Hannah's eyes darted to me at my outburst and then back to Cameron.
Travis grabbed my arm and I could feel him trying to tug me away but I pulled against him, fighting it. My gaze was glued to Cameron, who I'd thought was dead this entire time. Who I'd previously cried about. Who the entire team back at the hotel thought was dead and that was a large chunk of why we were here. The police didn't want the Casey gang to get a new leader and rebuild and here I was thinking Travis was the leader when in fact, there was no new leader this entire time. Apparently. Maybe. I don't know.
My vision started to blur as I looked at him. I squeezed Travis' hand back nearly as hard as he was squeezing mine but he was trying to pull me away. I was simply a trying to grasp onto something to make sure I was actually in this moment and not imagining the man on the bed in front of me.
"What's wrong with him?" My voice rang out as I eyed the IV bag.
Hannah looked at Travis, like she was trying to talk to him silently and I was tired of being left out. I was forced out of Melkin the first time thanks to Travis dropping me off at the hospital. I spent three years working on coming back without being a stupid damsel in distress he'd have to watch over the entire time. And somehow, that meant the entire city of Melkin had to flip upside down and all I wanted was to be let in on the answers.
I started running towards Cameron's bed to get a closer look but Travis' hand tugged me back towards him with force. Before I knew it, I was lifted into his arms and being hauled out of the room.
"Travis!" I protested. "What happened to him? What's wrong with him?"
He ignored me, taking us outside to the backyard.
"What the hell is going on?" I yelled.
"What is up with your language today?" he mumbled under his breath. I don't think he intended for me to hear, but since he was still holding me, I narrowed my eyes at him.
"You were yelling, you might wake him up," he tried to explain as he hesitantly set me down on the dying grass.
I swiped at the tears clouding my eyes but it was no use as they poured. "So he's okay? He's just sleeping? Why does he have fluids and everything? What's wrong with him?" I rambled out questions and Travis just stood there.
I shoved him lightly, angry that he wasn't saying anything and that nobody ever told me anything. "Answer me!"
"Which one?" he finally shot back. "Ask one fucking question at a time."
His words had more hostility than I think he meant for them to have but it still affected me the same. My chest heaved as I tried to hold in my cries and I put my hands up to my face because no one looked pretty crying.
I sunk to the ground, the dry grass doing nothing but poking my legs but I didn't care. The Caseys weren't actively causing any trouble. Their house, that so many of them lived in, was attacked today and Travis said they wouldn't even attack back. They would flee. The Caseys were being quiet. No explosions. No interactions with my co-workers. No altercations with the Dacostas, who according to our records were even hurting so the Caseys could hit them easily.
Travis was even being quiet around town which I would have thought was impossible. I should have known something was up. When Dylan and Owen came to surveillance the area on their own before, they got pictures of nearly all of the high up members. And all of the Casey members were well aware they were being watched, some even looking right at the camera as they took the picture. The Caseys were smart. Smarter than anyone gave them credit for and now they were radio silent, nowhere to be found, and the only question anyone had was 'where were they?' Dylan and Owen didn't seem to scare any of the members when they were here before and no one stopped to ask why. Why Dylan and Owen all of a sudden couldn't find them, why they were behaving.
This whole time I was wondering why Travis and everyone else were even still here, why they hadn't left town. But they couldn't. Not by the looks of Cameron hooked up to different machines. They couldn't transport that without raising some eyebrows.
The piles of bags stashed in the garage should have screamed at me when I saw them. Even when I was here before, they never kept a stash like that on hand. If anything, they just had a bag of guns before and that was all.
They weren't behaving because of Dylan, Owen, or any of them.
No, they were waiting to leave.
"Tell me what's wrong with him," I mumbled, not sure if he heard me with how groggy my voice was from crying.
When he didn't answer, I looked up to see him standing and looking down at me like if he said the wrong thing I was going to break.
"Travis," I snapped.
"You weren't nearly this upset when you found out I was okay," he finally said.
