Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I can’t believe you fuckin’ punched him, dude. That was aggressive as hell. He’s one of your best friends and you’re usually all I-am-robot.” The last few words spoken in Phoenix’s crappy robotic impersonation woke Ellie fully from her nap. There was a low rumbling growl in response and Ellie lifted a bleary eyelid.
“I’ll do it to you too, if you don’t fucking leave. I wanted her change of clothes from her roommate and you gave them to me. That’s all I need right now.”
“Sheesh, alright. But you know Jaybird’s gonna have your ass for keepin’ her from him. That and I’m sure as hell he knows you’re in love with her by now.”
Love.
The word lit a small flame of hope in Ellie’s soul and cleared the sleepy fog in her mind.
“Leave. Now.” The rumbled command came before the slam of the door and a deep exhale.
Ellie opened her eyes completely to find Dev’s back up against the door. She felt around and fingered the soft comforter she was burrowed in and soaked in the cinnamon smell from her pillow. Slowly she remembered she was laying in Dev’s bed in his studio apartment at the BlackStone Securities facility.
She glanced back at the man who’d saved her once again and met his deep forest green eyes.
“Some birthday, huh?” The brows and muscles around Dev’s eyes were weary and tense as he spoke, and Ellie’s stomach twisted with guilt.
Was that because of her? Stupid question. Of course she was the cause. She had a million questions, so instead of filtering them, she blurted the first ones that came to mind.
“How did you know I’m claustrophobic? Or where I was?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and chuckled. “Your roommate texted me from your phone. And as for the claustrophobia… I had a hunch it was one of your triggers after your panic attack at the shooting range. Then I started paying more attention and noticed you spend as little time as possible in that tiny dorm room of yours. You also gravitate toward people you trust when the room is too crowded. My theory was confirmed when I realized you don’t like your movements restricted—”
“Unless you let me feel like I am in control.”
“No, you are in control. Even if you don’t have control over the physical situation, control over your mental state is the most important. You could train to fight back an entire army but if you don’t focus and think logically then one guy will beat you every time.”
“Ugh, but I got beat by a freakin’ closet today.”
Dev huffed another laugh and paced toward her until he sat on the bed, one knee up and one leg off the side. His weight made the mattress dip and her body fell closer into the lowered space until it met Dev’s thigh. He laid a hand on her shin and gave a gentle squeeze. “Fair, but only after you deprived your body of the proper ammo. You’re taking shit care of your physical self. You finally lost the battle and everything shut down on you.”
The denial she’d been asserting for a year wanted to push back but his words held on and she bit her lip from fighting the truth.
“Oh and heads-up… your brother’s a little mad about my decision to monitor you. We came to… terms. I told him you would see him after you’ve rested. I know his hovering stresses you out sometimes.”
Ellie tilted her head and gave him a smile. “You’re right. It does. A lot of the time, actually.” She scanned her surroundings and waved her hand. “I like your place.”
He smiled and gestured to the room. “I’d give you the grand tour.” He emphasized the words like there was more to it than the all-in-one room. “But this is it and you need your rest. I was hoping to have you here under much better circumstances.” His wink made the sudden butterflies in her lower belly go wild. “But here we are.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered before sitting up against the wooden headboard.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I don’t know. I freakin’ passed out. I feel like I worried everyone—”
Dev patted her shin. “Stop. Alright? We’re giving you time to rest. No need to apologize to anyone but yourself.”
It was Ellie’s turn to raise a brow. “Myself?”
He jutted his chin to the open space beside her against the headboard. “Mind if I sit?”
“Oh, of course not. It’s your bed.” She tried to laugh but she was still exhausted by everything she’d been through and it took too much effort.
Dev scooted beside her and crossed his arms. His fingers tapped against the curve of his large biceps and Ellie had to snap herself out of staring when he spoke again.
“I’m sorry.”
Ellie felt her face contort to show the confusion she felt. “You’re sorry? You got me out of there today.”
He sighed and scrubbed his face. “I’ve let my emotions get in the way of your health and—”
Ellie’s hands shot up. “Hold up, hold up, hold up. You think what happened today was your fault?”
