Collateral Damage (36 page)

I park under the white awning. A nurse meets me at the passenger's side door.

"Hey, sweetheart," she says brightly. "We're going to check you out. Okay?"

Jaden nods, flinches.

I help her out of the car, and when her legs weaken, giving way, I catch her. I pick her up, promise her everything will be okay, and lay her onto the gurney. I touch her gently. Carefully. I touch her like she deserves to be touched. Like she's made of fucking glass—on the verge of breaking. Then I take her hand in mine and kiss the tips of her fingers.

They wheel her past those automatic doors, move her through the lobby and down a hallway. A doctor—a man in scrubs—meets us at another set of double doors.

"I'm sorry. We can't allow you past this point," he says, words clipped, stone cold. An asshole of a doctor.

My hand squeezes tighter, refusing to let go. "I'm not leaving her."

"I'm sorry, but there are no exceptions."

"No. Y—you can't make me...." But even as I stumble over the words they're pulling her away. An attendant moves between us, and my fingers are pried loose.

"You should probably get looked at, too," the nurse says, smiling kindly just before the doors slam shut between us.

Fuck!

It takes everything I have left inside not to scream the word after them. To shout it down every goddamn hallway. My body collapses against the cement wall, slides to the floor.

I can't breathe.

My chest hurts.

This shitty hospital air.

I can't fucking breathe.

My throat—it's swollen shut. Suffocating me. I try to swallow. Again and again and again. And my eyes—they're on fire.

"Chris?" a voice calls. "It's okay, man." Rusch approaches, shoes squeaking against the floor of this bleak, sterile hallway.

"No. No, it's not."

"She's gonna be fine."

I pull myself to my feet. "She's going to be...are you
kidding
me? She could've
died
back there!"

"But she didn't."

"That's not the fucking point!"

"You can't blame yourself. There's no way you could've known," he insists.

"I should've done better. I should've been better. She
deserved
better."

He glances down the hallway, then back at me, eyes narrowing. "What are you saying, Whalen?"

"I'm saying that I fucking
love
that girl more than I've ever loved anything in this goddamn world!" I choke on the words, struggling, forcing each one out. "And if something happened to her today because of me, you may as well dig my grave next to hers, because I sure as hell can't live without her."

"Wait," he says, not understanding. "You
know
her?"

I inhale. Exhale. I can breathe again, confessing this. I can breathe. "We're...partners. We're English partners." The words sound pathetic coming from my lips—so stupid and trivial. They don't make any sense. We're
more
than partners.

Rusch eyes me carefully, then nods. "Okay. Let's go to the bathroom and get you washed up. We'll find you a shirt. Let's just...one thing at a time, all right?"

He guides me down the hall, hand gripping my arm as I drive one foot in front of the other. Taylor and West have arrived. They're waiting in the emergency room lobby.

"Hey," Rusch calls. "Either of you gotta clean shirt?"

"My gym bag is in the trunk," Taylor replies, pointing over his shoulder.

"Go get it."

"You okay, Whalen?" he asks.

"He's fine," Rusch replies, pushing through the bathroom door.

"I fucked everything up," I whisper.

Rusch turns on the water at one of the sinks, rips paper towels from the machine and hands them to me.

I don't know this person—this
thing
staring back at me, standing in front of this mirror. My forehead drips sweat. Patches of dirt and dried blood stain my neck and face. My hands. My hands tremble. And the skin on my chest from where I was struck—the bruise from impact flowers, expanding. I know it stings. I know it hurts like hell. But all of my senses—everything is muted. Dull.

I should've died.

Jaden—she could've died. Because of
me
.

"I have to admit, this is way more exciting than pulling people for burnt-out taillights. I should've gone undercover a long time ago," West jokes.

The comment leaves me dizzy, the room spinning. I grasp the edge of the sink, fighting to collect myself.

Rusch's eyes narrow, watching me. "Deep breaths, Whalen."

Deep breaths.

Deep breaths.

The world stops swirling.

I wash away the blood and dirt and grime. Run wet fingers through my hair. Splash my face. Taylor returns with the shirt, hands me a bottled water. I uncap it and take a swig.

"Someone needs to call her parents," I finally say. "Before the media get the story and fuck it up."

"Do you know the number?" Rusch asks.

