’t in any better state than the outside. What might have once been a sales counter lay in hunks of wood and shattered glass. A door, half off its hinges, sat at the back of the room.
Eric nodded, signaling toward the other door, opposite them. Blaine sidled up to the door, while Eric stood at its side and opened it. Blaine swept into the room, twisting to catch the angles as Eric hurried behind him.
“Dining room?” Eric asked softly.
“Must’ve been a store and house in one,” Blaine muttered.
The rest of the floor was in no better state. Dust and dirt were thick on the broken and rotted furniture. Cockroaches darted from the light of their flashlights, and something big and furry had scurried beneath a pile of fabric and broken wood when they’d entered what had once been a living room.
“Got another door,” Eric called.
Blaine frowned, turning to find Eric in the kitchen, staring at the wall. Keeping his gun handy, Blaine took a few steps to the right to see what the man was looking at.
“Only door in here that isn’t a piece of shit,” Blaine noted. “And it’s metal.”
“Well,” Eric said, motioning to the door. “Let’s go see.”
“That a good idea?” Blaine asked, not liking the sight of the door, stark against the dirty interior of the building.
Eric shrugged. “We heard a gunshot, we have to make sure no one’s hurt or you know, dead.”
Blaine nodded, waiting for Eric to open the door. It opened without more than a slight squeak, which unsettled Blaine even further. Taking a deep breath, he stepped onto the stairs. They groaned, but there was no crack, and he didn’t feel it buckle. He descended the stairs with Eric a few steps behind him. The basement opened up immediately to the left, and Blaine shone his flashlight in that direction.
“Well, I’m no expert, but that sure does look like equipment and materials you might need for metalworking,” Eric said as the beam slid over the wall.
There was a workbench in the middle of the room, cluttered with bits of metal and pieces of machinery. Blaine stepped down and saw little pricks of light flashing back at him.
“And I bet that’s our Rice Metal,” Blaine told him.
Eric whistled. “Shit, do we have our arsonist’s little hideout?”
Blaine shrugged. “Could be.”
He took another step and froze as he heard something snap. Eric froze, but Blaine spun toward the noise, hearing it from behind him. His light fell on a small piece of metal attached to the bottom of the stair Eric was standing on. Blaine’s eyes widened at the piece that had moved, looking almost like a mousetrap. Instead of a dead mouse on the end, though, there was a small flame, lit by the flint attached to the device. Blaine caught sight of a hose and snapped his light along its length, gut clenching as it ended at a tank that began humming.
“Fuck, go!” Blaine barked, charging up the stairs.
He had a head start over Eric and slammed into him, wrapping his arms around the younger man without a second thought. Eric swore in his ear but clutched tight to him as Blaine barreled up the stairs and into the kitchen. The door directly across from the basement’s entrance led into the backyard, and he slammed his foot into it.
Sunlight streamed in steadily as the door flew off, and Blaine stepped out onto the porch.
“Blaine!”
Whatever Eric was going to say was lost as Blaine felt himself lifted up off his feet. Something hard slammed into his back, radiating agony through his body as he flew through the air. Instinct had him curl Eric against him, shielding him as they tumbled, slamming into the ground. Blaine stayed wrapped protectively around the other man, even as Eric pushed at him, finally managing to free himself.
The ringing in his ears was loud, but Blaine knew from personal experience that it would eventually pass. He opened his mouth to tell Eric and stopped as another jolt of agony ripped a groan out of him. His body went taut as he flopped onto his back, refusing to move further.
Blaine gazed up at the house, blinking as a cloud of black smoke billowed up into the air. Flames licked out of shattered windows on the main floor, incinerating everything. The metal door from the basement lay a few feet away, at the base of the porch steps.
“Oh,” he said, unable to hear the dull shock in his voice.
That explained the pain.
