ELBINA 3

Chapter 19

I sat on the bed, watching him fumble with the phone on his lap. He was just as unsure as me, but this was our best chance.
I look at the time over his shoulder again. 13:00pm.
We just needed to do it, otherwise we'd run out of time.
"I trust you." He looks down at me, his face in an uncomfortable position unsure what to think but then he smiles carefully. My hand reached down and grabbed his hand, squeezing it partly.
Finally, he nods, turning his look to the phone in his lap and going through the contacts. He immediately finds the number, the ringing starting off quiet before he puts it on speaker for the both of us to hear.
"Lucas?" A part of me clenches up, remembering that voice from so long ago. He hadn't spoken to me since that day in the hospital, he'd come back the same day for my statement and that was it. His job was over and all the pain and suffering that he'd caused me was not his problem anymore.
"Gerald. I'm with Elbina."
"You are? That's amazing, are you both alright?" He sounds genuinely worried, and I glance up at the side of his face. The glass pieces still dug in and the dust of rubble still coated onto his skin.
"We're fine. And we've sorted Nero." Sorted. I frown thinking of it, scratching at the scar on my wrist till I feel blood wetting the surface again.
I sigh to myself, wiping it on my trousers in hopes he won't notice. But Lucas grabs my wrist, a thumb grazing over the broken up skin and he looks at me with worry.
I ignore it, pulling it out of his grip and Lucas is prevented from asking anything by the interruption of Gerald through the phone.
"Where are you?" I shake my head, but Lucas answers anyway.
"At a flat near the centre, Elbina and Nero were staying in it. But that's not why I called you, I need your help."
"What is it?"
"Nero was going to take Elbina to Arden, we don't know where but we know it was supposed to be in thirty minutes."
"Can you get the address out of Nero?" Sounding hopeful, I glance up at Lucas with a raised eyebrow.
"That's not possible right now." I pitch in, Lucas not looking guilty in the slightest.
He rolls his eyes, ignoring my look and staring back down at the phone when he speaks. "But we have the number she was contacting Nero with, so we were hoping you could get to her that way?"
"You have her number?" He said quickly.
"Yes." He immediately asks for it, I turn on Nero's phone and recite the number back to him. I can tell he's excited because he's rushing me through it as quickly as he can.
"Okay, we're going to find her. The best thing you guys can do is stay where you are, do you understand?" I let out a breath of relief, knowing that I could actually relax a little. Knowing that someone was going for her, if anything it might drive her away from Manchester.
Of course, I want her to be caught. But I also want her a thousand miles away from Lucas and me.
We agree with him as he can be heard chatting to other people around him urgently, "You've done well, Susu would have been proud." His hands freeze, a fleeting tension against my arm the minute he hears the name.
It takes him a second or two until he chokes out a thank you.
So that was it, we were stuck here until he contacted us again with more information. I didn't know what to do, the silence eating away at the atmosphere around us once Gerald's voice gets cut off and Lucas lowers the phone.
As if he snaps out of his own thoughts, his head tilts so his eyes are trained on my lap. At the wrist still prickled with blood, as his hand goes to wrap around it again I stand up.
"You need that glass out now, it's only doing more damage the longer it stays in there." It cuts off any words he was about to say, my hand clamping around the tweezers until I come back to stand in front of him. Lucas allows me in between his legs so I can get closer and concentrate, feeling guilty every time he winces at me.
"I'm sorry." I mumbled, my hands shook which meant the piece I was reaching for dug further in making him wince harshly under my touch. His hand gripping my wrist away from him for a second till the pain subsides.
"Are you?" I meet his stare, my gut twisting at the sight.
Pausing what I'm doing and just looking back at him.
"You deserve to be angry with me, I know." I whisper, afraid how mad he's going to be at me. I knew it was coming, I knew that once we'd had a moment to ourselves that this would happen.
"Don't tell me what I deserve, you broke me." The minute the words leave his mouth, the air gets knocked out of me.
I quickly choke back a response, shaking my head, "Don't say that."
"It's true! I gave you everything I had, and you forgot about me." I can't step back, I can't do anything but look at him. The tweezers digging harshly into the palm of my hand till it stings, I don't let up though.
"I didn't! I didn't forget you." His head shakes at me, I cut in. "No! It would have been so much better for me if I had forgotten you, if I didn't miss you with everything in me."
"I thought we were a team, I thought we were going to get through this together?" We are, we were. "So what changed? how could you say you were in love with me and then do that to me? You don't do that to the people you love, you just don't."
I look down, shuffling on my feet in nerves. "It's not that simple, I knew from the minute we went into protection that it wasn't over. And the first time, I didn't get a choice in keeping you out of it. I wasn't going to give up the chance to try and protect you from it now."
He stands suddenly, so I have to take a couple of step backs and nearly fall over my feet. He looms over me, my eyes widen taking him in. "I don't need you deciding things for me, I did everything back then because I wanted to help and that was my decision whether you like it or not."
"But it had nothing to do with you! None of it! But you were still dragged in anyway." He wouldn't be hurt and he wouldn't have changed, because he's changed just like me.
"It had everything to do with me, the minute Fallen took us, it had everything to do with me!"
"No, it didn't have to. You didn't have to be involved!" Then he's stepping even closer, towering over me like he could so easily do with his height.
"You were in trouble Ella! And fuck anyone who thinks I shouldn't be right there beside you the minute that you are!" All I can hear are his erratic breaths between us, his broad chest going at just a fast a rate. Everything else is silent and all I can see is him. Even when he lowers his voice, it's like he's shouting it at me still. A hot flush spread over me from head to toe, "It had everything to do with me... anyone who hurts you, hurts me. Do you not get that?"
At first I didn't know what to say, the tension was too thick. Until I mumble almost incoherently back, stupidly reminding him of my choices.
"But I hurt you though, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you did. A lot."
I go back to sitting on the bed, he stays standing for a few moments until he gives in and sits beside me again. Our shoulders pressed together and I end up staring at my hands, rubbing some of the dirt off the palms to keep my eyes trained anywhere but at him.
"I'm sorry. I know that doesn't change anything but I'm sorry. It was -, I did it to protect you and yes, I was being selfish." I blow out a breath, shaking my head. I still can't look him in the eye. "It's just... You wouldn't be in this mess if you didn't know me, you would be home and you'd be safe... You'd be safe."
"And that thought, that's all I could think about those few weeks and then every single day since we went into protection... That's all I could think about. Fallen died, he died so I could get out and I can't let that happen again because I know what you're like Lucas." I look up at him this time, he meets my gaze. He's got this grtimace of a smile on his face, chewing the inside of his cheek. "You'd do that for anyone, and I can't live with that guilt. It's selfish but I couldn't see how much you were affected by everything, NOT when I'm the cause."