"So he is okay?" I asked as my eyes continued to water.
Travis scoffed. "He was in a coma for a few weeks and broke some bones. Hannah's been helping. He woke up a little bit ago but he's in and out," Travis said, kicking some dirt around. "He'll be up for maybe a day or two and then passes back out for a few days. Hannah says it getting better."
"What happened?"
"What do you think happened?" he argued.
"Why won't you tell me anything?" I asked, crying all over again as his words about Cameron getting better rang through my head again and again.
"Sorry," Travis looked down at the ground. "It was from when the building collapsed."
"I know that," I said, trying not to sound sarcastic but I wanted him to tell me things I didn't know.
"Who have you been hanging out with? Seriously," he muttered as he dug the toe of his shoe into the ground. "We were stuck inside, well, Cam was stuck. He told me to leave but I wasn't going to. I walked away from you that night at the hospital and I don't think I could do that ever again to someone I cared about."
He took a seat in front of me on the grass, propping one leg up so it was next to me as he rested his elbow on it.
"I don't remember much of it falling, but I remember the noise. It was loud. And the smell was terrible but we fell when everything caved in because I know one second I was on the stairs and then I was on the ground and pushing rocks off me. Cam got the worst of it, I thought he'd died at first. He was sandwiched between rocks and metal and shit from the stairs and there was a fire. There was a metal rod he was wedged against. That's how I got this."
He shrugged off his jacket and pulled back how sleeve and pointed to a long, slim burn mark running along his arm.
"My pants caught fire trying to pull him out of it. I hurt my ankle so we didn't make it very far out of the building. Far enough, though. Ben and Finn found us a few minutes later."
I started crying harder and Travis looked at me oddly before speaking, "Sorry?"
"None of that was on the tape I saw, just the building collapsing," I sobbed.
Travis shrugged. "It was a big building and we were under a lot of stories, it didn't all fall down. I think I ended up near the back of the building so your guys probably needed to invest in more than one camera, yeah?"
I tried to picture the image and the tape we had was blurry as it was and was only the front angle. I held a hand to my mouth as I pictured the building caving down and Travis being stuck in half of it. By the time the police showed up on the scene, it looked like the last remaining walls were barely holding on and would teeter over like a game of Jenga at any second.
"Oh my god," I mumbled into my palm.
He held his hands out hesitantly towards me, not sure what I was upset about and I didn't blame him.
"If he's alive and you're alive, what about Sterling?" I asked.
Travis shook his head. "He's dead."
"That's what everyone thinks about you and Cameron!"
"Lacey, trust me."
"How do you know?"
"Because I was there when the building collapsed. I saw his body and then I shot him before I grabbed Cameron, just to be safe."
I picked at the grass in front of me, wiping at my eyes with my other hand.
"He won't hurt you again," Travis reassured.
I scrunched up my face in confusion as I looked up at him and tears fell down the previous trails left on my cheeks. "I don't care about me. I care about you."
He seemed to inflate a little bit. "He won't touch me again, either. Now stop crying. I don't know what to do."
I leaned forward enough so that I would fall into his chest and wrapped my arms around his neck. His hands went around my waist as he fell on his back.
"How soon until Cameron is okay?"
"I didn't know you were so close with him," Travis said.
I bit my lip, trying to control my breathing and go back to normal but it was difficult. I mulled over the words on the tip of my tongue. Initially, they caused my heart to pang but I clenched my jaw and tried to hold in the sob. I had to ask it sooner or later.
I took a deep breath, "When he gets better, you're leaving...Right?"
"You can come," he offered. That didn't really settle my mind any. That meant yes.
"What if I wasn't assigned to this case? What if I came on my own six months from now and you were already gone? Why did you leave me at the hospital?" I asked, refusing to look up at him.
"Why do you think so much?" Travis asked me as I laid on top of him, his hands trailing up and down my sides.
"Travis," I warned and rolled off him onto the grass so we wouldn't get distracted. "I'm tired of being left in the dark and being the last to find out everything. I don't want to think I'm all caught up and then 'Oh, what's behind door number two? Yet another person I thought was dead!'" I said sarcastically.
