Fury (34 page)

              Dr. Nguyen placed a defibrillator at Ethan’s chest, screaming at him to come back. She shocked him, but he wasn’t responding. I ran to his other side. His eyes were dull, lifeless. His mouth slack. Blood and bruises covered the entire length of his beaten body. “Jesus!” I said, my body shivering where I stood. “Jesus! Tell me what to do! Tell me what to do!” I demanded, frantic.

              Dr. Nguyen looked up at me, her eyes crazed. Something dawned on her.

              “I have one epinephrine shot left in one of the exam rooms. Room three. It’s in a drawer. Long needle.”

              I tore through the operating room.

              “Four. Three!”

I yanked open a drawer. It was there, sitting on top.

              I grabbed the plastic sealed package and ran back to the operating room.

              “I have it!”

              “It’s okay,” Dr. Nguyen replied. “It’s okay. He-it’s a miracle but the defibrillator worked. It worked. His heart is beating. He’s breathing.”

I leaned against the nearest tile-covered wall and sank down onto the floor, my hand still gripping the adrenaline shot. Without thought, I started praying, thanking, praying, thanking.

When Dr. Nguyen got Ethan stabilized, she sank back from the table. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I can’t believe it. He was dead. I saw it. He was dead.” She looked at me and smiled the most gloriously infectious smile. “He was dead, Finley. It’s a miracle.”

Pent-up anxiety, nerves, and emotions came flooding out all at once for me as my body came back down. My body shook with the final acceptance that I’d almost lost him, that I’d almost been forced to return to Montana with Ethan in a box.

I cried for the millionth time that night, but it had never been as sweet as the release that came with knowing that Ethan Moonsong was alive.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

             
Ethan

             
When I woke, there were two things I was very aware of. Suffering. Acute suffering. And suffering’s direct counter. Finley.  

              “Your. Hands.” I was able to say but with great effort.

I heard a sharp intake before her hands found my arm.

              I exhaled. “
Finally
.”

              “Finally,” she repeated aloud, making me want to smile but couldn’t.

              She ran her hands up and down my arm, warming me up from the inside. My lungs filled with air. I’d found I could breathe easier when she was touching me.

After a few minutes, I pried my eyes open.

She was blurry at first, but she came in true after a few blinks. I tried to raise my hand toward her face but my arms were too heavy.

“Why do you look so tired, my love?”

She laughed, but her eyes filled with tears. “Because you died, came back to life, and have been in a coma for ten days.”

My eyes opened a little wider. “Are you okay? Is everyone okay? Are the children okay? Father? Sister?”

She smiled a watery smile. “They’re all fine. Many of the children have been placed back in their loving family homes. For those whose families couldn’t be found or for those whose families were unsuitable, they’ve placed in Slánaigh. The boys have been moved to another home about an hour away.”

“That’s good.” I swallowed or tried to anyway. My throat was so dry and scratchy, it felt like nails scraping down the sides. “Water?”

Finley jumped up and poured water into a glass. She stuck a straw in the cup and brought it to my lips. I took a drink and although it didn’t cure the pain, it did soothe it.

“Better?” she asked.

I nodded, my neck screaming in pain. I gritted through it.

“Have—” I began, but had to clear my throat. “Has anyone come after you or anyone at Slánaigh?”

Finley sighed. “That’s the thing, Ethan. No one from Khanh’s group has done anything to us or the girls, they have been actively hunting you down, though. I guess a few of Khanh’s men were eager to take his place and a new organization has come up already, but they still want your head on a platter.” She shivered. “They will stop at nothing to find you. We’re hidden here at Dr. Nguyen’s, but I don’t know what we’re going to have to do to escape.”

This shamed me. Everything I’d done, every body I was responsible for draining the life from, every violent effort, every single move I’d made, every risk to Slánaigh…

And the traffickers still continued. They were a house of cockroaches. See one and there were a thousand more hidden behind them. Kill one and those thousands were ready to fall into their empty place.

              The guilt was sudden and overwhelming. The faces of each I’d killed revolved in my head at a rapid rate. I sat up, grabbed the ice bucket near my bed, but could only dry heave. There was nothing in my stomach to purge.

              My body shook. “Finley,” I told her beautiful face, “I’ve done awful things,
terrible
things.”

              She swallowed. “I-I know,” she breathed.

Her admittance, her awareness of what I’d done, was like a burning hot knife to my gut. I threw my legs over the side of the bed. They were screaming at me to lay back down. I cried out in pain, almost passing out from the effort.

              “Ethan,” she said anxiously and stood, “sit back.”

