Steel: (#5 The Beat and the Pulse)

by Amity Cross

  Thundering along the concrete, I caught sight of movement ahead. Weaving through the row, I almost died when I saw a flash of red hair. Wild, fiery locks that I would recognize anywhere. Sparks.

  Skidding to a halt, my heart leapt into my throat, and I froze. I just froze like that scared boy who held a gun on his own father. It was Holly, but it was my mum.

  Sparks’s gaze met mine, and she thrashed violently against Archer.

  Holly, Holly, Holly… SPARKS.

  Don’t you move, boy.

  The sound of my father’s voice haunting me from beyond the grave snapped me out of my daze, and I shot forward. If I didn’t move now, what would happen to Sparks? Something more terrible than a bullet, that’s for sure. I could save her.

  I grabbed Archer’s shoulders, wrenching him off her, and she fell to the ground, but I couldn’t let him go. Not yet.

  Turning his pathetic ass around, I punched him square in the face, and his head snapped back, blood erupting from his nose.

  “No!” he roared, lost in his own rage.

  Like the fucking idiot he was, he lunged for me, but he probably didn’t know he was going up against a cage fighter, retired but still used to fighting guys ten times his size. I sidestepped his pathetic attempt at a punch and fisted my hand into his hair. I slammed his head against the boot of the car, the sound of his skull connecting with metal echoing through the parking garage. He flopped like a rag doll, sliding to the concrete in a heap.

  Dead to the fucking world.

  Assholes like him preyed on the weak to disguise their own pathetic asses. I should do the world a favor and cave his skull in on the concrete. He was dragging Sparks off into his car. He was going to—

  “Josh!”

  I stumbled as Sparks leapt into my arms, her sobs a mixture of terror and relief as she held onto me for dear life. I should do the world a favor and cave his skull in on the concrete.

  “I’ve got you,” I murmured, “I’ve got you.”

  29

  Holly

  Everything that happened after that was a blur of color and noise.

  I clutched Josh like he was my lifeline as shock set in. It had been such a close call. If he’d been a minute later, then…

  “Holly?”

  I blinked hard and Charlie’s face came into focus. I was sitting on a gurney in an exam room inside the hospital. How had I gotten here?

  I nodded, tightening my grip on Josh’s T-shirt. He was beside me where he’d been since he’d beaten Archer’s face in.

  “We’ll need to take a statement,” Charlie said. “Not straight away. When you’re ready. Your friend Dr. Gunner is here to check you out.”

  Glancing out the window at the assembled people in the hallway, I caught sight of Gunner talking with the Chief of Surgery. Uniformed police lingered in the hall along with a man I recognized as the other detective who came to talk to Josh all that time ago. There were several other suits lingering, and I pegged them to be members of the board of St. Vincent’s. Talk about an epic scandal for the hospital. One of their top surgeons turning out to be a rapist and suspected murderer.

  To think Archer had done this to other women before me made me feel sick.

  “You okay?” Josh asked.

  I nodded, taking deep breaths.

  Charlie laid her hand on my knee and smiled. “I’ll let Dr. Gunner know you’re ready. Josh?”

  He went to slide off the gurney to follow her out of the room, but I tightened my grip on him.

  “It’s okay, Sparks,” he murmured in my ear. “I’ll be just outside the door.”

  Reluctantly, I let him go, and Gunner appeared. I watched Josh linger outside the window, his brow creased as he started talking with Charlie. Giving his statement no doubt. He glanced up and caught my gaze, his lips curving into a smile.

  Gunner swept the curtain closed, hiding us from Josh and the people assembled outside. Turning toward me, she looked pale and about as sick as I felt.

  “Fuck, Blue,” she said, shaking her head. “I pushed you toward him.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I said, realizing I was still trembling as the shock of what happened wore off. “It was nobody’s fault. He fooled us all.”

  She grimaced and stepped forward to examine me. She poked and prodded, making notes for the police report, but there wasn’t much to say. Josh had caught him before he could do much, so most of the wounds were going to be mental.

  The Chief came in after Gunner left and offered his support and the full backing of the hospital. Time, counseling, the whole nine yards. I allowed him to speak, the night blending into one long blur of sound that hardly made any sense. I knew it was standard procedure in an event like this, but it was a different kettle of fish being on the receiving end.

  Once everyone was gone, Josh slid back into the room, reclaiming his place beside me.

  “Can we go yet?” I asked.

  “The whole place is in chaos,” he replied. “Someone tipped off the media, so they’re camped outside. Your boss said to wait a little while until he can clear them out.”

  “Good.” Last thing I wanted was a camera shoved in my face only hours after I was almost murdered by my coworker. It wasn’t the front-page news I’d envisioned earlier, but it was a sight better.

  “Sparks—”

  “I sent you a text,” I said, worrying the hem of my jumper.

  “Did you?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “Don’t read it,” I pleaded. “I thought that might’ve been why you came.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  I glanced up at him, hopeful that he came because he might’ve wanted to apologize and patch things up.

  “I don’t know why I came,” he murmured, watching Charlie and Detective Frommer talking to the Chief through the window. “I just… I ended up here.”

