Erasing Faith(66)

Don’t cry, love. I’m still here.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against my hair, his voice suffused with grief.

Don’t be sorry, love. It’s not your fault. Do you hear me?

“This is all my fault.” His words were pain embodied.

I love you, Wes. Can’t you feel it?

“I love you,” he said fiercely, his hands cupping my cheeks, which were damp with his tears. “I will always love you.”

He loves me.

“Goodbye,” he breathed.

Goodbye?

He pressed a final, gentle kiss to my lips, his hands sliding into my dirty, smoke-stinking hair. A sound escaped his throat — one of indescribable sorrow. Half sob, half scream. Like he was being torn apart from the inside out.

And then, he turned and walked away.

Out of my room, out of my life.

My tether was gone.

I began to drift once more.





Chapter Thirty-Five: WESTON


NUMB



“Are you listening to me, Abbott?”

Benson’s voice was even more annoying in person. It normally would’ve pissed me off, but at the moment I wasn’t capable of feeling anything but numb. He walked several steps closer to where I sat. I continued to stare at the grains in the hardwood floor.

“Abbott. I’m not f*cking around. Did you hear a goddamned thing I just said?”

I lifted empty eyes to his face. “You have a lead on Szekely via your sources in Turkey. Got it.”

“I need you in Istanbul,” he snapped. “There is no room for error. With this f*ck-up of a mission, we’ve blown any element of surprise we might’ve had. This op is going to be a long-haul. Deep cover, little contact. No more half-assing it.”

I was silent.

“I need to know your head is in the game, Abbott.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

Benson stared at me. “What the f*ck is wrong with you?”

I laughed, the sound mirthless and bitter as it filled the air.

What was wrong with me?

What a ridiculous question. What a ludicrous answer.

I killed the love of my life.

Killed her.

It wasn’t my bullet, but I might as well have pulled the trigger.

Now she was dead.

Or soon-to-be.

She’d never wake up.

Never laugh again. Never smile. Never see the world through caramel eyes and rose-colored glasses.

Because of me.

“Abbott,” Benson growled. “There is no room for error, here. Can you do this or not?”

I could do it — lose myself again.

I was an expert at it.

The only thing I couldn’t do was sit around here and watch her die. I couldn’t live in a world where I knew Faith Morrissey didn’t exist.

“When?” I asked, my voice remote.

“Tomorrow or the next day.”

I thought about that for a moment. “No. Now.”

“Excuse me?”

I cleared my throat and rose to my feet. “I’ll leave now.”

Benson’s eyebrows went up. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

I wouldn’t last another minute in this city. She was everywhere.

On every bridge, at every street corner. Saturating the air. Seizing my thoughts. Seeping into my bones.

Faith was Budapest. Budapest was Faith.

And I was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

My very presence in her life was a cancer, a life-draining force. If she had even a shot at survival, I had to go.

The sooner I left, the further I fled, the better off she’d be.

And, if she died…

The last shred of good in me would go to the grave alongside her.

The man I’d strived to be whenever I was near her…

He’d be dead, too.





Chapter Thirty-Six: FAITH


SHRAPNEL



When I finally peeled my eyes open, it was five days later.

My lips were cracked, my throat was raw. My eyes swept the hospital room, taking in the tan-brown walls and the series of beeping machines and monitors parked next to my bed. There was an IV line in my right hand and, despite the painkillers that were flowing into my bloodstream in a steady drip, there was a lancing, throbbing ache in my abdomen.

A man I’d never seen before was sitting in a chair by my bed, staring at me with cool eyes. Pudgy, balding, and noticeably uncomfortable in his own skin, he instantly reminded me of my seventh grade math teacher, Mr. Schwartz – the perspiring, chalk-dusted lump of a man who’d first introduced me to the horrors of algebra.

“Water,” I croaked.

He poured me a glass and lifted it to my lips, helping me take small sips until my throat started working again.

“What happened to me?” I asked, once he’d settled back into his seat.

“You were shot.” He had small, beady brown eyes that never seemed to blink. “Your spleen was ruptured and a portion of it was removed during surgery. You lost a lot of blood, so you’ve had several transfusions. You also suffered severe smoke inhalation, so you’re being monitored for long-term lung effects.”

I blinked as I tried to process all of that.

“I remember the fire,” I murmured, thinking back to that horrible stretch of time I spent trapped in the inferno. It seemed almost like a dream, now.