The Long Term Plan (With Short Term Fixes)

XXIX

Cole Boeck had not made a lasting impression on Jacob's mind, but the unconscious body spread eagle on the mattress in front of him bore a striking resemblance to whatever he could recall.

"Evangeline!" he shouted. "It's him! He's here!"

Cole stirred, disoriented after passing out but stable enough to stand. Jacob threw at him a sheet from the floor and Cole covered himself before Evangeline came in.

The room he'd been living in was not unlike the one they'd rented, only in the fact that he had no furniture or signs of living.

"Why are you here?" he groaned, sitting up under the sheet.

"I came to find you, to talk to you."

"Right," Jacob confirmed, heading back towards the door. "Evangeline, I'm getting a call. I think I might have to step out and take it."

"I've got it, Jacob. Thank you."

Cole scoffed when Jacob had left, and stood up. "You can't keep doing this to me, Evangeline." He'd found some discarded clothing and gotten dressed.

"I had to see you."

"No," he moaned. "When will you learn the difference between a want and a need? You can't keep doing this to me."

"Cole, it's different this time. We're different."

"Why are you here?" he asked her again. "You have no use for me anymore."

"You were never an object for me to use..."

"But I'm one you have to manage. You're tying up your loose ends, Evangeline; I'm a liability."

"You are not a liability. Not to me."

"Then why the fuck are you here?" He laughed darkly and opened the back door to the terrace, which rose no more than fifteen feet from the sidewalks below. The air was harsher now, and the cold bit at his bare back and chest, coiling around his neck and constricting his ears.

Right behind him, she huffed a cloud of hot air and rubbed her hands over her arms when she'd gotten outside. "Let me speak."

He though about it. "No."

"Cole."

"Close the door," he spat. She did. "I want an answer, and goddammit, 'I just had to' isn't good enough. It will never be good enough."

"You up and left without saying goodbye."

"Left?"

"Yes, left."

"Evangeline, I... He didn't tell you?"

"Who?"

"Your husband! He put the SCC Secret Service goons on me! He exiled me to Mantua, and banished me then to Marseille!"

"Noah would never," she denied.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"I have access to all that information," was what she said, however, the statement held no concrete proof to deny Cole. "There's been nothing suspicious."

"You don't even love him and you're blind for him. It's unreal."

"I can't help that I don't love him!"

"When will you stop playing the victim and own up to the consequences of your life's mistakes?"

Cole's eyes were wild when he whirled around to face her, his throat getting raw from the rapid raise of his voice. She'd moved toward him, standing only a couple feet away from him, looking out, by the edge of the terrace.

"What I did to you was wrong," she sighed, placing her hand on his arm to try and pull him closer.

"What you did to me was selfish," he corrected, "selfish and unforgivable.

"Why the hell did you do it?"

"Cole, please."

She went for him with her whole body, gliding forward with all of her weight and her arms outstretched to embrace him.

"No!" Cole stepped aside.

Perhaps he screamed because of how angry he was at her, how raw and dry she'd made him. Perhaps it was the guilt seeping through his bones as he saw her move head over heels past him. Despite reaching for him she had indeed fallen over the edge of the terrace, fifteen feet, and landed on the edge of the fire escape below in less than a second.

Never before had a sound shook a room so much it stopped spinning that instant.

As Cole lifted her body across his shoulders, Evangeline came back to a semiconscious state. She'd somehow maneuvered herself to land on her legs in the instant of her fall, and both were undoubtedly broken.

The nearest car was parked several feet away, belonging to one of his neighbors. The adrenaline paired with the force of his elbow broke the driver side door. He unlocked the car and placed Evangeline in the backseat. She moaned, but otherwise she was alive, and if she was alive, he could get her to a hospital.

Realizing he had no keys and no idea how to hot wire a car, he cursed.

A black, armored car cruised alongside him. Jacob stepped out of the driver's side door, smirking, until he saw Evangeline.

"Take this one. I'll stay here and call him."

Cole nodded, and Jacob took out his phone as he helped Cole put Evangeline in the new car. The hospital wasn't ten minutes away, and this was Evangeline. He had to make it.