Their hotel was a simple, rectangular building that looked lonely, compared to the fancier ones with full parking lots. Good. They needed simple. Their rooms were on the second floor, halfway between the elevator and stairs. After stowing their luggage in one of the two rooms, and before anyone claimed a particular bed, Jeuel said, “I’m ready to go see him now.”
“There’s no rush,” Branson replied, startled by both the comment and Jeuel’s monotone delivery of it.
“Yes, there is. You guys have already taken so much time from work for me. Father has been lingering, suffering for weeks. I need to let his spirit find peace.”
Branson bit back cruel words about the kind of peace a man like Charles Alder/Chip Uty deserved. The comments were unnecessary and mean. This was Jeuel’s sire, a man he’d loved his entire life. A man he only knew as a caring father, not a rapist or sadist.
The sire doesn’t make the man.
He understood that more than most, and he quickly glanced at Tarius, whose nearly-imperceptible nod agreed with him. “We can go now,” Branson said gently. “I’m proud of you for facing something this difficult.”
Jeuel’s liquid eyes got even wetter. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
No, he didn’t have a choice in his duty as a son, but he certainly had a choice in his attitude. Not everyone Jeuel’s age would have so much grace and courage in the face of inevitability and death.
Courage that began showing small cracks and fissures once they arrived at the hospital. Their sextet turned a few heads as Quillen led them through a maze of corridors to a private wing that seemed deserted, except for two nurses huddled at a central station, and two security guards outside one room.
“He’s protected here,” Quillen explained. “He’ll never wake up, but we don’t want anyone to get big revenge ideas. Criminal or not, Alder has a family who gets to make that final choice for him.” A very diplomatic way of saying ‘we don’t want someone to kill him before he dies naturally.’
Jeuel nodded slowly, his chin trembling. “I appreciate that, sir.”
“Our job is to protect the lives of all citizens, Mr. Jeuel. The goddess is the only one who should decide who lives andwho dies. I’m very happy that our provincial supreme court is going to hear arguments on abolishing the death penalty here in Sonora, following in the footsteps of other provinces like Buckman and Rainier.”
“I’d love to see it gone in Sansbury, as well,” Branson said. “I wish you better luck in your courts than we’ve had in ours.”
Despite his omegin’s own years-old championing of abolishing the death penalty in Sansbury, there were still too many Traditionalists in key places of power, especially in the judiciary. One day, he hoped enough provinces joined forces to take its abolition all the way to the Territory Supreme Court in Buckman Province, and to see the death penalty gone from the entire Northern Territory.
Branson inclined his head at Tarius, expecting some gesture of agreement; Tarius simply stared, which was…odd. But inside a secure hospital ward wasn’t the time or place to question the expression.
Quillen pointed to the room with the guards. “You can go in whenever you’re ready, Jeuel.”
Jeuel’s entire body flinched, and Branson braced for him to change his mind, maybe turn on his heel and race for the elevator. Instead, Jeuel squared his shoulders, slipped his hand into Branson’s, and walked toward the room, pulling Branson with him. For a split second, Branson resented that hand in his, resented being forced to face the man in that hospital bed. Then he remembered who was holding his hand: a traumatized little brother who was about to lose his last living parent, and who needed his only living biological relative by his side. Supporting him.
He kept his gaze on Jeuel as Jeuel shuffled into the wide room. A long bank of windows allowed in sunlight, taking away some of the hospital sterility, which was full of sounds of the machines keeping Uty alive. Jeuel stopped at the foot of the bedand stared. Branson dropped his gaze to the blanketed lump that was Uty’s feet, unwilling to look at the man. Yet.
A tremor shot down Jeuel’s hand, and Branson gave it a squeeze. “You don’t have to sign the papers right away,” Branson whispered. “You can sit with him for a while.”
“No, I sat with him for hours and hours before. He doesn’t even look like my father anymore. I’m not sure who that man is. When the doctor gets here, I’ll sign whatever I need to sign, so he can let go.”
“Did he, uh, ever talk to you about advanced directives?” Seemed a bit late to be asking, but as an omega, Jeuel also wouldn’t have been given that choice before the custody order.
“Not with me. If he told anyone, he probably told Paul. Father was always so…larger than life. He seemed invincible…until he wasn’t.”
Branson often thought that way about Ronin Cross. He’d once considered Uncle Tarek just as invincible, until he was shot and paralyzed—but he’d not only bounced back, he was now on track to become the longest tenured mayor in modern Sansbury history. Both of those alphas had kind spirits, loving hearts, and were fierce protectors of those weaker. Alder/Uty was nothing like them.
“I think that’s a curse of being someone’s child,” Branson said, picking his words carefully. Trying to keep his tone soft and soothing. “We think our parents are invincible until someone proves otherwise. But that doesn’t change how much we love them. No one can take that from us.”
“You don’t love my father.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t even know him. But I do love the alpha who raised me as his own, very, very much. I cannot fathom what you’re feeling, or how strong you are to even be standing here with me. If that was my father? Ronin? If I had to sign those papers? I don’t know if I could.”
Jeuel tore his gaze from the bed, and the grief in his wet, red-rimmed eyes ripped Branson’s tender heart in two. “I hope you never find out.”
A doctor entered the room with Paxton. Branson stuck close to Jeuel’s side as the doctor explained the papers and what would happen once the machines were turned off. It could be a few minutes or up to an hour, which was a much shorter time than Branson expected. But Uty’s lungs were damaged by scar tissue from the bullets and surgery, and he was likely to stop breathing before his heart gave out.
Jeuel signed the papers with a hand shaking so badly he mostly scribbled on the page. Then the doctor handed them over to Branson to sign, as Jeuel’s guardian. Branson wasn’t sure why his own signature looked so strange, very unlike itself. Too loopy, as if he’d forgotten how to spell it.
No matter, it was done.
