Rogue Alliance

FIFTY-FIVE



She was dreading it, but she had to make the call, even though the idea of ignoring the Champlain case altogether and forgetting all about Victor was enticing.

The only things she wanted to focus on were Carmen, awake and alert, and the urge to delve into her frightening yet glorious feelings as she started to wonder if she was falling in love with Brennan. She wanted to clear her head, sort through the emotions and chaos of her fears and doubts and explore the idea of holding onto those people who were stirring such things within her, rather than running away from them.

She was tired of running away, tired of drinking, though her body was still craving it. It ached for it, a deep ache that started at her core and spread out through her nervous system, making her senses heightened, almost the point of pain. The instinct to numb that pain was nearly overwhelming at times. But, unlike other times when she’d tried to quit, there was an equal and opposing force to that craving - the desire to stay clean and change the course of her life. Never before, other than her drive to go to the police academy, had she had such clarity and confidence about what she wanted to do with her future.

Brennan and Carmen. They were her future now.

The fact that her innate sense of responsibility and obligation was driving her to seal up and finalize this case was really pissing her off. Why couldn’t she just let it go?

“Hey, Shyla,” Carmen called out, interrupting her thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell these nurses to stop poking and prodding at me? It’s driving me nuts. They wake me up at all hours of the night. They ask me the same lame questions over and over again. And the food here stinks. Hey that reminds me, do you think you could smuggle me in a bitchin’ burger or something? Yeah that sounds good.”

Shyla bit the inside of her cheek and fought off the urge to giggle.

“First of all,” she said, “watch your mouth. Second of all, these nurses work their damn asses off to take care of your sorry butt, so you better show some respect. But as far as the burger goes…yeah, I’ll see what I can do.”

Carmen gave a huge smile. Shyla left the room. She still had a phone call to make.

Thirty minutes later, she got off the phone with Eli Straton, with a fairly solid plan to end the case once and for all. She just hoped Ricardo’s information was solid, or else the drug bust of the decade wasn’t going to end so well. She shoved that thought aside and focused on the next task at hand; there was one specific person she wanted to speak to face to face - Quentin Solero, her favorite forensics guy.