Fragile

by Shiloh Walker

  Luke snorted. “Yeah, and I keep worrying I’ll get a knock on my door. I don’t want to bury you, Quinn.”

  “You won’t.” There was an odd edge to his voice, and Luke glanced over, saw a weird light glittering in his brother’s eyes. “Dying’s too easy. I don’t ever get the easy way.”

  “Jeb said a woman got killed.”

  Quinn jerked like somebody had stabbed him with a branding iron. Coming off the ground in one fast move, he crossed the room in long, erratic strides, coming to a stop by the wall, where he braced his hands against it and lowered his head. “Don’t, Luke. I—I can’t . . .” His voice broke.

  Grief swamped him, all but broke him. Luke could feel it radiating off his twin, could feel the echo of it swarming through him as he slowly stood. Quinn edged away as he heard Luke coming, spun around, and gave him a wild-eyed stare.

  “Leave it alone, damn it,” he snarled. “Get the hell away from me.”

  Luke shook his head. “You know I can’t. You want to get mad, go ahead. But I’m not leaving.”

  Quinn abruptly sagged to his knees. Luke settled down beside him, and as Quinn started to cry, Luke slid an arm around his twin’s shoulders, felt the sting of tears burn his own eyes.

  For the longest time, there was no sound but Quinn’s low, harsh sobs. Then they faded away to erratic, unsteady breaths . . . and then silence.

  “You find what you’re looking for, Luke? Did you ever find it?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “Even though you ain’t found it yet, you still glad you got out?”

  Luke smiled a little. “I couldn’t find it where I was, Quinn. And yeah, I’m still glad.”

  “Ever figure out what it is?”

  Shrugging, Luke said, “A life, I guess. Some kind of normal life.”

  “No such thing. You and me know that.”

  “Maybe not, but what I have now is closer to normal than what I did have.”

  Quinn sighed, lifted his head. He stared around the empty apartment, and like Luke, his gaze seemed to linger on the bare walls. Slowly, as though it hurt every muscle in his body to do it, he stood up. “Not all of us deserve normal. Not all of us need it. Hell, some of us couldn’t manage normal with a handbook full of instructions.”

  “You don’t want a normal life, Quinn, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Luke said. He started to stand, grimaced as his left leg tried to stiffen up on him.

  Quinn made an odd noise, half-caught between a laugh and a sob. “I don’t know what I want, Luke. Even if it walked in front of me, I probably wouldn’t figure it out until it was too late.”

  He slid Luke a sidelong look. “You’re quicker about that sort of thing than I am. Always have been. When you find what you want, don’t be too late in figuring it out.”

  THREE

  July

  JUNKIE whore.

  Useless little bitch. You’re nothing. White trash.

  Staring at the house, she felt time spin away, and it was like she was the kid hiding in that hellhole, unknowingly waiting for somebody to save her before it was too late. For just a few seconds, she was helpless, scared, and hungry, dying inside, little by little.

  But then she shook it off and jerked herself out of the past.

  One more time, Devon Manning said silently. You can go one more. It was a game she played with herself. How much misery could she heap on herself before she decided she’d had enough?

  I can do this, she told herself. I can do it just one more time. It was the same game she’d played yesterday, last week, last year. Tomorrow, she’d do it again. Just one more time. And again, the day after that, and the day after that; for as long as she could, she’d keep playing the little mental game and putting one foot after the other, one heartbreak after the other.

  Because even though the heartbreaks were massive, often, and gut-wrenching, there were bright moments. Reuniting a kid with his mom after she finally managed to get straight. Placing a foster child with a family he’d love, who would love him, a real family. Seeing some of the teens she looked out for finally figure out there were better things in life than drugs or gangs and watching them find themselves.

  The victories didn’t always outweigh the losses, but they made the losses more bearable.

  Devon had been told, and more than once, she didn’t look old enough or strong enough to be in the profession she’d chosen. At twenty-six, she was certainly old enough, but she often wondered if they weren’t right about the strength part.

