The Problem with Peace (Greenstone Security 3)

“She’s handling it well,” Keltan said as he sat his wife down on his lap.

Quite a feat, considering how pregnant she was, but the men didn’t seem to willing or able to let go of their women these days.

“That’s just it,” Lucy whispered. “She shouldn’t be handling it well. No one handles this well. Handling it well means that she’s not handling it at all. It means it’s eating her up on the inside and she’s too worried about preserving the outside in order to save everyone around her. She’s always done that. She’s always going to try and save everyone before she saves herself,” she whispered, but it was a roar in Heath’s ears. “She would sacrifice every part of herself if it means someone she loves is saved even an ounce of pain. And that’s what she’s doing now. She’s sacrificing all of it, whatever’s left, whatever he didn’t take and ruin, and she’s holding it together on the outside because she knows how much we love her.”

Heath hated the words. Hated the pain in them because it showed him the depth of his own. Hated them because they were fucking true.

Apart from the night where she’d screamed bloody murder at being taken to a hospital, she hadn’t reacted to what happened to her.

But that reaction was burned into his brain. Her breaking, falling apart right before his eyes as she pleaded, fucking begged to not be taken to a hospital.

She needed a hospital.

Fuck did she need one.

But no one could say no to Polly. Not before. And surely not fucking then.

So they’d made her a hospital in the security offices. Pooled all their collective contacts, Luke’s, Rosie’s, Keltan’s and the Sons of Templar.

Got her better treatment than a hospital would ever offer.

Physically, at least, she was almost fully healed.

Not the best doctor in the world could stitch up the wounds that Heath saw, that cut him to the fucking bone.

He couldn’t do that, though he’d carve his own heart if it would repair hers.

But she was the only one person who could do that.

And it fucking terrified him, the knowledge that she might not. That the dead in her eyes and her soul might be permanent.

* * *

“Give me a second with Heath, babe,” Lucy said, kissing Keltan.

Keltan paused, hand on her belly and nodded.

He clapped Heath on the back on his way out, closing the door.

“How has she been sleeping?” she asked the same question she asked every week.

“Good,” he said.

Lucy’s face pinched. With most people, being able to sleep, not having the nightmares of the past reality keep you awake was a good thing. Polly was not most people. She didn’t sleep much because she had too much light, too much life in her to do so. She didn’t like missing out on life, she wanted to suck as much out of it as she could.

But lately she’d been eager to curl up on Heath’s chest and lapse into unconsciousness. It didn’t mean he didn’t like the weight on his chest. He did. He barely slept himself because he couldn’t give in to a world where he couldn’t feel her.

“Has she told you what happened to her yet?” he asked, dragging the words from his throat was a physical exertion.

Lucy blinked away the pain on her face. Or attempted too. Her hand went to her swollen belly, rubbing it for some kind of comfort.

“No,” she whispered. Her eyes shimmered and she focused on him. “Has she said anything to you?”

He resisted the urge to openly scoff. Not just because he respected the fuck out of Lucy, liked her, considered her a sister already, and doing such a thing in the face of her pain was callous even for him. But also because he didn’t even have the energy to acknowledge the dark humor of it all.

“No,” he said. “And you know what?” he found himself saying. “A tiny part of me is glad. I want to know, I’m consumed every fucking day with not knowing. But I also am glad I don’t know yet because…” he pushed his hand through his hair in frustration and shame. “Because, fuck, I don’t know if I can handle hearing it, not from her. What kind of coward does that make me? I can’t even handle the thought of hearing it, and Lucy, she had to fucking live it. And she still does. She’s fucking good at hiding it, so good it scares me, but she’s not that good. So she lived it once and she’ll continue to live it for the rest of her life. And whether she’s handling it badly or not, she’s fucking handling it. And I’m not.”

Lucy was across the room, putting her arms around him the best she could with her belly.

He wasn’t one for physical contact that didn’t come from Polly or didn’t come from violence. But he found himself putting his arms around Lucy, kissing her head.