              I looked at her as my body trembled. A result of the cumbersome remorse, the devastating, crushing strain of irrevocable choices so final, so concluding I was in utter shock.             

              “Take me to Slánaigh, Finley.”

              She helped me stand and dress. My legs were so swollen I could barely fit them into my jeans. We walked out of Dr. Nguyen’s small hospital, me leaning on Fin, and Fin, I was certain, leaning toward leaving me when all was said and done.

Because who could ever love someone like me?

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Ethan

We made it to Slánaigh. I’d only sucked in a breath twice in pain when we’d hit unexpected dips. As gently as I could, I got off the bike. I turned around to face Slánaigh but was greeted instead by the sight of Father Connolly, his cassock billowing in the ocean wind, his white hair whipping about his face. He looked beaten down, utterly beaten down.

“Finley,” I said. She turned to me. “Go on up to the house. I’ll meet you there soon.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said, her hand in mine.

“You don’t?” I asked, just to hear her confirm it.

“No,” she answered.

“I promise I’ll come find you soon.”

“Of course,” she said, kissing my hand and heading toward the house. On her way, she placed a hand on Father’s shoulder. His own found hers briefly before she bounded toward the winding staircase.

When the door shut behind her, I faced Father head-on.

“Confessor.”

“Aye, son,” he said, walking toward me. With glassy eyes, he hugged me. “I know it all.”

“You do?” I asked, scared I’d ruined our friendship.

“Aye.”

“I’m… Are you disappointed in me?”

“Aye,” he said, nodding his head once. “I’m gutted, me.”

I started to break down but sucked it back in. “Father, I,” I began, but he held a hand to stay me.

“Tell me true. Ya did it for the youngins, ye did?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are ye sorry, son?”

“More than you could possibly imagine,” I admitted, a single tear treading down my cheek. I shoved it away with the fabric at my shoulder.

He nodded his head. “Ye understan’ why ’tis wrong, Ethan?”

“I know, sir.”

“Ya stole them men’s souls ’fore they could find absolution. Ya stole the possibility, Ethan.”

I sucked in a quick, excruciating breath. “Yes, Father.”

“I understan’ ya motivation, son. An’ t’at motivation might be honorable but ’tis not ya place to decoide their fates.”

I let out a harsh breath, absorbing the gravity of what I’d done. I nodded, unable to answer without breaking my composure. I had no right to feel sorry for myself.

“Confessor,” I repeated.

“Aye, son.”

“I confess to the murders of countless men, and I am heartily sorry for what I’ve done.”

I hung my head low but his frail hand picked it back up.

              His brows furrowed in understanding and pity. “Ach, the war that must rage within an’ outside ya, boyo.” He dropped his hand. “I can see ya remorse, Ethan. I can
feel
it. Ye seek absolution an’ ye shall receive it, but ’tis one condition.”

              My eyes found his. “And what condition is that?”

              “Ya must turn yaself in to Tran.”

              My chest panted and I almost lost my balance. I righted myself. “Turn myself in to Tran.”

              “Aye. When we take revenge ’pon ourselves, ’tis too burdensome, too heavy for us ta carry alone. It only causes more fear, more violence, more war. The only thing that can save us is love, my son. God is Love an’ Love conquers all, so take this ’pon ya breast, let it lie there an’ permeate ya skin. An’ obey Him by turnin’ yaself in.”

              “I see,” I said, accepting the hellacious fate I’d chosen for myself. “No more Finley. No more thoughts of married life. No more thoughts of children of my own. No more thoughts of a life of Finley.” I looked up at Father Connolly. His hands were clasped together as if in prayer. “I see. I, uh, let me say goodbye to her tonight. I’ll go to Tran in the morning.”

              “O’ course, my son.”

              I wanted to run, to sprint to Finley so as not to waste a single minute of the precious time I had left with her. I’d deal with the idea of my future in a Vietnamese prison later. I knew that I just needed to get to her. I needed her. I wanted her.

              I almost faltered when I reached the stairs. The idea of a future without Finley Dyer was punishment indeed. It was a hell on earth. I detested myself in that moment, detested everything I’d done with a fiery passion.

              I looked up the staircase and called out Finley’s name. I needed to be alone with her and that wasn’t going to happen inside Slánaigh. I called out for her again and she emerged, her face expectant.

              I cleared my throat to control the emotions threatening to boil over. I locked my knees to keep them from buckling beneath me.

              “Yes?” she asked, a breathtaking smile on her face.

              “Come here, Fin,” I told her.

              “Why so serious?” she teased. “It’s over. You’re alive. You’re here. We’re together. We will be all right!” she said, her arms extended out, her lips shouting toward the sun.