"No." I should. But I don't. "Her name is Jaden McEntyre. Her family runs McEntyre Construction."

Their walkie-talkies blast to life: "
The Chief is on his way
."

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-T
HREE

I linger in the bathroom, destroy that bottled water, slip the clean shirt over my head. By the time I return to the lobby, other officers have arrived. They've moved Jaden to a room. They're stitching her up now. We hurry to the South Wing.

"They're going to question her," Rusch says.

The thought of someone—one of mine—holing her up in a cold room, asking all kinds of questions, demanding answers, poisons my bloodstream. "The hell they are."

"A guy died back there, Chris. You were shot. And this girl—your
English partner
—walked into the middle of it all. If you think there's not going to be an investigation, you're kidding yourself. If there's anything you need to come clean about...."

"I don't have anything to confess. She was my partner for a project. We spent some time together after school, and I fell for her. That's it."

"That's it?" he presses.

Is that it?

I exhale, shoulders falling, and lower my voice: "One of the guys there today—he was her boyfriend. We got in a fight last week, and it was over her."

"Jesus Christ," he mutters.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. And I ended it, Rusch. I swear to God I haven't spoken to her since. Not until today."

"That
might
save your ass."

"I don't care anymore. I'm not..."

"What the hell did you do to her?" A loud, angry voice punctuates this conversation. Footsteps pound against the tile floor. I recognize Daniel, Jaden's brother, instantly. And in a second officers are between us, holding him back, protecting me.

"Daniel."

Everyone freezes. We turn toward the voice—that beautiful, angel voice. The sound nearly brings me to my knees. Rusch tightens his grip on my arm.

She's okay.

The door to Jaden's room is open now. She sits on the edge of the bed in a paper-thin, hospital-issued gown. She doesn't look happy to see her brother.

Or me.

"Get out of my way!" He charges through the wall of officers, pushing them aside, and shuts the door behind him.

"He was pissed," West mutters.

Pissed? He was more than pissed. He was irate. Livid.

I'll be lucky to leave this hospital alive
.

And why not? What kind of person am I—who sneaks to his house to see his little sister; who lets her skip school, driving the getaway car; who drags her into a drug arrest gone wrong; who can't tell her he loves her....

It feels like forever before the door finally reopens. But when it does: "She wants to see you," Daniel tells me. "I don't know why. What I do know—and all of your little officer friends can hear this—is if you ever,
ever
, hurt my sister again, I will disfigure you so badly it'll take weeks to identify what's left."

"Daniel," she chides.

He turns to face her. "Sorry. That's the best I can do."

Given my cue, I slink past him. Enter the room. Close the door.

She's cleaned up. There's no blood on her face. In her hair. There are a few scrapes, but the gash on her head is stitched and bandaged. Monitors beep, tracking her vitals. I imagine her heart rate lifting when she sees me.

Wishful thinking.

"Are...you okay?" I regret the words the moment they slip past my tongue. It's such an inane question. Of course she's not okay. "Look, Jaden, I am so, so sorry this happened. No one was supposed to be at the school this afternoon. If I had any idea you were still there...."

"First, I think I should thank you," she says. "You know, for saving me."

I rake fingers through my hair, swallow back the knot blocking my throat. "I didn't save you. It happened because of me. Every time I close my eyes I see.... And you have to know that I will
never
forgive myself..."

"Still," she interrupts, "it happened. And you're obviously good at whatever it is you do, because it could've been worse. For both of us."

I exhale an anxious breath, trying to calm my racing pulse, thankful I'm not tethered to those machines—those machines that would, in a second, sell me out. Because truth is, I'm not Jaden. I can't pretend everything is okay right now. It's not.

"So.... Who are you?" she asks.

"Parker Whalen."

Because I am more Parker than I ever was Christopher. I have felt more, learned more, loved more these last few months.... And what started as a lie has become my skin. And something good
has
come out of all this, because I get it now. I know what matters.

An eyebrow lifts, skeptical. "Really?"

"Yes."

"Parker Whalen. High school student?"

I clear my throat. "Officer Whalen, actually." I reach into my pocket and remove my badge, offering it as proof. The gold metal shimmers, light bouncing in every direction. She touches the shield carefully, the star in the middle, then places it on the bed beside her.

"What's your story? What are you doing?"