72 St. Margaret’s Way Chapter 19
His hand was bandaged. That was the first thing James noticed as he woke up. His hand was resting on the pillow beside him, carefully wrapped in gauze. The drugs weren’t pulling him back down into the darkness now, the way they had as he’d come close to surfacing multiple times. But his body felt like lead as he lay here, and he wanted to pull his injured hand into the safety underneath the blanket.
Adele came to the house again. They’d never be safe. Even if her control was gone, even if she swore she was sorry, how could he ever know that it wouldn’t happen again? He’d already put his team in danger and it was going to happen again.
A choked cry forced its way out, sounding weak and dry. His eyes were burning as he squeezed them shut. But he was shaking, even under the blanket.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.”
Was that Madelyn? Why was she still here? He wanted to tell her to go, or to go home, or to just never talk to him again. But he couldn’t get any words out as she sat down next to him on the bed.
Madelyn touched his back gently through the blanket, taking care not to touch him directly. James cried silently, almost too hard to breathe, let alone talk. She stayed beside him without saying a word, running her hand over his back until he could breathe again.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, feeling completely wrung out, his head pounding.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.
James tried to argue, but there was a knock at the door and Amelia and Jolene came in.
“Hey, Madelyn, mind if we take a minute with James?” Amelia asked.
Madelyn gave him a smile that made him hurt, then got up and left. Amelia closed the door, then the two of them sat with him, Amelia taking Madelyn’s spot while Jolene sat on the other bed. James slowly pulled himself up and faced them.
“You’re taking medical leave,” Jolene said. “You need far more time to recover than I originally thought and I’m sorry I misjudged it. If you feel safe, there’s no reason you can’t go home. Do you live with anyone?”
“Graham,” James said, his voice raspy. “But-”
“He lives about three houses down,” Amelia told Jolene. “Someone will be there every day.”
He wanted to tell her she didn’t get to make that decision. If he wanted to go home to his room and be alone and never come out, he would. But there was no way Amelia would risk leaving him alone for very long.
She looked at him, clearly reading his thoughts on his face. “James,” she said. “You had Bradley at your house for two and a half weeks when he got hurt. Why wouldn’t we do the same for you?”
“I think you should stay here one more night,” Jolene said.
“I can’t,” James said. “It’s not-”
“You’re staying here for the night,” Amelia interrupted. “It’s late. And you’re not interfering with anything and you know it.”
She moved a hand toward his hair and he flinched. She pulled back, eventually landing her hand on his shoulder. “Honey,” Jolene said. “I received a report that-”
“I’m not going to do anything,” James interrupted dully. “But I know he had to tell you.”
“Good,” Jolene said. “If you think you might…”
“I’ll tell you.”
“You’re on leave for a month,” Amelia said. “Paid, starting right now. You have more sick time than I’ve ever seen before banked up. A month barely makes a dent in it. You’ll take the month to recover, then come back to work. Your job is safe, it’ll be here waiting when you’re ready.”
The idea of working again, of being himself again, was so distant to James that he couldn’t even imagine it right now. And he belatedly realized she was in here as captain. He’d been relieved of duty and, despite what she had just said, hopefully it was forever.
“What time is it?” he managed to ask.
“Just after midnight,” Amelia said. “You should go back to sleep.”
He wasn’t going to be able to sleep and he knew it. So when Jolene offered him some pills, he took them, then laid silently back down and waited.
***
The next morning was unbearable. James woke up around eight, his hand throbbing under the bandages. Everything that had happened the night before slowly filtered in as he blinked awake in the sunlight coming through the dusty window. Before he had to decide whether to get up or try to go back to sleep forever, the bedroom door opened and Gabriella walked in, carrying a mug of coffee.
“Hey,” she said gently.
James didn’t answer her. He couldn’t. So he laid back down and stared up at the ceiling.
“I brought you this,” Gabriella said, setting the mug on the table.
“Thanks,” he whispered, his throat dry.
“Want to talk?” she asked.
He shook his head slightly. She stayed awkwardly where she was for a second and he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see her.
Bradley came in a little while later, pulling James out of a doze he was unaware he’d even fallen into. “Hi,” he said.
James stared at the ceiling yet again. “I’ll leave you alone in a minute,” Bradley continued. “But I have paperwork for your medical leave.”
Medical leave because James lost his fucking mind and tried to kill his team. The second North County captain in a row to do so. Bradley moved slightly closer, but James couldn’t bring himself to do more than turn and look at him.
“There’s a few parts to it,” Bradley continued, sitting down on the other bed. “Um, personal information, emergency contacts. Those kinds of things.”
He held the clipboard out and James wondered how he’d be able to fill it out when his hands and brain no longer worked. But after a few seconds of James not moving, Bradley crossed one leg over the other, propped the clipboard on his knee, and began filling out the paperwork himself, the scratching of his pen filling the otherwise silent room. Shortly after, the sound stopped.
“You need an emergency contact,” Bradley said, his voice oddly professional. “Is there a family member you’d like to add?”
Of course he was being distant, James tried to kill him. None of his family could know about this. He couldn’t help Gabriella knowing, no matter how much he wished she didn’t. But the idea of telling his parents was too much and he couldn’t bring himself to answer. So he just continued to stare at the ceiling, blinking hard.
“I’ll put my information down for now,” Bradley said. “If you want to change it, let me know.”
They were silent for another moment. James closed his eyes.
“I can’t sign it for you,” Bradley said. “I mean, I can do your signature, but I can’t sign this one. We need to make sure everything’s in place when you come back.”
“I’m not coming back.”
There was another second of silence. “Either way, I just need a mark of some kind.”
He held out the pen. James took it and signed on the line, then handed it over and closed his eyes again.
There was a hand on his arm and James remembered whose Cornell sweatshirt he was currently hiding in. Bradley ran his hand down to the end of the sleeve, which James knew was stained with blood. He couldn’t bring himself to say sorry, or to say he’d replace it. But Bradley didn’t say anything. He put his hand over James’s, which was covered by the bloodstained cuff, squeezed it, and then walked out.
Amelia was back a little while later. “If you want to go home, I can bring you,” she said.
Even though his house was only a block away, she drove him, saying she’d be going straight home from there anyway.
“Hey, James,” she said as she pulled up in front of his house.
He looked at her and she hesitated. “Um, what Adele said about, um, telling you to kill us. It wasn’t your fault. No one is going to hold it against you.”
“But I tried to.”
“You weren’t in your right mind,” Amelia argued. “You had no control in that situation. You didn’t consent to anything.”
No, he remembered how it felt to have the knife in his hand and how clear his mind had felt when he went after them. But he couldn’t get the words out, so instead he just got out of the car.
He knew he was being rude, but he was desperate as he hurried up the stairs from the front hall into his apartment. The front door of the building had been propped open with a brick like it sometimes was. But Amelia had the new key Graham had made him and she let them into the apartment.
James went straight into his bedroom, closing the door behind himself. He didn’t lock it and the door slowly creaked back open anyway, because the landlord’s solution to that problem had been the deadbolt. But it was fine. He climbed into bed, pulling the quilt over his head, blocking out the sunlight.
Finally, James could breathe again.
END
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