Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
He gave a sharp shake of his head and rubbed his palm over his shaved scalp. “Eli. Go inside. Get a shower and some sleep. Check in when you wake up, and we’ll talk. If Sylvie sees you right now,” he added before I could interrupt, “you’ll give her a fucking heart attack. You look like absolute dogshit. You need rest. A shower. You need to get your head on straight. When you do, we’ll talk about coming back.”
“You don’t get to make that call,” I said, knowing he was right and not caring. I needed to see her. My head throbbed, and I gritted my teeth.
I needed to kill the fucking asshole who’d almost taken Sylvie from me.
Maddox pulled out his phone. “Do I have to call Cooper? Because he can pull rank.” He rested his phone on his thigh and stared me down. “I get it, man. I get that she’s got you all fucked up in the head. I get that almost dying fucked you up a little bit. I get it’s further fucking with you that the dude who tried to kill Sylvie is still out there. It’s fucking with me too.”
“Not the same,” I managed to say.
“Yeah. I get that,” he said. “But Sylvie is covered. Wren and Miranda haven’t left the safe house. She’s fine. She needs sleep and pain meds and more sleep, just like you. If you’d agreed to get some rest when we busted you out of the hospital, I would have taken you back to the safe house. But now…” He gave me a scan. “Miranda said Sylvie’s been drifting in and out of sleep. She’s calm, she’s resting—getting a little better every time she wakes up. The last thing she needs is to see you like this. Your eyes are so bloodshot they’re full red, man. You look like you just ripped five bong hits, got flattened by a steamroller, and then puked on yourself. Pain pills, shower, sleep, then we’ll talk. Understood?”
A million comebacks flooded through my head. I settled for giving Maddox the finger and opening the passenger door of the SUV. I almost tumbled to the curb, my body so exhausted it wasn’t taking commands.
“Need me to walk you in?” Maddox asked, without a trace of sarcasm.
We’d all been through shit. A lot of it together. Sometimes you needed a buddy to take half the weight. There was no shame in that. Except this time, there was. Because again, he was right. I was a mess of my own making. I should have taken my ass home from the hospital and gone to bed. But I couldn’t stop thinking of Sylvie, unconscious and bleeding, and that asshole still out there, still gunning for her. I was in rough shape because I’d driven myself there. I’d get myself to the goddamn front door of the barracks on my own, even if I collapsed just on the other side.
I didn’t. I managed the coded lock, aware that Maddox was still idling at the curb, watching to make sure I got in okay, like an overprotective parent. The big metal door pressed back at me, heavier than I remembered. Fuck, I was weak, the throb in my head relentless.
Pills. Shower. Sleep.
I thought about that sensible to-do list and trudged through the wide-open living space that made up the center of the barracks. I passed the industrial-style oversized kitchen and the long stainless steel dining table with enough chairs to seat twenty. Opposite, there was a massive TV with an equally huge sectional sofa, big enough for a guy my size to spread out for a nap or to watch a game with plenty of room left for everyone else. The office space on the other side of the room had bookshelves, desks, and monitors. There was even a small gym area off to the side with a padded floor and weights. And above that, an open walkway that looked down into the central area on two sides. Off the walkway, there were ten bedrooms, each with an ensuite, roughly half of them big enough to be more like an efficiency apartment.
It was a sweet space, perfect for our team. And while it was industrial in design—probably why it hadn’t done well as a short-term rental/bed-and-breakfast—everything was top of the line. I thought about the rainfall showerhead in the bathroom, and in my imagination, I was already there, stripping off my sooty, dirty clothes, standing under steaming hot water until everything—the explosion, the last ten hours of searching—was all washed away.
In my imagination, that was what happened.
In reality, I made it as far as my roughly made queen-size bed before I collapsed face-first. I reached out just enough to drag a pillow closer, shoved it under my throbbing head, and was out.