Page 127 of Burn It Down

“Christ,” the voice mutters through the phone. “Greedy fucking bastards. All of them. I’ll need a little more time or evidence before involving the Governor, but maybe his daughter will give us something to go on.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant.” My throat still hurts, but there’s enough adrenaline flowing through my veins to keep the pain at bay.

When the call ends, I ring the nurse’s bell.

“I’m walking out of this room in five minutes. Please have my discharge papers ready to go.”

I have a visit of my own I need to make while the cops are tracking Cora down.

“Sir, I can’t—”

“You can. Either give me the papers or mail them to me, I don’t care which.”

When I look back at Dylan, he’s scribbling furiously on the whiteboard. He suffered worse damage to his throat because his exposure to the smoke was much longer.

Where are you going?

“I need to pay a visit to Martin. I’ll be damned if I let him get away with allowing Cora to take the entire fall for this mess.

I’ll come with you.

“Dyl, I need you to stay here. I need to know you’re safe.”

What about what I need?

I slide my hand along his cheek and he places his over top of mine and nuzzles into my touch.

“You need to stay and heal. You need to let me fight this battle because it’s my fault you’re in this hospital bed in the first place.”

It takes him longer to write his next message, but when he flips the board over, I have a hard time arguing.

You once told me “I know it feels like we’re getting hit from all sides, but from here on out, I’m on your side. Always.”

Please don’t ask me to stay here and leave you to handle this on your own. I want to help.

I blow out a breath, run a hand through my hair, sitting back down next to him, my own words glaring at me from the white board.

“Dylan, I love you so fucking much and you were targeted because of that. I can’t watch you walk into the lion’s denagainbecause of me.”

“Just stay with me. Let the cops handle it,” he rasps, making me wince. “Please.”

I brush his hair back. “I need to find out what Martin knows and record him if I can. They might not be able to use it in court, but it might give them enough to be able to detain him. I have to try. I’ll call you when I get back in the car, okay?” He closes his eyes and I fuckinghateletting him down. I hate worrying him. But more than either of those things, I hate that because of me, the corruption of my world has bled into his.

I kiss him slowly, wondering if he can taste the desperation on my tongue.

“I love you, Dylan. When this is all over, I hope you can forgive me. I hope you still want to be with me.”

He holds up the whiteboard and circles the wordalwaysfrom the last sentence he wrote and then adds,

I love you too.

I pull up outside Martin Cosey’s house, shoot Dylan a quick text to let him know I’m going in, then I put my phone on video and hit record. I recognize this is the part of the movie where everyone yells at the character for being stupid and walking into the enemy’s hands with no backup and hardly any plan at all. But unless everything you love has been threatened to the point of extinction and you’re restless, with no faith left in the “system”, I don’t expect people to understand.

I ring Martin’s doorbell and hear footsteps inside. Considering he had a hand in attempting to kill Dylan, and he used his own daughter to do it, I’m assuming he’s probably packing his bags right about now.

He rips the door open and glares at me.

“I have nothing to say to you.” He attempts to slam the door in my face, but I catch it with my foot.

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