Eric’s huge dark eyes came into view, shining with what Blaine thought were unshed tears. He couldn’t hear what the man was saying, but he could see his lips moving frantically. Blaine tried to chuckle, to tell him it would be alright, but the attempt only led to another wave of pain down his back and up into his head.
Darkness crept into the edges of his vision, which he was kind of okay with since it felt like someone had set a bomb off in his head. But it kind of wasn’t okay either because Eric was holding his hand and he looked so upset. Blaine knew he was upset at him, for him, but his lungs wouldn’t let him find the strength to tell him it would be okay.
He loved Eric, and he wasn’t going to leave him again, not like this. They were going to be okay, he just had to find the words, the ones that would unlock Eric’s heart again. Maybe he could do it once he’d had a little bit of rest. A nap sounded really good.
Blaine hoped his smile was enough for Eric as the shadows crept in, blocking everything but the narrowest view of Eric’s face. He thought it was the best sight he could see before drifting off and hoped he’d get to see it again when he woke up.
Eric
The beeping of the machines plugged into Blaine was the only sound in the room. The hospital halls were quiet, even the sounds of people walking outside didn’t penetrate the walls. Eric sat in the only chair in the room, between the wall and one side of the bed.
“You dumb shit,” he muttered, reaching out to lay a hand on the bed.
Blaine had been lucky, and Eric would admit, smart. The door had blocked most of the fire, heated enough to cause mostly third-degree burns. The impact had been enough to bruise and batter the hell out of him, though, as well as break a few ribs. The doctor had sworn up and down Blaine would be okay, telling him Blaine was young and in shape, and his injuries weren’t that bad. Eric let the man talk, trying not to think too hard about the fact that Blaine had been unconscious since they’d got him into the ER, and that had been almost a full day before.
“Going to have even more scars,” Eric told him, eyeing the bandages on Blaine’s arm.
Blaine was unconscious and safe from anything that might come spilling out of Eric’s mouth if the man were awake. He didn’t know the exact details of the healing process, but Eric was pretty sure that being yelled at by your worried sick partner didn’t do much good. It was probably better that Blaine stayed unconscious for as long as it took for Eric to get himself under control.
Better, but not better.
“Jesus, Blaine,” he muttered, adjusting the sheet over the man for the hundredth time.
He couldn’t bring himself to touch Blaine yet, though he ached to do so. Blaine had risked his life to save Eric’s and had done so without a second thought. He told himself that it was what any partner would have done, especially one who had faced and conquered death numerous times while fighting someone else’s war. He also told himself that the fear he’d seen in Blaine’s face hadn’t been for himself, but for Eric.
“What am I going to do with you? Did you really think saving my ass was going to make everything okay?” Eric asked, voice tight. “Because that’s not going to work, you hear me? No, of course, you don’t hear me, you’re so fucking drugged up right now. Asshole.”
Brain damage. Possible brain damage. That was what he’d heard the nurses murmuring about outside the room earlier, where they thought Eric couldn’t hear them. The words had ripped through Eric’s chest and threatened to unravel him. Instead, he’d bitten down on his terror, shoving it deep and planted himself in the chair beside Blaine’s bed. That was where he’d sat for hours, refusing to move.
If Blaine woke up, Eric wanted to be the first person that he’d see. Maybe it was so he could feel relief, but it could be because he wanted to tell the man off when he was cognizant enough to understand.
“Stupid,” he muttered. “Stupid, stupid man.”
“Talking to yourself, that’s not a good sign,” a soft voice told him.
Eric’s head jerked up. “Sean?”
His brother stood just inside the door, features drawn and worried. A small box was under one arm, and his eyes darted erratically around the room.
“Chief Morgan called me, told me what happened,” Sean explained.
“Fuck,” Eric muttered, sagging against the bed.
“Nurse outside told me good things, though,” Sean said.
Eric shook his head. “That’s because they want us to believe. His brother’s supposed to be here in the morning. They’ll tell him the truth, keep the rest of us clinging to some hope that might not be true.”
