“Shit. Kalama? Suarez said something, but…”
She nodded. God. They hadn’t won tonight. They hadn’t won. There would be no winning. She looked at his hands on her. Covered in Vincent’s blood. He had been too busy to worry about Kalama because Vincent had been hurt.
“Okay. Tell me-”
“James is dead.”
31
Zander
Zander was waiting for them to get back when he got the text from Jasper. Vincent was coming in with an injury. Case closed, but bad news.
Bad news.
“Well if Vincent is injured, I expect there’s going to be some bad news,” he mumbled to himself. He left Quinn and Elijah in the room, knowing they would be okay. He wanted to be at the main entrance to hear this bad news. And see Vincent. He couldn’t help, not burned out from helping Elijah, but he needed to see. Another brother hurt. God, this entire thing had been a fucking mess.
Case closed meant it was at least over.
The entire day, he’d been out of the loop. It didn’t help that he slept most of the day. It also didn’t help that once Vincent, Jasper, and Sawyer left for the WMC building, no updates came. From anyone.
He saw their rental pull up and waited.
He tried not to think about how Sombra’s attitude had been so low when he walked out of the room. He tried not to think about it because the first thing he noticed about his friends was the hollow looks in their eyes.
Sawyer’s was the worst. Not cold or emotionless. Hollow.
Jasper looked at him and he saw the Golden boy’s shoulders jerk from something.
“Bad news?” he asked softly. “Where’s Vincent?”
“He’ll be coming in on an ambulance. Gut stab wound,” Jasper said quietly. “I can’t…”
It was Sawyer, in a tone that matched the hollowness of her eyes, that said something. “James is dead.”
Then she stepped around him and kept walking inside.
Zander felt everything fall apart as Jasper reached for him. He leaned into his oldest friend as the tears came. As the shock broke him.
Men didn’t cry?
Fuck that. He bawled.
James.
The man who had given them a chance.
The man who had put up with their shit.
The man that genuinely cared for them, even as they made his life hard.
He had done everything in his power to take Zander and Jasper out of the IMAS. He’d let them go with Vincent, a new enigmatic friend, someone they weren’t sure of. But James was there for them, every step of the way, even from a distance.
He’d been constant. They knew they would end a case and he would be there. He would ask how they were, the youngest team in the IMPO. The team no one liked.
He couldn’t be gone.
“No…” he groaned. “No.”
“Kalama…” Jasper took a deep breath, albeit a shaky one, one choked by emotion and tears. They just stood there, holding each other. “Kalama got him, but he got her back. Only a few soldiers went down, but casualties are surprisingly low thanks to him.”
Zander kept his eyes closed, his face pressed into his oldest friend’s shoulder as the tears came back. His shoulders shook hard. His knees were weak.
He felt like they had failed.
Case closed. At a cost.
A cost that was too fucking high.
“Let’s get inside,” Jasper said, raspy and tired. “Please.”
He nodded, pulling away. They weren’t done yet. Vincent was coming in on an ambulance. God, Sawyer was probably already up there telling Quinn and Elijah.
They were nearly at the hospital’s elevator when the ground underneath them rolled like a small earthquake.
Oh yeah, she had just told them.
They made it into the room to see her sitting on the edge of Elijah’s bed, Quinn on his knees in front of her, his arms wrapped around her waist. His shoulders were shaking roughly as well. Elijah looked lost as Zander walked to him, trying to hold it together as he sat on the other side. Jasper huddled in as well.
“I…” Elijah’s eyes were unfocused. God, he was still drugged up and getting the news.
Zander reached for him, grabbing his hand. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, pushing a little more magic than he should to make Elijah go to sleep. The last time he’d pulled that trick had been Jasper during their fight with Axel, to stop shock. He tried to convince himself it was for the same reason here. Elijah couldn’t process any of this while doped up on painkillers. He needed to be sober.
They sat in silence, all past the tears after a moment. He had a feeling they would come back soon, but for a moment, they were all just hollow.
“When are we getting word on Vincent?” Quinn asked softly.
That brought the flood of tears back to Zander’s eyes. James normally would do that sort of moving around and questioning when he was around.
Jasper just stood up and walked out, the door closing behind him too quietly.
Zander stared at the wall, leaning back to have physical contact with anyone. It was the unconscious cowboy, but that didn’t matter. Sawyer was leaning forward, hunched on Quinn, still wrapped around her waist on his knees like he was a boy who needed someone.
It’s about how Zander felt. Like a boy who just lost an older brother.
He’d always been there for them. They had never faced a day without him. They never saw a mission or a case without talking to him.
He dropped everything, no matter what, for them. Through frustration and anger, he trusted them. He gave them a chance. He brought them together, helping Vincent build this team, and then he backed them up.
Zander felt like a boy who lost everything. He felt small. And the tears wouldn’t leave his eyes. They wouldn’t spill over again. They just stayed there, overwhelming him.
“He’s with healers,” Jasper said quietly, sitting back down next to him. “Shouldn’t be more than an hour.”
They waited. No one came to see them. No one called their phones. They didn’t turn on the television to check the news. He had a feeling, a far-away feeling, that they had done it. That his team had pulled it out. Not that he was the most helpful.
