Page 94 of Collateral Damage
"It wasn't that bad."
"Ava." She sets her Coke down, her tone turning serious. "It was that bad."
Verity makes a sound that is almost a laugh before she smiles. “We’ll miss your lousy cooking, and you thrashing us at Scrabble.”
Delilah chimes in, "I don’t think Axel appreciated you beating him at Donkey Kong, though."
I chuckle, mostly to hide how much the impending departure is starting to hurt. I knew it was coming. I have been entirely practical about it all morning—making sure my mother is well, preparing to return to work, packing the new clothes Verity had to go out and buy for me.
One task at a time. Function first.
It's only now, watching Verity's guarded expression, that the practicality starts to cost me something.
"How often do you think you'll come back?" Delilah asks. Her voice is casual in the specific way that means it’s anything but.
"As often as I can manage."
"That's not a number."
"It's not a number because I don't have one yet." I fold my arms, grounding myself. "I have a house to get back to. A patient who's been waiting two weeks. A division chief who is too polite to say he's desperate."
"And a mother to visit," Verity says quietly. It isn't a correction; it's a gentle acknowledgment of the truth.
"And a mother to visit," I agree.
Delilah chews her lip. She looks down at her laptop, then back at me, her bravado slipping. "I wish I could come to Baltimore."
I cross the room and sit on the edge of the examination chair beside her. "I know."
She bumps her shoulder against mine, a small, silent tether. "You'll come back though. Right? Not just for Silas. For us."
Verity looks up from the bag, her dark eyes searching mine. She doesn't say anything, but she doesn't need to.
"Yes," I say. "For you."
Verity ties off the bag and meets my eyes, calm, like she’s already walked this road and knows I won’t turn back now.
"It's time," she says, her voice steady. "Are you ready?
I swallow the lump in my throat.
"I am," I say.
Silas
The shoulder is manageable.
That’s the lie I have been repeating to myself since six this morning, when I moved the wrong way reaching for the coffee and the resulting spike of pain clarified my thinking considerably.
Manageable means functional. It doesn’t mean comfortable, and it certainly doesn’t mean that Ava won’t notice. She’s a physician; she possesses the honed attention of someone trained to read what the body refuses to say out loud. She’s already noticed. She hasn’t said anything yet, which means she’s waiting for the right moment to force the issue.
I know, because I have been doing the exact same thing to her.
I pull the Hydrocodone out of the top drawer. I hold the bottle for a moment, weighing it in my palm. Then toss it back and slam the drawer shut again.
The medication will take the edge off the shoulder, but it also takes the edge off everything else. It will blunt my focus, my awareness, and the precise quality of vigilance I have been running on for years. I can’t afford that today. Not with the board arriving in an hour, and not with three loose threads that still need pulling tight before they dare walk through my door.
The police report on Reagan Mitchell sits at the top of the stack. Thanks to Zack’s insistence, Vance was bumped, and an internal investigation is pending.