  “Oh…” It was just another item on a long list of crap things that had happened today. He’d saved me, but had it changed anything?

  “I never told you the entire truth,” he said. “Even when you thought you were getting the whole story.”

  “Josh, I—”

  “Don’t make excuses for me, Sparks,” he said. “I’ve been an asshole from the beginning. Even when you told me about your ex, I still didn’t let you in. Even after you pretty much told me you were falling in love with me.”

  He was right, but after he’d let slip that he’d seen his father murder his mother, I didn’t hold it against him. Grief affected people in different ways. Mine paled in comparison to his.

  “But—”

  “Just listen, and then you can make your decision,” he interrupted.

  I nodded, curling my arms around my stomach. “Okay.”

  He cast his gaze away and swallowed hard. Then he began.

  * * *

  He told me everything while we sat in that room, our shoulders touching as our feet dangled over the side of the gurney.

  He told me about the night his father killed his mother in cold blood. How he’d come home and seen the gun pointed at her head…how he’d been too late to stop him from murdering her.

  He told me about how he’d fought his father and how he got the gun from him.

  Then he told me about how he shot his father to save himself.

  I couldn’t fathom how Josh had carried around a burden like that and not confided in anyone. To see his own father murder the one person who believed in him, then take the same gun and kill the man in self-defense. He believed he wasn’t strong enough to save her, and that had shaped his life. He didn’t think he was good enough for anything but violence. He thought he wasn’t good enough for me despite all those times I told him he was.

  “Josh,” I murmured, not knowing the right words to convey all the things I was feeling in the wake of my ordeal with Archer.

  Josh stiffened next to me on the gurney, his hands tightening around the edge of the mattress.

  “It’s haunted me my entire life,” he said
after a moment.

  “That’s why you fight?” I asked, my eyes wide.

  “It’s why I fought.” He shook his head. “I wasn’t strong enough to save her, so that’s why I trained. That’s why I fought.”

  “You are strong enough,” I murmured, reaching for his hand. “You were strong enough to save me, Josh. If that’s a kind of redemption, I don’t know, but I’m glad for it.”

  “I shot him,” he said, distraught. He was still waiting for the moment I’d get up and leave him, but that was never going to happen. Not if I could help it.

  “It was self-defense,” I declared. “You did what you had to do to stop him.”

  “How can you say that?” His eyes sparkled with tears, and it was strange to see a hulking man like Josh so emotional. He’d always been so closed, but now, everything he was spilled out without anything to stop it.

  “Come here,” I murmured. He stood and positioned himself before me. Staring into his emerald eyes, I said the words I should have said the night we fought outside The Underground. “I love you, Josh Caplin. For better or worse.”

  Fisting my hands into the front of his T-shirt, I pulled him close and kissed him, my lips firm on his. When he managed to tear himself away, he sighed, looking as tired as I felt.

  “I love you, Sparks,” he said out of nowhere. “I know I’ve got nothing to offer a woman like you, but I’ll figure something out.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. “You have everything I need just by being you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” I said firmly. “Money, career… Those things don’t matter at the end of the day. I’m a surgeon because I like it, not because of the accolades. I want you for you, Josh Caplin. Thick head and all.”

  A knock at the door interrupted us, and the Chief stuck his head into the room.

  “You’re good to go, Holly,” he said. “The vultures have gone.”

  “Let’s get you home,” Josh said, tugging me to my feet.

  I melted against his side as he guided me from the hospital, my head down as we emerged out the west entrance. It was the same place in the car park where Archer had snatched me, and I screwed my eyes shut, letting Josh lead me to safety.

  There was a click as his car unlocked, and then the sound of the door opening. Opening my eyes, I slid into the passenger seat, reluctant to let him go for even a second lest Archer rise from the dead and try to drag me under again. That’s what happened in all those horror movies, right? The bad guy was defeated and everyone relaxed…then he came back for one last shot at the hero of the story.

  But this wasn’t a horror flick, it was real life, and Archer had been taken away in handcuffs to the nearest cell. He wasn’t coming back.

  “Hey,” I murmured as Josh clipped the seat belt around me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” he replied, kneeling beside me.

  “I don’t really want to be alone in that big apartment anymore.”

  He nodded. “He’s in the slammer, Sparks. He can’t get you.”

  “I know,” I replied. “It’s just my roundabout way of asking you to move in with me. You’re there most of the time, anyway. I have an empty car space I don’t use. The security guard knows you, and you know the passcode to get into the building. I don’t have enough shit to fill up the place. That bed is so big, and the shower… I like you in my shower. It makes sense.”

  His eyebrow quirked. “Did you just diagnose your way into convincing me to move in with you?”

  “Yeah?”

  He seemed to think about it for a moment while he stood and closed my car door. When he slid into the driver’s seat, he asked, ”How much is rent on a place like that?”

  “I’ve got it,” I replied. “I pay for it, anyway.”

  “Sparks.”

  “Oh, sorry, am I emasculating you?”

  He laughed, and it was a blissful sound after the night we’d just had. Terrible fear followed by a dizzying high powered by love.

