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Ethan had only barely felt it when that first shot hit him, and then the pain was lost to the haze of adrenaline. He could feel his sleeve getting wet from the blood, but it plateaued after a moment and he didn’t have time to worry about it after that.
-
Frankly, it had been a miracle Ethan hadn’t added another bullet hole when confronting the sniper. He wished he had better news to deliver to Jesse, that things had gone down differently, but he knew he couldn’t lie, either.
-
Black Hat shot him and Ethan wanted to scream. As it was, he let out a cry of pain and ducked behind baggage. This one definitely hurt more than the graze from earlier. They were getting high enough that he could feel the temperature decreasing, but, unlike common myth led people to believe, the cargo hold was about as pressurized as the cabin so he didn’t have to worry too much there.
His heart pounded in his chest and he really just wanted to sit—fall—down, but he couldn’t let all of these people die.
“I guess I woke up.” Ethan barely gave Black Hat enough time to realize the cannisters weren’t there before he body-checked him, threw the cannister into the vacuum seal container, and closed the door.
“Ethan!” As he listened to the pounding of Black Hat trying to escape, all he could think was, Please don’t be strong enough to break the seal. Please don’t open the door even a millimeter. I can’t fail.
The pounding decreased in power, and then ceased all together. Ethan didn’t want to look, but he had to. As he turned around, the landing gear extended.
Red.
Painting the glass, the walls. There were horrible marks on the man’s face, and if Ethan hadn’t vomited up all that was in his stomach earlier, he would have emptied his stomach right there. He stumbled away and toward the escape door.
The plane bounced as it touched down, sending Ethan to the floor with a yelp. He stayed seated by the exit as the plane decelerated, nauseous despite his empty stomach and light-headed. Sirens blared outside. He managed to stumble out of the plane and fall to the ground. The last thing Ethan wanted to do was get up and walk again, but he made himself do it anyway, hands held in the air in surrender.
“Don’t shoot!” he yelled, putting all his effort on staying standing and not falling down.
“I’m not the guy! I’m not the guy!” Ethan insisted. He didn’t know if they could hear him over the demands to stop moving and get on his knees.
He tried to listen and wound up falling to all fours, instead, but he was on the ground and that would have to be good enough. A hand latched onto his cuffed wrist, and other grips followed, pushing him the rest of the way to the ground. The angle they held him at forced the side of his face into the harsh tarmac, and he grunted in pain.
“Let him go! Let him go.” The voice was familiar. All of the overwhelming hands released him, and he shakily pushed himself back up onto all fours, this time at more of an angle as he looked at the detective approaching.
“Where’s the Novichok?” The detective asked.
That must be what the gas was. “In a vacuum-sealed fridge.”
“And the guy?”
“Same fridge,” Ethan panted. He let the detective’s voice wash over him, not paying much attention to the words as he worked on getting enough air in his lungs and stopping his head from swimming so he could stand up. Her order of, “Get him to a medic,” broke through the haze.
Two officers grabbed his biceps and pulled him up before he could try on his own. Ethan groaned, then became distracted by Nora’s panicked calls of his name.
“Hey,” he said, grinning. Nora ran forward and pulled him into a kiss. It didn’t last nearly as long as he wanted it to before she pulled back.
“You okay?” They both asked at the same time.
“Yeah,” Nora said, smiling tearfully.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. He could make it to the ambulance, he could—they managed three steps before his leg buckled beneath him, sending Ethan to the ground with a choked off yell.
“Ethan!”
He sat back on his ass, propping himself up with his good arm stuck behind him. Why was he shaking?
“I thought you said you were fine,” Nora said, calling his attention to her.
“I—” I thought I was, he wanted to say, only his voice was failing him at the moment.
“Ethan?”
“Think I lost some blood,” Ethan finally choked out. Nora’s lips pursed, and a paramedic hurried over from behind her.
Why was he shaking?
-
Mild shock, some blood loss that wouldn’t have been too bad if he hadn’t been running and fighting after that first shot, and then fighting again after the second. His blood had been pumping faster than he could clot, and he hadn’t focused enough on putting pressure on it, too distracted by other things.
