Jules, page 2
“Northeast corner, 2nd floor.”
“On your six. Move out, teams.”
I ran toward the building with Chris hot on my heels. We climbed over rock and coughed as we sucked in the dust from the air. It took too long to get to the stairwell. I raced up the steps, unsure that I wanted to see what was up there. My heart slammed in my chest when I thought of the last time I saw him. A bullet had torn through his leg, but Jules was stoic as ever, never giving in.
When we reached the second floor, I almost fell over my own feet when I saw the destruction where we once stood. Chris and I shot across the floor, slowing only when we reached the large area of rubble that laid in chunks everywhere. I could see legs sticking out from where the other men had been standing. Jules could be over there, but since he had been shot, our best bet was to find where he had fallen originally.
Footsteps pounded from the direction of the stairwell. Everyone at Reed Security was here to search for our fallen friend. I dug through smaller pieces of rubble, careful to shift pieces slowly so I didn’t knock other pieces off balance. We dug through it for what felt like forever.
“Over here!” Jackson shouted. Making my way over to him, my heart stopped in my chest. Lying on the ground, covered in dust was Jules. His eyes were closed and blood was smeared across his face. A large pile of concrete rested on his body.
“Pappy, what do we do?” I asked our team medic.
“Let me in there. I need to see if he’s alive.” Pappy bent down and felt for a pulse, his eyes closed in concentration. “He’s alive. Just barely, but I’ve got a heartbeat.”
“Let’s get this off him,” I shouted.
“Wait, we can’t just lift it off him. It could be all that’s keeping him alive.”
“If we don’t fucking move it, he’s gonna be dead anyway. We have to try. We can’t wait for paramedics to get here.”
“I called in an air ambulance. It should be here in ten,” Cap said. “Let’s do what we have to in order to get him out by the time they arrive.”
Pappy nodded and all of us took up positions around Jules to shift the concrete off his body. Pappy and Rocco, our other team medic, were standing by to do what they could for him.
We shifted the concrete off him, while others moved the rest of the rubble, clearing a path for us to get him out of here. Pappy and Rocco were pulling him out as soon as the concrete was clear. They started talking to each other in medical lingo, checking his vitals and patching where they could. Blood was dripping from his arm and leg. I knew he had taken a bullet to the chest, but it had hit the vest. There were several more holes that added to that, but there was no telling if any had made it through until they took the vest off.
Something floated off his chest and to the ground. I took a step forward, reaching around Rocco to pick it up. When I flipped it over, everything in my throat stopped functioning. It was a picture of him with Ivy at one of our gatherings. He said he had no one, but he had her. He had given up any chance of having a life with her just to save mine and Chris’s. I tucked the photograph into my own vest for safe keeping.
The air ambulance quickly arrived and the paramedics loaded him up on a stretcher, strapping him in before they rushed toward the helicopter. I took off for the helicopter, jumping inside with Chris.
“Sir, you can’t be in here.”
“That man is my best friend and if he doesn’t make it, he’s not going to die alone.”
The man nodded and shut the door to the helicopter. All I could do was stare at Jules’s face. He was deathly pale and the blood smears on him made him look like something out of a slasher movie. The medic removed his vest and quickly put pressure on a wound that started to gush blood. The other medic cut the shirt from his chest to assess the rest of his body and then his pants. He had two bullet holes in his right leg and one of his hip bones appeared to be smashed.
When we reached the hospital, Chris and I ran along with the doctors that had met the helicopter. We gave as much information as possible so they could assess the damage faster.
“You need to go to the surgical waiting area. We’ll update you as soon as possible,” the nurse said before shutting the door to the surgical wing.
I stood there, staring through the window as they wheeled Jules down the hall until they turned a corner and I could no longer see him. Chris gripped my shoulder, forcing me to walk with him to the waiting area. I called Cap and filled him in on what was going on. Everyone was on their way here, while Cash was handling the wrap up of his op.
Minutes dragged into hours and still no one came to update us. Frustration was boiling over inside me. I wanted to punch someone. I wanted to rip the whole fucking waiting area apart until my anger had dissipated.
“He’ll make it,” Chris rumbled.
“You don’t know that.”
“He was alive. He’s been in surgery for hours. If he wasn’t going to make it, he would have been dead the moment they opened him up.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I said without any heat to my words. “You know as well as I do that his body could give out at any point during surgery.”
“He shouldn’t have fucking done it. We should have stayed with him,” Chris bit out.
I knew he was right. We had left a teammate behind. Even if it was what was needed to complete the job, as his friend, I never should have allowed him to do that for us. His life wasn’t any less important because he was unattached. I dropped my head in my hands and tried to control the pain, anger, and sadness warring through my body.
All of Reed Security arrived an hour later, but there still was no update on Jules. Night fell and exhaustion crept over all of us, but no one would leave until we heard something from the doctors. Sometime in the dead of night, a doctor finally walked through the door looking worn out. I held my breath as he approached, heart thudding loudly as I prepared for whatever he had to say.
