Lose The Road
By – TempestRaces
Chapter 11 – Falling inside the Black
"Your touch used to be so kind. Your touch used to give me life. I've waited all this time. I've wasted so much time." ~Skillet
"So, just how bad are things around the hospital? Cops at the doors or what?" Bryce finally broke the silence which had been allowed to reign in the truck since they'd left the parking lot of the bar. He'd silenced the sat-nav, fully able to find St Francis without the mechanical voice telling him where to turn. He hadn't been sure what to say to her. He wasn't sure what was the right answer to give to a woman who'd just admitted she had to not think about your brother on a nightly basis until she passed out from exhaustion.
"Not when I left. There was a cop hanging out somewhere close by their rooms. He just appeared out of nowhere around me a few times, but he's not like sat right at either of their doors. Or wasn't. Now that they know V's awake and talking, who knows?"
"How many floors up are they?" Bryce was starting to try and figure out how they were going to get Vince and a hospital bed down to the ground floor. And then past everyone, all desk staff and security staff, and out a door. It sounded like mission impossible.
"They're on the fourteenth floor. I have no idea how we're going to get him out, unless he recovers enough between now and then to walk down."
"Even then he can't just walk out the front door. Someone might guess it's him. Might be able to give a description of the car. It's not every day someone parks a Cadillac Escalade in the lot at St Francis."
"I told Angelo the damn truck was too conspicuous but he wouldn't listen to me! I told him my car would blend in better but he wouldn't listen."
"Doll, your car was not going to blend in better than this truck. Don't sweat it."
"I don't mean the Skyline. I meant my Altima. It's just a factory colour, nice rims and blacked out windows. It's not that stand out."
"Neither is an Escalade in L.A. in general. But someone they reckon is supposed to be out of commission on the fourteenth floor getting into a tricked out Cadillac Escalade out in the parking lot is." Bryce sighed. This was going to take all the skill he had to pull off.
"So what do you propose we do then? Rent a car and stash the truck somewhere? If we even did that, if he can sit up long enough to come down in a wheelchair instead of flat on his back, I don't think he can sit up in a moving car until we get to the truck." Tempest was starting to panic and he could tell by the tone of her voice.
"I just mean that we can't waltz out the front door with him is all. We're going to have to find a way to go out the back or something. And we're going to have to have the truck parked in a normal parking spot, and somehow get him in it without being noticed."
"Well, first you have to talk him into the idea anyway. He wasn't impressed with the idea in the first place."
"Neither am I really," Bryce answered. "I'm still sat her wondering what's really better. Leave him to do the time, because I'm fairly sure it'll only be about 5 years served and he'll be out before too long. You can come live with me in the mean time and you'll be here when he gets out, can go visit. Or, actually do this thing, and have him live on the run for the rest of his life. Never see him again."
Tempest took pity on Bryce when he reminded her that by helping her, he was also committing to perhaps never see his brother and best friend again. "Maybe the team will come back and it'll get sorted out. Maybe he can come back someday."
Bryce shook his head. "I appreciate you trying to cheer me up Doll, but you and I both know that if he goes with you, if you take off with him, odds are good he can never come back again. Your buddy that set you up to come here is going to have to set him up to go there, and he's going to have a new identity and a new life if this works out. This one won't exist anymore, and really, it might be for the best."
Tempest fell silent again for several minutes. "We can do it the other way, your other way. I'll move here, live with you, wait for him. I never told the boys before but Harry offered me a job, running a shop for him, with excellent pay and everything. If he'll still have me, if he hasn't gone ahead without me, I can set up down here. Take care of Jesse and hope V doesn't actually end up doing 20 years while I grow old waiting for him." She scrubbed a few silent tears off her cheeks. It wasn't the way she wanted it, but it was certainly a lot saner, safer.
