Two Evils (30 page)

“Good for you, sister,” Darren said resolutely.

After saying their goodbyes, Billie, John, and Rebecca made their way back out to the Charger. Back on the road there was silence except for John asking softly if they needed to return to the Pentagon for a vehicle. Rebecca had shaken her head and informed him that she took the bus to work, getting off at the Pentagon Metro Station. So they took her straight home, where Billie walked her up to the door and the two women held each other for a long moment before Rebecca closed herself inside.

Once she returned to the car, she knew John would not have to ask where she wanted to go. And he didn’t—he simply drove her to Georgetown University Hospital
, where her family awaited her.

When they arrived on the surgical floor, Billie headed straight for the waiting room; Teddy rose and threw his arms around her the moment she walked in.

“Any news?” she asked when he released her.

Her father dragged his hand over his face tiredly. “Kevin is still in surgery. They’re repairing the damage the bullet caused.”

“It punctured a lung, but didn’t hit any major blood vessels or anything, which is good news,” Teddy added. “Unfortunately, they said that there’s a risk of infection in his lung and swelling around his spine, because it…it went through kinda close.”

Billie felt blood rush to her head and began to sway. She fought a surge of memories from being in this very room just over a year ago, hearing similar news. Only with Travis the news had actually been much, much worse.

A warm hand at the small of her back brought her back to the here and now. John’s concerned gaze was oddly comforting, and she turned into his embrace without thinking. Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, keeping her steady on her feet. After a moment he turned her toward a chair and gently forced her to sit. She leaned her head on his shoulder and fought the urge to give in to her despair, reminding herself that Kevin was a Ryan and that he would be all right.

Andy returned around nightfall as predicted, and he was not alone. His fiancée Michelle had accompanied him back, and Billie was at last able to meet the woman who had captured her brother’s heart. Her father’s lady friend
, Stella, had also come to the hospital to be with the family. Billie realized that instead of feeling stifled she appreciated that these two women, not yet a part of their family, had given up their evening to lend their support. Thomas actually seemed to be holding up even better now that Stella was there to hold his hand, and Billie couldn’t be more grateful that he had her. He and Andy both seemed to be handling things a lot better with a strong woman by their side, and she wondered briefly if she’d ever find someone again who would offer her the same unwavering support.

Then she felt a warm, strong hand take hers and give it a gentle squeeze. She looked up to find John looking down at her with a small smile, and suddenly it was as if she were a blind person seeing for the very first time. Sitting right next to her was someone offering her the steadfast assurance she saw Stella and Michelle giving to her father and brother—without having to be asked. He could easily have just dropped her off at the door and gone home, but instead he had walked inside with her, he had held her, had sat beside her as they waited for news of Kevin’s condition. John was giving her the support any good friend would give, and she knew that he would give her even more if only she would open herself up to it.

Billie still didn’t think she was quite ready to offer her heart again, but she knew then that she no longer believed herself incapable of doing so someday. She had John to thank for that, and found herself hoping that when this was over they could remain on good terms.

After what seemed an interminably long wait, a doctor came in to report that Kevin had made it through the surgery. He had, he told them grimly, coded once, but they had managed to revive him. The bullet had punctured a hole in his lung, but the damage had been repaired and the lung re-inflated. They’d also had to transfuse more than two pints of blood. He was still in recovery and would be moved to a room in ICU in a few minutes, as he was stable but still considered critical.

“We have him on a ventilator for now to help with lung function,” the doctor said. “The next twenty-four hours are going to be essential to his recovery—he needs rest most of all. We’re going to keep Kevin sedated for the time being, but tomorrow we’ll wean him off the ventilator to see how his lung works on its own. If everything looks good then, we’ll take him off sedation and see how things go. I’ll send a nurse to let you know when we’ve got him settled in a room so you can go see him.”

Thomas thanked the doctor profusely, shaking his hand firmly before the other man left. He then turned to Stella and wrapped his arms around her, sighing in relief.

“You want to take a walk with me?” John asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Billie replied. “I could use some fresh air.”

Informing her family that she’d be back shortly, Billie allowed John to lead her out of the waiting room. Minutes later they were in the parking lot leaning on the hood of the Charger.

“I don’t think I can tell you how scared I was that Kevin wouldn’t make it,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself.

“You didn’t have to,” John replied simply. “I could see what a struggle it was for you in there. Couldn’t have been easy given how Travis was killed.”

Billie nodded. “It wasn’t easy for me to be in the same room where another doctor told me that they weren’t able to save Travis. I kept telling myself that Kevin would pull through, that there was just no way the universe would make me go through
that hell twice.”

She looked up at him then. “Thank you, by the way, for sticking around. It means a lot to me.”

John looked into her eyes for a moment and then nodded. “You’re welcome. What are friends for if not a shoulder to lean on?”

She grinned lightly. “So we’re friends now?” she couldn’t help teasing him.

“Well…” he said, drawing the word out. “You did hold a gun to my head a couple of times, and you’ve threatened to kill me more than once. You also tried to kick my ass twice. The fact that the most dangerous woman in the world did all that and let me live must mean that she likes me, at least a little bit.”

Billie chuckled. “The fact that you fucked her not just once but twice—and lived to tell the tale—means she likes you a lot.”

John laughed. “At least I did something right.”

Laughing with him, Billie gave him a shoulder bump, which he returned. As their mirth settled, John sighed softly. “So what are we going to do about the good general?”

Billie snorted. “I’ve got no clue, to be honest with you. I really hate having to drag Becky into this mess, but she’s the only person with even a remote chance of getting into the general’s office—I’d do it myself if I could, but I can’t just waltz in there like I own the place. I can’t even wear my gun in there.”

