Tymber Dalton - Safe Harbor

Sully felt the tears on his face as he ran for the shuttles. “You find that fucker. You find him before I do, Jayce. Because if I find him first I’m killing the son of a bitch, do you hear me?” He managed to catch a shuttle to the main terminal, pushing through the doors before they could slide shut.

“Calm down, Sul. Don’t say anything—”

“I’m not saying—I’m promising. Put Clarisse on.”

There was a pause as Jason handed the phone over. Sully angrily brushed his tears away on his sleeve, ignoring the other passengers in the shuttle with him. Then Clarisse’s voice, haunting and flat, came on the line.

“Master?”

Formal meant she wasn’t doing well at all. That she had used formal speech without hesitation in front of someone else told him not only how upset and in shock she was, but how much it comforted her.

He had to stay calm for her. She needed him. Brant needed him.

He forced a strength he didn’t feel. “I’m here, pet. I’m leaving the airport and heading straight for the hospital. I’ll be there in about forty-five minutes.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, pet. You listen to me, stay with Jason until I get there, do you hear? You do not leave his side, not even to go to the bathroom alone, understand?”

“Yes.”

He hated himself, but said it anyway. “Yes, what , pet?”

“Yes, Master.”

“That’s my good girl. You stay with Jason. He’ll keep you safe until I get there. I love you.”

“I love you too, Master.”

“Put Jayce back on, pet.”

There was a pause, then Jason’s voice. “Yeah.”

Sully dropped his voice to an angry growl. “Don’t you dare let her out of your sight, do you hear me? That fucker will track her to the hospital. Swear to me you’ll personally stay with her.”

“Jesus, Sul, you know I will.”

He reached the taxi stand and grabbed the first one that would take him to St. Pete. He jumped into the back and let the driver handle his bags. “I’m on the way. Keep her safe for me.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Sully hung up, laid his head back on the seat, and allowed himself to cry. It would be the only luxury of time he’d have. Because once he knew Brant was okay and he could get Clarisse to a safe house, he wouldn’t have any more time to cry.

He’d only have time to kill.

Jason and the deputy escorted Clarisse into the hospital and handled the talking for her. She clung to Jason’s arm while the deputy carried her purse. Mac was already in surgery, and they couldn’t give her an update because they were still trying to determine the extent of his injuries.

He was alive. That’s all they could say.

“Did they find Bryan yet?” she asked during the walk to the waiting room.

Jason grimly shook his head. “Not yet, sweetie. But we will.”

He’d found her. Worse, he’d hurt Mac. Now Sully would be in danger, too. If Mac died because she’d led Bryan Jackson to them, she’d never forgive herself.

A horrible thought struck her. “What about Uncle Tad?”

“I already sent a deputy there to watch him. The facility has been notified. We’ll keep him safe, I promise.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and slowly rocked back and forth in her chair. Please be okay…please be okay. She silently chanted it over and over again. Dan and Elise arrived to sit with her and she barely noticed. She focused on Mac’s sweet face in her mind, praying he’d pull through.

When Sully arrived, he dropped his bags by the waiting room door, raced to her, and engulfed her in his arms as she broke down sobbing. He sank to the floor with her, holding her.

“Shh, pet. I’m here. It’s okay.”

Time blurred for them. Despite using Sully as an emotional crutch, Clarisse refused to leave the hospital, didn’t want to leave Mac’s side to go home. No masterly orders or husbandly suggestions would change her mind, either.

Sensing this, Sully didn’t force the issue. He stayed with her, getting a room at a hotel a few blocks away where he would force her to go at shift changes so she could take a shower and lie down to sleep. The few times he knew he had to take a nap or risk collapse, Jason would come in and sit with her in the ICU to ensure she was safe. Because of the circumstances of the situation, and that Mac needed twenty-four hour armed protection until Bryan was in custody, they loosened the rules to allow Clarisse and Sully round-the-clock access to the ICU instead of the normal limited visitation.

By the fifth day after the attack, Mac’s condition hadn’t changed.

They’d listed him as critical, but stable. Until the cranial swelling went down, they wouldn’t begin to reduce his medication and bring him out of his coma.

Sully watched Clarisse’s face grow more gaunt. It was hard to stay strong for her when all he wanted to do was lay his head on Mac’s bed and sob himself to sleep. He didn’t dare cry in front of her.

She needed his strength. If this was a fraction of the agonizing grief Mac felt when their positions were reversed, then he felt guilty as hell for putting Mac through that.

Jason stepped into Mac’s ICU cubicle a little before noon and tipped his head at Sully, wanting to talk privately with him. Jason had told the uniformed deputy on duty to take a few minutes to go eat since he was there.

Sully leaned over and kissed Clarisse on the forehead. “Baby, I need to talk with Jayce for a few minutes, okay?”

She nodded, the deep hollows under her eyes adding to his grief.

There was nothing he could do, no comforting words he could offer.

They had to wait and see.

He tenderly tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “When I come back, we’ll go downstairs and eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” she whispered. Her eyes never strayed from Mac’s face, willing him to wake up, to rise and be healed.

If she’d taken in more than two thousand calories in the past few days, he was Richard Nixon. It was all he could do to get her to drink water. Hating himself, he hardened his voice. “Pet,” he softly said, “you have to eat. Sir wouldn’t want you making yourself sick, you know he wouldn’t.”

After a long moment, she finally nodded. “Yes, Master.”

“Good girl.” He kissed her temple and gently squeezed her shoulder before leaving the cubicle and sliding the door shut behind him.

Bryan watched the ICU corridor. Hospital security was amazingly lax, even the uniformed deputy on watch tended to ignore anyone in hospital garb and bearing an ID badge. Walking around wearing a pair of scrubs and a white lab coat while carrying a small tote full of phlebotomy supplies and a clipboard practically guaranteed access to any area without question, especially the hectic ICU wing.

Harborside, being a regional trauma center, wasn’t exactly a quiet place.

He’d snagged an employee’s ID clipped to an unattended sweater left hanging over an office chair in admissions. It hadn’t taken him long to create a bogus ID on his laptop, make a quick stop by a automated photo printer machine at a drugstore, and then glue the fake to the top of the existing badge. A carefully trimmed sheet of laminating film over the top made it good enough for government work and would stall people long enough.

Long enough for him to get Clarisse.

He’d shaved his head bald. A throw pillow belted around his midsection added at least thirty pounds to his appearance, and a careful slouch enhanced the illusion.

Inside the pillow, he stashed the gun.

He slipped inside the cubicle, relieved to find her alone and knew that he wouldn’t have long before the uniformed deputy and the other two men returned. She never glanced at him, why would she? She was used to seeing medical personnel come and go.