Page 51 of The Shield
“Not … unprecedented,” I mumbled, and she laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Ethan watched me like a man who had fought a river and refused to accept that the war could have more than one battle. The set of his shoulders softened in millimeters. His eyes stayed hard and bright. The bear claw lay against his chest, dark and wet and ancient. He didn’t look at the cameras once. He hated them. He tolerated them now because they were the price of letting a city love its own story—and because they were pointed at me.
In the near distance, the Jeep that had started this mess idled sullenly, a tow strap already snaking toward it. The driver cried into his hands while a cop talked him through the particular hell of public stupidity.
The paramedics traded looks only professionals notice. My pulse monitor blinked the reassuring, boring story of a heart that had decided to show up for work again. The oxygen hissed. The rain kept falling, polite now, like it had been caught misbehaving and was trying to make up for it.
I closed my eyes for one breath and let the vision of the yard drift back for a single, greedy second—Flapjack thundering, Amelia’s hand sticky with peach juice in my hair, James yellingMom!from the edge of the creek, Ethan’s head tipped back on the porch swing, mouth open on a laugh that made the ceiling fan rattle.
It was there. Not a place you go when you’re dying. A place you build when you live.
Not yet, I had told the water. I meant:I’m not done.
Ethan’s thumb stroked once along the edge of my jaw, a tiny, private motion no one else could see because he had put his body between mine and the world again. “I’ve got you,” he said, softer than any mic could catch.
“Don’t,” I whispered, because I am who I am, “you dare … apologize.”
He huffed out something that wanted to be a laugh and shook his head once. “Wasn’t planning to.”
They lifted me then, practiced and careful, onto the gurney. The camera craned to see. The city leaned in. The siren wound up, not bells now but kin to them. I let myself be carried because I could, because I wanted to get home to a yard that existed and to a city that could be better if I kept telling it how.
As they rolled me, I turned my head until I found him again. He paced at my side, one hand on the rail. He looked down at me with that iron weight in his eyes and then up, briefly, to the sky.
“Make room,” he told the world, the cameras, the weather, anyone who needed to hear it. “She’s coming through.”
22
ETHAN
The hospital room was a quiet cocoon, the steady beep of the monitor a soft counterpoint to the rain still tapping against the window. Natalie lay in the bed, her face pale but peaceful, the oxygen mask replaced with a nasal cannula that hissed faintly with each breath.
I sat beside her, my chair pulled close, my hand resting lightly on hers, denying every visitor who knocked—reporters, politicians, even well-meaning volunteers—until the staff learned to stop asking. The chaos of City Hall felt a world away, the flood’s aftermath a distant hum, but the weight of what had happened pressed on me, a burden I couldn’t shake. She’d been swept away, nearly lost, and the memory of her body in that current haunted me, fueling a resolve I hadn’t fully formed yet.
Time blurred as I stayed with her, the hours stretching into the next morning. The doctors had stabilized her—concussion, bruising, a sprained wrist from the impact—but she needed rest, and I wasn’t leaving until she woke.
The room smelled of antiseptic and damp fabric, my clothes still clinging from the rescue, but I didn’t care. Her presence,even in sleep, anchored me, a lifeline in the storm of my thoughts. The man in the gray suit lingered in my mind, his note a silent threat, and the mystery of what it meant gnawed at me.
Was this a test? A warning?
The unease had deepened into a certainty that I was in deep shit, and the questions piled up faster than I could answer them.
Should I call Atlas? The thought flickered, a reflex from years of relying on my own instincts, but doubt crept in like a shadow. What if the Charleston Danes were part of this? What if that gray-suited figure was a trial they’d set, a way to measure me before fully accepting me into their fold? The idea rattled my reality, shaking the foundation of trust I’d begun to build with them.
No, I couldn’t accept that. I’d looked into their faces. They were my brothers. I had to trust that bond, to believe in the family I’d just discovered, even as the uncertainty gnawed at my resolve.
But that trust couldn’t solve the immediate need clawing at me. The thunder had shaken the city, a deep rumble that mirrored the urgency in my chest, and it drove home one truth: I needed to be with Natalie, to ensure she was safe. The thought of her, her strength and warmth, cut through the chaos like a beacon, pulling me back to the present. I’d stay until she was lucid, until I knew she was whole again, but beyond that, I felt the stirrings of a plan, a path I’d have to walk alone.
A soft knock broke the silence, and I tensed, ready to send another visitor away. But the door opened, and Butch Kennedy stepped in, his white hair damp from the rain, his linen jacket wrinkled but still carrying that air of authority. The staff hadn’t stopped him—her grandfather, a man whose name carried weight, even here.
I nodded, keeping my voice low. “She’s sleeping.”
He glanced at her, his eyes softening, then pulled a chair close, sitting with a sigh that spoke of years.
“Good. She needs it.” His gaze shifted to me, assessing, and for a moment, we sat in silence, the beeping monitor filling the space. Then, as Natalie’s breath steadied, he spoke, his voice rough but earnest. “She’s all I’ve got left, you know. My son—her father—chose paint over politics, and her mother’s been gone since she was small. Natalie’s the heart of what’s left of me.”
I watched him, seeing past the polished exterior to the man beneath—a figure who’d once commanded this city, who still pretended to hold that power, but whose world had shrunk to this single room, this single girl. The weight of his words sank in, a vulnerability I hadn’t expected. He wasn’t the mayor anymore, not really—just a man without a purpose, clinging to the granddaughter who’d become his anchor. My own losses echoed in that, the pain of Dad’s abandonment, and a quiet understanding passed between us, a silent agreement forged in the shared space of our scars.
“I’ll look out for her,” I said, my voice steady, a promise I meant to keep.