“Are you all here for Julian Siegrist?”
“Yes,” I choked out. “Did he make it?”
“He survived the surgery, but it was touch and go the whole time. That’s why we couldn’t update you. We’ve moved him to the ICU, but it all depends on how his body does over the next few days. He had a lot of internal bleeding, broken ribs, damage to his leg, a concussion…It was a mess.”
“Can we see him?”
“One at a time, but only for a few minutes. I’ll allow two of you to stay the night with him.”
I nodded as the doctor walked away. I turned, my eyes searching out Hunter. When I saw him, his face looked grim. “What isn’t he saying?”
Hunter looked warily at the group of us, standing around him, waiting for an answer. “They don’t normally let people stay the night in the ICU. If they’re letting you stay, it’s because they don’t expect him to make it through the night.”
My gaze dropped to the floor and the sounds all around me turned muffled. I felt like I was floating above all of us, watching everyone fall apart. We hadn’t lost a teammate since Cal. We’d had injuries and close calls, but never something as bad as this. Even when Cazzo was shot, they firmly believed they could save him and the only issue would be his spine.
This was really happening. My friend, my brother, was in there fighting for his life because I had let him stay behind. I should have demanded that he come with us. I should have told him I would stay in his place. I was the team leader. It was my responsibility to take care of my team. He was in that bed because of me.
He made it through the first night and that gave me hope that he would survive. The other men came and went, waiting with Chris and I, bringing us food and a change of clothes. The hospital had let us use the showers because we couldn’t sit with him in the state we were in.
When I knew there was a chance that he would make it, I called Lindsey and asked her to bring Ivy out here. Cap had told me they would have to drive, but I had no idea why. It didn’t matter. I knew that she would want to be here for Jules, even if they weren’t together. As much as she protested the relationship, everyone could tell that she was madly in love with him.
When she arrived at the hospital a few days later, I could barely stand to see her, knowing that it was my fault he was in that bed. I gave her a hug and told her she could sit with him and then I took a walk for the first time in days, needing to clear my head.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ivy
I RAN INTO the hospital, tears streaming down my face when I realized I was about to see him. John, or Ice as the men called him, had informed me that he didn’t look very good and his body was very weak. He wanted me to know so that I didn’t freak out when I saw him.
As I approached the ICU, John stood and opened his arms, hugging me tightly to his body. It was all I could do to not fall to the floor and cry.
“How bad is it?”
“He had a lot of internal bleeding, cracked ribs, a fractured hip, wounds to his leg and arm, and a concussion. But he’s made it this far. It’s only a matter of his body resting before he comes back to us.”
Lies. I recognized them well. I told them all the time. He was trying to spare me, but I didn’t need that. I needed to know what was going to happen to Julian.
“There’s something you should have.” He reached into his pocket and pulled a picture out, handing it over to me. “He had this in his hand when we found him.”
My chin shook violently as I tried to hold back another round of tears. He may have walked away, but he was still holding on to me. I was what he thought of in the end.
“Ivy, you have to know that he loves you. He never said it, but he didn’t have to. Every time he talked about you, he became a different person. Whatever is standing between the two of you, bury it. You only get so many chances in life.”
He walked away, leaving me to go visit Julian on my own. I composed myself as best as I could before walking into Julian’s room. The beeping of the heart monitor and the whooshing of the ventilator were my saving grace. It proved that he was still alive, still fighting to survive. I took a seat at his bedside and looked him over. Scratches marred his face and a bandage was taped to his forehead, as well as one on his left arm. I couldn’t see the rest of the damage because of his hospital gown, but I knew it was bad. He laid so still that I almost believed he was gone. His skin was so pale and his lips were dried and cracked.
I gripped his hand lightly in mine, hoping that I wasn’t hurting him. There was so much that I wanted to tell him, so much that I should have said long ago. Were his last moments thinking about how I had pushed him away? Did he think that I didn’t care about him the way he cared about me?
“Julian,” I whispered. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I’m here and I love you. I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything before. I didn’t want to give you false hope. But my intentions were selfish. You deserved to know the truth about me and make your own decisions. I’m sorry that it took you almost dying for me to realize that.”
The monitor continued to beep and the ventilator steadily pushed air into his lungs. Tears slipped down my cheeks as I thought about the two years I’d had with him, that I wasted. I laid my head down on the bed and watched him, hoping that at any moment he would wake up.
✯✯✯✯✯
“Why don’t you go to the hotel tonight?” John asked. “I can stay with him tonight.”
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t want to leave him. He wouldn’t leave me if I was in this hospital bed.”
“Ivy, you’ve gotta sleep.”
“I have been.”