              I choked on the words hovering on my tongue so I took her hand and led her down to the beach, down to the cove full of cerulean water and ragged, jutting cliffs. A juxtaposition of dismay and calm dispassion. It described our situation perfectly. It described
us
perfectly.

              When we’d reached the shore, I kicked off my boots and she tossed away her flip-flops. We walked until our toes met the edge of the water.

              “It’s so beautiful,” she said, admiring the cove.

              I looked on her, desperate to memorize every feature, every tick of muscle, every breath she inhaled. “
You
are beautiful,” I declared. “
You
are the beautiful one here. All of this,” I said, gesturing to the earth and water surrounding us. “It is humbled by you, plain when it shares space with you. It could only beg to sit at your feet, this earth. That is how remarkable you are, Finley Dyer.”

I sucked in an incredible breath. ”I was so desperate to keep you that I lost you,” I told her.

Her face fell at my last sentence. “What do you mean?” she quieted.

“Do you know how much I love you?” I asked her, ignoring her question. “Do you know what I wouldn’t have done for you? I can tell you. It is nothing. I would have captured a speeding train, if you’d asked me. I would have torn down Everest for you, if you had even mentioned it in passing.”

I fell to my knees in the sand, the pain not even registering within my body. I was too consumed by the loss of what could have been to have even noticed.

              Finley kneeled beside me, resting her hands on my face. I grabbed them in my own and clasped them together, shoving them into my chest, wishing I could swallow them, swallow her, keep her in me, close to me, always with me.

              I yelled at the top of my lungs, longing for a way to turn back the time, to erase what I had done.

              I looked at her.
But now you must be yet another victim. You must suffer because of me.

“Fin,” I said, my eyes blurred with tears.

“Ethan, you’re scaring me.”

“Fin, I, uh, I’m not going to be able to return with you to Montana.”

“Why not?” she asked, her chest rising and falling.

I wiped my eyes on the sleeves of my T-shirt. “Because I have to go to Tran. I have to turn myself in.”

She took her hands back from me, resting them against her throat. “No, n-no you don’t.”

“Yes, I do,” I said, gripping her face in my hands.

Tears spilled anew down her cheeks. “Ethan, what are you saying? What
exactly
are you saying?”

My face contorted with the effort to keep myself in check. “I have to turn myself in, Fin.”

“No! You don’t! And you will not, Ethan Moonsong. Over my dead body!”

“
Fin
,” I said, trying to reason with her.

But how could I reason? Would I be reasonable if the situation had been reversed? No. In fact, I would have thrown her over my shoulder and walked back to Montana.

              She wept, her teeth gnashing in frustration and anger. She began to hit me, pelting me in the chest, and I took the pain, took her fists willingly. I let her hit me until she’d had enough, until her hands fell at her sides in defeat. I knew that defeat. I felt that defeat.

              “I cannot believe you would do this to me,” she told me. “Do you know how long I have wanted you? You cannot comprehend the solace the memory of your face brought me when I had needed it most, when I didn’t think I could take a single minute more of my horrific life.” She sat back on her heels and stared out into the water. “You were a reason to get up in the morning, Ethan. You still are. You will
always
be the reason I get up in the morning.

“When those men would touch me, when they would do vile, terrible things to me, Ethan,” she said, turning her gaze on me, “yours is the face I’d always imagined saving me.” Tears flowed down her face. “I didn’t even know then why, but your face was something my mind unwillingly thrust upon me, a sort of shelter from the damage they were causing. You were a shelter I’d never even asked for. You are still my shelter, Ethan.”

Her teeth gritted. She bellowed at the earth with venom, with a desperate, lonesome hurt. “I am not meant to be happy,” she stated. “I have been destined for a life of torment. In a way, I guess I’d always known and now I can see it all so clearly and I feel like such a fool.”

Her words devastated me and made a liar out of me.

“It’s all my fault,” I told her. “I’d promised you forever. I’d promised you love, and I failed you.”

Her body sagged. “You have not failed me, Ethan Moonsong. I know why you did it. I look at the faces of all the innocents you saved and I cannot ever fault you for that. I know your reasons. I admire your reasons, but I
loathe
the execution,” she declared, double meaning and all.

I fell forward, my hands finding sand. I captured thousands of grains in the palms of my hands and brought my fists up. Sand fell through, blowing away with the wind, and no matter how tightly I’d held on to it, it refused to hold there.

“I was so desperate to keep you that I lost you.”

If someone gives themselves to you freely, you just have to accept the gift.