Bryce sighed. "He's going with you. I'll work on a way to get him out of this trouble he got himself into while he's gone. If it works out, I'll let you know. Otherwise, there has to be a statute of limitations on what he did. He can come home sooner or later."
Tempest nodded minutely with her head tipped back against the headrest, trying to get her tears under control. "We'll see what he says."
"Doll, if it comes down to it he's going to say he'll go to jail. He's not going to put you in danger over saving himself. I can see him doing just that to almost anyone else, but you," Bryce trailed off. "He's always been different about you. Had this need to keep you away from anything dangerous or shady in the world. He wasn't even all that bothered know that the other girl at the house, Mya?"
"Mia," Tempest corrected
"Yeah, he never seemed to spare a thought for the fact Mia could end up going down with them for whatever charge they could make stick, accessory after the fact or aiding and abetting. Even though he fancied himself in love with her for most of his life. At least most of his life before you came into it. But you," Bryce sighed, "just the mere mention of any trouble you could be in and he went ballistic."
"How would he know that I was in any trouble?"
Bryce smirked at her. "There's more of your family then just you that still speaks to Jesse, Doll."
"And trouble what did my nosey family tell Jesse I was in?"
"Something about street racing. Something minor. But V still hit the roof."
"That little scuffle? He panicked over that?" Tempest grinned evilly. "Damn B, that wasn't ever gonna be no thing. That was only 'cause'a the fact I beat the mayor's kid in that race. I knew that it was gonna disappear. My uncle works for the jail and I'm on a first name, buy you a drink basis with most of the cops in town. I'd have to do something a lot worse than that to end up in any real trouble."
Bryce couldn't help but grin back. "Well still, he went ballistic. There was some talk about a trip up there to eliminate the guy who started those problems for you in the first place, but I talked him outta it in the end."
"Shoulda let him come. At least he might have sorted things with me out then and wouldn't have felt the need to set up this bone head plan instead to try and get me to come down."
"Wish I thought of that." Bryce shook his head. "I only thought of him killing someone and ending up in jail in another country."
"Guess it all would have depended on if he came to speak to me before or after."
Bryce only nodded. He was about to turn off into the hospital parking lot and was starting to feel a bit nervous despite himself about seeing his little brother on machines and all beaten up in a hospital bed. He'd been looking out for Vince for so long, he felt like he'd failed him somehow, even though now they were both adults and if Vince was going to do things like he'd done with his team, there was nothing Bryce could do if he didn't even know. They were adults and they didn't live in each other's back pockets. "I'm gonna have a hard time not ripping him a new one."
"Oh?" Tempest asked in confusion.
"He wasn't even going to tell me himself he was in here was he?" He watched as Tempest bit her bottom lip at his question. The answer was obvious in her eyes anyway. She just didn't want to land Vince in any more hot water. "No, of course he wasn't. I'd have found out from the news paper, or when I went looking for him and found out he was in Los Angeles Prison."
"He didn't want you to end up doing something to help him and ending yourself up in trouble right along with him." She smiled lopsidedly. "Didn't I tell you he was stupid once already today?"
Bryce parked up the truck and just looked at the unconventional woman he was seated beside. She was just so perfectly suited, Bryce couldn't figure out what had taken Vince so long to fix what he'd broken. Why had it come to this? Why had it he let it come to this, simply to get this end result? This girl back in his world. He couldn't help himself. He threw an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her softly. "I'm glad you were here to have sense. I needed to know he was in here, and hurt, even if he wouldn't tell me himself. But now I guess you better take me to Stupid."
They got out of the truck. Bryce gave her back her keys and she locked the doors, the truck chirping and flashing the hazards as the security armed. They walked toward the main doors of the hospital and walked in. "I really hope you're right when you say they shouldn't recognise you. If they put you together with me coming in here, they're going to start to question who I am, when I've told them I haven't been around in five years. I shouldn't know people from Vince's 'other' life when I'm supposed to be Jesse's sister he hasn't seen in five years. Even if Nurse Martha figured out I was lying."