He sighed. "We would have found you."
I traded in my pouting face for confusion as I finally looked at him. "What?"
"After we left. We would have visited you to see if you wanted to come with me...with us."
I was silent for a while, looking up at the clouds as they passed. I brushed at my eyes again, trying to rid the stray tears that were the stragglers of the bunch.
"Is there anything else I don't know?"
Travis shrugged but I could tell he was thinking, like he was honestly trying to figure out if I didn't know things and that felt nice.
"Are you the leader of the Casey gang?" I asked grudgingly because there was still the fear in the back of my mind every day that he was going to get caught and Dylan would have a field day prosecuting him.
Travis pursed his lips to the side. He was unsure.
"I talk to Cam," he said. "But not everyone knows. We weren't sure if he was going to wake up at first so we didn't tell the rest of the gang. Most of them think I am."
I let out a deep sigh and it wasn't out of relief. If any of the Casey's got caught and happened to snitch, not that they would, but if they happened to, it was Travis that was going to get caught. If someone was going to be the target, it was going to be him. I tried to think of lighter things to keep my eyes dry.
"On this trip you'd take to come and get me, would Hannah Martinez be with you guys?" I whispered.
He was quiet and I wasn't sure if he'd even heard me for a little bit.
"What do you mean?" he asked at a normal volume.
"Who is she?" I raised an eyebrow. "You said you put this house under my name so it would be safe. The house that held the entire Casey gang was under her name. That's not something you just put under a random stranger's name. Especially if we went out of our way to pick her up and bring her here."
Travis shook his head, "We brought her here to get medical supplies for Cam and everyone and so she wouldn't be questioned about why her house suddenly caught fire."
I stared at him. "Is the Casey gang involved in some type of cartel business?"
Travis laughed. That meant no. That also meant no cartel fiancé.
"Who is she, Travis Miller?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow.
Travis raised an eyebrow as well, mocking me. "She's a surgeon, Lacey Carson."
He rolled onto his side to better face me while I remained on my back.
"Where'd she get that ring?" I asked.
His hand found its way to my side again, sliding under my jacket and resting against the outside of my shirt.
"Not from me," he smirked.
"Did she get it from Cameron?" I prodded.
He shrugged. "She got it in the mail," Travis paused, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "So would you have come with me if we stopped by wherever you were living, say I don't know, a random apartment and asked if you wanted to come run away with us?"
I narrowed my eyes as his roamed over my face anxiously, a smile on his face. I wondered if he guessed a random apartment or if he knew for a fact thanks to Ben. I couldn't help but wonder if they'd checked up on me at all and if they would have known exactly where to find me if they left before I came here.
"I would," I answered.
He looked conflicted with my answer, which confused me. "You'd go on the run with me? Just pack up your shit and leave your apartment? What about your life? What about a job? Don't you have any dreams or anything?"
I scrunched up my face as I looked at him. Yes, I had dreams. I had plenty of them but I didn't know why going on the road with him if he showed up at my apartment door meant I didn't.
"Like dance," he clarified. "You could be a professional dancer if you weren't here."
I shook my head. "I don't want to be a dancer, not anymore. I told you my leg hurts sometimes."
Travis shrugged again, "Well, you must have other dreams that are like that."
I didn't know why he cared so much if we were talking about a situation that didn't even matter - the possibility of him showing up at my apartment in the off chance I hadn't come to Melkin with the team.
"What about you? What are your dreams?" I countered.
Travis shook his head from side to side. "Mine aren't dreams."
I frowned. "Nightmares?"
He grinned and rolled himself over so he was on top of me, "They're more fantasizes."
I laughed from underneath him and he wiped at my cheeks, drying them off.
"Are you done crying?" he asked.
"I just want to know things."
He nodded. "I don't know anything about why we got attacked tonight but I'll let you know when I know. How's that?"
