I hadn’t seen them in months. Neither seen nor spoken to either of them. I’d heard my brother was on the run, out of London, that Declan was here and in charge in his absence — that Julian had taken Koa with him — that made me feel grateful. At least he wasn’t alone — at least he had someone who wouldn’t let him be a complete arsehole 100% of the time.
Tiller and I had been together for a while by then, about five months. Even back then he stayed at my house most days of the week. Sometimes we stayed at his place, but he had a roommate and my place was nicer anyway, because as much as he hates to admit it, crime actually really does pay quite well.
It was the middle of the night. July, I think. There was this crazy banging at the door.
I bolted upright.
“Do you hear that?” I looked over at him, frowning.
He jumped out of bed; so did I. He grabbed his gun from the bedside table and I grabbed mine — he stared at it for a few seconds, frowning, and I ignored him, following the sound to the front door.
I went to open it and Tiller shoved me out of the way.
“What are you doing?” he scowled. “I’ll open it.” He peeked through the peephole and his face froze.
“Oh, shit.” He sighed then swung the door open.
My brother, blood pouring out of his stomach, being held up by Koa and Christian Hemmes, Miguel behind them.
“Oh my God.” My hand flew to my mouth.
Julian was sort of slumped between the two of them, head flopped forward. So much blood.
My brother rolled his head to look up at me. Our eyes held. Neither of us said a thing.
“We didn’t know where else to bring him,” Christian said, eyes heavy with an apology I think he thought he owed me, like he thought he’d done the wrong thing by me by bringing him here.
Christian was staring over at me, his eyes looking a bit raw like it was hard for him to see me so undone with another man. I wasn’t in much, I guess…1 I wouldn’t have liked to see him like this with any of the girls he’d been sleeping with.2 But we couldn’t be together — him being there, then, with my brother bleeding in his arms, that proved my point.
Forget that my heart was a small boat on a stormy sea with him standing in front of me, never mind that a day hadn’t gone by since we stopped talking in January when he hadn’t cropped up in my consciousness… He was there with my brother on my doorstep. Dragging me back into the life I’ve left.
I pulled them inside, shutting the door behind them.
“Do you have a room?” Kekoa glanced around, looking from me to Miguel, but he didn’t know because hadn’t been in my appartment before.
Tiller frowned, confused, looking between all of us. “For what?”
Koa ignored him, kept his eyes on me.
I shoved my hands through my hair, tying it back with a hair elastic.
“Second door on the right.” I gestured towards it and they started dragging my brother that way.
I remember Tiller was staring over at me, jaw ajar, eyes wide and confused.
I looked up at him but could barely meet his eyes. “There’s so much you don’t know about me.”
And then I ran after them.
“What’s the pin code?” Kekoa called out.
“Three-zero-one-zero,”3 I yelled to Koa and our eyes caught—he looked sad for me.
The door swung open and Tiller tensed up behind me.
A surgical table, a couple of IV poles, a cabinet of basic medical supplies, a medical equipment stand with the tray ready to go.4 On the other side of the wall, a cabinet of knives, guns and weapons.
“Fuck.” Miguel let out a wry laugh. “Old habits die hard, huh Dais?”
All of it was a bit much, I’d imagine, for the middle of the night in general, but I think the real cherry on top for Tiller was what was hanging on the wall directly across from the door: Vanitas Still Life by Pieter Claesz.5
Tiller’s eyes dragged over towards me like I’d betrayed him.
I keep this room locked. I’ve always told Tiller it’s because it’s where I keep my guns, which is selectively true. It’s actually where I keep all of my past life. It’s where I come to mourn them on the days when I wonder whether I’ve made a mistake.
I haven’t, I don’t think. I don’t think I have. I wanted normal.
Tiller gives me normal.
He comes home every day, he is dependable. He’s good, he’s kind, he’s steady, but with that painting, he was struggling.
