I push all thoughts of Lauren away out of instinct. It’s a protection mechanism. If I start thinking about her, I’ll never stop. And then one day I’ll find myself standing on a quiet street in Fort Collins, in front of a rambling one-story brick house, and I’ll fuck it all up.
That cannot happen.
That will not happen.
So I push Lauren away and concentrate on Wendy. Wendy is the one who needs saving, not Lauren. Lauren is just fine.
Merc and I follow Harrison outside. It’s sunny still. Not even dinnertime. Which surprises me for no good reason because I knew I was in that room for less than an hour, but it feels like several lifetimes of confessions just took place.
Harrison secures us a ride, and then, just fifteen minutes later, I’m climbing aboard his little Cessna jet. It only seats four, plus the pilot and co-pilot. But it’s nice. Luxurious. Nothing at all like the little plane he was flying two decades ago when he first got a front-row seat to the end of the world as we know it.
I take a seat in the back, of course. But Merc sits up front with Harrison. He’s probably sick of me. I’m a bad reminder of just about everything evil that’s ever happened to that guy, so I can’t say I blame him. But sometimes being Nick Tate really sucks. And what sucks more is that no one sees it that way. Just about everyone thinks I’m dead, so all the people I care about stopped caring about me a decade back. And the ones who never did care about me give no fucks at all about what kind of life I’ve been living since Kansas.
The flight proceeds without incident and thirty minutes later Harrison lands on my private dirt road and taxis right up to my shitty front yard.
A few minutes later, we’re walking around to the back of my house. I push Merc out of the way when he tries to enter first, then go in, not sure if Wendy is in my bedroom or on the couch.
It’s the couch. She’s hooked up to an IV and she’s sleeping. Deeply. Because when I sit down next to her and try to shake her awake, she doesn’t even moan. I bend down and whisper in her ear. “Wendy.”
“She can’t hear you. I have her in a cloud.”
I hold in my anger. It does you no good to fuck things up now, Nick. You’ve come this far. Hold it together. So when I say, “Wake her up. Now,” I am almost able to hide the snarl.
Merc is focused on Wendy now, so he’s not paying much attention to my mood as he messes with a tackle box filled with ampules of drugs and lots of syringes. He fills a syringe and pushes the drug into her IV. Moments later, Wendy begins to cough.
“That’s normal. It’s just a reflex.”
I know this. And I tell myself that I know this. It’s just a side effect of the drugs he’s using. Wendy is OK. She’s gonna be fine. But it hurts me to see her like this. I actually have a pain in my chest as I watch Merc check her vitals. I have an urge to do it myself, but luckily the inner voice calms me down and reminds me to step back.
There is no logical reason to be emotional right now. It’s all gonna work out.
But giving yourself the pep talk and actually buying into the pep talk are two very different things.
“You OK there, partner?”
I turn and find Harrison looking at me intently. He comes across as worried—which is understandable, since I’m having a silent freakout. And he probably is concerned, but he’s not just concerned.
He’s suspicious.
Yeah. Harrison is a wild card and I need to be careful around him. I didn’t realize he was as tuned in as the rest of us and that was a mistake. Not a fatal one, but it’s serious enough that I need to make sure he doesn’t become the reason I fail.
“I’m fine,” I say. Merc is ignoring us. Wendy is trying to sit up now and he’s focused on removing her IV before she rips it out. I want to pay all the attention to her recovery, but Harrison is still looking at me, so I feel the need to keep going with him. “I’m pissed, actually. I mean, what the actual fuck? You knew who she was, you knew this was a bad idea—”
“I’m OK.” I turn and find Wendy trying to smile at me. “It’s OK, Nick. I’m OK.”
I walk over to her, kneel down, and smile as we lock eyes. It’s a real smile. “You sure?”
She nods. Then she narrows her eyes and directs a scowl to Merc. “You’re an asshole. Stay the fuck away from me. And I mean that. If you—”