His brow furrowed as he nodded. “If I’d been paying better attention—”
“No, ugh. Your emotions aren’t the problem here. Mine are. Or at least, me trying not to have them is the problem.” Ellie groaned. “I need to fess up. If today didn’t wake me up, nothing will.”
Dev sat beside her silently as she gathered her thoughts.
“You noticed. You think you let your feelings get in the way of seeing the signs of my future breakdown, but you didn’t. You’ve confronted me about it and I swept it under the rug.” Ellie blew out a heavy breath, hoping it would center her. She was even tired of the question but after the day she’d had, she wasn’t confident in her answer anymore.
“I’m just… exhausted, I guess. That’s not your fault, it’s mine. I’ve closed myself off. Pushed everything away. I thought, if I worked hard enough, fixed everything—everyone—around me, I wouldn’t have to think about it anymore. I wouldn’t have to feel so guilty… But it’s not working.”
His face remained unnervingly impassive but she knew he was waiting for her to get everything off her chest. She bit her lip before resting her head against the headboard and closing her eyes. Even then she had the overwhelming urge to change the subject, to keep putting off having to deal with the turmoil inside, but the weighted silence made her feel like she couldn’t breathe until she released the burdens suffocating her.
“You know… I didn’t really want to go on a date with you tonight.” Dev frowned but Ellie waved his concern away and continued talking. “I’m supposed to be honoring tradition in a childhood treehouse with my best friend right now. Eating a donut and planning our lives out. Promising each other we’ll grow up to be mean ol’ biddies together and swear we’ll still climb up that treehouse to celebrate our birthdays.”
Dev’s brow relaxed in understanding and she was glad he didn’t say anything because the next part was going to be the hardest.
“A year ago… today… Sasha was m-murdered.” Ellie fought to say the word as quickly as she could, but it still stabbed her in the chest on its way out. “For the rest of my life… today will always be my birthday and it’ll always be the anniversary of my best friend’s death.” She wiped at her suddenly stinging eyes. “And I can’t stop thinking… what if I’d done more to stop it. What if I hadn’t been so scared. Would she still be alive?”
Her voice warbled with emotion and she wasn’t sure if she could say any more. Wasn’t even sure what else she could say. Several minutes passed while she tried to analyze her feelings and fight the pressure to blurt anything else out. But she didn’t have to worry because, like always, Dev filled the empty space.
“Damn, we’re more alike than I thought.” He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his thumb and finger as he mumbled to himself. “Fuck, it doesn’t work, does it? I thought shutting down worked. But it doesn’t if it looks like this.”
Confused, Ellie stayed silent as Dev’s exhale deflated his body until he seemed to be as exhausted as she was.
“Before our last mission, my teammates were my brothers.”
Ellie’s heart skipped a beat but she didn’t say anything, afraid it’d break the rare moment when Dev opened up to her. She knew her brother was haunted by their last mission but he refused to talk about it. The prospect of getting to hear more about what made Dev tick and the details about why Jason was so distant when he came back made her anxious.
“When Troy committed suicide, I closed myself off. I’d missed all the signs warning me he was in trouble. That guilt screwed me up and it took a long ass time to let people close again.
“And I did eventually. With my team. We lived, we died, we killed… for the team. Everything revolved around my brothers and our purpose.
“But on that last mission, somehow the bastard knew we were coming…” He sighed and shook his head. “We were there to help save victims—”
“Women like me and Sasha.”
He grunted his assent, and his hand found her blanketed thigh. “But nothing went as planned. Jaybird, Hawk, and Eagle—”
“Eagle?”
He nodded. “He was our team lead, then, not Hawk. Phoenix piloted our chopper, Snake was back on base with the commo—um, sorry, the comms system. He was our eyes from a drone above and talked to us through our headsets. And I remained by the Bird for medical support with Draco as QRF—the quick reaction force if shit hit the fan… Which it did.
