Being Butch Green || ✓

Chapter 8 - Just a Little Solid

"FUCK!" he screamed, dropping me and face palming the wall beside him in a rage. He rested his head against it, taking in the soothing touch of the cold brick. "How the fuck did you mess that up?"

I shrugged from where I lay. "Skill?"

"Idiocy more like it," he mumbled into the wall. "Fuck it! I'm so gonna lose my job over this."

"What're you going to do about it?" I asked cautiously.

He sighed in a rather apologetic way to the wall. "We need to go get it without them realising you're gone."

"We? What the hell am I going to do? I lost it; doesn't mean I know where it is."

"You're right. Guess I'm gonna have to tell Miss Galgort about this one. Unless there's another way out of this?" he said, grabbing his face and drawing it out. His stress lines grew as he paced around the room, trying to think. "Right, that's it!" he said, charging over to me.

His large hand gripped my collar pulling me onto my feet. A rush of pins and needles caught me by surprise as they tingled around my body, the tiny hairs on my arms pricking up. He let go of me and my knees wobbled. I stuck my arms out to achieve balance, but my attempts failed, and I collapsed in a rather jelly-like heap onto the floor.

I winced in pain, grabbing my ribs and screwing up my face. The morphine I was pumped with couldn't mask this one and in a second Jack was beside me, his hand on my shoulder whilst his voice told me to breathe through it.

I groaned. "Since when did you help people in pain?" I wheezed.

"Since you walked back into my life. Maggie said, one day we might meet again, and it will be by complete chance. And if I don't make an effort to mend whatever it was that's been broken between us, you would have no reason to stay."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Who's Maggie?"

"Someone who's been helping me the past few years. You'd like her, I reckon. And her granddaughter, Hailey."

I glanced up at him, the pain finally subsiding. "What makes you think I would even want to stay in the first place?"

He shrugged. "We're brothers. I have to at least try."

"What makes you think I'd give a shit about you or your new life? I don't care."

He glanced at the ground, genuinely looking upset. "Then let me change your mind. I know what they're going to do to you if we stay, so if I get you out, and to safety, you have to stay and let me show you how much I've changed since back then."

I scowled, thinking about it. Did I really trust him enough? "And what about the file?"

"What about it?"

"It has to come."

He sighed. "It can't."

I glared up at him. "It has too, otherwise I'll just stay here, and you can watch me die."

He scowled, clearly torn between helping me and keeping his job. "Fine. It can come."

I nodded. "Fine. You have a deal."

He nodded and bent down, gripping each of my forearms. He tugged at them as they flopped and obeyed every action. He huffed as he heaved me across the cold floor and to the bottom of the stairs he'd thrown me down only days ago.

"Jack, what are you doing?" I asked as he yanked my motionless body to the base of the stairs. "I can walk."

"No, you can't, and I'm dragging your stupid ass up some stairs. What the heck does it look like Butch? God!"