  So many nights, she went home feeling empty and useless, convinced nothing she’d done had made a difference, and nothing ever would.

  Then she’d get a call that an adoption for one of her foster kids had finally gone through. Or she’d watch as one of the parents she dealt with worked her way through night school just to make something of herself so she could take better care of her kids.

  Those were the reasons she kept on doing this, and one of those happy things would happen in the end for this one, too. She couldn’t quit. Couldn’t give up.

  I can do this. Just one more time.

  So once more, she stood in front of a squalid, run-down apartment and braced herself for what she might find inside. Physically, Devon didn’t look like much. She was a slender woman, almost too slender, but no matter how much she tried to put on weight, she couldn’t ever do it. Of course, half the time, the crap she saw in her job killed her appetite. She bordered on too skinny, but she didn’t see it changing anytime soon. If she were a little taller, it wouldn’t be so bad. Devon probably would enjoy that sexy, willowy look so many taller, equally slender women managed. But she was barely five feet four, and she looked more like a waif than anything else.

  Her eyes were hazel, set in a pale face that would never tan, her hair a nondescript reddish brown. It was wildly curly, thick, and a pain in the tail to manage. There had been a time when she’d longed for that straight, sleek look that was oh so popular, but unless she wanted to spend an hour or so a day washing, drying, and then flat-ironing out the curls, it wasn’t going to happen. So instead, she kept it pulled back from her face in either a tight knot or a braid. Anything else took too much time.

  Same for makeup. Technically, her job was a nine-to-five, but it rarely worked out that way, and after nine, ten, and twelve hours on her feet, any makeup she might have put on would have been worn off, so she rarely bothered with makeup, either.

  No, Devon knew she didn’t look like much, but she hadn’t let it stop her before, and she wasn’t going to let it stop her now, either.

  This place reminded her too much of that little hellhole where she had lived for two months, alone, back when she’d still been a teenager.

  Devon figured she should count herself lucky. She’d been thirteen when her aunt threw her out, and she’d already been a junkie. Flopping in an abandoned house and avoiding the dealers and the johns, Devon had been wondering how she’d get money for her next fix and hoping people would just leave her alone.

  But then the lady showed up at the door. Eden, Devon’s own personal guardian angel.

  In the back of her head, she could hear Eden’s hoarse, raspy laugh. “Baby, I ain’t nobody’s angel,” Eden had said to Devon—and more than once.

  She desperately wished Eden was around for some advice, a little comfort—even a swift kick in the ass would work. But Eden had retired four months ago, and she was living the high life out in Vegas with a rich widower a good twelve years younger.

  Still, Eden didn’t have to be there for Devon to know how she would respond. Girl, get your ass in gear and get in there. There’s a kid who needs you. You focus on her and not on the hell that’s around you. Because, make no mistake, the hell she’s in is worse. You know, because you’ve been where she is.

  Focus on the kid. It was what had gotten her through before, and she knew it would keep doing just that.

  How much longer am I going to keep this up? Devon thought. Just one more time, she told herself, p
erpetuating the mental game. But the rational part of her head, the part that wasn’t cringing in disgust, already knew the answer.

  Devon would keep going until she just couldn’t go anymore. Because that was all she could do. Eden had probably asked herself the same thing, over and over. If Eden had given up before she found Devon, Devon wouldn’t be here.

  There was no way she was going to miss out on a chance to help somebody the way Eden had helped her.

  Devon stared up at the ramshackle, filthy house. It was a squat two-story that looked like it had been split into eight little apartments. The front lawn was littered with garbage, cigarette butts, and other stuff Devon didn’t want to look at too closely.

  “You okay?”

  Devon looked over her shoulder at Officer Wayland Bennett and nodded. “Let’s get this over with.”

  If she thought the outside of the house had prepared her for the inside . . . well, it wasn’t the first time she’d been wrong. Wouldn’t be the last. The inside of Shayla Reynolds’s home smelled of rotting food, unwashed flesh, and filth Devon couldn’t even begin to guess at.

