“She’s okay,” I tell him quickly. “Alice, she’s cleared. They’re getting discharged papers.”
Relief floods his face so fast it’s almost painful to watch. “Thank God,” he breathes.
I open her door for him and he doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask anything else. He just moves past me. I can tell it’s a need I don’t understand yet but accept. Of course he needs to see her immediately.
I close the door again and sink back to the floor. And for the first time since Scott called… I feel it. The weight, the guilt. Because it could’ve been Jett. Itshould’vebeen him.
And that thought is going to haunt me. But it’ll haunt Alice far more.
Familiar footsteps approach. I don’t need to look up to know it’s Alex.
“I should’ve been there,” I whisper.
He sits down beside me. “You couldn’t have known.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“It changes everything.”
I shake my head. “I respond to these calls,” I say. “I’m supposed to be there. I’m supposed to help.”
“And tonight,” he says quietly, “you did.”
I laugh bitterly. “Not enough.”
His gaze hardens slightly. “Don’t do that to yourself.”
I look at him. This, what’s floating between us, is no longer about the case, the girls, or the neighborhood. I understand why he tried to keep me at a distance. And why it didn’t work. I thought the danger in my life was my neighborhood. But it’s not that simple. We both work jobs that threaten your safety, threaten to take your life. There’s no way to avoid the thought now. It’s been thrust into my face.
Now we’re both in it. And there’s no clean way out.
Chapter 12
Alex
Liv doesn’t argue about the helmet; that’s how I know something is really wrong.
Just a few hours ago, though it feels like days ago, getting her onto my bike involved a few irritated comments about me not wearing a helmet. Considering I only have one on me right now, I’ll be putting it on her. End of discussion.
But now, nothing. Not one word. She just takes the helmet from my hand silently and puts it on. No complaint when I don’t put one on myself. No glare. No sarcastic “you know those laws apply to you too, right?”
Nothing. That scares me more than the blood did.
I start the bike, the engine vibrating beneath us as the city lights blur around us in the hospital parking lot.
For a second, she just stands there beside the bike like she forgot what we’re doing. Then she climbs on behind me automatically. Slowly and carefully.
The second we pull out onto the street, her arms slide around my waist. Not tightly like before and not flirtatiously. Just… tired. Like she doesn’t have enough energy left to hold herself upright alone.
And Christ, that hits harder than it should.
The ride across town is completely silent. I can still see the crash scene every time I blink. The twisted metal and shattered glass scattered out from the crumpled ambulance.
And Liv dropping to her knees beside Alice with the kind of desperate denial only medical personnel really understand. Because we all know what death looks like. And sometimes we still refuse to believe it anyway.
I’d found out more at the hospital. His name was Brian. He was twenty-three years old. Dead because a drunk driver blew past the other stopped vehicles as an ambulance sped past with a code three.
Alice barely able to breathe through her sobbing and Liv trying to hold her together.
