“I fucked up,” I growl as we close the car door, and I take the driver's side. Holden jumps into the passenger's seat, and we take off, zooming straight for Pops’ house.
“Someone on it with the first aid kit?” I yell back as we hit the highway.
“Yep!” Samson, one of our medical guys, replies, and I feel a slight weight off my chest that he didn’t just ask us to head to a hospital. If anyone suggests the hospital, it means we’re closer to death than we are to the house, and that’s a scary thought. Especially because this happened on my watch. Everyone's safety was my responsibility, and I failed; my devices, and my skills, failed me tonight.
Failed us all.
We make it back to the house, and they’re still tending to Van. Everyone helps carry him to the kitchen downstairs, where most of our fix-up jobs are done. I feel awful and completely responsible for this. I’m just glad Olive didn’t come along; that's all I can think as I head back up the stairs with everyone's belts full of faulty devices.
Whatever happened, must be fixable, and I don’t have the willpower to look Vince in the eyes after the nightmare that just occurred. I get back in the car, toss the belts to the floors, and speed on to my workplace. After a while, I reach it just before midnight, and I decide to park around the back, so no one will know I’m here. Not that the Russians followed us, but it would be horrible if they did. I won’t endanger the people I work with like that.
After parking, I grab the belts and hoist them out of the car with me, heading back around the building to the front door. I scan my finger and head through to the back room. When I reach my desk and pull all the devices out of the belt and toss them to the ground in a pile.
A mountain of failed devices, nearly the height of the seat in my chair, mocks me. I stare at it a while longer before sitting down and grabbing one of the devices. After working on it for what feels like an hour, nothing is moving back into place the way it should. The wrong wires crossed, the buttons aren’t working, and I’m growing more and more frustrated as the night replays in my head.
We arrived at the perfect time, just after their dinner. Everyone would have been in their rooms. We were prepared. We set the power outage device right up to their door and hit it. The second it worked, we used the code Kira gave us to sneak inside. It was quiet, people seemed to think it was an early light out or something. That's all I could assume.
My team was careful, we were quick, heading up the staircase in the main foyer with our guns and devices ready for anything. That's when the maps started glitching out on everyone’s watches. We had no idea what room we were looking for at that point. Kira’s old one was on the third level, I believe, but because our maps were going out, we hadn’t a clue where that was or what number we were aiming to break into.
That’s when the lights turned on, and gunfire started like a chorus from all angles. We threw a couple of devices at them to no avail. Either they weren’t working at all, or they would only work in part before glitching out. Nothing was working right as we were doomed. The rest went downhill from there as they began locking every exit by floor number.
I’m surprised no one else got hurt. The thought alone makes me shudder. I work nimbly with my hands now to make up for it, but it isn’t enough. Nothing is enough because everything I’ve done thus far has failed. Rage takes over me, one that I often don’t have. Life never requires this level of emotion, not for me anyway. But right now, I’m enraged by my failure, broken over the fact that it caused Van to get hurt, and terrified of what it will mean for me if I can’t do the one thing I’ve always wanted to.
After one more peg shoves itself back into the spot I moved it out of, I lose it like an uncorked bottle. I stand up in a rage, grab the device and throw it on the ground as hard as I can. Nothing is left of it when I do this. It completely shatters, and I feel my eyes burning from the anger continuing to roll through me as I turn around.
I'm about to grab another and another until the entire pile is just pieces on the floor, but I feel eyes on me. It shocks me enough that I seek the source, and then I see Scout standing in the doorway, a little of shock and terror written across her perfect features. Instantly I feel bad. Instantly, I want to be anything but this man. Anger has never been a weakness of mine. Not like it is for my brothers.
That's why this is particularly scary for me to witness myself in a rage and to see the reaction it garners. I never want to see this look on Scout's face again. So, I force the anger that’s already subsiding out of my main thoughts. When I do this, I notice her duffle bag and am immediately confused. Why would she be here in the middle of the night with a duffle bag?
“What are you doing here?” I blurt through a tense throat.
“I—I got evicted.”
“What?” I immediately feel bad as I connect the dots between her weirdness earlier today and the strange sneaking in tonight. She begins to repeat herself, not understanding my response as a knee-jerk one.
“I heard you. I just… When?” I search her eyes that seem embarrassed, or hesitant. I can’t quite tell. My body moves towards her because I want her to know I’m here and don’t want her to be ashamed. In fact, I want to help her.
“When did you get kicked out?” I say again when she still hasn’t responded, and I’m nearly right in front of her.
“On Sunday,” she says nonchalantly.
“I’m so sorry,” I quietly say to her. Fuck, maybe I also contributed to this entire awkwardness between us. Presently, there’s nothing strange about the energy we have. It’s relaxed and honest. I can’t let her stay here, not when I have an entire house to offer her.
So that's what I do, offer for her to stay with me. Well, insist actually, but she does say yes. And the moment she does, I don’t waste time, rushing us out to the car before she can come up with a reason to change her mind.
After we get outside, I help her into her car, evading her questions about Van to not think about the horrible shit-show that was tonight's mission. I know he’s in good hands and that our medic boys are some of the best in LA, but it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty. After all, Van only said yes to joining us because Koa couldn’t come.
After I make sure she’s safe in her car, reassuring her that my family will love meeting her and accidentally insinuating that I’ve talked about her with them, which I have, I head back to my car. As fast as I can, I jump in and start it, heading around to the front of the building and making sure Scout’s right behind me as I pull out onto the road. Normally, I’m a bit of a wild driver, but tonight I try my best to keep it steady, so I’m easy to follow.
I think I did a good job because we make it back to the house in record time, and I didn’t lose Scout once. As we pull up to the gates, I grab the security guard's attention, and he pokes his head out of the booth as I roll my window down.
“Hey! Scout Summers is in the car behind mine. Let her come in with me. She’ll be here for a while, so make sure you add her car to the list.”
“Yes, sir.” He nods and writes down her license plate before waving us through the open gates. After I park, I jump out right away to help Scout, who’s sitting in her car still. I know she wasn’t waiting for me to open that door for her because her eyes have gone dreamy, staring up at my house like it’s a fairytale come to life.
I can’t help but breathe a laugh through my nose as I open the door for her and help her out. Her eyes continue to follow the lines of my home with such admiration that it nearly makes me reminisce about the beauty that every wall of this home has seen. Yes, it’s also seen some horror, hurt, pain, and darkness. But I like to focus on the light. After all, there’s more to life than the trials. Why else would beauty exist if not for enjoyment?
“It’s extraordinary.”