  Devon knew she had probably seen worse, but she couldn’t remember when. What really sucked was that there was a little girl here, all alone, and God only knew how long she’d been here.

  There weren’t many places for a child to hide. Less than seven hundred square feet, it boasted a whopping two rooms. The main room served as bedroom, kitchen, and living room. The sofa bed, tucked into a recessed alcove along the back wall, was open, the mattress bare and covered with stains better left unidentified. On the mattress was an open pizza box, and Devon figured it was a good week old. It looked like mold was forming in the crust.

  There were only two doors in the entire place. The entryway where Devon and Officer Bennett stood, and then the other one, on the back wall. Devon assumed it was the bathroom. So far, it didn’t look like the little girl was anywhere in the main room, so hopefully she’d find her in the bathroom.

  Bingo. When Devon pushed the door open, she saw the shower curtain shift. It rustled a little, and when she called out, a pair of big blue eyes peeped around the edge to look at her.

  “MAN, can you believe we actually signed up for this?”

  Luke smiled a little as he heard two of the newest interns moaning over their coffee. He’d asked himself that question more than once during his residency, and yeah, even now after he’d been on staff at Rudding Memorial for the past year.

  It had been worse during residency, though. It could make or break a doctor. Working twenty-four hours, forty-eight hours straight, longer, sometimes. Catching a fifteen-minute nap and living on chips and pretzels and whatever else could be found in the vending machine. No, his residency definitely had not been the highlight of his life, but it had been worth it.

  Luke hadn’t gone into medicine for the money. Of course, the money was nice. But he’d done it for the challenge. Every day brought a different one, although sometimes the only challenge was to keep from laughing at some of the stupid shit he saw.

  Like the nineteen-year-old mother who had brought her two-year-old child in, complaining that the medicine they’d given her daughter to help control the vomiting had actually made it worse. Turned out the mom had been making the poor kid eat the suppositories, and when they explained, again, how to administer the medicine, the mom had freaked out.

  Dealing with mothers who thought a temperature of 99.6 meant the kid had Asian bird flu or that a headache was a sure, definite sign of meningitis. Or worse, dealing with the kids who were taken away from their parents or found wandering in the streets, malnourished, abused, and all but broken inside.

  Broken bones when some genius figured a chair was a good enough replacement for a ladder or lacerations when the kitchen knife slipped—they often made up a lot of the patients they took care of at Rudding Memorial. They weren’t the most fun, but they were part and parcel.

  Not every patient coming through those doors was bleeding from twenty different lacerations and drowning in his own blood. Which was a good thing. Working in the ER was a rush; it was no surprise Luke had gravitated to the medical field once he’d finished his rehab six years ago.

  He’d started on the courses he’d need to go from field medic to physician while he was still recovering in the hospital. He’d finished medical school in record time, and his residency had landed him here.

  He hadn’t planned on staying. Rudding Memorial wasn’t a bad place to work, but he hadn’t planned on staying in Kentucky. He’d planned on going back home; he missed his dad, he missed the ranch, and he missed Wyoming. But there was something about this place. He just couldn’t leave.

  The place got into his system. Working the ER got into his system. He wouldn’t have found anything quite like this anywhere near his father’s ranch in Wyoming. Yeah, there were ERs in Wyoming, but the nearest big city was sixty-three miles away from the ranch. There was no logical reason he couldn’t find a hospital in Cheyenne.

  But he didn’t want to.

  He liked Kentucky. The rolling green hills and white painted fences, the huge horse farms and the little towns. The place just felt like home.

  Rudding Memorial was just off the I-75 in Lexington. Not too far from the University of Kentucky. They saw their share of drunk drivers, college pranks gone bad, and just the normal senseless things humans did to themselves and one another.

  Unfortunately, they also saw their share of the cruel things humans could do to one another. His shift last night had started with the exam of a rape victim, followed by an attempt to save the life of a pregnant mother who’d been hit by a drunk driver while she was crossing the street. The mother had gone into premature labor and had died on the table shortly after delivering her baby boy, nearly two months early.

