Between Limestone Ruins

Chapter Thirty-Eight

After Ethan had been removed, a doctor came to check on Hannah. She was transferred out of the ICU, being no longer unconscious, but would need to stay at least overnight to be monitored. Plus, it was almost midnight now anyway.

Hannah's parents arrived as she was being moved to her new room and they and Aiden got her settled before leaving to find a hotel room, promising to be back first thing.

The team had caught a flight out of Kingston in order to relay everything and start the mountain load of paperwork, and in an effort to keep from overwhelming Hannah in the hospital.

She had been texting with Jenn, who apparently was designated 'don't overwhelm Hannah' spokesperson, right up until they boarded their plane and immediately after they landed.

Hannah was thankful for the police officer who thought to pull her phone from the drain and bring it to the hospital for her. And her for her mother who always traveled with an extra charging cord; a habit Hannah was thinking she should probably adopt.

Walker had stayed in Kingston. Hannah had insisted he didn't need to stay for her sake, but Walker had made up some bullshit about overseeing evidence packaging. Hannah knew he was lying because if he had to oversee packaging he wouldn't have been lurking in the chair tucked in the corner of her hospital room as her family left. He would have left at some point to go to the bathroom or eat. He wouldn't have sneakily shaken hands with Aiden like he was making her brother a promise.

The two now sat, alone for the first time in what felt like weeks, in the dimly lit room, listening to the monotonous beeping of the machines Hannah was once again hooked up to.

"I'm going to go to the washroom and then... we should talk... about... the case and... there's something else I need to tell you," Walker said getting up in a group of jerky movements. Almost as if he hadn't planned for his body to move before he was suddenly upright.

Hannah didn't answer as she stared absentminded out the window, too tired to process anything past the few stars that shone through the city lights. She watched the slow red blink of the wind turbines' airplane indicator lights. The short buzz of a text notification on her phone pulled Hannah's consciousness from la-la land.

A text from Jenn had popped up on her phone lock screen, underneath the call notifications from Walker from what felt like a lifetime ago. She had forgotten he had been calling her when she was captured. The bees. What had he said in the voicemails? She glanced quickly at the washroom door and dialled her voicemail. Jenn's text could wait.

Walker paced the washroom. He was currently begging his thoughts to be more coherent because he needed to tell Hannah what she meant to him but he had no idea what she actually did mean to him. Further still, he had no idea how to communicate a feeling he couldn't explain to himself.

He'd been thinking all day, what he would say to her if she lived through the day. What she deserved to hear from him. How much he would hate himself if she hadn't survived and he never got the chance to tell her how her smile shone so brightly it distracted him every single second of every damn day.

He pressed his forehead against the cool concrete brick of the hospital washroom, immediately thought better of it, and pulled away to continue pacing.

"Some war hero I am," he muttered. "Fuck it." Walker swung the door open to see Hannah with her phone in hand, listening to something playing on it and staring out the window. Her face was unreadable.