  “I’ll cut you a deal,” he declared, bringing the car to life.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Once I get a job, which doesn’t involve The Underground, we split everything fifty-fifty. It’s the only way I’ll do it. I don’t want a free ride.”

  “Is it that important to you?” I asked, watching him as he reversed the car out of the space.

  “I want to look after you, Sparks. In every way I can.”

  Smiling for the first time in what felt like forever, I said, “Then, I agree.”

  “Thank fuck.”

  “Hey,” I said as we drove through the city toward home. “Have you ever thought about becoming a police officer? Or a firefighter? Or a paramedic? You have emergency services written all over you.”

  “You reckon?” he asked. “Charlie said the same thing.”

  “Did she?” I mused, my eyes beginning to droop, the smooth rhythm of the car beginning to lull me to sleep.

  “A cop, huh?” he murmured, but I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or just voicing his thoughts.

  “Yeah,” I muttered as sleep took me. “You should do it.”

  It might’ve been a dream, or it might’ve been the last thing I heard as I fell asleep, but I was pretty sure he said, I think I just might.

  30

  Josh

  One year later…

  Things had really gone through the wringer after the night I saved Sparks. A lot of changes happened in both our lives, some for the worse but more for the better.

  I never went back to The Underground, but I was still a regular at Pulse.

  Holly was still an orthopedic surgeon at St. Vincent’s but had a much better handle on her working hours than when we first met.

  And we never heard from Archer again.

  He was charged with her attempted kidnapping, and during Charlie and Frommer’s investigation, it was found he’d had three other victims, none of which were as lucky as Sparks. Dr. Desmond Archer was put away for a combined sentence of forty years without parole. His whole life was still being pulled apart, his time as a surgeon scrutinized to make sure there was no evidence of malpractice. Anyway, it was the end of the line for the guy. He’d never be free again.

  It took Sparks a little while to readjust to working at the hospital after Archer was thrown in the slammer. Dark corners worried her for a bit, but I helped her work through it, and therapy really had things happening for her.

  The other thing that had happened to me was I finally found the place I belonged.

  Leaning against the nurses’ station as I waited for Sparks to finish her shift, I blew a kiss at Nurse Judy, who just raised her eyebrow.

  “Good to see you’re finally making something of yourself,” she drawled, looking me up and down.

  Glancing down at my uniform, I had to agree with her, which was a first.

  “Constable Caplin.”

  I turned at the sound of Sparks’s voice and smiled. “What’s up, Sarge?”

  “I like your ass in that uniform,” she declared, making Nurse Judy groan out loud.

  Laughing, I slung my arm around Sparks’s waist and tugged her close.

  “I’ve got an hour before I have to get back to it,” I said, kissing her neck.

  “It sucks when you work nights,” she complained.

  “Tell me about it. Mopping up drunken dickheads out the front of nightclubs on a Saturday night isn’t my favorite thing to do.”

  “It isn’t?” she asked, taking the piss.

  “You’re lucky I love you, Sparks.” I planted a kiss on her lips. “The beat isn’t forever. One day, I’ll be a badass member of the Special Ops team. You’ll see.”

  “You’ve already got the cop slang down pat, so I reckon you’re well on your way.”

  Year one as a rookie was already down, but I still had another year of on-the-job-training before I was a fully-fledged member of the Victorian Police. My back had improved a great deal and hadn’
t hindered my application at all, though I still had to be mindful of it. Now it was onward and upward. It helped that I was blitzing all the training and exams…with a little study help from the experts. Sparks, with her fancy flashcard system she used to power through Columbia, and Charlie, with her years of experience in the force.

  I took Sparks to our favorite Chinese restaurant in the city. It was a block from the station and a short tram ride home for her. Her independence and fearlessness had returned brighter than before, and I frequently took a moment to marvel at her strength. Sometimes, Sparks wasn’t the right word to describe the woman I loved. She was more like an explosion or a supernova. Something that encompassed the entire universe.

  Holly Walsh was the Big Bang.

  “I went to see my mum today,” I said, sitting across from her at our usual table by the window.

  “Yeah?” She tilted her head to the side as the city bustled on the other side of the glass a mere inch away.

  “The first time since her funeral.”

  Knowing it was a really big step for me to drag my ass out to Fawkner Cemetery, she beamed, hooking her ankle around mine underneath the table. “I’m glad.”

  All that time I’d spent fighting at The Underground I believed it was some kind of penance for not being able to save mum from my father. In reality, I’d just been punishing myself needlessly for something that had always been out of my control. I was just a kid, too young to understand even though society told me I was an adult.

  After the night I told Sparks everything, the night of her assault, I’d gone over everything that led up to my mum’s murder, and it was all circumstance. No matter what changed, I still wouldn’t have been in time to save her. The outcome would still be the same. I had to come to terms with that, and saving Sparks had made me realize it. It was just really shitty it took that for it to sink through my thick skull.

  At the end of it all, I couldn’t change the past or fix everything that was out of my control, but what I could do was make a better future. With Sparks by my side, we would be unstoppable.