Page 104 of Catcher

Movement shifts near the shadows of a broken building. The face of a man I recognize comes into view, his cut dark beneath the rain, gun in one hand and my woman beside him, alive and crying. The second she sees me, she runs.

Ruby slams straight into my chest. I catch her with my good arm and nearly go to my knees from relief. Pain tears through my shoulder, but I don’t care. I hold her tighter while her hands move over my face, my cut, my neck, touching everywhere as if she needs to prove I’m real.

Her skin is cold from the rain, trembling under my hand. “You’re bleeding,” she sobs.

I pull back just enough to look at her. “You okay?”

She nods, tears streaming down her face. Her breath breaks. “My dad?”

“He was alive when the paramedics arrived. Your mom’s with him. That’s all I know.” She folds into me again, and I press my mouth to her temple, breathing her in like a man pulled up from drowning.

Easy walks closer while his men move behind him, dragging bodies, clearing weapons, checking shadows. I look at him over Ruby’s shoulder. “You have my thanks.” He gives a slow nod. “Riggs called… said family was taken.”

“I owe you.”

“Yeah,” Easy says, mouth twitching slightly. “I’ll collect when it’s inconvenient.”

I almost smile. Almost.

Riggs steps up beside me, rain sliding down his face. “You good?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes flick to my shoulder. “Get your woman to the hospital. Get patched up yourself.” Riggs looks over the bodies, the abandoned plant, and my brothers, all still standing. “Go on. We got it from here.”

I get Ruby into the van before collecting Robby off the ground, pale and shaking, with blood on his face that might not be his. He doesn’t speak when he crawls into the back of the van.

The ride to the hospital is a blur of wet roads and red lights. Ruby sits beside me, one hand pressed to her stomach and the other wrapped so tight around the edge of the seat that her knuckles go white. Every time we hit a pothole or take a corner too hard, I feel her tense. I keep looking at her even when I should be watching the road, checking that she’s still breathing, still here, still mine to protect. My shoulder burns, blood sticky down my side, but it barely registers. All I can think about is how close I came to losing her. How close I came to losing them both. The thought crawls cold through my chest and sits there, mean and heavy. I reach over and lace my fingers through hers. She grips back hard, as if letting go might make me disappear. Truth is, I’m holding on for the same damn reason.

At the hospital, everything turns bright again. Ruby gets checked first because I make damn sure of it. The baby’s heartbeat is strong. Those three words nearly drop me harder than the bullet did. Then they patch my shoulder.

By the time we reach her father’s room, he’s out of surgery, sleeping, pale as hell, surrounded by tubes, bandages, and machines…

But alive.

Ruby stands beside his bed holding her mother’s hand, tears sliding silently down her face while her mom strokes her hair with trembling fingers. Robby sits in the corner, mostly unscathed, because somehow that’s how life works sometimes. The guilty walk away cleaner than the people who love them and got hurt in the process.

But he looks different. Not fixed or forgiven… different. He looks at his father in that bed, then at Ruby, then down at his own hands. “I’m gonna make it right,” he says quietly.

No one answers right away.

I stand near the doorway, shoulder wrapped, blood still drying on my neck, every part of me aching. Finally, I look at him. “Yeah,” I say. “You are.” Because I’ll make damn sure of it.

Ruby turns toward me, wrecked, eyes red from crying, exhaustion hanging off her like another injury. She crosses the room slowly, careful with every step, and presses herself against my chest as though she needs to feel something solid after all that hell she’s been through. My arm comes around her, pulling her in, holding her there, because if I let myself think too hard about that concrete floor, those ropes on her wrists, and the blood at the corner of her mouth, I’ll come apart right here in this damn hospital room.

Machines beep steadily around her father. Her mother sits beside him, holding his hand. Robby stays in the corner, swallowed by his own silence. And me? I stand there with my woman in my arms, feeling our baby alive between us, pain grinding through my body, dried blood stiff on my skin, and my brothers somewhere out in the dark finishing the violence I didn’t leave enough of behind.

I lost everything once. I know exactly what it feels like when the dark reaches in and starts taking. Tonight came close to it happening again, close enough that I can still feel its breath on the back of my neck.

But Ruby is alive.

Our kid’s heart is beating.

And I’m still standing here with them.

This time, darkness doesn’t win.

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