Page 73 of Timeless

All of us were thinking the same thing.Get the fucking gun off her.

“Look how you coped, Amber. Look at what you did. Look at the type of life you created because Dad shut down as soon as Mom died. He stopped being a parent.” Troy put his hand out; he was going for the gun. “Jax won’t be able to be the dad you want him to be and Jack needs him to be, without you.”

Tears filled Amber’s eyes. “I just want Jack safe. That’s all I want.”

“You might get him off the list, Amber, but he won’t have much of a life without you. We know what it is like to grow up without a mom. We know what happens to everyone who is left behind.” Cole was speaking so softly to her. “I’m telling you that we won’t be able to give Jack what he needs. You die tonight. You kill all of us.” Cole was the closest to her now. “You aren’t saving him; you are giving him a curse to live with. An emotional disability.”

Amber looked between us, then down at the gun.

We were all close to her now; one of us had to launch and take it off her.

“We stick together, Amber. We always have,” Adam said but didn’t move toward her.

Tyler, however, was slowly creeping toward her. I don’t think she had noticed him.

Cole, Troy, and I were close enough to launch and get it off her. And if she didn’t spot Tyler, he would get to her first.

“Jack needs both of us, Amber. Not just one.” I was going to make a move for the gun. “Your brothers are telling you they won’t be able to be the type of uncles that he needs without you. I’m telling I can’t be a father without you.”

Then Amber looked up directly at me. “That was what hurt me the most. Losing not one parent but both.” She glanced at her brothers. “Then I lost all of you.” The pain of her past was in her eyes. I could read her pain, pain I caused, pain from her childhood, pain from her past.

She lifted the gun and I think we all reacted but just as I about to launch at her, she extended her arm toward me, stopping me from taking her to the ground.

“I don’t know if by doing this, I’m killing Jack or saving him.” She let go of the gun as soon as my hand wrapped around it. “I’m trusting you with our son’s life, Jax. I’m trusting you, that you know better than I.”

I took the cartridge out of the gun and then dropped both on the ground. She let me wrap my arms around her, and the fear and panic that had been in the back of my mind the whole time this was happening, flooded my body.

“Fuck, I don’t know how I’m going to forgive you for what you just pulled, Amber.” I kissed the top of her head, holding on to her tighter. My body was basically going into meltdown mode now. All the emotions I had kept a lid on while we were in the crisis were now flowing freely through my body and I didn’t know how to fucking cope.

So, I just held onto her tighter.

I had forgotten how small she was. All I had wanted for the last six years was to hold her but right now it wasn’t enough. She’d nearly left me. How the fuck could she do that to me!

The tears came and I didn’t fight them back. I just let them drop.

I pulled her back, dipping my head, my trembling hands cupping her face. “Promise me you will never do that to me again?” My body was failing me. I had felt terrified before, when I nearly lost her before I went to prison. But this time, the feelings flooding my body were more intense.

I was struggling to stand; my legs just wanted to give out. I think this was shock.

I nearly lost her for good this time.

“Jax, calm down.” Amber put her hands on my shoulders, her voice steady, while mine was all over the place. “I’m right here.”

I shook my head. “You nearly fucking left me. If Tae hadn’t called, if Adam hadn’t known where to go, I wouldn’t have saved you. I….” The tears wouldn’t stop. I couldn’t come to terms with it. “You would have been executed and it they weren’t successful, you were going to do it yourself! How the fuck do you expect me to forgive you?”

Amber looked up at me, not seeming to be panicking like me or understanding how much I was freaking the fuck out. “Jax, if you had to pick between your life and Jack’s, what would you do?” She covered my trembling hands with hers.

I let go of her. “How the fuck could you think that Jack would be better off without you! How could you do what you just did!” Mentally, I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

“Calm down, Jax.” Cole put a hand on my shoulder, and I shrugged it off.

I pointed a finger at Amber “You nearly killed me.”

“Jax, this isn’t about you and me!” Amber took a step toward me. “This was about Jack and him not getting killed. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” I scoffed, my emotions all over the place, crying fucking mess that I was. “You honestly think you dying would just hurt me? That I’d just move on? Huh, Amber? Is that what you think?”

Amber’s eyes were locked with mine, and I could see I was hurting her but I couldn’t stop myself.

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