Already, she was mulling over the things he’d left to screw with her, and she wasn’t going to be leveled by it.
At some point, you pushed a person too far.
She was that person.
When she rolled her neck, Chris looked over at her.
“Is your arm still sore?” he asked, knowing she was babying it. He knew her well enough, and when Elizabeth protected that side, it meant the accident in the car had done some damage.
When she opened her mouth to answer, he stopped her.
“Don’t. It’s not like I can pull you.”
She was honest.
“I wasn’t going to lie. I was going to answer you legitimately. My shoulder hurts like a bitch, and I really need some OTC pain meds.”
A bottle of Acetaminophen came flying toward the table from Raphael, who had clearly been taking some.
Chris caught it, opened the bottle, and dumped some into her hand.
She popped them and chased it with some cooling coffee.
“Thanks.”
It was nice not to be bullied over her arm, too. What she wanted was a nap. What she wanted was her bed, where her children were down the hall, and she was able to feel safe.
Until this was over, what she was getting was some meds, some caffeine, and all the information they had so far, so she could pick it apart.
The constant feeling of being on edge while balancing the whole world was wearing her down, and Elizabeth was about to break, and she knew it.
What she wanted was peace and some downtime.
What she could have was more work.
Since they had to wait forThe Huntersto get there, and they needed something, that meant it was time to actually work.
“I need to talk it out,” she admitted. “There are some things I don’t have locked down. If I miss one thing, we have anissue. It’s only a matter of time before someone else dies. I’m three days past my breaking point.”
Oh, they believed her.
Why?
Because they were too.
There was nothing worse than feeling emasculated and being forced to hide when their woman was out there doing everything in her power to save all of their lives.
Someone was going to need therapy after this.
Them.
Because he was her ride and die in this, Gene pulled out his tablet, and handed it to Elizabeth, so she’d have something to look at as she broke it all down.
She took a deep breath, rolled her neck, and got down to work.
“Let’s start withCorpus Christi,” she stated. “We’re going to have to work this in a more difficult way,” she stated. “Because he’s giving us the forensics that weNORMALLYwould need to solve this. He knows my process, and that tells me that Ethan is one hundred percent right. He’s had access to FBI information.”
Callen went there.
