Page 70 of Carrick
And that was the part that scorched. Because they had. They’d done this. Seen this. Handled it.
My panic wasn’t new. My heartbreak wasn’t special. My fear, my fury, my desperation—it was just another file in their war chest of familiar tragedies. And it made me feel disposable.
“Yeah?” I said, voice cold enough to cut steel. “Well, I don’t give a shit how it works. I care about my brother. You say you are all brothers here. You mean to tell me that if Carrick had gotten into trouble on his last undercover mission, that the four of you wouldn’t have been there in asecondto pull him out? That you would have waited on ‘protocol’ and ‘solid evidence’ before you did anything?”
I saw Niko flinch—small, restrained, almost imperceptible. But I saw it.
And then Deacon spoke—quiet. Reverent. Breaking through the silence like something holy. “Maybe,” he said, voice level and quiet and almost bored, “she should be allowed to lose her shit.”
His words landed like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples across the table.
Everyone turned toward him, blinking as if they hadn’t quite registered that he’d spoken aloud. It wasn’t like Deacon to wade into emotional conversations. When he did speak, it was usually clipped and practical—logistics, security, observations. Not this. Not... feelings.
But now, his forearms rested on the table, hands clasped loosely in front of him, eyes fixed on no one in particular.
“We’ve all done it,” he continued, his voice low, even. “Snapped. Broken things. Screamed at each other. You remember when Jax punched that drywall at the old place because Quinn told him to sit tight on intel?”
Jax winced and let out a short breath, muttering something as he stared down at his plate.
“Or when Sully broke that locker door in Denver,” Deacon added, angling his chin toward the other side of the table.
Sully’s mouth pressed into a tight line, his thumb resuming its steady tapping against his arm. He didn’t deny it.
“And you,” Deacon said, looking at Niko now, his tone still calm but edged with something firmer, heavier. “You lost it for a whole day when Gage didn’t check in. None of us questioned it. We gave you space. We gave you time. We let you feel it.”
The room felt tighter somehow—compressed by the weight of memory and truth.
“None of us,” he went on, voice gaining quiet force, “were asked to sit still while our blood was in danger.”
He turned to me then, and the full weight of his gaze settled on my face. Steady. Clear. No pity in his expression, no patronizing softness—just something grounded and real.
“We’re doing the right thing, waiting for Quinn to get a solid lead,” Jax said, eyes locked on mine even as he spoke to Niko. “I don’t question that. But Bellamy’s not trained for this. She hasn’t spent years rewiring her brain to compartmentalize panic. She doesn’t have the muscle memory that tells her how to shelve fear like it’s a report on her desk. And she shouldn’t have to.”
His voice softened then, the words meant only for me. “You’re allowed to scream. You’re allowed to break a little.”
It wasn’t permission, not exactly. It was an acknowledgment, and it landed like oxygen in a room that had been sealed too long. Something inside me cracked. Not a shatter. Not a collapse. But a rupture deep enough to ache.
Across the table, Maddy nudged her glass aside with a clean, deliberate motion. “I agree,” she said, voice like steel—no waver, no apology. Just facts.
I looked at her, breath caught behind the knot in my throat. She met my gaze head-on. No softness. No condescension. Just steady, solid truth—and it held me upright in a way nothing else could.
“When I was in your spot,” she said, voice threaded with memory, “I lost it. Screamed until I couldn’t talk. Punched Sully so hard in the shoulder I thought I broke my damn hand.”
Sully shot her a look but didn’t argue, just gave a small tilt of his head like he wasn’t about to deny a word of it.
Maddy’s eyes stayed on mine. “And no one made me feel stupid. No one told me to calm down or keep it together. They let me fall apart. And I hadn’t even lost anyone.”
She didn’t soften, but her tone shifted—reaching, steady. “You’re not wrong for being furious. Or scared. You’re not wrong for raising your voice when no one else is raising theirs.”
The words hit harder than I expected, landing like a lifeline. Like someone had finally said, I see you. I hear you. I’ve been there.
But I couldn’t reach for it. Not yet.
Everything inside me was unraveling—thread by thread, breath by breath. The heat crawling under my skin had settled behind my eyes, pressing like it wanted to escape. My fists clenched beneath the table, nails biting into my palms. Not hard enough to break skin, but enough to anchor me. Enough to remind me I was still here.
Pain made things real.
I didn’t want logic. I didn’t want strategy or calm assurances. I wanted someone to feel this with me. To look at me and understand I wasn’t irrational or unstable—I was grieving. I was scared. And no one else was screaming loud enough to match the noise in my chest.