They’d just finished the last transfusion, but they wanted to keep him for a bit to monitor any side effects. Elena had finally finished up at the airport and stopped by for questioning.
“Can’t we do this another time?” Nora asked, eyes hard.
Both Ethan and Elena shook their heads. “I just want to get it over with,” Ethan said softly, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “Besides, isn’t there that thing about playing tetris after traumatic experiences? A little bit of that and I’ll be fine.”
Nora’s expression told him just how “not fine” she thought everything would be, but she stopped arguing. Ethan looked at Elena and started with the explanation of why he’d been in an atypical spot. He tried not to think about how he’d felt during everything, tried to make sure she knew he had tried everything he could think of to get people’s attention. Tried not to focus on how it was his fault that Lionel died (“Really, I didn’t kill him. You did,” the man’s voice whispered in the back of his mind).
When he got to the part about pouring bottles of alcohol in the coffee he gave Jason, he finally looked at Nora, then wished he hadn’t when he saw how much she was crying.
“I—I need to explain to Jason what happened. And LAX. He doesn’t deserve to lose his job when it was my fault. I just—I couldn’t think of another way, and—and they were going to kill him I—”
“Shhh,” Nora said, reaching over and grabbing his hand. “He’ll understand, okay? We’ll tell him right after this.”
Elena’s expression was sympathetic. “The news is probably already running a story, so they might reach out to you on their own.”
Ethan nodded, started the story again from where he’d left off.
When it was all done, Elena nodded. “Thank you for taking the time. The sooner things are written down, the less chance there is for mistakes, and we appreciate it. Jesse corroborated your story regarding how they were doing things, and he was in the van with this sniper so he saw how they were threatening you. You shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Ethan tried to offer a grateful smile, but it probably came off as more of a grimace. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
“Mm-hmm,” Elena hummed, unamused. “You got good instincts, Kopek. Call me when you’re cleared.” She turned around and left.
Ethan looked at Nora, eyes wide. She grinned.
He sobered, though, when he thought about Jason. He’d said he would fix things, and he would. But Ethan couldn’t stand the thought of Jason thinking he was the kind of underhanded asshole to get a friend fired just for a promotion. Even if Jason didn’t want to talk to him after he explained everything, he deserved the context.
“Can you text Rachelle?” he murmured.
Nora sighed. “It’s the middle of the night, are you sure—”
“Please.”
“Okay.”
Ethan fell asleep before he heard if Rachelle had answered or not, and was woken up three hours later when they told him he was being released. One of their cars was still at LAX, and the other was at home. Nora looked at him. “I’ll call an Uber.”
She left the room while Ethan got dressed, wincing at the grimy feeling of his clothes. He couldn’t get his stitches wet, which meant no shower when he got home, but he could at least use a washcloth and wipe himself down. Then he’d sleep for a day.
-
Ethan woke up to knocking on his door and wished he hadn’t. He couldn’t have slept for a full day yet. Just let him sleep a little longer. His legs were sore from all the running, and his bad leg was sore from being shot, same with his arm (it had been a deeper graze than they thought, and the whole bicep was sore). They weren’t even on the same side—good for being able to use a crutch for his bad leg, bad for both sides of his body being out of commission.
He knew it was Christmas but please, to any god out there, just let him sleep.
The knocking continued before cutting off sharply. Ethan rolled over, bad arm stretched out, and was greeted by a cold bed.
Ugh.
“Fine, I’ll get up,” Ethan muttered to himself. He grunted, grabbed the crutch they’d given him, and started making his way out to the living room where he could hear familiar voices.
Nora was sitting on one of the chairs, Jason and Rachelle across from her. They must have gotten Rachelle’s sister to watch the kids, then. If he thought about it too long, he’d feel guilty they must have interrupted their Christmas plans for this.
The crutch messed with any chance of approaching stealthily; he could have managed if he’d tried, but he didn’t see much point. Conversation stopped as they all turned to look at him.
