I know my detail isn’t happy with me, and I don’t fucking care. Protocoldictates they whisk me away to a secure location, but I’ll be damned if they’ll separate me from Kev and I won’t know if he’s alive or dead.
Another thought hits me. It’s been maybe less than two minutes since the shooting, even though it already feels like an eternity.
I lean over the seat to grab John’s shoulder, the agent who ended up riding shotgun. “Get Portia off the ground and in theairnow,” I order. “Send her to Offutt.”
John turns. “Sir, sitbackand put yourgoddamnedseat belt on. Wegotthis. You aren’t on The Shift anymore.”
He has a point. I buckle my seat belt. “Where’s the kids? Yasmine? Who has eyes on them?”
The world post-9/11 means the assumption is a coordinated attack, unless or until proven otherwise.
“Yasmine’s in class with Hudson. They’re safe. Theywon’t be moved unless we know there’s a threat, sir. We’ve already got extra agents inbound to the school. We can’t exfil them like this without putting the whole school on lockdown first and scaring the kids.”
Part of me hates that they can’t go to public school like regular kids. I hate that they are stuck in classrooms with the elite and rich, and that it might later lead to a detachment fromwhat the average person feels and experiences.
Unfortunately, it’s necessary, based on how we lost Charles and Tory, and Lauren. I can’t risk their lives. Tory’s parents can’t raise them—not that they are physically capable of it at their ages—because then the security logistics become a nightmare.
Besides, Charles asked me to take them. And I love them.
Who knew being a parent could be sogoddamned scary?
John turns again, frowning. “Sir, are you hurt?” I realize he’s looking at my hands.
At Kev’s blood on my hands.
And I’ve got his glasses and portfolio, which also has blood on it.
“No,” I finally say. “I’m fine. It’s not mine. It’s—” I have to clamp down on it. I can’t say it.
I’ve drawn and tasted his blood before, but not like this, in such copious, terrifying amounts.
Life-threatening amounts.
It’s only my past training that keeps me from bursting into tears.
It feels like forever to reach the hospital, and I’m about to fight my way out of the car because they force me to hold at the ambulance bay until they can clear a small consult room close to the OR suites to put me in and sit on me after a turn through a bathroom to wash his blood off my hands. There’sstill some on my jacket, on the cuffs of my shirt, but I don’t worry about that.
If he had anything, I’d have it, too, and so would Shae.
Kev’s alive and rushed immediately into surgery, so there’s that going for him. The paramedics who transported him train for trauma situations just like this.
Another point in Kev’s favor.
He’s in good health and doesn’t smoke or anything.
I belatedly thinkabout whether he’s marked up and realize it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to make excuses even if he is marked.
How did I get from our playfully frisky morning, where he tied my tie for me, to this nightmare?
I reach up to my throat and touch the knot, part of me reluctant to take it off now because he tied it for me.
Sure, it’s silly and superstitious, and I know me removing my tie will havezero impact on the skilled surgeons fighting to save Kev’s life, but still…
I can’t help it.
From left field, my earlier premonition sneaks back into my mind, and I wonder about this.
Why did I work the rope? I wasn’t supposed to. It wasn’t in the plan, but I saw the group of kids standing there and wanted to give them a good memory—and give Shae a good optic for the news.
This is what sumsup my entire job: PR. I am public relations. I might help a charity or champion a cause, but it’s all public relations for Shae’s administration, the Democratic party, and helping set up Elliot’s run for POTUS.
I slump in my chair. I broke protocol. Had I just gone straight inside, I’d have been okay.
Had I worn body armor, maybe Kev wouldn’t have jumped in front of me.
Had I not veered fromthe plan…
I close my eyes and, for the first time since I was a kid, I say prayers.
Please don’t take my boy from me.
