Page 14 of Falcon’s Forever

“On what?”

“Whether you’re actually planning to go through that door.”

I glance pointedly at it. “Pretty sure that’s why I walked over here.”

“You’ve walked toward plenty of things lately and changed direction at the last minute.” His voice remains flat, without even a trace of humour.

My shoulders tighten. I close the remaining distance between us and stop directly in front of him. “I already got my lecture from Vulture.”

“Good for Vulture.” Ice Pick’s expression doesn’t shift.

A warning creeps into my voice. “Ice.”

"No." He steps closer, dropping his voice as Carrot and another prospect cross the hallway behind us, their arms full of folding chairs for Church. Carrot catches my eye for half a second on the way past, he’s a prospect giving a patched brother a look when he isn't sure if he's allowed to nod first, then decides to anyway. I nod back without thinking about it. "This isn't me giving you shit for being miserable to live with, though for the record, you have been. This is me telling you whatever the fuck you're doing has gone past being your problem alone." He counts it off. Missed runs. Missed planning meetings. Two security briefings. Zip checking routes I'm supposed to cover. Sterling chasing intel that should come through me first. Vulture doing Prez and VP work while I disappear on my bike every time my head gets too loud.

“I said I’d deal with it.”

Ice Pick studies me for a beat. “When?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I don’t have an answer that isn’t a lie, and from the look on his face, he knows it.

“Sooner or later, somebody’s going to get hurt while you’re figuring out when you feel like being Falcon again.”

The accusation lands exactly where he means it to. My hands curl into fists at my sides. “You giving me orders now?”

“No.” His voice drops, the steel in it giving way to something that sounds more like a brother than an officer. “I’m reminding you who the hell you are, because right now, you seem to have forgotten.”

He steps closer, holding my gaze.

“You ride like you’re trying to kill yourself. You drink like you’re trying to forget you survived. And every time somebody mentions Cara, you look about five seconds away from blowing up the whole compound.”

Heat surges through me. “Leave her out of it.”

“Can’t.” He doesn’t so much as blink. “You made her part of it the second you started bleeding all over the brotherhood because you don’t know what to do with the fact that she’s alive.”

For one dangerous second, I want to hit him.

Ice knows it. He sees it in my clenched fists and the fury crawling beneath my skin, but he doesn’t move or flinch. He simply stands there and waits until I force my fingers to loosen and release the breath burning in my lungs.

“She’s alive, Falcon,” he says, quieter now. “You spent five years believing she was gone. Stop punishing yourself because she came back.”

I stare at him, anger and guilt twisting together in my chest. “You think that’s what I’m doing?”

“I think you don’t know what else to do.”

The words hit too close to the truth for me to argue. I break eye contact and look toward the Church door instead. “You done?”

“For now.” Ice reaches for the handle and pulls the door open. Then he stands aside, leaving the way clear. “Come on, VP.”

This time, I follow.

As soon as I walk through the Church door, the smell hits me. It’s smells like coffee, leather, and the cigar smoke Vulture swears doesn't come from him despite nobody else in the room smoking cigars. The table's already filling. Zip's got a laptop open beside Condor, the two of them arguing quietly about something on the screen. Sterling sits opposite with a notebook and three folders stacked at his elbow. Rook's flipping through photos while Harrier steals one out of his hand.

"Get your own," Rook says, slapping at him.

"It's a blurry black SUV."

"It's surveillance." Rook rolls his eyes at Harrier.