"How'd that happen?" Bryce watched as Tempest blushed at his question.
"When I found Vince, he was dying and I just," she paused, trying to put what that sight had done to her into words. There weren't any. "I lost it. My crying woke him up, and he tricked me into the hospital bed with him. I passed out there from exhaustion and I gather Nurse Martha found us like that over the course of the night. She told me she knew that I shouldn't know Vince so well if I hadn't seen Jesse in the last five years. So I had to admit to the fact I visited a few years ago and had a thing with him then. She put it all together, what he did to me then along with his lack of desire to get better now. So she felt bad for him, and us, and she's the only reason why I know how long he has left before they take him to jail."
"Is the nurse going to be a problem?"
Tempest scrunched up her nose as she thought about it. "I don't think so. I had to admit we'd had a fling that ended badly when she questioned how I knew him at all, she questioned why I stayed with him all night when I told her about the break-up, and she was so clearly about to try and protect him. From me! So I had to admit the bare bones of what happened, and why I felt how I did about him. That it certainly wasn't him who needed to be protected, least of all from me, or even deserved to be stuck up for in that regard, deserved everything he had coming from me. If I was the kind of person to go there while he's flat on his back a few hours off death's doorstep. He deserves all the attitude I want to give him and then some!"
Bryce just looked at her like he had nothing to say. She was feeling a bit lonely and she couldn't shut her mouth as they walked toward the elevators. "I was going to do it you know? I was going to come here, go work for Harry and just try hoping that being around him all the time would wake him up to who was better suited in his life out of Mia and I. And then I found him making out with someone else, some blonde bimbo with no name on the last night he knew we were going to have together and I couldn't do it then. I could overlook all the stuff before if he'd just asked me to, but instead he made out with some whore where he knew I was likely to see them."
"He's an idiot." And the rest wasn't really his story to tell. His brother confided in him, things he wouldn't confide in anyone else because they were brothers, and there was a trust there fundamentally that those things would remain just between the two of them. But this woman was putting her life on the line for his brother. And he was letting her because he thought they both deserved this second chance. But was she going to be open to the possibility of not just loving Vince again, but falling in love with him enough again to give up her life for him as she's been ready to do last time, if she didn't know the whole story?
"He's an idiot who pushed that woman away likely minutes after you caught them. Pushed her away to go find you and give you the choice to stay with him. Realised you deserved a choice to make. Was already planning his phone call to me to tell me he was going away with you for a few weeks to help you arrange your shit if you agreed to try with him." Bryce shook his head. "I know it ain't no excuse for him to be so stupid, and you'd never know it, because he is so confident. But he really didn't think he was good enough for you. He didn't want to drag you further into our world, and you didn't just fit in with the relative safety of the team so if you came into his life, you were going to come into both parts of it. It scared the crap out of him. He thought you were better off over him, so he did what he thought would make sure you left here and got over him. Then he realised that he couldn't even fake interest in that woman if he pretended she was you. That she was all wrong and he was all wrong for thinking it would be that easy. He was going to offer to help you pack, take you the long way back home and show you some sights, and then he was going to find a place for just the two of you, so you could work at being just the two of you. But you didn't oblige him in making a catty scene when you found him and got angry. You just disappeared. And paid cash for where ever you slept it off, he figures, because he went so far as to have our boss run your name for any rooms booked on your credit cards, but there weren't any."
Her bottom lip started to quiver. They could have had a house of their own and a life together for the last two years and it just seemed like his thoughtlessness and the bitch fate was for making her see the stage he'd set had contrived to make sure they didn't get either. "Two bloody years he threw away over some misguided attempt to save me from myself, and his inability to pick up a phone or book a plane ticket."
"But now you get a second chance, in your own world not his. So suck it up. No more waterworks, please."
She laughed at the begging tone in his voice. "I'll do my best. It's been a hell of a two days."
