Jeez, the poor guy must be terrified.He’s separated from his friend, worried about him, and Sterling is arguing.
I step into the room.“Hey, I know today has been a lot, but I’m sure Tony is just fine.We’re getting you all out, so you’ll see him soon, okay?”
He recoils like I slapped him in the face, backing up to the desk behind him.“How do you know that name?”
Shit, I really need to start being more careful.Sterling lifts his hands, approaching slow.Easy.
It doesn’t work.
The closer he gets, the more agitated the man looks.He starts pulling drawers open, yelling at Sterling to get back.
The next thing I know, he’s slashing the air, a pair of scissors in his hand.
I see red.
It’s easy to take hold of them with my mind, flinging them to the other side of the room.Sterling grunts, and then Lucky is rushing in.
I point him at the other guy.“Get him out of here!”
The guy roars, but it’s gone before a second goes by, Lucky disappearing with him.
I rush over to Sterling.He’s bleeding, cut across his biceps, where I must have clipped him.
“Oh my God, I hurt you.”
It’s hard to tell how much blood because of his obsession with black, but the area around the cut is mostly dry so I’m going to use everything I learned from fourteen seasons of hospital soap operas to say that it’s fine.
“I’m okay.It’s a graze.I’ve had worse.”
Oh, worse, he says.That’s reassuring.
“That’s not good enough.This is why we wanted you to leave.”
He cups my cheek.“I’m not going anywhere.If you’re both here, so am I.”
“If anything happened, I’d never forgive myself.”
“Maybe we should all leave then,” I say as Lucky blinks back into existence.
“Fuck that,” Lucky says, shaking his head.“What’s the point of being able to help if we just stand by and watch?”
He’s using my own words against me.
“Getting yourself killed isn’t helping,” Sterling says.“You’ve already saved innocent lives?—”
“And let these assholes get away to try again later?”
“The professionals know how to do their jobs,” Sterling argues.
“Sure,”Lucky thinks.“That’s why so many innocent people are incarcerated.”
“Only the great Sterling Ross is allowed to rush into danger and save the day with his mighty pen—is that it?We’re supposed to go home and what, sit and wait?”
Sterling starts pacing, pulling at his hair.This is the most animated I’ve ever seen him before.His mouth opens and shuts, starting and rejecting sentences as he goes.
The force of Sterling’s feelings for us steals my breath.I never knew … could never have guessed this was fueling his distance, but I can’t deny what is passing through his mind right now.
The longing, the regret, all of it circling back on himself until he returns to the same conclusion—we’re better off without him.But he’s wrong.So wrong.And I don’t need to read Lucky’s thoughts to know he feels the same.