  The baby was probably going to be okay, but he’d grow up never knowing his mother. As Luke had tucked him into the incubator, he’d bent over the little guy and whispered, “You’ll do okay, man. I came early, and all I had was my dad, and I made it just fine.”

  Still, it had been depressing as hell to escort the grieving father to the baby’s side. Luke hadn’t been able to resist sizing the guy up, and he’d liked what he’d seen: a guy fighting to hold it together when all he wanted to do was break—and then the awe in his eyes as he’d stared at his son. Yeah, that little guy would be okay.

  Sometimes, life really did suck, and yeah, sometimes, he still had a hard time believing he’d willingly signed up for this. But he had no plans of giving it up for something a little less stressful, a little less heartbreaking.

  Glancing up from the workstation, Luke caught a glimpse of dark red hair just before a woman disappeared around the corner.

  Wouldn’t you know . . . Luke’s very own heartbreaker was here again.

  “You find what you’re looking for, Luke?” For some weird reason, Quinn’s question from months earlier popped into his head.

  Yeah, he had a feeling he might have finally found it, but he hadn’t managed to go after it yet. His heart skipped a beat or two as he recognized Devon Manning, and automatically, he ran a hand through his hair.

  Catching himself, he grimaced in disgust. He was coming off the end of a long-ass rotation, and he’d slept in the doctors’ lounge last night. Looked it, too. He kept meaning to find a clean pair of scrubs and get a shower, but every time it looked like he’d have more than ten minutes, some other emergency came up. Or he had a chance to grab a cup of coffee and a rather tasteless vending machine sandwich. The food would win over cleaning up; he could clean up later, but if he didn’t eat, he’d be useless.

  It had been nearly a good four hours since he’d had a chance to sit down for longer than five minutes. The hours he’d pulled were definitely going to show. Clothes wrinkled, in desperate need of a shave and a good five hours of sleep—at least—there was no way Luke could hope to look any more presentable than he already did.

  That really sucked, because there was no way
he wasn’t going to hunt down Devon.

  “Here, Luke. This one is yours. I can’t do another abused kid tonight.” His boss and sometimes friend, Dr. Dwight Howell, came up and deposited a chart on top of the pile in front of Luke. So much for tracking Devon down.

  That pile was already reaching epic proportions, and he scowled as the stack started to list to the left. He caught them before the charts could topple over, and he straightened the stack automatically before looking at the name and skimming the nursing notes.

  Dehydrated, abandoned; despite the disgust curdling in his gut, a faint smile curved his lips. Escorted in by social worker Devon Manning.

  A few minutes later, though, he decided it was a pretty shitty trade. Unfortunately, seeing Devon with a case like this wasn’t ever good. His young patient, Ellie Reynolds, was four years old, small for her age, and she had the oldest eyes he’d ever seen. She had the same bitter acceptance in her eyes that he had seen on battlefields.

  Her mother had left her alone in the house while she was out “working.” Prostituting—Shayla Reynolds had been arrested four times, and each time, her child went into foster care. Each time, she’d gotten Ellie back.

  There wouldn’t be a fifth time. Shayla’s last john had beaten her to death, literally. If the cop responding hadn’t recognized Shayla’s battered body, Luke didn’t want to think about how long Ellie might have stayed hidden in her apartment.

  “Hey there, pretty girl,” Luke murmured as he sat on the wheeled stool in front of his silent patient.

  Luke wasn’t naive. He knew what kind of bad shit happened in the world, and he wasn’t afraid to face it. Coming into this field, he’d known it wasn’t going to be a cakewalk. But he hadn’t necessarily expected it to be harder than what he’d walked away from. The carnage, the cruelty, the thousands of battles happening in the world the average citizen knew nothing about, it was rough. He’d loved being a Ranger, but he’d seen stuff that could break a strong man.