I grinned and he leaned down, connecting his lips to mine. My stomach jumped from excitement and it was like I forgot every reason I was mad or upset tonight. His teeth grazed my bottom lip as he tugged at it before deepening the kiss. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him closer. His hands traveled under my shirt and suddenly, the sound of the back door slamming shut broke me out of the Travis-filled haze.
My eyes snapped open and I tried to move my head back but I was already on the ground. Travis had no problem continuing to kiss despite the noise or in front of whoever walked out so I put my arms on his chest and shoved him slightly back.
I could feel heat tinge my cheeks as I looked over at Ben as he tried desperately to find anywhere else to be but near us as we made out on the ground.
"Yeah?" Travis yelled, propping himself up on his hands. He got off me and sat down similar to how he was before, but with both legs bent at the knees.
Ben glanced at the ground as he walked quickly over to us.
"Lacey," Ben greeted as he walked quickly over to us. He tugged at the bottom of his shirt a few times and suddenly I realized the cold breeze on my lower abdomen.
Oh jeez. I quickly tugged my shirt down the few inches it had risen and sat back up, hiding my cheeks behind a wall of my hair.
Ben sat down next to Travis and handed him the camera I had been using to take pictures of everything with. He flicked through a few buttons on it and started showing Travis.
"Here's all of the locations they have us pegged at," Ben said.
Travis started moving through the pictures and I awkwardly bit my lip, trying to think of something to say as Travis wordlessly looked through the pictures.
I leaned over Travis' legs, holding onto one to get closer to Ben who was on his other side when I suddenly had a thought. "Ben."
His eyes shot up towards me with surprise at my tone.
"Did Cameron give Hannah that ring?" I asked anxiously.
Ben looked between me, I was practically pushing over Travis' legs to get to him and Travis, who was still just looking through the camera.
"Well, yeah," Ben said like it was obvious.
Travis' arms flung down to his lap, holding the camera and he stared at Ben like he was crazy. "No he fucking didn't."
Ben leaned in towards Travis. "Are you dumb?"
"Are you? Cam said he didn't ask her to marry him, genius," Travis defended.
I realized that maybe the ring was a bigger deal that I originally thought as they began to bicker.
"They got engaged, Lacey," Ben reassured me.
Travis shook his head and looked at me. "No they didn't," he looked back at Ben. "I'd believe Cam over her."
Ben rolled his eyes. "Cam didn't tell you about her in the first place, did he?"
I pointed at Ben, "That's true. The house is under her name."
"No," Travis said defiantly. "Cam and Hannah will both admit the ring was mailed to her. She got that ring in the mail. It could be from fucking anyone and Cam told me he didn't give it to her."
I looked between the two of them as they seemed to have a staring contest, both thinking the other was stupid for his opinion.
"Were they even dating?" I asked. Because if they weren't dating when she got the ring and if they didn't date at all, then maybe Travis was right.
But Travis faltered and did the same thing he did when I asked if we were stealing from the hospital. He seemed to be weighing his words and thinking about his answer as he swayed his head from side to side.
"I don't know," he finally said.
Ben rolled his eyes and spoke to Travis like a child, "Duh, they were dating. They're engaged. That usually happens before you get engaged."
Travis clenched his jaw. "I swear to god, I'm going to punch you."
"Do it," Ben threatened, amusement on his face.
In response, he just groaned and looked back down at the camera. We sat there for a little bit in silence as Travis went through the pictures. I stayed leaning against one of Travis' legs, and Ben had leaned back onto his hands. It was calming and peaceful and it was one of those moments that I wished everything could have just stayed the way it was.
But I knew life wasn't like that.
"You know who would know better than anyone if they dated?" Ben suddenly interrupted the silence.
"Yeah, Cam. But that bitch is getting his seventy-two hours of beauty sleep," Travis answered, not looking up.
Ben groaned. "Not Cam."
Travis shook his head. "I told you I don't believe Hannah."
"I'm not talking about Hannah," Ben said and he looked at me.