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezed her. "I know. But we're gonna work it out, ok?"
She only nodded, trying to keep her commitment to stop crying, at least for awhile. But Bryce being kind to her was almost more than she could take. This gruff, slightly older version of Vince she had come to care for two years ago and was swiftly being reminded of the reasons why. He'd done his best to push them together back then. He was going to do his best to push them together now, and she was touched by how much he seemed to care. Not just for Vince, but for her as well. And he barely knew her. But he knew her well enough it seemed, and his concern for her wellbeing was almost the undoing of her ability not to break down and cry some more. But she held it together because she also had a feeling like he was depending on her strength to get through this ordeal as well.
They got off the elevator and Bryce fell in step slightly behind her, allowing her to lead the way as she clearly knew where she was going. She stopped in front of a door and went to push it open. He quickly grabbed her wrist. He needed a second to get ready to see his little brother hooked up to things, helpless. "How bad is it?" he asked. His tone was low and he was ashamed that he could hear fear in his own voice.
She looked up at him. She wanted to baby him, cuddle him, but she knew full well he wouldn't appreciate it. So she schooled her face into a mask of calm. "He wasn't on scary machines when I left this morning, just monitors. He's not very mobile because he's been shot in the side and lost a lot of blood, and his arm is heavily bandaged. He was on quite a lot of morphine when I left, so he's kind of spaced out. He was a bit pale, and he can't really sit up. Otherwise it's not as bad as you've built it up to be. I know what I'm talking about, because I had things built up to be so bad with Jesse in my head, the first second I saw him it was actually very anticlimactic in a good way."
"Ok, let's get this over with then."
"Why don't you let me go first, make sure he's alone, and then if he isn't, as few people as possible put you and I together?"
He nodded once sharply to show he understood, and agreed with the suggestion, but didn't appreciate the delay in finally seeing his brother. She knew where he was coming from, but didn't want the big black cop to know about her and Bryce as a pair until the time came he really had to. She stepped into the room, and seconds later was motioning him in. He joined her and found as she'd said it would be, the whole situation was anticlimactic. Vince was sleeping. He looked fairly normal, all things considered. He stood by the door and watched as Tempest crossed the room with a single minded focus on his brother, sat down and picked up his hand after kissing him softly on the forehead. He shook his head. How had his brother let that kind of woman walk away from him? He was giving them this chance together if he had to beat Vince unconscious and carry him down the stairs!
Bryce crossed over to where she sat and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders protectively. If Vince wasn't still looking like a little boy lost in that hospital bed, he'd be half way toward telling both his brother and the girl it was too late for them because he wanted her for himself. Both of them were stupid, for not doing something about this thing between them before things got this bad. Then his focus returned to Vince. "Is he ok?" he asked on a whisper.
"He's just sleeping I think. Too much morphine in his system for him to stay up for long." She wished he'd wake up too. She was ready to see his eyes again, and know he was lucid. She brushed some of the unruly hair off his forehead again, musing that his hair hadn't aged a day. It was still all over the place, longer than was seemly and shaggy as an ungroomed terrier. And she wouldn't have him any other way. "Should I wake him or do you want to wake til he wakes up on his own?"
"I think we should let him sleep."
Their conversation intruded into his slumber, not that he intended to let them in on the fact he actually had been asleep. Vince cracked his eyes into cautious slits. "I was just resting my eyes." He noted Bryce's hands absently kneading Tempest's shoulders. "Something you two need to tell me?"
Bryce answered before Tempest could figure out what Vince was referring to. "Is there something you should have told me four or five days ago? Or, even better, a year ago when you started to dream up this harebrained scheme? When were you going to tell me what happened?"
"The place is crawling with cops. I don't want you here."
"Tough. You should have told me what you were up to."
"Why, so you could try to talk me out of it?"
"Mostly, yeah."
Tempest broke in. "Do you two want me to go sit with Jess for awhile while you sort this out between the two of you?"
