“I need to go find her parents. If you really want to talk you can meet me in my office. Otherwise, I don’t want to see you until Scarlett’s next visit with you.”
I walked away before he could get another word out.
I found Scarlett’s parents in the cafeteria. I told them Avalanche had helped her, and she was looking a little better but made it very clear she wasn’t cured. Mrs. O’Reilly was crying and hugging me, thanking me over and over. No matter how many times I tried to tell her that it wasn’t me—I just made a call—she wouldn’t accept it.
She called me a hero; she called Avalanche a hero. I almost laughed at that one. I wondered what he would think if I told him. If he was still here, he probably took off running the second I stormed out of that hallway.
“He gave us more time with our little girl.Yougave us more time with our little girl. Whether it’s a cure or not, we’ll be eternally grateful.” Mr. O’Reilly squeezed my hand, holding back tears.
He was a quiet man. Throughout the time I’d been working with Scarlett, he’d only said a handful of words in my presence. To hear him saythat— I was one more word away from bawling my eyes out.
They both gave me a hug before heading back to their daughter. And I headed back to my office to cry—maybe, probably. I was feeling really overwhelmed with the roller-coaster of emotions I’d been on in the last four hours. Scarlett was going to die today, now she won’t but still could in the future. Avalanche ignored five phone calls but came running the second he heard about Scarlett. Then there was my mum.
I hadn’t thought about her death in months. That stupid ERT captain had to go and open his big fat mouth like he knew everything. He didn’t know shit. He was looking at everything in black and white when this whole situation was clearly grey. Him and that stupid ass chief of police, Eric Ericson III.
The two of them were trying to paint the hospitals as the bad guys. As if we were single handedly keeping the police from taking down the villains running amuck in our streets. Meanwhile, they were sitting on their asses waiting for the villains to come to the hospitals instead of trying to track them down in a building not occupied by the city’s most vulnerable population. But sure, I was the problem for refusing to let the police get a bunch of innocent people killed. Innocent people like my mum.
My office door was propped open when I arrived. Avalanche was leaning on my desk, head buried in one of my books, still in full costume. He probably thought he was going to findsomething dirty in here, but this was my place of work. I only kept YA and kidlit on the shelf.
He looked up as I approached.
“This is pretty good, maybe I should start taking recommendations from you.”
I stopped a good two metres from him.
“You’d have to be talking to me in order to take recs.”
He flinched as he dropped the book to his side. It didn’t escape my notice that he’d peeked at the page number before closing it.
“I was just trying to do what you asked.”
“I told you I would call if someone wanted to meet you. You sent me to voicemail five times. What part of that was doing what I asked?”
“I’m sorry.” His eyes were glued to the floor around my feet. “I… I was— It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again.”
“Yes it will.”
His eyes snapped to mine. “No. It won’t.”
“I don’t believe you. A month ago, I would have. But now? No chance. You know Eva asked me why I was ignoring you? I thought it was silly, not worth voicing aloud. Except it was exactly what happened. You were always there and I knew if I let myself keep going the way we were, you would leave and I would get my feelings hurt.
“But then you were relentless in getting back into my life, so I caved. And then you left, came back, and left again. But still, for some reason I thought if I really needed you, you would be there. Like you were the other night. But I called and called and you weren’t. I needed you and you couldn’t be bothered to pick up your fucking phone.
“I couldn’t get my eyes open the other night when you whispered your wholeit’s not safespeech. TheI’ll always be there if you need me,speech. But now I can. So look me in theeyes and tell me that it won’t happen again, I want to know what you look like when you lie straight to my fucking face.”
Angry tears were streaming down my face by the time I finished. He cleared the distance between us in two steps, hand under my chin to force my eyes to lock on his.
“I am not a liar. It won’t happen again. I’m here. You needed me and I came. Does it look like I’m lying?”
“I don’t know. I don’t trust you anymore.”
He stumbled back as if I’d punched him in the gut. A look of pain flashed across his face before he schooled his features—cold and emotionless again.
“Fine. Let me know when Scarlett would like me to visit again. Whatever works with your schedule.”
“Will you care enough to answer your phone this time?”
A growl ripped its way through his throat before my back hit the door behind me, slamming it shut as his hand found my throat to keep me pinned in place.