God.
He could have healed James. He should have gone with them to Dina. He should have offered to protect her with James. Instead, he sat in the fucking hospital, recovering from healing Elijah like a bitch.
He leaned over, sick to his stomach.
When they brought Vincent in, he jumped at the sudden commotion outside their door.
“I’m fucking walking in there!” Vincent yelled. “Let me out of this bed.”
Really? This was when Vincent got stubborn?
He stood up and went to the door, opening it. He knew the rest of the team, those awake, were watching him.
“I’ll help him to a seat,” he told the nurses who were trying to hold him to the bed.
“We shouldn’t have let him wake up. The healers say he’ll be fine, but bruised but…” The non-Magi nursed looked like she didn’t quite believe it.
“After a century of us working in these hospitals, you non-Magi still have a hard time believing in magic healing. Yeah, I get it. He’ll be fine if they say he will be.”
“Thank you,” Vincent said, swinging his legs off the bed.
Zander didn’t miss the wince. “Bruising,” he reminded the Italian. “You still need to be somewhat easy on yourself.”
Healer mode. It was easy to hide the grief in healer mode.
He helped Vin walk in and got him to sit on Sawyer’s neglected bed. It took Vin all of ten seconds to realize something was wrong, very wrong.
“Guys? We closed the case right? Sawyer, you got Naseem?”
“I did,” she whispered.
“Amazing. Um…” He frowned at her and the hollow response. Zander saw his eyes fall to Quinn on his knees, unmoving, arms locked around her waist like it was the only thing he had. He went to the animals as his raven h
opped up to him and bumped his little head on his Magi’s shoulder. “Kaar?” His eyes flew up to Zander’s face. “What. Happened?”
“James is dead.”
God, there was no easy way to say it.
Zander watched him crumple over in shock. He touched his back, the tears in his eyes refusing to break over and fall again, but also refusing to stay gone. They just taunted him. Constantly.
Vincent’s tears were quiet. He just rubbed his friend’s back.
James had brought them together.
And now they were in a world without him.
Quinn removed himself from Sawyer slowly and it looked like a statue was coming to life. Zander watched him stand and walk over. He pulled Vincent up and into a bone crushing hug.
Sawyer was next, not touching anyone, she just lay down on the extra bed and curled into a tight ball, her hands over her head.
Zander knew she had faced loss before. He could tell she wasn’t coping.
He went back to Elijah’s bed and found a way to lie down next to the cowboy. He needed to be there when he woke up. He was the healer. He had to be there for the injured. He would focus on that.
“What are you doing?” Quinn’s soft voice broke the silence.
“Getting…calling…” Vincent wasn’t able to speak, to finish a sentence.
“No. No, you must rest.”
“I need-”
“Vincent, please,” Quinn whispered.
“I need to talk to Thompson!” Vincent roared, startling everyone except Sawyer. No one said anything as Vincent pulled out his phone and dialed. No one tried to stop him. “Thompson. Do you need…anything? Is there anything I can do right now?” A pause. “Yes, I’ve been fucking told. I need…I need something to do. Please. Please give me something to do. I can’t…” Vincent was obviously holding back tears as he spoke. “What…” Vincent put the phone on speaker. Zander could suddenly hear the tired Director.
“Go to his condo and relax. You’re all off the case. The case is over. Plan to stay in New York for a few days, at the least. Now, without a lawyer, I can’t promise this, but I’m nearly positive James named you, Vincent, in his will to take over his condo anyway. Stay there. I know Elijah is injured, but I’m sure he’ll be fine in a wheelchair there. Get out of the hospital and go somewhere private and grieve. All of you, since I’m now on speaker phone.”
Director Thompson was tired but clear. Forceful even. Zander was angry at it. His condo? The last small gift James had given them? A place to stay that was more like a home than a blank room?
He didn’t know if he could handle that.
“Come dawn, I want you all out of that hospital. Is that clear?”
“Is that an order?” Vincent asked, looking over the team, full of despair. Zander had to look away.
“Yes. Godspeed…and I’m sorry.”
“He’s grieving too,” Jasper mumbled. “James used to be his teammate. He doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with us.”
“Let’s…” Vincent ran a hand through his hair and turned away from them. “Fuck. At dawn, we leave for the condo.”
And that was that. All they could do. Sit in silence and grieve, then go to the fucking condo.
32
Sawyer
Sawyer didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to be in New York. She didn’t want to be in the same room as anyone. She didn’t want to be in his fucking condo, staring at a picture on the kitchen counter.
She jumped when someone touched her. She spun, nearly thinking it was someone to kill her and saw Jasper and those broken stormy eyes.
“Why don’t we try to eat?” he asked carefully, rubbing his hand over her back. She swallowed, her stomach doing flips. She could only shake her head in response. “How about you sit with everyone on the couch then. I’m going to make something and we can all get to it as we want it.”
How could he be like this? How could he find a way to keep walking forward at this exact moment?
She put her mind to that instead of her location. It was a good distraction, because all she could think now was fuck December. Fuck this month and its holidays. Fuck the cheer and goodness. Fuck all of it.
