Page 100 of Yours on the Canvas

I wanted to drag them back from the dead just to tear them apart piece by piece myself, to make them feel a fraction of the slow torture they had subjected my dove to for three long, agonising months.

We load Jack gently into the back of the truck, covering the floor and him with blankets. Luca and I climb in right beside him, and I lay on my side, as I keep one hand locked firmly around his uninjured wrist.

He turns his head to me, and I lay my forehead against his as I look at him. His eyes are swollen, but I can just see his chocolate coloured eyes.

“Hey, baby.” I whisper against the cool night air.

He smiles, “Hi.” He winces at as the truck hits a bump in the road.

I press a kiss to his forehead as he closes his eyes. “I love you, Jack. Love you so much.” kissing his lips, and I hear him hum against my lips.

CJ navigates the dark, winding back roads and once we reached the helicopter, we transferred him with equal care into the cabin of the waiting Huey. During the entire flight across the freezing, starless night sky, I don’t let go of his hand for a single second.

Luca checks Jack constantly, but I can see he’s nervous. I throw him a headset and I wait for him to put them on. CJ and Deck sit silently like sentries over Jack as they watch Luca as I speak.

“Update Doc? How is he?”

I see Luca sigh. “His blood pressure is dropping, and his pain has increased in his abdomen.” He rips off his glove, and runs a hand over his tired face. “We need to get him to the hospital. Now.”

Reid’s voice comes over the comms, “I’m going as fast as I can. I’m heading straight to Nanaimo, it’s already cleared. CJ, you’ll be happy to know I have permission this time to land on the hospital roof. It would have been more dramatic if I could have landed in the car park. Just saying, Yoda.”

I look at CJ and he has a small smile on his face, “That’s good news, cowboy. Pleased you are following the rules this time. Maybe another day for the drama, yes?”

I shake my head, turning my attention back to my boy. I watch as Luca pulls on another glove and checks Jack again. “Good. Flyboy, can you patch me through to them? I’ll fully update them so they’re prepared.”

Flyboy? Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what Reid did that caused Luca to owe him so heavily. I might pry into that, find out what his story is, and make damn sure to follow it up with Reid later.

Jack is asleep, the drugs doing their job as I look out of the helicopter windows.

I pray for the first time in years.

Please let us make it in time.

28

Silas

It’s Jack’s first night back on Canadian soil, tucked safely away in a secured VIP medical room that we had locked down completely with our own people, and I refused to budge an inch from his bedside.

The medical staff had tried gently suggesting early in the evening that I step out, that I get some rest in a hotel close by, but a single, lethal look had made them instantly reconsider. Eli, reading the volatile situation and the tension bleeding from every pore of my body, bypassed the hospital bureaucracy entirely.

Within an hour, he had arranged for larger bed to be wheeled into the room. They had made him comfortable and now I lie here, skin to skin, his body pressed against mine in the quiet, the lights turned off, save for the warm glow of small bedside lamp that cast a soft light over my boy.

The background noise of the hospital hums like a distant ghost, but everything is narrowed down to the steady, rhythmic beep of the heart monitor. Each soft pulse is a reminder that he’s breathing.

That my boy is alive.

He survived.

The room feels peaceful as he sleeps beside me. It’s as if even the world outside has finally learned to hold its breath, realising that Jack needs every ounce of air left in the room, and that it better lower its voice around him.

Jack lies next to me, swallowed by the oversized mattress, and I keep my arm locked protectively, possessively across his hips.

I had cornered Luca before Reid had flown him back to Seattle, interrogating the doctor like a criminal just to find out where I could touch Jack without hurting him. His hips, Luca had told me.

Everywhere else on his body is a ruined, violet canvas of bruises, fractured bone and torn muscle and skin, a physical record of the slow execution his father and Ray put him through.

I watch his chest rise, then fall, and to repeat itself as a violent tremor racks my frame. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted gratitude this heavy, this terrifyingly raw.