“An explosion?”
How had she missed it? Yes, she’d been focused on Valencia and then on Mack, but how could she have missed an explosion?
“Where?”
Arlo quickly gave her the updates of what had happened since she and Gavin had separated at the church. How they’d given chase to the gunman who’d fired on Valencia. The way Gavin and Kerrigan had gone one way and Arlo and Wyatt had closed in from the other side. Then the stakeout while they all waited for instructions from the cornered gunman.
And then the blast.
“Gavin saw something, Sera,” Kerrigan added. “And he took off after the person.”
Questions bubbled up in her mind, a witch’s cauldron of dark thoughts and even darker images, but she put none of them to words. Instead, she let it all flow over her.
She’d watched death come for Darius. She stood vigil even now to know if it waited for Valencia. And now Gavin faced the same. The need to run—to move and rant and rail to someone on Gavin’s behalf—filled her, but Sera stayed in place.
What right did she have?
She wasn’t his wife. They barely knew each other. She could hardly go chasing everyone at the nurse’s station for updates.
And yet, they had a connection. Something so deep and intimate between them her life had irrevocably changed. They had a child together.
“We need to let his family know,” was all she finally said. All she could say when faced with the very real truth that she had no claims on Gavin Hayes. Certainly none the hospital would or could acknowledge.
“They’re getting that information from the office. I’m sorry to say none of us know how to reach his mom,” Kerrigan said, her mouth thinning with obvious chagrin at the fact that, even as Gavin’s friends, they didn’t have that knowledge.
Sera let that sink in, the truth that Gavin kept his personal life so private even his friends had been kept at a distance. It didn’t comfort her, exactly, but it did galvanize her in ways her and Gavin’s conversations up to now hadn’t been able to.
Hadn’t she been living the same way? If something happened to her at work, would anyone know how to help her? How to reach Aunt Robin and Uncle Enzo for her? How to find her family? That number might be counted on one hand, but they were her family. And she’d held them and everyone else in her life at arm’s length.
That had to stop.
For herself, yes. But for the child she carried? She had to break the pattern of choosing a life kept separate from the people around her.
Her child deserved more.
Just like her child deserved to grow up with a father. It was that need—one so deeply felt—that had her pushing all the rest away. She’d focus on it later and she would make changes. Starting with introducing herself to Gavin’s mother when the woman arrived and letting her know she wanted her to have a place in her grandchild’s life.
But for now, they had to get through whatever was going on around them.
Whatever had decided to make the 86th a target.
“Mrs. Hayes?”
A doctor came into the waiting room, pulling their collective attention toward the door. It was Arlo who spoke first, wrapping an arm around Sera’s shoulders. “She’s here.”
Mrs. Hayes?
Sera shot Arlo a side-eye, but he didn’t say a word, just kept his attention focused forward.
“What can you tell us, sir?”
“He’s going to be okay. Took a solid hit to the body when the blast knocked him down, but his ballistics armor did its job. It’s not going to feel like it when he’s sore for the next few days, but nothing’s broken. His exceptional conditioning is going to go a long way toward a quick recovery, as well.”
The doctor eyed Arlo, Wyatt and Kerrigan. “I understand you all were at the site with Officer Hayes. I’d like each of you to get checked out, too.”
“Why don’t we get Sera back to Gavin first?” Arlo slid in smoothly, pulling her forward across the waiting room lobby. “She’s been beside herself waiting for news.”
The doctor looked unconvinced, but he did extend a hand, gesturing Sera from the room. “Please come with me, Mrs. Hayes.”
Sera’s head was spinning, the adrenaline rush from hearing that Gavin had been hurt to the second spike when the doctor had asked for her as Mrs. Hayes.
Where did he get that idea?
It was only as she passed Kerrigan, the woman’s strong arms coming around her in a hug, that Sera got her first clue. “I wanted to make sure you could see Gav as soon as possible. Don’t be mad.”
Sera hugged back. Hard. “Thank you.”
How could she fault the woman for giving her exactly what she wanted and what she feared she could never have?
Gavin listened to the steady hum of machines and the air conditioning system and the comings and goings in the hallway and tried to remain steady. Calm. And with his mind off the thrumming pain in his body, rippling out in great waves each time he so much as lifted a hand.
God, he felt like he’d been run over.
In a way, he supposed it was an apt description since whatever had detonated at the sub shop had an effect equivalent to an oncoming truck.
He’d been disoriented when he came to in the ambulance, drifting in and out of sleep, but the EMTs had been determined to keep him awake. The fact they kept the back of the emergency vehicle meat-locker-cold had likely helped, as well.
They’d talked him through the ride to the hospital, asking questions and keeping him talking on any number of subjects including the Mets’ chances that season. The doctor who took over when he came in had continued the idle chatter, checking him out and peppering medical requests with odd questions obviously designed to make him think.