I tried to figure out who he was talking about as he grinned and raised his eyebrows a few times.
"Finn?" I suggested.
Ben nodded and I quickly darted up off the ground.
"Wait," Travis called out, seemingly just catching on.
"You're going to be so wrong," Ben said teased him. "I'll race you."
Already standing up, I started running toward the door as the two guys behind me started toppling over each other to get to Finn first to prove each other wrong. I slipped in the door right as the two of them came up behind me, fighting as they tried to get into the door first. The argument of trying to push through the door at the same time and both trying to elbow each other out of the way slowed them down.
I slinked over to the door Travis had pointed out as Finn and Annabeth's and lightly knocked. I pushed my hair to fall over one shoulder, straightening it out with my hands so it didn't look like I'd just booked it in here.
The pounding of feet echoed through the hall as Ben and Travis came barreling down it.
Finn opened the door right as the two of them popped up behind me. I grinned.
Annabeth was inside, looking like she was debating between reading two books.
Immediately, Ben and Travis started talking over each other.
"Tell him he's wrong," Ben insisted.
"He told me himself," Travis countered.
"That doesn't mean anything, tell him Finn."
"Tell him they're not dating,"
"They're not, they're engaged, dumbass."
"Did you hear what he called me?" Travis yelled dramatically.
Finn eyed the two of them and I scooted slightly closed to him when I felt a shove from behind me. I turned my head slightly to see Travis and Ben trying to push the other away.
The blonde looked to me instead and smiled. "Sup, Lacey?"
Travis and Ben quieted down.
"Did Hannah and Cam used to date?" I asked, twirling some of my hair in my fingers.
Finn put his hands on the door frame as he turned the upper half of his body to look back at Annabeth.
Annabeth shrugged, "I wouldn't call it dating but I don't know."
"Hannah!" Finn screamed. "Did you date my buddy?!"
Sure enough, Hannah appeared in the hallway shortly after with wide eyes. She shut the door to the room Cameron was in and she didn't look as chipper as she did the first time I had met her.
"Are you guys trying to wake him up? If you wake him up before his body wants to wake up, it could mess up everything. He's trying to heal," she scolded.
I didn't bother to tell her she was preaching to the wrong group of people about being quiet. I also wanted to ask her what was even wrong with him because Travis was more focused on how upset I was that he was alive, not knowing that I was upset over the possibility of him leaving and Sterling alive, to really answer much. But I figured I would ask her later, maybe when I was allowed to actually step foot in the room.
Travis groaned as she approached.
"Yeah okay, inside voices, uh huh, but Lacey wants to know if you guys dated," Finn told her.
Hannah looked at me. "Did someone tell you we were dating?"
Travis leaned in closer to me as he whispered so only I would hear, "See? She just wishes she was with Cam."
I rolled my eyes.
"No. But I was wondering who gave that ring to you," I explained as nicely as I could.
Her eyes brightened up as she played with the ring on her finger.
"Nobody technically," she confessed.
Travis widened his eyebrows at me and mouthed 'I told you'.
But Hannah continued talking. "But Cameron mailed it to me when I was away at med school," she gushed.
Ben sent another elbow to Travis' gut.
"You don't know that," Travis said.
Hannah raised a challenging eyebrow at him. "You don't know that he didn't."
"Uh. He told me he didn't."
She waved him off as if what he said was nothing. "He tells everyone that. He tells me that. But I know it was him. I just think he doesn't want to admit it yet because well you know, he's not in the best place," she said and put one finger to her neck and made a slashing motion as she pointed back to the room.
I thought it was a rather grim act but maybe she was used to that sort of thing, working in the hospital. Or she was just more adjusted to Cameron, being what looked like his personal nurse.
"How do you know it was him?" I asked, cutting Travis off as he opened his mouth to no doubt, say something rude about how she was wrong.
"Because I told him to marry me."
"What?" Travis asked.
My head snapped to him. "What do you mean, what? Did you honestly not ask how she got engaged? It's a normal question," I accused.