“Something went wrong with the commo… Snake was having a hard time getting through to Hawk, Eagle, and your brother. There was static and it cut out completely for me and Draco. I didn’t know anything was wrong until everything blew up.”
Even knowing Dev, her brother, and the rest of the BlackStone Crew got out, Ellie still felt a frisson of fear. But while her heart was racing, Dev recounted his story in a low monotone, as if he was reading a medical report aloud.
“The target had set his own home as a bomb. Civilians we hadn’t known would be in there were trapped when the explosion went off—”
“Oh, God. Were they okay?”
Dev’s lips tightened and Ellie shut her mouth. She knew better than to interject during a traumatic story and she could handle his. She’d listened to traumatic stories day in and day out, but it was something different altogether to know the survivor personally.
“Seeing that bomb go off with three of my best friends inside scared the shit out of me. It was only a moment of being frozen in fear for them, but it was long enough to miss what happened next.
“Hawk, Jaybird, and Eagle made it out, but as soon as they did, we caught fire from who we thought were friendlies… people Jaybird and Draco had trained to take care of themselves against the men terrorizing their village.
“Your brother and Hawk made it to the Bird. Eagle was behind them and caught a bullet to the thigh. The wound wasn’t life-threatening, except for the fact it slowed him down during a firefight. Hawk went back to help him. I couldn’t move. I should’ve moved. It was literally my job to react quickly and act as backup, and prevent what happened. But I fucked up because I couldn’t shut off the emotions that paralyzed me.
“They were almost at the Bird when they were attacked. I’d even seen the local coming, but I still couldn’t fucking move. He pointed his AK right at them, but Eagle pushed Hawk down. He took the bullets straight to the chest.”
Ellie covered her mouth to keep from interrupting with a gasp.
“If I’d gone to help sooner or picked off the guy before he took the shot… it was seeing Eagle fall that snapped me back into the moment. I guess my medic training finally overrode my fear.
“I hopped out and we pulled him into the Bird. Phoenix flew us away while Jaybird and Hawk fired back down below. I did the best I could. I’ve seen horrible things. Fucked-up things people do to each other and I’m their goddamn cleanup crew. Or the grim reaper. It never sits right with me when I lose someone. But, Eagle?” He shook his head and his lips flattened into a thin line. “I did the best I could and failed. After that, I shut down again.”
Ellie grabbed his hand from her thigh and squeezed. “But, why?”
“I kept thinking, if I’d been paying attention, if I’d kept my teammates at arm’s length and hadn’t been distracted and frozen with fear that they’d been injured, maybe I would’ve realized that the friendlies around us were about to turn. Maybe Eagle would still be alive.
“I couldn’t make mistakes. Let emotional attachments get in the way. If I do, people get hurt. It’s why I freaked the fuck out and ran away when I let my need for you blind me from the signs that you were about to have a panic attack—”
“Dev, that wasn’t—”
“Not caring enough made me ignore signs with Troy. Caring too much had me blind to see the danger that killed Eagle until it was too late. Turning everything off and operating on facts and logic, that’s how I could stop the death around me.”
“Dev, stop. None of that is your fault.” Ellie sat up from sitting beside Dev to turn and face him head-on. “Obviously I’ve got my own issues, but you’ve taught me how to fight back, in every way. You’ve given me control back that I thought I’d lost. Caring about your teammates didn’t kill Eagle. You were ambushed. There’s no way you could’ve known that was gonna happen. And you did care about Troy, but there’s no way to know when someone’s desperate enough to take their life.”
His fingers stretched to lace farther into hers until every inch of their palms were touching. “I’m telling you this because… I think you’re like me, a little, at least. I haven’t really analyzed what I was doing until I realized I understood your coping mechanisms perfectly. You’re doing everything you can not to think about your loss and even more to try to cure the guilt from it. But refusing to face it is killing you, baby. And you definitely don’t deserve that guilt.”
“But with Sasha…” she whispered and shook her head. “No. Our situations are nothing alike. You did everything you could to help Eagle, but you had enemies bent on killing y’all. I didn’t do anything to stop her from getting… I didn’t stop it. I just lay there.”