But I didn’t have time for his struggles then. His breathing got quicker. He pointed to it. “Tell me that’s not real.”
A clunky pause.
“Okay.” I shrugged weakly and Tiller scoffed.
“Daisy—” Koa called me back to focus.
“Put him on the table,” I told him but he didn’t, pausing instead.
“Are we safe here?” Koa asked and both Miguel and I scowled over at him. I couldn’t bear the insinuation. He’s known me all my life, he should know me better than to think I’d turn away anyone bleeding how my brother was, let alone him.6
“Of course you’re fucking safe here—” I spat.
And Koa shook his head, nodding his head towards Tiller, who was pacing the room, shaking his head as he stared at the floor.
I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out into the hallway.
“What?” I shook my head, impatient.
He let out a hollow laugh. “What the fuck is going on?”
I shook my head, annoyed. “What do you mean?”
“Pieter Claesz?” He stared down at me, eyes wide. “That’s not even been reported missing—”
“I can’t do this right now, Tills — I need to fix him—” Tiller stared back into the room at my brother, unsure.
“You can’t tell anyone he’s here.” I touched my boyfriend’s wrist.
Tiller’s jaw went tight, shaking his head more.
“He’s my brother,” I told him loudly.
“He’s wanted for kidnapping, extortion — murder! Murder, Dais!”
“I don’t care!” I shook my head wildly. “He’s my brother, I don’t care—”
“But I care!” Tiller thumped his chest. “I’m a federal agent. I care.”
I took a step closer to him.
“Do you love me?” I asked, my voice breaking.
He blinked, thrown. “What?”
“Do you love me, yes or no?” I took a staggered breath.
Tiller gave me a look. “Daisy—”
“Yes or no?” I demanded.
He sighed. “Yes.”
I swallowed heavy. “Then you won’t say a word.”
I dashed back inside. “We’re fine,” I told no one in particular. “Put him on the table and tell me what happened.”
I stared down at my brother who hadn’t spoken a word to me and our eyes caught and my heart choked.
His eyes looked worried. Julian never worries.
It’d been months. Six maybe? Or thereabouts. The loneliest six months of my life. I’d missed him every day, I’d had so many things I’d wanted to tell him, so many things I wanted to let him know, and I’d told him none of them and maybe I’d never get to now anyway, because he was watching me with dying eyes.
Do you know about dying eyes? There’s a hopeless reckoning about them, a resignation to your fate, a lean-in towards the inevitable darkness that’s coming for them and I could see it in my brother — he was leaning. I held his face in my hands because I didn’t have enough words to tell him how much I loved him when I still hated him as much as I did for breaking our rules.
“GSW to the lower abdomen,” Kekoa told me, snapping me out of it.
“Exit wound?” I felt under Julian’s body and he groaned in pain.
Christian shook his head.
“Dais—” Kekoa gave me a look. “He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“How much?” I held my hand out. “Scissors.”
Koa handed them to me and I cut my brother’s shirt off him.
He grimaced. “At least a litre. Probably more.”
I took a staggered breath, nodded a few times, trying to process.
My brain was swimming7 in what the world might look like and feel like and be like if I actually lost my brother for good, in the permanent way where he’s in the ground, in the way where there’s no overarching hope that maybe we’ll make up one day, that he’ll take back everything he said to me, that I’ll stop caring that we are who we are, that we can find a way through the mounds and mounds of shit and garbage we’ve hurled at each other. Losing him in the way where not just his world would go dark but mine too, because even then, even when I wasn’t ready to admit it out loud or in a way where it would move me to change, I knew that I didn’t know who I was without my brother.
I turned away from them all, just for a second. I didn’t want a single one of them to see on my face the anguish that surfaced.
Tiller because he didn’t get it. He’s too black and white.
Kekoa and Miguel because they’d tell my brother.
Christian because he’s him and he knows me how I’ve always daydreamed someone would truly know me, and now he did, but it didn’t matter anyway because we couldn’t be together either, so I muffled the cry that came from my mouth with my hand and took a few breaths.