"There's nothing to sort," Vince answered with a scowl. "I told you not to bring him into this," he snapped, his jealousy getting the better of him like it always did when other men touched her. Apparently he wasn't even immune from the feeling if the other man was his own brother and didn't mean anything but comfort by it. Bryce always had had a soft spot for her from day one.
"And I told you that he deserved to know," she snapped back, trying to keep her cool, and a level tone. She knew he was just scared, and really didn't need her snapping at him. "There was no need of you being here all alone all those days. What if I hadn't come down? What if Hector hadn't called me about Jesse?"
"Then you wouldn't be thinking of getting yourself in over your head again with some crazy scheme bound to end you up in trouble."
"Whoa," Bryce interjected, "time out. Tempest was right to call me and I'm glad she was here to be sensible about it. You need family to look out for you when you're laid up in the hospital. The scheme is crazy, but we must be able to find a way to make it work."
"Wait a second," Vince's voice was weaker than his usual growl but held enough menace even still to stop the conversation. "She sold you on this crazy plan?"
"Just barely, but yeah, she did."
"What if I say I won't go? This is crazy. I did the crime, I got caught I'll go to jail. End of."
"No. The rest of them ran off, and you're not going down alone for all of them. You're going to run off too, and we're going to help you do it."
"How on earth do you figure that's gonna happen?" He didn't want to come right out and say it, but Vince knew he wasn't up for anything more energetic than what he was already up to, laying flat on his back.
"I been thinking about it," Bryce answered. "Not totally sure yet." He studied the bed and the man in it closely. "How mobile are you?"
Vince glared back at Bryce, clearly not wanting to answer. "I'm not," he finally growled, giving in.
"Can you sit up?"
"Don't think so." He took it in his head to try, and before anyone could figure out what he was doing, he'd levered himself up 6 inches from the bed. Seconds later he fell back, having blanched and been rendered panting from the pain. "That's a definite no."
"That was stupid!" Tempest admonished. "You're going to rip your stitches and end up in real trouble!"
"Well how in the fuck do you think you're going to pull this off if I can't fucking move?!" Vince growled back. His weakness frustrated him, and pissed him off, and as it only mattered because of her, because she was there and needing him again, it turned into being pissed at her.
"You have another almost two weeks to just fucking lay there and get better first fool!"
"Children!" Bryce broke in. "This isn't helping. Our biggest issue is going to be the fact the heart monitor is going to go crazy when we disconnect him from it. In two weeks time, you'll be due for the stitches to come out anyway, and that means you'll be able to move without ripping them out. Use some sense."
"He's just so infuriating!" Tempest exclaimed at Bryce even as Vince looked at his brother and made a similar comment about the only female in the room.
"And the two of you deserve each other, so get over it."
Tempest took a deep breath, trying to calm down. Both from how frustrated Vince made her with his attitude and his refusal to act like someone as injured as he was, and her sudden panic over what thinking on Bryce hooking them up together again in his head did to her. Look what being with him had done to her last time. Did she want to give him a second chance to do it again? "I'm going to go sit with Jesse for awhile and let you two catch up."
"It's only been a week since we saw each other Doll. We don't have that much catching up to do."
"Well, whatever. I still need a few minutes so I'm going for a walk to see Jesse."
"Fair enough then," Bryce answered, figuring out that she wanted to go toe to toe with Vince but the fact the man in question couldn't even stand up to meet her there had her frustrated. He also had half an idea she was running scared of her feelings for Vince so he figured letting her go get some perspective was best for them all. She left the room quietly and when she was gone, he threw himself down into the chair she'd vacated. "She's still totally head over heels in love with you, you know?"
Vince winced, and not from his pain. "Be kind of unfair if she wasn't."
"Why's that," Bryce asked, feigning confusion.
"Suck if I was the only one," Vince answered with a one shouldered shrug.