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On the third kick, the door finally gave way, the rusted hinges on the door screaming as the door slammed inward against the concrete wall.
“LAPD!” Karadec yelled, his gun raised, his own flashlight and that of Daph and Oz’s beaming through the relative darkness of the room, highlighting the chaos that had been occurring as they had struggled with the door.
In the centre of the room, a man lay dead in a pooling halo of blood – Roy Delaney, their initial suspect. In the corner, back squarely against the wall, was Morgan, curled in on herself, hands raised defensively over her head, her bright, neon-yellow jacket coated in what Karadec feared was blood.
Standing over her, now facing them, was the person they now knew to be their actual suspect and Morgan’s kidnapper, Harris Bergamot. He was breathing heavily, eyes wild. In his hand, a six-inch hunting knife gleamed, blood dripping down the blade.
“Drop the knife, Harris. Now!” Karadec ordered, his gun pointed squarely at Harris’ chest, ready to take the shot if he even jerked towards Morgan, whose eyes were fixated on the blade in his hand.
Harris looked at the three officers and then down towards Morgan, evidently taking the stupid route, and swivelling back towards Morgan and lunging down, driving the blade towards Morgan.
Karadec, Oz, and Daph all fired, each shot aimed centre mass. Harris’ body jerked violently, the knife clattering harmlessly to the cement floor as he collapsed in a lifeless heap beside Morgan, who sort of shuffled, sort of jumped away from the thud of the now dead man.
“Clear!” Karadec yelled, keeping his weapon trained on the suspect as he heard Daph behind him go to confirm Roy was dead, and Oz kicked the knife away from Harris, too, checking the man was deceased. As soon as Oz nodded in confirmation, Karadec holstered his gun and dropped to Morgan’s level.
“Morgan,” he got out, his hands hovering over her trembling shoulders, “Morgan, they’re gone, both of them. Look at me. Are you okay?”
She still hadn’t looked up at him, maintaining her hyperventilation, eyes still fixated on Harris, as though he was still alive, still a threat to her.
The lights in the room flickered on.
“He… it was so fast,” she babbled, her voice taking on a high pitch, panic clearly interlaced in every single word. She gripped her arms tightly, trying to stop her shaking hands, but all that managed to do was smear the blood across her now ruined jacket, “he must have severed an artery, he bled out… I wanted to help… he didn’t… Adam… It’s on my hands.”
“Hey, Morgan, look at my eyes,” he commanded, cupping her face gently but firmly, forcing her to look away from Harris and at her, “He’s dead. So’s Roy. You’re safe. They can’t hurt you.”
Morgan’s wide, terrified eyes finally locked onto his, but she continued shaking, the adrenaline no doubt still coursing through her.
He needed to get her away from here.
Far away.
“Morgan, are you hurt?” He asked, his gaze gently raking over her face and her neck, searching for any injuries, “Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she choked out, shaking her head so hard he was irrationally worried she’d shake it right off her neck, “I’m fine – I fought him. I fought back. This is… this is Roy’s blood.”
Karadec managed a shaky breath of relief; “Okay, good. Now let’s get you out of here.”
He shifted his grip, sliding one hand down to her waist to help her stand, the other reaching for her hand.
The moment his palm pressed against the left side of her patterned blouse, he froze, feeling the slick and wet fabric underneath it.
This surely wasn’t Roy’s blood, not underneath her jacket, not in such quantities.
Karadec pulled his hand back, noting his now freshly blood-covered palm.
Too happy to soon, he thought as his heart dropped, and he held back Morgan’s coat and lifted her blouse to spot blood pumping steadily out of a cut just beneath her ribs.
“Morgan,” he attempted to keep his voice calm and level, “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” she managed to just blink, following Karadec’s line of sight to her side, noticing his crimson palm. Until the moment her brain clocked the blood gushing out of her side, she had felt absolutely nothing.
But now? It was like the adrenaline that had kept her from feeling that pain had dissipated suddenly, and a burning agony flooded her system. She curled into herself, forcing her eyes shut, logically knowing it would do nothing to mitigate the pain she was feeling.
“Morgan,” she heard Karadec speak to her, but it sounded so… so far away.
There was no time to wait for the goddamn EMTs.
Adam scooped her up into his arms as she curled into him, feeling as her blood slowly seeped through her own blouse and now through his shirt too.
Outside the warehouse, Oz and Daph were flagging down their backup, Daph instantly rushing to grab the first aid kit as Karadec set Morgan down on the floor, apologising profusely as he put his entire body weight behind the pressure on her side.
