Page 17 of The Sound of Him
Everyone is settling.
I’m keeping it together.
Things might just be okay.
Then my phone rings
I answer with a smile, kicking my feet up on the desk as I do. I say, “I can’t believe you managed not to call me for this long. I am thoroughly impressed. I owe Adam twent-”
And Keaton says, “We lost one.”
I’m keeping it together. I am. I fucking have to.
“Who?” I force myself to ask.
“Ellis Woods.”
Ellis Woods.Rescued from the party and sent to the safehouse in Oregon. 24. Had been in captivity for just over two years. He’d been doing sex work consensually for a while before that. Ever since his girlfriend had their baby. The local cops didn’t look for him once they found out what he’d been up to. He got what was coming, in their opinion.
He had turned down the offer to be seen by a doctor at his assigned safehouse upon arrival. He had tucked himself away, hiding from the world, from the men and women working there. He’d hidden his injuries just the same. It was only when he started coughing up blood that he’d gone to them.
We’d sent him to the hospital with both a survivor and an operative, along with a foolproof cover story that the state police would back up if they needed to. Keaton had saved the recentlyretired Colonel’s daughter, after all. He owed the organization a favor.
The injury wasn’t even from the party. It was from the night before, when he was still at his master’s home. When we had no control.
We couldn’t have known. Not with him keeping it a secret. Not with him partially dressed at the party, and then covered in clothes and hiding at the safehouse. It wasn’t our fault for not knowing. It wasn't.
But we hadn’t gotten him the help he needed in time, either. We hadn’t rescued him in time.
One night.
If we’d been just one night earlier, he wouldn’t have been injured in his master’s home. He would have been at the party instead. He would have had time at the safehouse to recover. To heal.
He could have maybe gone back to his daughter - now five years old and looking just like him. Gone back to that girlfriend that never moved on or gave up hope. Or he could have started a new life. He could have become anyone or anything he wanted.
The point is that he could have lived. Heshould havelived.
Should we have had Travis push harder to get the last few alliances cemented so the operation could end earlier? Should we have taken bigger risks?
“It’s not our fault,” Keaton says, his voice thick. “Kellan said so.”
Easy for Kellan to say.
Then again, sometimes someone like him is the best judge of these things. When it’s all fact and logic with no emotion, the analysis is more accurate. He’s always reminded us of that. He’s always gotten so frustrated when we couldn’t just look at things the way he did.
“Kellan made you check the facts, huh?”
“Fuck the facts. Fuck - fuckhim. Fucking psychopath can’t feel a fucking thing.” Something crashes in the background. I curl forward, bracing my elbow on the desk so I can cradle my head. It's worse than I thought.How had I not known that?“Fuck this whole - it wasn’t good enough! Everything we did - all the - no matter what I do, it’s never fucking enough!”
Fuck.
“Keaton, hey, breathe-”
“What’s the point? What’s the point of any of it? Of us?” he yells. “We break ourselves, over and over, and we hire operatives to break themselves - and for what? For fucking what? Isavedyou, Ace. I saved you and I was sosure- I really thought - how fuckingstupidcould I be? How fucking full of myself to think I could change a goddamn fucking thing? It’s this vicious circle, and none of us can get out, and Kellan can’t even fucking empathize, can’t fuckingfeelit, and I’m fuckingdrowning, I amalwaysdrowning, and it’s never enough!”
“Keaton,” I plead.
This has clearly been growing in him. These kinds of blow-ups never come out of nowhere. He's too good at bottling things up. Too good at putting on a brave face and pretending he isn't dying inside. He never breaks until he reaches the point that leaves him shattered, and I let him get there this time.
