Hard to Love {A Hotchniss Story}

Chapter 34

Ian left Emily there all alone, no one heard the gunshot since the gun was a silencer, but it wasn't bad, he made sure she wouldn't be shot in the most harmful of ways and that she was going to make a full recovery.

As Emily was sitting there on the bench with the bleeding slowly ceasing she heard her phone ringing. She took it out of her pocket with her right hand and saw Aaron's name on the screen. "Just great." Emily sighed heavily before she answered.

"Where are you? You should've been here twenty minutes ago. I was starting to worry." Aaron wanted to sound annoyed when in reality he was relieved that Emily answered the phone. He was afraid something bad had happened to her.

"I'll meet you at the headquarters. I spoke to Doyle." Emily thought for a second that Aaron hung up the phone because he was silent, but he didn't.

"You lied to us, he was never going to come here, was he?" Aaron asked and Emily couldn't lie again, she didn't want to lie again.

"No." Emily admitted. "I'm sorry, he was going to hurt one of you. I couldn't have that."

"We'll speak at the headquarters, meet you there."

With that said Aaron hung up the phone. Emily sighed, she wanted to throw away her phone, but that wasn't going to do her any good. Instead she went to her car. There she took a scarf from the backseat and wrapped it as tightly as she could around her arm and around the handkerchief Ian had helped her with after having her shot.

Then she drove to the headquarters where everyone was waiting for her in the round table room and she was certain none of the faces in there were going to be happy one when it came to the decision she had made earlier.

When Emily entered the room everyone looked at her and all their anger turned to worry when they saw the bloody scarf wrapped around her left arm. "What happened?" Penelope and Jennifer rushed first to Emily, but she didn't allow them to touch her arm.

"Nothing, it's fine." Emily shrugged it off even though her arm was still hurting and bleeding. She knew she should've went to have it bandaged first, but she didn't want to make the others wait much longer.

"You were shot." Spencer said without hesitation.

"But not killed, he didn't want to kill you. He didn't even want it to hurt that much." David continued and Derek agreed with his words.

"Why did he shoot you?" Derek asked, but Emily was waiting for Aaron to also say something, he was awfully quiet. But when she realised that he wouldn't, she answered Derek's question.

"He made me choose who should be shot and I chose myself." Emily told the truth even though she knew it wouldn't make things any better. "I told you it wouldn't be good, I didn't want this, I wanted to handle it on my own."

"And so far that's exactly what you did." Aaron finally spoke and Emily almost snapped her neck when she turned her head to look at him. "You acted on your own, you told no one you were going somewhere else to meet with Doyle. You could've been killed or kidnapped or even worse and you told no one so no one could help you."

"You all have someone to live for, someone you have to live for. I'm not needed unlike you all are so please don't put your lives on the line just like that for me. I accepted it because you insisted, not because that is what I wanted." Emily said it all in one breath.

"You're not needed? You don't feel needed?" Aaron asked and everyone fell quiet because that was personal for Aaron and Emily.

"Aaron that's not what I-"

"That's exactly what you meant Emily." Aaron stared right into her soul for a few moments then he left the room, walked past her.

"I didn't mean it that way." Emily told the others and they just looked at her. "Please say something, someone, anyone..."

"I get you Em, I do. But he loves you and has loved you for longer than any of us knew, including himself. Now you're not letting him help you when he feels most scared. And just so you know, we're also scared for you." Jennifer said and Emily wanted to tell her that it was more complicated than that and for a moment she decided against it, but then she changed her mind.

"There's no reason to feel scared for me, Ian wouldn't hurt me." Emily said in an instant.

"Like he didn't hurt you now?" Derek asked and Emily sighed because they didn't get Ian like she did. Then she realised that the way she wass thinking of him again was the way she had been thinking of him back in the days when they were together.

"I gotta talk to Aaron."