We’re all together again. Whatever else happens, we’ll deal with it. The most important thing is that we’re all together again.
I turn to the doc. “Thank you so much. When can we take him home?” I know it’s a rude question after the guy just stitched Mathew up, but I don’t want to stay here longer than we need.
I want to take the pack home, somewhere safe, somewhere familiar.
The doc nods, like he expected the question. “I’d like to keep him for a couple more hours. I don’t expect any trouble, but just to be sure. In the mean time, I’ll check all of you over too.” He turns to Derrick and Timothy. “If you could follow me?”
Derrick shakes his head. “You don’t have to worry about us, we’ll be going home soon. We’ll get checked there.”
The doc raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m pretty sure the people at your place are busy enough as it is. If I check you over now, that means less work for them. Especially you.” He pointedly looks at Timothy’s hand. “We should check to make sure nothing important got damaged. If we catch it now, we might be able to fix it. If you wait too long, that could get trickier.”
Timothy looks sheepish. “I had a slight issue trying to open a bullet-riddled car door.” He keeps his hand at his side carefully. It’s wrapped in a blood-soaked cloth, and from the brightness of the colour, it’s still fresh.
Oh, for fuck’s sake... And he was just going to leave that until we got home?
The doc signals for the two to leave the room ahead of him before he turns back. “I’ll check the rest of you after. For now, you can clean yourself up as best as possible at the sink or in the bathroom, there are towels and such available.” With that, he leaves the room, leaving our pack all alone together for the first time in hours.
While I really want to go home, staying here for a couple more hours is probably a good idea too. Because I know that as soon as Mathew gets back, he’ll get back to work at full speed, until everything is taken care of, no matter how long it takes.
So, yes, staying here is frustrating, but it’s probably also the only way to make sure everyone actually rests.
Riley is sitting on the floor, against the wall, Vera in her lap, the two women fast asleep. Mathew is still on the operating table, with Jorge pushed up against him as closely as possible on the narrow table and Luca asleep in a chair next to them. They all look exhausted, but at least everyone is now mostly cleaned up —as much as possible while still wearing last night’s clothes— and we’ve all gotten the all-clear from the doc.
On the other side of the room, Timothy is tapping away on his laptop, his fingers moving at a high speed, and Derrick is alternately looking at his phone and swatting at Timothy’s hands so he can do something on the laptop. The two seem to be in their own little world, until Derrick looks up to me and frowns.
He puts his phone down and comes over. “Why did you go against your orders? You knew that was the exact reason I didn’t team Vera and you up for the raid.” Then he lets out a deep sigh. “You put yourselves and other people in so much danger by going back for Jorge and Luca.”
I look back to my pack. “Would you have left Timothy behind?”
“You had orders. If you got split up, you were to get out of there the quickest way possible. Those were your orders.” Derrick’s voice is tight, terse.
“Would you have left him behind?” His reaction and unwillingness to answer my question annoys me for some reason.
“You had orders.” Again with that voice, commanding, terse. Like I’m one of his underlings, not someone from Mathew’s pack.
“Would. You. Have. Left. Him. Behind?!” I fully turn to him, looking at him, meeting his gaze, anger rising.
He doesn’t look away, keeping my gaze, his face still stoic. “Yes. I would have. And I have.”
Rage flares in me and I ball my hands into fists, instinctively itching to punch him for putting Timothy in danger. Not wanting to believe his answer, even though I’m sure it’s the truth.
“It’s not theoretical for me. I’ve been in that situation before. These orders are given with a reason.” He breaks my gaze and glances over to Mathew and Vera.
“It’s so that we get as many people out of a situation as quickly as possible. By going back, you put your life, and Vera’s life, back in danger. You put your pack in more danger than needed.”
“Vera wanted to go back. I wasn’t going against her.”
Not that I needed much convincing, especially not when it was clear that Xavier and his pack would be fine, just like the rest of the people with them. But the thought of leaving Jorge and Luca behind, even with Derrick, didn’t sit well with me at all.
“You should have. I’ve left Timothy behind when things went sideways during a mission. And he’s done the same.” Derrick’s eyes are hard. “For the health and safety of our whole pack, we had to make sure that at least one of us got back to Eli and the kids safely. You should have gotten yourself and Vera to safety first. We could have come up with plans after that. But you should have gotten to safety first. You were in no state to turn back when you did.”
I understand what he’s saying, but still… “I couldn’t do that. And Vera definitely wouldn’t be able to do that.”
“That’s why I split you two up. You take unnecessary risks. Risks that could put a lot of people in a lot more danger than they already are.”
My sense of risk management, just like Vera’s, comes from years of being on the run. But that was just the two of us. The only people we had to consider in those situations were her and me. And we would have gone back if we knew the other had gotten trapped somewhere.
But that was when there were only two of us. Neither of us wanted to be without the other, so we took any risk to stay together.