“Hey,” Ethan croaked. He grimaced, cleared his throat, then tried again. “Morning.” He sounded a little more like a person, that time.
Nora and Rachelle exchanged a look, then stood up and headed to the kitchen. Ethan and Jason looked at each other and snorted. The women hadn’t even bothered with a shitty excuse like in the movies. Then again, they never had to.
Ethan finished hobbling his way in and took Nora’s seat. He spent several seconds getting the crutch balanced so it wouldn’t fall down, but that was mostly to procrastinate what was coming.
Finally, he couldn’t put it off much longer. Looking up, he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you fired, but—” he trailed off.
“Nora mentioned something about hostage-taking?”
Ethan winced, then nodded. It was supposed to be you, he didn’t say. That would make Jason feel guilty, and that was the last thing he wanted. Instead, he said, “I had to find a way to get you out of the line. And it had to be fast.”
“Or…?”
“He said I could do it my way, or he’d do it his way. And he’d shown me what ‘his way’ was already.”
Jason’s eyes went wide. “Lionel.”
Ethan looked away, swallowed, then looked back. “I—I tried writing the details and an SOS down on a boarding pass with the Tide Pen. I didn’t realize how extensively they were watching the cameras, and when they saw him come over—”
“So you got me taken out of the line. Not because you wanted a promotion, but because you wanted to keep me alive.”
Ethan nodded. “I promise I’m going to talk to LAX. Tomorrow. I was planning on sleeping all of today. But, actually—I’m awake now so I can—” he grabbed his crutch, getting ready to stand up.
Jason, as the uninjured one, was faster; his palm went on Ethan’s chest as he gently pushed him back down. “I was supposed to have a couple days off, anyway. Just…take a moment to rest.”
Ethan sighed, reached up and rubbed his hands down his face. After a moment, he said, “You might want to install a home security system.”
Jason looked like he was going to be sick. “They—”
“They threatened Nora, and then they threatened you and the kids. I was…I was just supposed to let the suitcase pass through the scanner, that was it. But there was this…device. With liquid in it, and there were 250 people on that plane…” Again, Ethan couldn’t finish. He cleared his throat, not meeting Jason’s eyes. “Anyway, yeah. I would—I would get a good home security system. Nora and I are going to.”
All Jason could do was nod.
Nora and Rachelle came back out, each carrying a couple of steaming mugs.
“Did the girls get anything fun for Christmas?” Nora asked as she sat down on the arm of Ethan’s chair.
Ethan let the discussion wash over him as the tension in the air began to fade. He was still exhausted, but he didn’t want to go back to the bed alone, either. The four of them had been friends for a while, and he was grateful that Nora, Rachelle, and Jason mostly talked among themselves without trying to drag Ethan into the conversation. Instead, he drank the mocha he’d been given and leaned up against Nora.
-
Nora could tell the moment Ethan fell asleep, and she exchanged a fond grin with Jason and Rachelle.
“How’s he doing, really?” Rachelle asked. She was quiet, though with how tired Ethan was right now, he probably wouldn’t wake up unless they started yelling (and even that was debatable).
Shrugging with her available shoulder, Nora took a sip of her coffee. “He’s mostly been sleeping. Sometimes a little restlessly, but I think he’s been too tired for nightmares so far.”
“I just can’t believe we didn’t know what was going on…” Jason sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “And I know what it looked like, but it also feels like shit that I assumed he tried to get me fired.”
“Everyone did,” Nora said. That didn’t make it better.
Jason didn’t look reassured by that, but he let it go.
“Just…let us know if there’s anything we can do to help. At any time, okay?” Rachelle reached over to grasp Nora’s hand, rubbing her thumb across the back a few times before letting go.
Nora smiled gratefully. “I will.”
Since getting back home, there hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with Ethan, at least outwardly. He’d mostly seemed exhausted, ready to fall asleep on his feet. There was a small rock in the pit of Nora’s stomach that told her it wouldn’t stay that way, but she had a feeling neither she nor Ethan would be left alone to deal with the fallout.