First Henry, whom she’d loved with everything she had in her. A boy who had never seen the darkness and just loved her back.
Now James, who had touched her with the way he cared for her men. A man who saw the darkness, had been affected by it, and gave her a chance anyway. And let her love five wonderful men who were all going to be hurt by his loss.
Fucking December.
“Stop being so…” She tried to find the word. Nice?
No, Jasper wasn’t being nice; he was just continuing to move forward. Good for him. He was just trying to be there for them.
She was angry at it, though.
“Go sit down, Sawyer,” he whispered, running a hand over her cheek. “And let someone look at those cuts.”
“They’re just cuts,” she snapped. They stung, but they weren’t deep. She would clean them eventually, but at that moment, the pain made her feel more alive than anything else. It was the only thing that wasn’t somewhat numb, the only thing that kept her sane, in a sense.
Jasper’s patience with her was still not done. “Come on. Let’s get you on the couch.”
So perfect. So normal. Such a good man.
She would rather he blame her, get upset, something. He’d broken down on the way to the hospital, as she made the drive somehow. She looked at his hands. They still had Vincent’s blood on them.
It dawned on her then.
He was taking care of them because it was all he could do. Her Golden Boy. Her normal, loving man. Her sweetheart.
“I’ll sit if you wash up,” she mumbled, looking away.
“Oh. Of course.” He turned on the kitchen sink as she walked out and fell on the couch. Vincent was next to her on one side, and Zander on the other. Quinn had taken Elijah to James’ master bedroom for sleep. While it was fucking morbid, they didn’t know what else to do. Get a hotel?
She heard the sink turn off, then the fridge open. Cupboards and dishes. Jasper was focusing on an easy task. Making food.
She couldn’t handle the quiet anymore, grabbing the remote. Taking a deep breath, hoping to steady herself, she turned on the television.
The news was on, first thing. One of those twenty-four hour channels, where people could get a constant stream of ‘the world is fucking shitty,’ whenever they wanted it.
The anchors talked about Suarez and the assassins. They talked a lot about the fire at the safe house. She teared up when they talked about James, a hero.
A fucking hero.
Why couldn’t people ever be heroes when they were alive? Why wasn’t that a thing? Why did he have to be dead to be a hero?
Fucking Dina was doing a live interview, describing how James had bought her and her nephews time to run. How if he had failed, the assassin would have come after her nephews and her, and she didn’t want to lose them. She was eternally grateful to the man and even said she would do anything in her power to honor him.
Sawyer’s gaze at the screen was only broken by Jasper placing a plate on the coffee table. Zander was now snoring next to her, worn out from his grief. Vincent was staring at the screen with an intensity she didn’t understand. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. There was something she had to tell him, but it escaped her. When she remembered, she would make sure to get it to him.
Already, in a way that felt too soon, too early, she was coming back to herself. She still felt hollow and cold, but her mind was picking up speed again.
Then Thompson came on, and so did pictures of her team.
“Guys,” she whispered. “It’s us.”
Vincent nodded slowly. Jasper turned his back to her, looking at the screen.
She didn’t catch the details. Her mind was working, but it wasn’t that fast. She caught the big points. Heroes. Best of the IMPO.
“Turn it off,” Vincen
t demanded, glaring at the screen. She did, without debate or arguing. “Tomorrow, I’m going to go see my brother.”
She had no response to that. She wasn’t sure what to ask, or even if she wanted more information.
Jasper turned back to them, though. “Why?”
“I couldn’t say goodbye,” he mumbled.
Her heart cracked and the hollowness was replaced with a pain that she wasn’t ready for. Goodbyes. No one ever got to say goodbye.
“And I think he knows something. So it’s a double visit.” Vincent stood up and left the living room, going onto the patio and staring out over the city. She watched him light a cigarette and couldn’t blame him for that. This was a time where even she resisted the urge to steal one and feel it wash away some of the anxiety.
“Fuck,” she moaned, rubbing her face. She had to tell him about what Naseem said. She jumped up and grabbed one of the small sandwiches Jasper made. He smiled gently at her as she passed him. She didn’t take a bite of the sandwich, but she had at least thought to grab one. That would appease him. She was trying, at least.
She went onto the patio, touching Vincent’s back with her free hand.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye,” he whispered. “He’s just gone.”
“I know,” she murmured, getting closer. In one second, it felt like an ocean was between them, and the next, they were crushed together, as close as two human beings could get. “I know, Vincent. It hurts. I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t…not say goodbye to Axel,” he continued to say quietly. “I can’t.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t go-”
“I’m going. I’m not letting you go alone. Elijah is basically bedridden; Quinn is taking care of him. Zander needs to sleep and Jasper…”
“It’s how he copes,” Vincent said, sighing. “He’s like me. Needs something to do.”
“Yeah. Speaking of…things to do.” She quickly explained what Naseem had said to her. What her suspicions were. How much she wanted to know who had secretly kicked this off.
“You and I both know the answer.” He pulled away from her. “Sawyer…we both know the answer.”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 130