*
Six hours later, twelve stitches, a handful of tests, and a heavy dose of antibiotics later, Karadec’s truck pulled to a stop in front of the Morgan household.
The car ride back from the hospital was agonisingly silent – Morgan was huddled in the passenger seat, wrapped up in one of the hospital blankets she had grabbed as she had been discharged. Her doctor had cleared her to go home – the knife, by sheer luck, had missed anything vital, slicing cleanly through the muscle.
“Daphne says Ludo picked up the kids, and he’ll have them overnight,” Karadec said quietly, putting the car in park, “You’ll have the house to yourself.”
Morgan gave him a tiny, almost imperceptible nod, a nod he wouldn’t have registered unless he had been fluent in the body language of one consultant, Morgan Gillory.
Karadec got out and walked around her trunk, opening her door. He offered her his hand, and she took it without argument – WITHOUT ARGUMENT – her ice-cold fingers wrapped around his as he helped her out of the seat, leaning against him, trying to wince quietly as she navigated her porch steps.
He took her keys, unlocked the front door, flicked on the light, and helped her walk in. Without the chaotic energy of her three children, the house was peculiarly silent.
But the silence wasn’t helping Morgan much – it rang in her ears, leaving far too much room for the memories of everything that had happened today to creep back in.
She could still smell the copper on her hands as she tried to help Roy.
She could still see the blood dripping off the knife, pooling on the floor.
She could still hear Karadec’s voice telling her that Roy and Harris were dead, and that she was safe.
Karadec helped her to her couch before returning awkwardly to the front door, her keys jangling in his hands, debating what to do here. He was a man who lived and breathed strict professional boundaries, even if Morgan often made it seem like those boundaries were ones made of sand.
Karadec cleared his throat, “Soto’s put a car outside your house tonight, in case you need anything. You should take your meds and try to get some rest, Morgan. I’ll drop by in the morning to see how you’re doing, alright?”
He took a step back, his hand resting on the doorknob.
“I should go now, Morgan. I don’t want to impose.”
Morgan turned slowly on the couch, the blanket she’d nabbed from the hospital now pooling on her lap.
She looks so small, Karadec thought.
“You’re not an imposition,” Morgan told him, her voice cracking.
“Morgan…” he started, thinking he knew exactly what she was going to ask.
“Please,” she whispered, before continuing a little louder, a tear escaping down her cheek, “my brain… it won’t turn off, Adam. All it does is keep replaying what happened. The blood. The threats. The gunshots. If… If you leave me here right now, all I know is I think I will lose my mind. I won’t be sleeping.”
I can’t sleep.
She pushed herself up to her feet, one hand still firmly clutched around the top of her couch.
“Can you stay?”
Karadec looked at her, noted the sheer terror in her eyes, the way that she was holding herself together with the last ounce of energy. The rules, the protocols, the LAPD handbook – they all dissolved into absolute irrelevance.
Because some things mattered more than rules.
And some things were worth breaking the rules over.
He took his hand off the doorknob, locking the front door before flipping the deadbolt.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he informed her, stripping himself of his heavy overcoat and blazer, hanging them on the hooks, before unholstering his weapon, placing it securely on the highest part of her bookshelf, away from reach, then turned back towards her.
She let out a shuddering breath, glad Karadec had stayed.
She wasn’t sure what she would have done if he had decided it was best to drive home.
“Sit down,” he instructed her, his voice gentle, unpatronizing, “Don’t pull your stitches out. I’m going to make you some tea – sound good?”
“Very good,” she agreed, lowering herself down onto her couch, pulling the blanket up further, relaxing as she listened to the grounding sounds of Karadec navigating her kitchen.
When he returned, he handed her a warm mug and sat down on the sofa beside her, keeping a respectful few inches between them, but he was close enough for her to reach out with her free hand, resting her hand on his.
“Thank you, Karadec… for noticing… I didn’t even feel the knife,” she admitted, knowing full well that it was a thing that could happen, but the fact that she herself had experienced it shook her to the core, “I just saw the blood and thought it was Roy’s.”
“Adrenaline’s a powerful thing,” Karadec nodded, shifting slightly closer to her, “But it will wear off.”
I’m glad you asked me to stay, he thought, but didn’t vocalise it.
She nodded, sipping on her tea, before placing it on the coffee table, leaning into Karadec as if this was an everyday occurrence. Adam stiffened in surprise for a fraction of a second, but then he relaxed, pulling her in closer, careful not to reinjure her.
“Thank you for finding me,” she murmured, just before she shut her eyes, the exhaustion getting to her.
“Always,” he replied, “Always.”