“Sleeping with your head on the bed isn’t getting the rest you need. You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” I grumbled, running my hand through my hair and swiping my fingers under my eyes. I didn’t have makeup on, at least, I didn’t think I did. I honestly couldn’t remember. I had been in his room since the day I got here almost a week ago. Someone brought me clothes and there was always someone shoving food in my face, but I honestly didn’t know who was doing it. I wasn’t aware of anything but Julian.
John took the seat on the other side of the bed and sipped his coffee. He had brought one for me, but I just couldn’t stomach it. I was in knots and everything made me nauseous. I could barely choke down the salad that was brought to me, let alone an actual meal, while I was looking at Julian in that bed.
“You need to get out of here for at least a few hours. I’ll let you know if something changes with him.”
“No, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because…I pushed him away. I refused to give him the one thing he asked for. Maybe he wouldn’t be in this bed if I had tried harder with him.”
John went still and wouldn’t look at me. No one had told me exactly what happened yet. I got the feeling that it was bad and John felt guilty. Secrets and lies looked the same on everyone. There was always something they gave away in their expression that signaled betrayal of some kind.
“Why would you assume this is your fault?” he finally said. “How do you think what you said would have changed the course of events?”
“I don’t know, but everything that happens in life could make just the smallest difference and change what we do or think or say. I know that very well.”
“What’s your secret, Ivy? What are you hiding from him?”
“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” I shot back, certain that he wouldn’t actually open up to me.
He stared at me for a moment and then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s my fault he’s in this bed.”
I was in shock that he actually said something. I wanted to tell him to stop, that I didn’t want to hear it because I had no intention of telling him my secret. I thought briefly of getting up and walking out, but then he looked at me and I couldn’t walk away. He obviously needed to get something off his chest. So I waited.
Silence hung between us. I had gotten to know John pretty well over the past two years and one thing I knew for certain, John was an honorable man. He would never intentionally do anything to hurt one of his friends. He would rather die first.
“We were pinned down and we needed a distraction. He wanted Chris and I to make a run for it while he provided cover. There were too many of them shooting at us. I knew he wouldn’t be able to get out on his own, but he was insistent because we still hadn’t finished the job.”
“That makes sense.”
“How do you figure?”
I could see it now, the reason he blamed himself, but he was wrong. “You think that you should have stayed behind because you’re the team leader.”
“And for other reasons.”
“You know, one thing I’ve learned about Julian over the past two years is that he doesn’t think his worth is nearly as great as other people’s.”
“Why would you think that? I’ve never gotten that impression from him.”
“That’s because you’re a guy. Men are trained to never show weakness, especially in front of other men.”
“So, if we don’t show weakness, how did you figure this out?”
I looked over at Julian, not sure if I should share this with his friend. I could tell that this really was bothering John, though. I knew Julian wouldn’t want him blaming himself.
“Little things that he mentions. He never comes right out and says a whole lot. It’s more in what he doesn’t say or the way he glosses over things.”
John leaned back in his chair, his ocean blue eyes assessing me like a target. “Why would I believe you? You won’t even tell the truth to Jules, or anyone else for that matter.”
“Maybe because I feel the same way. There are different reasons, but it’s all basically the same.”
“So, what are these little things he’s mentioned?”
“You know he was in foster care growing up.”
“Yeah, he’s never made that a secret.”
“His parents gave him away,” I said, watching his reaction, wondering if he knew this about Julian. He didn’t say anything, so I continued. “Every time one of you has a baby, he makes light of it, says that he doesn’t want kids. Kids are too much of a burden. The only reason he would feel that way is if he thinks his parents gave him away because he was too much of a burden.”
“Maybe or maybe he really doesn’t want kids.”
I shrugged. He could think whatever he wanted. “And then there’s the fact that he was bounced around from home to home. He said he only had one home that lasted a few years and it was a good one, but he had to move out because his foster mother developed some disease and she could no longer be responsible for him.”
John nodded to me and looked away for a minute.
“And then there’s the girl that died when he was in high school.”
His gaze snapped to mine. “He told you about that?”
“You know, I don’t think he meant to. He was trying to get me to open up to him and he must have thought that would work. Anyway, my point is, there are all these things that have happened and they all make him feel like shit about himself. No, he’s never told me that, but it was all over his face when he told me those things. He thinks he’s done too much bad to make him worthy of life. So, that’s why he sent you away. You have a family and he doesn’t. In his mind, he didn’t deserve to be the one with the chance to live. Or, maybe it’s better to say that you and Chris are the first real family he ever had and he would sacrifice anything for you.”
“Those are two different things. It sounds to me like you’re just creating your own reasons.”
“They’re different, but they stem from the same thoughts.”
“Were you a psychologist in a former life?” I would think he was joking, but the look on his face was more annoyed than anything else. He didn’t like that I was pointing out these things about his friend when he had known him longer.
“I’m not trying to make you angry. I won’t bring it up again.”
“I would appreciate that. But that doesn’t get you out of the second part of this conversation.”