He looked at me like I was wrong in assuming he'd have known to ask that. Yeah, that's my bad.
Hannah's eyes lit up like she had just been given a puppy dog. "He used to come visit me back when I was studying. Either at school or by my house, never by him. He would get mad whenever I even suggested it. But we used to play this game and sometimes we still do but he's been busy you know.... And I've been busy. And we haven't talked much ever since I got the job at the hospital, he says it'd be bad. But okay, it's the funnest game," she ranted as she hopped a bit from excitement and looked around at all of us.
Annabeth seemed to have decided on a book and opened it and Finn was watching her so for all I knew, they weren't even listening. But maybe they already knew.
"So," Hannah continued. "It's like dares but not bad, embarrassing dares. It's things to get your adrenaline going but it has to be safe because I'm not as brave as he is, which is why we started doing it or it can just be fun things to do. But like if I say high five me, you do. or do a cartwheel, you'd have to do it. I wouldn't tell him to do it, naturally. Can you even imagine Cameron doing a cartwheel?" she laughed, holding her stomach.
No one else really thought it was that funny. Her laughter started to die down and no one said anything.
"Is it like, if I say jump, you have to jump?" I asked slowly. I tried desperately to keep any surprise or knowledge of this game off my face. I didn't know how to tell her politely that the game she was rambling about, not knowing how to properly explain, was known by dozens and dozens of gang members.
Hannah nodded. "Yeah! If we were on a cliff or something and jumping into a lake which we actually did one of the first times we met and we were playing the game and I was so scared but I did it."
"Or I say duck, you duck?" Ben asked, seeming to realize the same thing I did.
"Bingo," Finn said, back to paying attention to us as he snapped his hand and pointed his finger at Ben.
"It's a fun little game," Hannah gushed. "But eventually, I was just kidding and I told him to marry me. And then months and months and months later, I got a package with this in it. You do the math."
I looked over at Travis and Ben and they both seemed to be calculating her words. Travis had his eyes narrowed as he looked passed her to the door she had previously walked out of. Hannah had described one of Cameron's biggest rules to them without knowing that they practically lived their life by it. If Cameron said something, they did it, no questions asked because sometimes it could mean life or death.
"So yeah," she said as she linked her fingers together and rolled her shoulders back, a smile on her face.
"Sounds like really great game," Travis said.
His voice was tense and I watched him carefully. He wasn't taking the news of this being played as an innocent game with Hannah well. He stomped passed Hannah and started walking towards Cameron's room.
Ben was faster than I was and ran in front of him, pushing against his chest to stop him from doing anything. I stopped about halfway down the hall with Hannah beside me.
"He's just going to make his rules after stupid little games his plays with some girl?" Travis shot out. He was not taking the news well.
"Hey, if it works, it works," Ben tried to reason.
"What did I say?" Hannah asked me.
"Nothing," I tried to sound genuine but my stomach was full of knots because I could only see Travis' back and I didn't know what he was going to do.
"I've followed him to hell and back," Travis pointed at the closed door. I could hear the frustration in his voice and recognized it as the same frustration I'd had the past few weeks. It was what it felt like when you found out you were believing a lie. I bit my lip. "What else is based off games he plays with her?"
"It's kept you alive this long, hasn't it?" Ben asked.
That seemed to stump Travis because I could see his anger start to dissolve. He mumbled some things to Ben and I watched as the two relaxed.
"It's actually a really cute story," I told Hannah, trying to ease her.
Her eyes softened as she looked at me. "I don't get to tell many people."
I smiled. "You can tell me every day if you want."
"I like you, Lacey," Hannah said with a wide grin. "Cam does, too."
Surprised at her last words, I practically felt like someone gut punched me as I tried to find my words. "Thank you," I barely managed to find.
In front of us, I could hear Ben and Travis talking louder now.
"You know what this means, right?" Ben asked but didn't wait for Travis to answer before putting his arm around Travis. "You were so wrong."
"Shut the fuck up," Travis said and pushed Ben away.
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