31 Days of Autumn (40 page)

Part of me wished he was still alive so James
or I would have the chance to pay him back for what he’d put us through. No
matter what he’d done, though, I wouldn’t wish a slow and painful death like
that on anyone. He had redeemed himself in the end, confessing that I wasn’t in
the van as it burned. If he hadn’t admitted that, Andy might never have led his
team to the bunker to find me. I could see that watching his former friend die,
that not being fast enough to get him out, weighed heavily on Dan. It was his
modus operandi, shoulder the blame and responsibility for every death of
someone he knew. I was going to need to keep a watchful eye on him, to make
sure he let go of that. He’d come so far in unshackling himself from the
burdens of his past, I couldn’t let this drag him down again.

‘Please tell me that we can go and see James
now?’ I asked, after we’d just lain there holding each other for a while. ‘I
need to thank him. Without him calling you and letting you know where I was,
I’d have died.’

‘He was distraught that he couldn’t keep his
promise to come back for you, he was so badly beaten and broken when we found
him, but I have to tell you something that isn’t going to be easy for you to
hear.’ He flashed me a look that told me he was seriously worried about my
reaction. I immediately sat up and looked down at him, leaning back on my
pillows.

‘Are you lying to me about James being ok?’ I
asked, my stomach and heart sinking. ‘He can’t have died, Dan. He was my rock
in that bunker. He saved Oliver. He saved me by calling for help. He
can’t
be
dead,’ I cried, full of anguish. Not James as well. Not sweet, funny, loyal
James. All of a sudden it was like the brick wall I’d built around my pain the
last week, to try and hold it back until I was ready to deal with it, was
starting to crumble. ‘I need to thank him, he needs to know how grateful I am. I
can’t not thank him.’

‘No, Ellie, no. He’s fine, well fine is
stretching the truth, he took a serious beating, but … damn it, Ellie. James
didn’t get a chance to signal for help and it wasn’t luck or great
investigative work that led us to you. I knew where you were because … fuck,’
he groaned, covering his face again. ‘You’re going to be so mad with me.’

‘You’d better talk to me and fast,’ I demanded,
my hurt at the thought of losing James quickly being replaced by disbelief and anger.
‘Because right now I’m already getting mad. In fact, I’ve shot past mad and I’m
in
furious
mother territory, and you really don’t want to deal with
that! You’re making it sound like you knew where Oliver and I were the whole
time and didn’t come for us and I refuse to believe that. If
that’s
the
truth, then I’m even more stupid than that naïve young girl that Matt and Zac
fooled. If
that’s
the truth, I’ll be hiring the best divorce attorney
this world has ever seen and I’ll make damn sure you never see me, or any of
your children, again!’

I sat on the chair in the bathroom trying to
process what he’d just told me. I was torn in two. I loved him and I knew that
he needed me right now. He needed my strength, love, and reassurance to accept
that what had happened to us wasn’t his fault, that Jenny and Thomas’s deaths
weren’t his responsibility. But right now, I needed someone’s strength, because
I was still in furious mode, just for a completely different reason to my
earlier reaction. When he’d admitted what he’d done to our son without my
knowledge, my resolve to have a tear-free day had totally disintegrated. Dan
had reassured me that the chip was perfectly safe, that Oliver would never be
harmed by it, but that wasn’t the point. He’d betrayed my trust
again
after
I’d warned him that I’d leave him the next time it happened. Worse still, he’d as
good as lied to me. He’d not been honest with me when I’d asked why Oliver was
so upset the day it had been done. He’d used him as a guinea pig and let me
think that he’d been stung, when all along he’d been the cause for Oliver’s
tears. That hurt. How many times was I supposed to forgive him for hiding the
truth from me? Right now, I couldn’t deal with his emotions. I had too many of
my own to handle.

‘Ellie, open the door,’ Dan demanded again,
banging his fist on it.

‘Go away,’ I called. ‘I don’t want to see you
right now.’

‘You can’t hide in there and ignore me forever,
Ellie. I’ve already apologised, I know that not telling you was wrong, but it’s
done and I can’t change that.’

