Another paramedic approaches me with a blood pressure cuff and concerned expression. "Ma'am, I need to check you out. Make sure you weren't injured in the crash or the shooting."
I submit to the examination, letting them check my vitals and look for wounds I don't have. Physically I'm fine. Mentally I'm fragmenting, the memory of Gabriel's death playing on loop underneath everything else happening around me.
His eyes going wide with terror. My hands slipping. Relief underneath horror.
"She's in shock," the paramedic reports to Officer Martinez. "Blood pressure elevated, pupils dilated, dissociative presentation. She should go to the hospital for evaluation."
"No." The word comes out harder than I intend. "I'm not going to the hospital. I just want to go home."
"Ma'am, you've just survived a targeted attack. You witnessed a violent death. Shock can present in delayed ways—"
"I'm not going to the hospital." I'm looking at Jax now, needing him to understand that I can't handle sterile rooms and fluorescent lights and doctors asking me how I'm feeling when I don't even know where to start processing any of this. "Please. Just let me go home."
Martinez exchanges glances with the paramedic, clearly weighing medical necessity against my refusal. "If you refuse transport to the hospital, we'll need you to sign a refusal form—RMA. Against medical advice. And you'll need to stay available for follow-up questioning once we've processed the scene and reviewed security footage."
"I'll stay available. I'll sign whatever you need. Just please let me leave." I'm begging now, don't even care how it sounds. "I can't stay here. I can't keep looking at—" I gesture toward Reese's body that's being photographed by crime scene investigators. "Please."
Jax has finished his statement with the other officer and is approaching now, still maintaining distance because policetold him to but close enough that I can feel his presence. "Officer Martinez, my client has been through significant trauma today. She'll cooperate fully with your investigation, but she needs to be somewhere secure, somewhere that isn't an active crime scene."
Martinez considers this, clearly calculating whether letting me leave creates complications for her investigation. "The building security footage should corroborate your statements. And we have multiple witnesses including two licensed security contractors." She turns to me. "You can go. But I need contact information and commitment that you'll be available when we need additional statements."
I provide the burner phone number, the safe house address, everything she needs to track me down. She has me sign forms declining medical transport, confirming I understand I'm leaving against medical advice, acknowledging I'll make myself available for further investigation.
Then finally, mercifully, she steps back. "You're free to go. But Ms. Pope? Judging by what we’ve gathered so far, this wasn't random. Until we apprehend the other attackers, you need to maintain security protocols."
"She will," Jax says, already moving toward me now that he has permission. "Brandon, can Andre drive us back? And please get Derek to the hospital?"
Brandon's professional calm is intact despite everything. "Andre's vehicle took some rounds but nothing critical. Engine's good, tires are intact. I'll ride with Derek to the hospital, make sure he's taken care of. Andre, get them to the safe house now."
Andre brings his vehicle alongside us—I can see bullet impacts on the passenger side panels, spider-webbed window, but it's moving fine. Jax opens the rear door, helps me inside with careful hands that are still covered in Reese's blood. Heslides in beside me, finally close enough to touch after being forced to maintain distance by police protocols.
"I'm sorry," he says as Andre starts driving toward the exit ramp we never made it to. "I'm sorry you had to see that. Had to witness—"
"You saved my life." I cut him off because his apology makes no sense. "Reese was going to kill me. You stopped him. That's what happened."
"I know. But killing someone in front of you, making you watch that violence—" He stops, struggling with words that don't come easily. "Lana, you didn't sign up for any of this. You just wanted to settle your late husband's estate and move on with your life. Instead you're watching people die in parking garages."
I want to respond, but the words won't form properly. My brain is still caught between present violence and past trauma.
People die in parking garages. People fall from terraces during storms. People leave your life through violence you can't control, and you're left with the memory of trying to save them and failing and feeling relief underneath the guilt.
"I remember," I hear myself say, voice cracked and distant. "When he died. When I watched Reese die. Something—the memory came back. From that night. With Gabriel."
"The night he died."
"Yes." That's all I can manage right now. Yes, I remember. Yes, it came flooding back. Yes, everything I've been blocking for six months is suddenly sharp and present and I don't know what to do with it.
"Can you tell me what you remember?" His voice is careful, gentle in ways that suggest he understands trauma memories don't come back easily.
I shake my head. I can't explain it yet. Can't articulate the terrace and the storm and my hands slipping and the terrible relief underneath horror. The words are there but they won't organize into coherent narrative, just fragments that don't make sense outside my own head.
"It's okay." He pulls me against him, holds me while I'm shaking with reaction I can't control. "You don't have to tell me now. When you're ready. When you can."
"I tried—" The fragment escapes before I can stop it. "My hands. I tried but I couldn't—"
"Lana, whatever you remember, we'll process it together. But not here. Not now when you're in shock and we're driving away from attempted murder." His arm tightens around me. "Right now you just need to breathe. Just exist. Everything else can wait."
I nod against his chest, accepting that some truths are too big for car rides through downtown traffic, that the memory I've been carrying for six months deserves more than a fractured explanation while covered in someone else's blood.
