“Where am I?” The words come out as a rough croak, barely my own voice.
“Hospital,” Quill says, moving to my bedside and resting a hand on my shoulder. “You took a hell of a beating.”
Looking between them, my chest was already tightening. “Tracker. Where is he?”
Quill’s eyes fill with tears he refuses to let fall. He clears his throat, looks away for a moment, and when he turns back, I already know.
“I’m sorry, brother. He didn’t make it.”
“What the fuck?”
The words come out barely above a whisper before something cracks open inside me. “No. You’re lying. You’re fuckin’ lying.”
“I’m sorry,” Quill says, leaning in, both hands gripping my shoulders. “Tate, you need to calm down… you’re injured.”
“I don’t give a fuck.” The words snap out of me, and then, completely and without warning, I break, my hands going to my face, anger and grief hitting at the same time, so tangled up I can’t tell them apart.
“Not Tracker,” I say into my palms. “Not him.”
Then something shifts, some raw, desperate surge of energy that has no business being in a body as beaten as mine. I shove the sheets back and try to get out of the bed, shouting that they’re going to pay, that every last one of them is going to fucking pay.
Flame and Hawke move fast, helping Quill hold me down, and without thinking, my fist shoots out and catches Quill square in the face. I don’t care in that moment, even though a part of me knows he is one of the best men I’ve ever known.
“Get out of my fuckin’ way,” I shout, but I’m no match for the three of them. Hawke and Flame have me pinned while Quill looks at me, jaw tight.
“I know you’re hurting, brother. We all are.”
A nurse comes rushing in, eyes wide, taking in the scene.
Quill straightens and turns to me. “You gonna stay put, or do I need to call the rest of the boys in from the waiting room?”
The veins in my neck strain with the effort of holding it all in. I’m exhausted, weaker than I’ve ever been in my life, and as much as everything in me wants to tear the room apart, I have nothing left to do it with. Closing my eyes, I force myself to breathe.
The nurse pushes the boys back from my bed and looks between all of us. “You all need to leave…” she says firmly, “… or I’m calling security.”
One by one, the boys step back. Quill turns to me before he goes, leaning down close, his voice dropping to something private. “I’m sorry. I get it. Believe me, I’m hurting too. But please don’t do anything stupid. We’re your family. Remember that.” He straightens, gives my hand a single firm tap, and I nod, because even through everything I’m feeling, I understand. We’re all hurting, every last one of us.
They file out one by one, each of them promising to be back the next day, hopefully to bring me home.
The weeks that follow are the hardest of my life, harder even than the hospital, the beatings, and anything Clemente or Lawrence put me through because at least then I had something to fight against.
In the weeks after, all I have is grief, a promise, and a woman who needs me to hold it together when I’m barely holding myself.
But I hold it together. For Tracker. For Sophia. For the promise I made with my brother’s head in my lap and tears burning down my face.
And tonight, I finally put her on that plane.
***
Night has settled over the city by the time we get back from the airport.
The Blood Brothers’ clubhouse is lit up, noise spilling out into the dark, music low, voices rough, the clink of bottles and the grind of grief trying to pass for normal.
Cutting the engine, I sit there for a moment without moving or breathing, just staring at the front doors.
This place used to feel solid. Loud and chaotic, sure, but solid. Tracker fit here. He’d carved out a place for himself in this world as if he’d always belonged in it, even after the Bureau, even after everything he walked away from.
Now every time I step through those doors, it feels like walking into the shape of him without the man himself inside it.
