Everything Carries Me to You (Axton and Leander Book 3) (5 page)

"Go on," Leander said.

"No, Christina just--" Sarah cleared her throat. "She caught me in the hallway and asked me if I was next, if you were going to get rid of me, too, and..."

"And you said no?"

"So I lied," Sarah said. "And said I was already packing my stuff, and you were acting crazy." Sarah had her hands laced behind her, and now she looked down at her shoes. "Um."

"She could tell," Leander said. "She can always tell."

"She didn't yell or anything," Sarah said, still not looking up. "But, uh. Feels bad, man."

"I know," Leander said. "But I can't risk it. She could get hurt--or Carmen, or Carolina."

Sarah seemed to look down at her shoes more intently.

"Right," she said, in the tiniest of voices.

"Say it," Leander sighed. "Say whatever it is."

"Is this the point," Sarah said, inhaling sharply, "where I can ask why you value her safety so much more than you value mine?"

"No," Leander said, "it's not."

"Because she's more physically competent than I am," Sarah said. "You know that. She used to train hand to hand with you and I'm-I'm still in recovery. I've fucked my body up enough that I get winded after, like, ten minutes of running. My skin is still shot from my last round of in-patient. Christina still swims laps twice a week. She's far better equipped to deal with physical threats. So if you're doing, like, rational safety math..."

"I know," Leander said.

"Why me?" Sarah asked, looking up. Her glasses were off and her cheekbones were high and flushed, but she was pale under her makeup. "Why would you risk me?"

"You can leave if you want," Leander said.

"You haven't made me leave," Sarah pressed. "You have every intention of letting me stay. Why me?"

There was silence, broken only by her shallow, slightly hurried breaths, like the fluttering wings of a bird in a cage.

"I need you," Leander said softly. "Sarah. I can't do this without you. I need you."

"You have me," Sarah said, taking a step forward. "God, Leander. You have me. But--"

"I can't find Axton without you," Leander interrupted, his eyes liquid with unshed tears.

Sarah stilled and walked forward no more.

"Axton. Right," she said, bringing a hand to her chest, rubbing absently at the space over her heart. "Finding. Yeah. Uh. You've said that before, even, didn't you?" Sarah licked her lips absently. "Yeah. You did."

"I'm sorry," Leander said. He was.

"My safety weighed against his absence," Sarah breathed. "That's the math you did."

"Sarah, that's not exactly--"

"My life for his," Sarah said.

"Sarah,
no
," Leander said. "That's not what I meant--"

"Sure, of course it's not," Sarah said, agreeing too quickly for belief.

"Really," Leander said. "I--"

"No, no, totally fine," Sarah said, waving a hand in front of her face. "Totally fine. We can discuss semantics later." Her voice sounded wet.

Leander was glad the room was mildly dark, and part of him gave up this particular fight.

"I'm kind of tired," he said quietly, to give her an exit. "Maybe I should get some sleep."

"Of course," Sarah said, taking a step backwards, groping blindly for the doorknob. "Yeah. Sure. I'll just--" her hand found the doorknob and turned it. "Bye," she said, fleeing.

Leander listened to the frantic
click click click
of her heels down the hall.

Right. Well, that went worse than he had expected. He hadn't meant--god, he hadn't meant to say it like
that
.

Leander closed his eyes in defeat.

"Avilez, "he muttered, "you're a rotten son of a bitch today."

Once Leander was cooperating, he was hustled out of the hospital within a few days. The transition was, of course, smoothly expedited by Sarah, who made sure that Leander had the proper accommodations in place to live safely at home. He vetoed the installation of bars in the shower, and she secretly overrode him. She had an incline set at his door so the wheelchair could get in and out easily. She sourced a shower chair, grip extenders, pants that would be easier to change in and out of. All her anguish and angst and fear for Leander's mortality was channeled into an exquisite attention to detail.

Leander was impressed. He wasn't sure how much he should thank her on a daily basis, because he knew that she was over performing as a coping mechanism. Sarah was very capable of pushing herself to collapse; it was both her talent and her downfall. On the day of his discharge, stuck in his bed, he was contemplating how to force Sarah into relative relaxation when a nurse popped her head into his room.