‘No, Dan. What was wrong was you even
considering
testing out this technology on my son in the first place!’ I yelled, unable to
control my emotions. ‘He’s not a lab rat. You didn’t tell me, or discuss it
with me first, because you knew what my reaction would be. Every time I think
we’re past this, past you hiding things from me, you go and do it again! I’m so
angry right now, I don’t want to see you. I want you to leave.’

‘You don’t mean that, you’re just lashing out
because you’re upset after your ordeal.’

‘Don’t you
dare
tell me how I’m feeling,
Dan. You’ve betrayed my trust, again, you’ve gone back on your promise,
again
,
and you’ve broken my heart,’ I sobbed. ‘I want you to go. I don’t want to see
you again until I’ve processed this and until I have, the children are staying
here, with me.’

‘Ellie, be reasonable. I’m not leaving, not
after days of being separated from you. I’m going to get you a cup of tea and
something to eat and we’re going to talk about this, calmly and rationally.
Ellie?’

I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t want to
talk to him, I didn’t want to hear his excuses, because there were none. What
he’d done was inexcusable. Right now I hated him, even though the bigger part
of me loved him and needed his arms around me. It was all too much and the
bricks from that wall started to fall at an alarming pace. I felt like I was on
a carousel that was going faster and faster, visuals flashing past as I stood
in the middle of it, unable to move. A smiling Dan, the children laughing, depressing
darkness, Alfa’s eyes, Oliver crying and screaming, Jenny’s face being
obliterated, Charlie laughing, Bravo’s neck snapping, Dan hurting my son. I lurched
to the sink, dragging my stand with my antibiotic and fluid bags with me. I
grabbed the edges of the porcelain as everything spun faster and faster, until
I emptied the contents of my stomach. My ears were ringing, my heart was
racing, I was shaking, clammy, and dizzy. It felt just like the night Jenny
died, when I woke up screaming and crying.

‘Shit, Ellie. I’m calling a nurse,’ Dan
muttered as he heard me retching. I heard him leave and summoned all of my
strength to move. I unlocked the bathroom door and snuck out of my room, my
drips coming with me. Dan was at the far end of the corridor, at the nurses’
station, so I pressed the lift button again and again, praying it would come
before Dan turned around. I slipped inside as soon as it arrived and pressed
for the next floor down, then grabbed the shiny silver handrail and caught my
breath for a moment. I felt like I was having another panic attack. I’d never
had them before, not until the night Jenny died. James had calmed me down, he’d
held me and made me feel safe, he’d looked after Oliver as well while I was
falling apart. I needed to see him. I exited on his floor, but I had no idea
what room he was in. There were no nurses at the station, but there was a
patient board on the wall behind. Everything was swimming and it took me a
while to focus and find which room he was in. Using the wall for support, I
made it there and knocked on the door. My mouth was dry and I felt like I was
going to pass out any minute.

‘Come in,’ came his voice. I slipped in,
letting the door swing shut behind me. I could see two of him, which only made
him look twice as bad. His face was barely recognisable from the swelling and
bruising, his shoulder was in a sling, his hand was in a cast, and his leg too,
which was elevated by a pulley system from the ceiling. ‘Mrs. Davenport?’

‘James. I … I … ’ I started sobbing as I gasped
for breath. What had they done to him?

‘Come here, come and sit down, you look like
you’re about to pass out. Are you having a panic attack again?’ he called. I
nodded, wrapping my arms around myself as I tried in vain to calm myself down.
I made it to the chair next to his bed and collapsed in it, resting my head on
the edge of his mattress as I cried uncontrollably. ‘You’re safe, Ellie. You’re
safe now. Take long, slow breaths, in through the nose and out through the
mouth, remember?’ he coaxed, reaching down to stroke my hair.

I closed my eyes and tried to do as he said,
instantly feeling safe to have him next to me again. In that bunker, I’d been
there for Oliver, James had been there for me, but no one had been there for
him. He’d been my rock through it all. The thought of Dan had kept me strong,
but James had kept me calm. How did he manage to keep his cool under that sort
of pressure? Then he’d made it out, got Oliver to safety, only to be put in
this state? What had we ever done to deserve this? We weren’t bad people, we
didn’t deserve this. I just keep crying and trying to focus on my breathing
technique while he rubbed my back.