“How are they not the exact same situation?” He reached up with his free hand and brushed her cheek. “Listen to me, El, you were barely eighteen, drugged, and untrained. It’s okay to not know what to do in that situation. All we can ever do is our best and it’s okay if the best you can do is self-preservation. Sometimes the opportunity to save ourselves is all we get.”
The air caught in her throat and Ellie found it hard to breathe, but in a much different way than a panic attack. It was almost like she was tasting the air for the first time and it was cleansing, even as it burned. Tears stung her eyes as she pulled away from his hands.
“But how? How do you live with that? Knowing people are gone and you didn’t stop it? I don’t want to feel it anymore and I’ve tried turning it off but i-it’s not working.”
She couldn’t help the hitch in her voice at the end but she blinked back the moisture in her eyes to meet Dev’s. His eyebrows raised, as if he was thinking about her questions, then furrowed as he shook his head.
“You’re right. Turning it off doesn’t work. I think seeing you in so much pain is what’s making me realize it, but you’re right. I’ve tried turning it off for years. I thought if I held everything at a distance, I wouldn’t ever miss clues like that again. I wouldn’t let my emotions get in the way of seeing what was important, and honestly, it protected me too. If I shut down, it wouldn’t hurt as much when the people around me died.”
“And that’s worked for you?”
Dev continued to face forward and nodded imperceptibly. “Yes… I’d say it’s worked to a certain extent. But only because I didn’t let myself feel anything at all. I wouldn’t want this for you…. This emptiness. Darkness.” He finally met her gaze. “I don’t think I want it for myself anymore, either. Not when I’ve felt what it’s like to care about someone who’s full of light.”
Ellie’s heart stuttered but she was only ready for one epiphany for the night. “So… what do we do?”
Dev swiped each tear from her cheek with his thumbs. “I’m figuring it out too, by watching you and realizing what I want for you. I guess, what I want for you is… to fill the emptiness with everything we feel. Hurt. Grieve. Let it all in. And then when that’s done…” His hands caressed the back of her head and he pulled her close to kiss her forehead before tucking her in to his side. “When that’s done… I guess, we live. That’s all we can do, right? We live for those who left life too soon. And we live because we owe it to ourselves to try.”
Ellie wrapped her arm around his waist and let the tears flow freely as she nodded her agreement.
“I-I miss her, Dev. I miss her so much.” She stared at the cream-colored wall as she cried until there was too much moisture to see anything but the blank space. “Sh-she’s gone and every day a new memory happens, something I wanna tell her about and I can’t. Not really. I tell the sky. I pretend she talks back. But it’s not enough. She’s gone and I don’t just miss her,” Dev rubbed her back and with the encouragement, she continued, voicing words she’d always been too ashamed to say out loud. “I’m missing her. She was the part of me that made everything colorful and now the world is… dim. Like everything bright was burned up with her and now I’m dark inside.”
In one swift motion, Dev pulled her up from under the comforter and Ellie found herself sidesaddle on his lap. His hands held her face close to his, fierce and commanding, forcing her to keep her focus on him.
“Don’t think that, Ellie. You’ve gotta fight against that.” His fingers stroked her cheek, soothing the pain inside her. “You are the strongest woman I know, and one day this fight won’t seem so hard. One day you’ll be able to breathe easy again. But, promise me, angel, promise me you’ll fight that darkness.”
She bit her lip and closed her eyes before nodding, but Dev took her chin in his thumb and forefinger.
“Say it. I have to hear you say it.”
Ellie’s chest pounded with emotion, and her exhausted body ached. From the conversation, from rehashing the past, from life. But she opened her eyes and swallowed. “I-I’ll fight it.”
Dev searched her face as if he was trying to find the truth there. Whatever he saw, he accepted, and dipped his chin. He wrapped his hand around her nape and kissed her, melding his body to hers until he broke away. His eyes burned with intensity as they met hers as what he said next seared her soul.
“You might think you’re the darkness, Ellie, but to everyone else, you’re the goddamn sun.”