"You have a visitor," she said dreamily.

"No," Leander said hopefully.

"He's very charming," she added, ducking out.

"
Fuck no
," Leander said.

New York counsel strode into the room.

"Hey, California," he said easily.

"Jesus fucking christ Leander said. "It is you."

"It is," New York confirmed, coming over to stand next to Leander's bed. He was tall, just a couple of inches taller than Leader, and right now, he loomed.

He also sometimes wore lifts, and knowing it didn't make Leander feel any better. God, New York was
such
an asshole.

"What are you doing here?" Leander asked.

"Offering my support, obviously," New York said flippantly, as he dragged a chair over so he could straddle it. One of his knees started bouncing immediately--New York could never keep still. It may have been attention-deficit disorder; it might have been stimulants abuse. "I came straight from the airport."

"Thanks," Leander said. "But--"

"So, are we gonna hurt a guy?" New York asked, leaning forward, hazel eyes trained on Leander's face. "I am so ready, man."

"What?" Leander hissed.

"Because, bro, did he ever fuck you up," New York said, gesturing at Leander's body.

"What are you--no," Leander said, exasperated. "What makes you think we have to hurt a guy?"

"Your PA wouldn't give me details," New York said. "If it had been a car wreck or something, she'd have said instead of going all frosty super professional on me."

"Sarah is a very professional person," Leander said. "You can't just assume--"

"Was it more than one guy?" New York asked, leaning even further forward, eyes all intense. "Like, how many more? We can fuck them up."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this," Leander said. "You're offering to, what, beat the shit out of someone for me? That's so fucking illegal."

"Whatever, man," New York said breezily. "We swore when we were back in school, right?"

"We are not friends," Leander said. "You're my
boss
now."

"I'm only your supervising partner," New York said. "That's not so bad."

"No, it's fucking terrible."

"We used to be friends."

"Yeah, and now we're not," Leander said.

"Is this about your ex-girlfriend?" New York asked sweetly. "Because I blew her off forever ago."

"No, this is not about my--but sleeping with her was a dick move, yeah," Leander said, because New York was good at getting people sidetracked.

"You slept with mine first," New York said, leaning back now, folding his arms over his chest. "
While
I was dating her."

"Jesus," Leander said. "We've been over this. I didn't know she was your girl, all right, and I didn't fucking sleep with her."

"You
would have
," New York said. "Asshole."

"She came onto me at the Halloween party!" Leander objected. "She was wearing a mask at first! I'd never seen her before in my life! It was dark! The fuck do you want from me, man? I let you punch me when you found us sucking face in the coat closet."

"Oh, like one fucking punch made it right," New York said. "Please. She was a dime."

"Apparently not," Leander said. "C'mon, you have to knock her down a point for shitty behavior."

"A dime," New York insisted. "Perfect ten."

"Whatever," Leander sighed. "Look, I appreciate you flying over to check on me, I really do. But--"

"I also scheduled a client meeting," New York said. "So it works out."

"Of course you did," Leander said. "You would. But the point is--"

"You haven't denied that there is a guy," New York said. "Someone did beat the shit out of you."

"That's not--"

"Where's your sexy houseguest boyfriend?" New York asked. "He wants payback, right? He's probably totally ready to hurt the guy that did this to you. You wouldn't suck the dick of some pussy."

Leander looked stricken, and then there was silence.

"Aw damn," New York said finally. "Sorry."

"Yeah," Leander said shortly.

"He wasn't the one who...?" New York asked tentatively.

"
No
," Leander said. "No, he wasn't--Axton would never hurt me."

"Physically," New York pointed out.

"Fuck
off
," Leander said.

"So it's related?" New York said, foot tapping against the floor.

"Fucking, fucking christ," Leander said, and he pushed one of the extra pillows into his face. "You relentless son of a bitch. Please leave."

"So there's nothing I can do?" New York asked sadly. "I was pretty pumped about the revenge idea."