‘Where’s Mr. Davenport?’ James asked as I eventually
started to calm down. ‘Shall I ask one of the nurses to find him for you?’

‘No,’ I bit sharply, not moving from where I
was. ‘I don’t want to see him right now.’

‘O dear, you found out about Oliver,’ he
sighed. I nodded, still keeping my eyes closed. I couldn’t look at James,
seeing his battered body would upset me all over again. ‘God knows he’s made
some stupid decisions in his life, Ellie, that being one of them, but don’t be
too hard on him. That tracker saved Oliver’s life, mine and yours too. Without
it, they’d never have found us. He was stupid to even consider it, let alone do
it without your knowledge, but he’s a good man. Every bad decision he’s made
when it comes to you is because he loves you and those children of yours. He’s
always thinking of your well-being and safety. This was no different. Did he
tell you that he’d had one put in himself, too?’

‘No,’ I sniffed, reaching up to wipe my cheeks.

‘I think if he could have got away with it,
he’d have had the whole family done.’

‘I’m so
angry
, James. I’m angry for what
we went through, for what they did to you and to Jenny. I don’t need this
additional anger at the one man who I trusted implicitly.’

‘I’m sure he knows how ill advised his decision
was, Ellie. But whatever we went through, just try and remember that he went
through his own form of torture, too. He may not have been there, but he
suffered as much anguish and pain as you did. Imagine how distraught and
helpless you would have felt if he’d been taken. Would there have been anything
you wouldn’t have done to get him back?’

‘No,’ I replied after a considered silence.

‘Then with the benefit of hindsight, knowing
that you had the chance to be able to trace any of your family with this
technology, wouldn’t you willingly subject yourselves to having it, for future peace
of mind?’

‘He could have hurt Oliver,’ I protested,
hating that James’s rational logic made sense. ‘What if this chip isn’t safe?’

‘He loves that boy, all of you, more than his
own life. He wouldn’t do anything to endanger him. He’d have only have done it
once he was one hundred percent sure there’d be no side effects.’

‘I just don’t know if I can forgive him,’ I
whispered, feeling my heart ache at that statement.

‘You will, because you’re Ellie Davenport. You’re
one of the most generous, kind, warm, and loving people I’ve ever met. You
sacrificed yourself to give your son a fighting chance. You even hesitated to
shoot one of our kidnappers with a tranquiliser dart. You don’t have a bad or unforgiving
bone in your body.’

‘But I’m so angry with him, James.’

‘And you have a right to be. Make it clear how
disappointed you are with his actions, but don’t shut him out. The things he
does are always out of concern for the people around him, and he never
considers the repercussions that they will have on him. He always has. Look
what he did for a woman he didn’t even love, how he punished himself for that.
Now imagine how he feels about you and those children, what it would do to him
to lose any of you. He’s a good man, Ellie. Don’t punish him for trying to
protect his family. That’s a man’s greatest purpose in life. To protect the
people he loves, no matter the consequences, even if it’s to his own detriment.
If we can’t hold on to that, we have nothing.’

‘You were going to sacrifice yourself for us
and I never even got a chance to say a proper thank you,’ I sniffed, slowly
opening my eyes and sitting up. I winced when I saw James up close. It was hard
to know where one bruise ended and the next began. His face was a patchwork of
pain.

‘And I’d do it again in a heartbeat,’ he
replied, doing his best to smile. ‘Us men are a stubborn species. I just wish
I’d been able to save Miss Jenny.’ He shook his head as he exhaled. I picked up
his hand and squeezed it.

‘She died knowing you’d offered your life to
protect her, James. You can’t blame yourself, you had no idea what they were
going to do once I made that decision. And I need to apologise to you for doing
that.’

‘You don’t owe me any apology, you were put in
an impossible position,’ he urged. ‘She was a young girl with her life ahead of
her. I made the decision, not you, you just honoured my wishes and I have
nothing but respect for you for doing that. I know it can’t have been easy, but
if you hadn’t, I know without a shadow of a doubt that they’d have killed both
of us. So I owe you
my
life, Ellie.’

‘I owe you so much more, for saving Oliver for
me.’ I leaned in and placed the gentlest of kisses on his bruised cheek.