“Eric,” Sean said softly as he approached.
“It’s true, and you know it.”
“No, you’re scared, and that’s what you’re telling yourself.”
“Yeah, scare myself more than I already am, sounds like my normal kind of plan.”
“No, you tell yourself the worst is going to happen so that you’re not disappointed when something doesn’t work out. Break your own heart before someone else can do it.”
That sounded about right, but Eric said nothing, staring at his hands clasped in front of him on Blaine’s bed. Sean’s arm wound its way around his shoulders, pulling him close. Eric leaned into the touch, allowing his big brother’s warmth and the smell of his leather jacket to surround him.
“That’s new,” Eric murmured.
“What? Oh, the jacket. Yeah. You know me.”
“You go through them so fast,” Eric muttered. “Fall off your bike again?”
“Uh, no?”
“Liar.”
Sean Andreas, mild-mannered, calm, easygoing, a shoulder to cry on, full of sage advice, and a total adrenaline junkie. Eric found himself wondering just how many of Sean’s patients knew about their therapist’s need to feel alive through dangerous acts. If it wasn’t skydiving or base jumping, it was driving that death trap of a motorcycle around the city.
“He’s going to wake up,” Sean assured him.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because he’s a stubborn son of a bitch, and I also listen to the medical experts who tell me he’ll be fine.”
Eric wanted to believe it, he really did. But it was impossible to change half a lifetime’s worth of habit, and those habits told him that he shouldn’t get too hopeful.
Eric looked at him. “What’s with the box?”
Sean stiffened beside him, pulling away jerkily. “It’s uh...for you.”
Eric stared up at his brother, frowning at the shifty expression on his face. If Eric didn’t know any better, he would say Sean was afraid. The closest he’d ever been to seeing his brother so scared was shortly after their parents had died, and Sean had taken custody of him. Eric had gone for a walk in the middle of the night without a word and had been gone for hours. He’d retu
rned to the house to the sight of cop cruisers in the driveway, and his brother’s stricken expression when he caught sight of Eric.
Eric had gone for walks after that, but he always made sure to tell Sean first.
“What?” Eric asked, the whisper of unease growing louder at the new look of guilt on Sean’s face.
Sean pulled the box out from under his arm, holding it before him gently. “It’s...why Blaine was trying to get a hold of me. I’m not completely sure why he knew that I was...are you two...?”
Eric frowned, glancing between his brother and Blaine. “Are we...what?”
Sean sighed. “Becoming more than just partners?”
Shock rippled through Eric, adding to his worry over his brother’s behavior. “Jesus, Sean, seriously?”
“I thought it when I saw how he was still looking at you, and how...pissed you were about it. And then he contacted me about...well, I guess I have my answer,” Sean said softly.
“No, you don’t. There’s nothing...we haven’t talked...I don’t…”
Shit, Eric didn’t know what the hell he and Blaine were. There was obviously something there, but he didn’t have a name for it. All he wanted was for Blaine to wake up, give Eric that crooked smile of his, equipped with that infuriatingly knowing twinkle in his eyes as he did so. Sure, Eric would curse him up and down for scaring the shit out of him, but it was so much better than staring at the man’s unconscious body and wondering what could be.
“You don’t know.”
Eric stilled, looking down at his hands again. “No, I don’t.”
Sean took a deep breath, shaky on the exhale. “Maybe deep down, I knew something like this might happen again, or suspected it could. Maybe that’s why I’ve held onto this for so long.”
Eric looked up, staring at the box as Sean held it out. “What is it?”
Sean smiled sadly. “Take it, open it.”
Eric did so, finding the small box to be heavier than he thought it would be. There was a small clasp on the front that flipped up easily. The smell of paper and wood filled his nostrils as he opened the lid. Inside were dozens of envelopes, all sealed, and all of them addressed to Eric.
Unbreak My Heart (Heroes of Port Dale Book 4) Page 11
