Narcos…

I shouldn’t be here. I couldn’t help myself, though. The guilt was driving me up a wall. I knew I could trust Driller when he said she was all right, but it was like I couldn’t let myself believe it, not until I saw her myself. I wouldn’t know where she was taken after this, so it was my last chance to see her before they took her to a safe, undisclosed location. I might not see her again for a couple of years, and that would be only if we managed to get enough to take King and the rest of his merry band of assholes to trial.

Nailing them for drug trafficking and distribution was my job, but that was just the tip of their dirty iceberg. Drugs, guns, murder and mayhem… these guys did it all. They were a bunch of sovereign militia types, the worst of the worst. Sovereigns didn’t recognize the laws of today or the authority of the police and government as it stood now. It could be a pain in the ass for modern law enforcement.

None of that mattered right now, though, not with her lying there, looking fragile and wan in the hospital bed, her hands wrapped in thick white bandages, resting on top of the thin tan hospital blanket in her lap.

Pasquale grumbled behind me and I glanced back at him.

“I have rounds, you know. My own patients to see.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. I’m good. I’ll, uh, catch you later.”

He gave me a look like he wasn’t impressed and said, “Motherfucker, if you wake that sleeping beauty up and I get in trouble, I would like to kill you.”

I shook my head and made a motion with my hand indicating he should quiet down himself and pump the brakes.

“I’m not going to wake her up, but you might!” I hissed.

He gave me another unimpressed look and rolled his eyes. He shifted on his feet and said, “Ten minutes and you had better be gone, before someone finds you here!”

“Copy that, Princess,” I muttered.

He arched one of his overdone brows and turned like a model on the runway, fierce as shit, and went out the door of her room, out into the hallway, and disappeared. I turned back and her eyes were open, regarding me dully. I sank into the chair beside her bed and pressed my lips together, getting choked up.

“I am so sorry,” I whispered.

Her expression gave me no quarter, and I got it. I did. I wouldn’t forgive me, either.

“I couldn’t blow my cover, and I know that’s no excuse, I just… I just feel so awful, you don’t even know.”

I braced my elbows on my knees and pressed my fingertips into my forehead at the top of the bridge of my nose. I was perilously close to breaking over this, the desolate feeling of devastation rolling through me like angry storm clouds boiling across the sky. I brought my hands down and clasped them together, and her vivid green eyes searched my face, emotionless. Her expression was as stoic as I’d ever seen it; I was used to her wearing a semi-charmed Mona Lisa smile just about always.

She raised her hands feebly off her lap and set them back down carefully and I stared at them for a while. At the spot of rusty crimson on the back of one of the snowy-white wraps, my heart sank. My eyes flicked back to hers and I could swear I was drowning in the depth of her emotion, but I could only dream of interpreting it without help.

It switched from the nameless feeling she’d attempted to telegraph to sorrow and she sighed, her eyes closing. She opened them again, meeting my eyes, then very deliberately turned her head away from me to stare out the window, across the alley, to the empty brick façade across from it. When I stood, she flinched and I swallowed my guilt down hard.

“I’ll make it up to you. I don’t know how, but I will,” I vowed.

She turned onto her side, carefully hunching forward and cradling her ruined hands against her chest.

“I’ll put them away,” I said. “You’ll be safe.”

She looked over her shoulder at me and frowned and the look said all it needed to. I’ll never be safe.

“I’ll fix it,” I swore. “I promise.”

She scoffed and turned her back on me again, only this time, I felt thoroughly dismissed. That was all right; that was okay. I had work to do.

I slipped out of her room and strode up the hallway, punching the down button for the elevator savagely with my fingertips, staring at the dark crescents of her dried blood still trapped under my fingernails. I closed my fist, and let those nails bite into my palm. Nausea at my actions rolled through me like a rogue wave, sucking me under and tumbling me dizzily like I’d been caught in a riptide.

It’d been hard not to notice Silence. She was a beautiful girl, in her mid- to late-twenties, with long auburn hair down past her butt and vivid green eyes, the likes to put that National Geographic photo to shame. She had creamy white skin and cute little freckles, and a body that was to die for under those hippy-chick skirts and peasant blouses she liked to wear. I always wondered where the hell King had picked her up, but he was a closed-mouthed bastard on the subject, and her? Well, she didn’t speak at all.

King, the misogynistic chauvinist bastard that he was, thought that was great. “A gash that can’t go spillin’ secrets, can you believe my luck?” he’d always say, and I’d laugh right along with the lot of them like it was funny. The look on Silence’s face said otherwise, deep hurt had been in her eyes, and for whatever reason, you could just tell that she had a real love for King despite all his bullshit.

He’d hurt her real bad with his betrayal, and I felt double the guilt for it. She hadn’t sold him out at all. I had, but I’d never dreamed that it’d fall on her, or that I would do what I’d done to save my own skin. The poor woman.

Fuck! This elevator was taking forever. I bowed my head and heaved a heavy sigh. All I wanted to do was get on my bike and go for a long ride, by myself. No one to bother me. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but it’s what I wanted with just about every fuckin’ fiber of my being.

My cell buzzed in my pocket and I fished it out as the elevator pinged and the doors opened. I stepped on board and frowned at the screen. It was Joker. I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t want the sounds of the hospital getting picked up and diming me out. I went back to my bike in the garage and as soon as I got back up onto the street, my phone started blowing up with notifications. I went a few blocks and pulled over and fished it out again.

Joker: Answer your fuckin’ phone man.

Wraith: Where the fuck are you? Joker’s trying to get you.

King: Bring your ass in. We have something to discuss.

Shit.

I pulled out my other phone and dialed up Driller.

“Yeah, man, what’s up?” he answered.

“Dunno, but the Crescentia boys are hot to fuckin’ trot and want my ass back like A.S.A.P.”

“Probably to celebrate you patching in, yeah?”

Shit. I’d forgotten all about that, with everything else.

“Shit. Yeah. Didn’t even think about that.”

“Go party, make sure you got the right gear on.”

I winced.

“Pasquale?” I asked.

“Drag Queen dimed your ass out, for sure, Brother. What the fuck are you even thinking, going to the hospital like that?”

“I dunno, man,” I said honestly and sighed.

“Get your head back in the fuckin’ game or you’re gonna get yourself killed,” he said, and he wasn’t playin’. I knew he was right, but I don’t think he knew how deeply this whole thing had affected me. Hell, I couldn’t believe how shook I was over her.

“I’m good,” I said, and I at least sounded convincing.

“You fuckin’ better be, asshole.”

“I said I was, now, I am,” I said, the first thread of anger worming its way into my voice.

“Good. Report as soon as you can.”

“Don’t I always?”

“That you do,” he said quietly.

I ended the call. I went back to my real apartment, got the mask off my face, traded my true colors for the farce that was the Knights of Crescentia’s logo, and with a heavy sigh, went down to the garage to swap bikes and take the other exit out of the garage.

That was one of the reasons I’d chosen this building; there were three garage exits onto three different streets surrounding it.

When you were me, and into the shit I was into, you always needed to leave yourself multiple escape routes.

It wasn’t paranoia when they really were out to get you.

At least, they would be, if they ever figured out I was a cop. I’d cut it real close tonight; there was honestly no tellin’ if I’d given any of the boys a reason to suspect me as being anything other than one of them…

I guessed I was going to find out.