“Yeah, either one of us just walking in the door would have security keeping an eye on us,” John agreed. He then looked down at her with a serious expression. “Billie, what if this plan doesn’t work? What if, even if Rebecca can get into Wainright’s office, she doesn’t find anything?”

She shrugged. “I know I should consider the possibility, but I sure as hell don’t want to. I don’t want to have to turn the guys in—I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

“We don’t even know for sure if anything would happen to them if you did,” John pointed out.

“Technically no, but… My gut tells me that Wainright would push to resume testing IQ-56, and that this time around, they’d all get it. Their refusal to cooperate could be construed in any number of ways, and the general could hold them indefinitely. Or he could charge them with refusing to follow a direct order. Whatever bullshit reason he comes up with, he’d make their lives hell. And they could hardly go to the brass without concrete evidence—it’ll just be their word against his, and he’s a fucking brigadier general.

“I think the moment he sees them, he’ll know that they’re fully aware of what the serum does. He’ll know that they’re aware not all of them got it,” Billie continued. “There’s no way they’d consent to resuming the testing, not even to keep themselves from going to the stockade.”

“Looks like we gotta start praying like religious zealots that Eddie’s sister finds something, then,” said John.

“Bitch please,” Billie retorted. “I’ve been doing that since I came up with the idea.”



When she
visited Kevin in his room in ICU, John went with her. From the brief look of horror that crossed Billie’s face as she got her first look at her brother, he knew that old memories were haunting her once again. But she shored up her nerve and stepped fully into the room, and he found himself feeling proud of her. Just yesterday she had frozen in place at just the reminder of where she’d spent her engagement weekend with Travis. She’d seemed fragile upon their arrival in Hocking Hills. Being forced to confront her memories—even if just a fraction of them—seemed to have done wonders for her, though. She seemed so much stronger than she had been only 24 hours ago, and he felt confident in his belief that she was finally on her way to true healing.

They didn’t stay with Kevin long. Whether he co
uld hear her or not, Billie assured him that the men who had captured him and their dad (they’d simply met at the house for lunch, according to Thomas) had been taken care of. Yes, they were dead and she had been the one to kill them, she explained amidst the beeping of the heart monitor and the hiss of the ventilator, but he didn’t need to worry about her. At the curious look John had sent her way, Billie informed him that the three brothers not in the military—Andy, Kevin, and Teddy—all worried unnecessarily about her conscience given how many lives she had taken.

Tommy—the Navy SEAL—didn’t. Because he knew what it was like to live with knowing a life had ended by your hands.

After her turn to visit, they returned to the waiting room and the rest of her family. Thomas insisted that his children go home to get some rest, that he and Stella would remain with Kevin through the night and that they’d be notified if anything changed. None of them wanted to go, but each relented, being forced to admit that they were feeling the first stages of exhaustion. John knew she’d probably deny it if asked, but he could also tell that Billie was feeling the effects of her fight with Andre—the way her eyes pinched at the corners and how she kept rolling her head to the sides were sure signs that she was in pain. So he was glad when her father had suggested she, Andy, and Teddy go to the house and get some sleep. Rest, he mused, would do her wonders.

He expected that she would ride back with Andy and Michelle or with Teddy, but when they all left she walked to his car with him. And when he pulled up across the street from her father’s house, once again parked in front of the empty house across from it, he left the engine running as he believed he would be going home to his apartment. Billie surprised him when she asked if he’d mind spending the night with her.

“I’m not talking about having sex, either,” she quipped tiredly. “I just… I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind terribly actually just sleeping with me. I miss feeling a warm body next to mine in the bed. It always did help me fall asleep faster, and alone my mind’s just going to race with what ifs.”

He knew his expression as he looked at her was one of shock. Her request was so entirely unexpected that he couldn’t think of how to respond. Billie apparently took his silence for rejection, as her face fell and her movements as she reached to undo her seatbelt were jerky. “Nevermind, forget I asked.”

John reached for her, taking her face in his hands and leaning across the console to kiss her. Not a deep, passionate kiss—just a sweet touch of his lips to hers. “I wouldn’t mind at all,” he replied at last.

Billie smiled and he shut off the Charger’s engine. They got out of the car and walked up to the house together as Andy was showing Michelle inside—Teddy had already charged in. Billie’s brother did not question his remaining presence, merely nodded to him as if he’d been expecting he would be there all along. For the briefest of moments he feared that the crime scene cleaners had left something untouched, but a surreptitious glance into the dining room showed nothing out of the ordinary, save for the broken chair lying on its side against one wall.

“They did a damn good job,” Billie noted softly from beside him. “I think Teddy, Andy, and Michelle would have been devastated to see all the blood, even if none of it belonged to the family.”

John nodded, turning away when she did to
follow her up the stairs. Once in her room she shut the door, then tiredly took off her jacket and laid it on the back of a chair. She next removed her belt, laying the holstered Sig and extra magazines inside the nightstand drawer before turning and sitting on the edge of the bed to remove her shoes.

“If I wasn’t suddenly so damn tired, I would sleep naked,” she mumbled. “But that would get you a little too excited, and I just don’t have the energy for sex.”

John chuckled as he joined her on the edge of the bed to remove his own shoes. “You assume I am still interested in sex after the shit we’ve been through today,” he told her with a yawn, suddenly becoming aware of his own fatigue. “Though in that vein, if
I
were to sleep naked, you’d be all over me like white on rice, no matter how tired you are.”