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Drake keeps me pinned close behind him, adrenaline rolling off his broad body the way waves roll in the sea. He walks ahead of me, his head swiveling around and his eyes everywhere at once, but as the bank of elevators—three in total—all open at the same time, he drags me to the second and forgoesNumber One.
“Banks!” Archer stops outside the glistening silver doors and throws his hands up. “Number One is secure.”
“So you ride it.” He hits the buttons on the control panel and selects the fifth floor. “See you in a minute, Malone.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Archer growls as the doors close and lock just the two of us in. And though we leave him and Detective Fletcher behind, I imagine them both in my mind, dashing to the other elevator and following us up.
“Why are you changing the plan?” I cross my arms, even with Drake’s hand secured around mine, and drag my bottom lip between my teeth. I’mthisclose to seeing my mom, and yet, she feels hundreds of miles away. “The other elevator was secure.”
“Number one rule to not getting shot in the head, Little Bird.”
Warmth colors my cheeks as the elevator comes to a stop and the doors slowly inch open. “Is to not be where the bad guys expect me to be.”
“Exactly. Come on.” He passes not only Officer Clay but three others, who wear uniforms crisper than the brand-new jeans I pulled on this morning. “If we have a leak within our unit, then Vallejo’s soldiers will have known you were in One.”
“If we have a leak,” I counter, allowing him to lead me through quiet halls and around a corner, “then they’re gonna know I’m on the fifth floor, too.”
“True. But at least you’re not in your mom’s original room, with windows for walls and an entire city looking in.” He stops in front of a door and swaps his gun for a badge the officers need to scan. “Detective Drake Banks. Let us through.”
They read his badge and eye his weapons, and then the one on the right leans around and looks me up and down, too. He’s young, like Clay, and seems entirely too new to be guarding my mother’s life.
“How old are you, Officer?”
Curious, Drake peeks over his shoulder at me, his brows pinching tight, then he looks back to the officer and lifts his chin. “She asked you a question.”
“Um…” He swallows, so his Adam’s apple bobs and sways. “I’m twenty-four, ma’am.”
Older than me, I acknowledge.And yet, “Would you step in front of a bullet to protect the woman whose room you’re guarding?”
“Uh…” His hesitation is enough to tell me everything I need to know. His fear of dying, a promise of letting a gunman through if he had to choose between my mom or himself.
“Would you step in front of a bullet to save my life, Detective Banks?”
Drake passes the stammering cop and opens the door to let me in. “Yes. I would.”
“Even though we just met?” I press, glancing around the dark room to find my mother sound asleep in the bed in the middle of the room. I wonder if she even knows she’s been moved. “You’d risk death for someone you don’t even know?”
“I’d risk death for you,” he concludes, releasing my hand and taking up his position by the door. “You didn’t ask for this mess, Aurora. And you don’t deserve it.”
“And you do?” I come closer to my mom as he closes and secures the door, hoping my squeaking cane doesn’t drag her out of her slumber. “Did you ask for this, Detective Banks?”
He chuckles, so softly I would have had no chance of hearing it if it wasn’t five-thirty in the morning and the world wasn’t silent. “Seems that way,” he murmurs. “I keep coming back to these assholes, even when I wish they’d all rot.” Then he pauses as I come to a stop by Mom and take her hand. “You look like her.”
“She’s the most beautiful woman on the planet.” I take a visitor’s chair and quietly drag it closer. Then lowering onto the cushion, I set my cane aside and trade it for her hand. I place her palm against mine and study the side of her peaceful face. Her cheeks are gaunt, and her eyes are sunken. Her entire body is skin and bones. She can’t be more than ninety pounds, fully dressed and soaking wet. Even so, I see the woman beneath the sickness. I see the beautiful lady she’s always been.
She was the perfect trophy for my father in their earlier years. The body, the legs, the long hair, and the breasts that would someday kill her. She was the desired package for any young professional wanting something pretty on his arm at all the important parties.
But she’s so much more than that.
He wanted eye candy but got mad when she came with her own thoughts and feelings.
He wanted her to be seen and not heard, so when she spoke, he was furious.
“She wanted to be a surgeon.” I stroke her fingers, but I share the most important person in my world with a cop I had no clue would be so closely linked with my life just days ago. “She never got there,” I tell him. “But she had the intellect for it. She had the guts.”
“What kind of surgeon?” He presses his back to the door and lifts his foot to rest beneath, and when I glance over my shoulder to confirm the image my mind had already conjured, he grins. “Ortho? General?”
“Neuro,” I sigh, bringing my focus back around. “Why my father thought he could pluck someone like her out of med school and think she’d be a brainless sheep for him, I have no clue. But alas,” I reach across with my free hand and stroke her gaunt cheek. “She looked good. She smiled exactly right. She was smart as hell and witty enough to make a man question whether she’s insulting or complimenting him.”