"Of course you were, you completely self-absorbed dickbag," Leander said, but it was muffled by the pillow. "Thanks."

"Hey," New York said urgently, reaching out and plucking the pillow out of Leander's hands. "Hey. I know you're up to something."

"I am not," Leander said, narrowing his grey eyes, hair rumpled from the pillow.

"You
are
," New York said. "Just let me help. Don't be a douchebag."

"You're a loose fucking cannon," Leander said. "I've told you, you're a liability in a street fight. You snap."

"So you
are
gonna fight a guy," New York said, satisfaction making his voice smug. "Waiting until you heal up, yeah? That's going to take a while. I could do it instead. Like, today."

"It's more complicated than that," Leander said, troubled.

New York's eyes gleamed. Leander knew that New York could sense blood like a bull shark, and that he'd just given him the opening he needed

"How complicated?" New York asked.

"Like, this is going to take a lot of resources complicated," Leander allowed.

"What kind of resources?" New York asked archly.

Leander took a deep breath.

"For real?" he asked. "You can't back out halfway through."

"I won't punk out on you," New York said.

Leander hesitated.

"You know everyone else thinks I'm crazy," he said, in a flash of honesty.

"I know what that's like," New York said.

"Everyone else thinks he left me and I'm just handling it poorly."

"Someone still beat the shit out of you," New York said. "I don't care about details. You need me? I'm there."

"Are you sure?" Leander asked.

"Hit me," New York said. "I'm all in."

"I have the public records access," Leander said, "but I'm going to have a huge chunk of data to go through."

"What are we looking for?"

"I don't want you doing it," Leander said. "And I want it done blind. I don't want whoever does it to know what I'm looking for."

New York sat back thoughtfully, drumming his fingers against his mouth.

"Public records," he said. "We can have a team of first years do it."

"I'm talking nationwide," Leander said. "And many decades. A lot of data."

New York shrugged.

"We can have some of the summers help," he said. "I'll form a committee."

"How well can you disguise that?" Leander asked.

"Bitch, please," New York said, looking offended. "My paper trail is a beautiful work of fiction."

"Don't do anything actually illegal," Leander said.

New York hummed.

"Goddamnit," Leander said. "What?"

"Like, don't do anything illegal about
this
, or in general?"

"About this," Leander said. "What are you doing in general?"

New York hummed.

"Motherfucker, if you're carrying right now I will kick your ass."

"Doubtful," New York said, tutting and patting Leander's most broken leg.

"For fuck's sake, don't get forced into rehab again," Leander said.

New York hummed a response.

"I'm serious," Leander warned. "Not when I need you to get shit done."

"Okay," New York said.

"And this is a long con," Leander said. "This is a slow burn of a plan."

"Because you need your legs to heal before we go hurt the guy?"

"The point of this isn't to hurt the guy," Leander said.

"No?"

"He'd just keep coming," Leander said

New York breathed carefully, seeming to consider the potential implications.

"Okay," he said.

"Okay?" Leander asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay," New York confirmed, looking at Leander steadily.

Sarah came by ten minutes after New York left, peering around corners carefully to avoid running into him.

"So," she asked Leander, as she was gathering the last of their things so they could leave the hospital. "How'd it go?"

"According to plan," Leander said. "Send him the population density data parameters in three days when he's back in the office."

"Does he suspect?"

"No," Leander said. "Not at all."

"I always forget that he's ridiculously handsome," Sarah said.

"Yeah, he's just an asshole."

"He's a good friend," Sarah said, not looking up from sliding things into her bag.

"Yeah," Leander said.

"He cares about you. He's willing to go to bat for you," Sarah said. "Without even asking questions about why."

"Yeah," Leander said. "I know."

"How many of us are you going to use up?" Sarah asked. "How many people that love you are you going to burn through for this?"

"I know what I'm doing," Leander said.

"So, all of us, then?" Sarah asked lightly, slinging her bag over her shoulder. "All right. I'll be back with a nurse and we can get out of here to finish ruining your life."