Then there was a hand on my arm.
“You’re shaking,” said my favourite voice in the world.8
“It’s just adrenaline,” I told Christian without looking at him.
He nodded and pushed some hair behind my ears without meaning to do it.9
“You’ve got this, Dais. You can do it…” He tilted his head so our eyes caught. “What do you need?”
“Um—” I turned back to face the rest of the room. “Blood.”
“You don’t have any?” Kekoa stared over at me.
“She’s not a fucking hospital, Ko!” Miguel yelled at him.
I shook my head, staring at one of my oldest friends and protectors wildly. “I don’t just keep bags of blood in my refrigerator, Kekoa—”
“Fuck!” he yelled and I started to feel panicky again.
“What’s wrong?” Tiller frowned.
Julian’s blood type is hard to match. A Negative. We both have it.
Kekoa is O Positive, so is Miguel. Statistically most people are.
“I can’t give him as much as he’ll need and still work on him. What blood type are you?” I asked Tiller.
“O Positive,” he offered and I shook my head.
“And you?” I asked Christian.
“O Negative,” he said, already rolling up his sleeve, and I sighed, relieved.
I couldn’t take a litre. I shouldn’t really take more than 450mL but I was going to try for 600 and then he could have 400 of mine, and then maybe we were going to be okay—
“You’re going to do a whole blood transfusion?” Kekoa stared over at me.
“We don’t have a choice.” I shrugged. “Koa, hook him up to the monitor10 — SpO2 Sensor on his left finger, the red lead goes top right, yellow, top left and green—”
“I’ve done this before, Dais—”
“Tiller—” I looked up at him. “You keep pressure on the wound — once he’s connected the machine’s going to start beeping, because he’ll already be hypertension stage one — maybe two. I want his readings under 160, over 100 and if it rises, you tell me straight away.”
“Okay.” He nodded obediently.
I pulled Christian over to the side of the room and grabbed a CPD-A111 blood bag.12 He took his jumper off and I took his arm, trying not to think about how touching him, even then in that circumstance, made me feel.
I bent his arm a few times, flicked the vein on the inside of his elbow.
And Christian, he was just staring down at me with these raw, heavy eyes that I couldn’t meet.
I wiped his arm with an alcohol swab and inserted the needle, released the clamp, and that beautiful O Negative blood started filling the bag.
I rolled up my own sleeve, looking for my best vein and I could feel Christian frowning at me. “Take more of mine.”
“You’d go into hypovolemic shock.”13
“That’s bad?”
I glanced up at him. “Yes, that’s bad.”
He nodded once and I kept looking for a vein.
I found one, stuck myself and sat down next to my ex-boyfriend.
“Do you feel okay?” I asked him.
“Do you?” he asked, looking worried.
I stared over at him, and all of it, the whole thing felt like a fever dream. I never thought Christian would be one of those people for me, truly. When we first started hooking up — which feels like a lifetime ago now — I never thought that he’d morph into one of those rare people whose presence undoes you, and not only in a bad way, (but yes in a bad way) but also in the good way, where he makes me feel safe when I’m not safe, and brave when I’m not brave, and okay when I’m not okay, and I wish that yoke would break, I wish I didn’t feel those things as I stared over at him, but I did.
I very much did,14 so I looked away from him and back to Tiller who was watching us with that serious face of his and I wondered if he knew.
If he did know, it changed nothing. We’ve continued dating for months and he’s never mentioned it.
I started to feel a bit dizzy so I stopped letting my blood for a minute. Stood up, found a vein for my brother to transfuse with.
“How are his vitals?”
Koa shook his head. “Not good.”
“158 over 100,” Tiller told me and I nodded.
“I need to get the bullet out.” I pulled the needle out of my arm and smacked on a plaster. “Pass me the gloves.”
I sanitised my arms and then put the gloves on.
“Lights up.” I nodded to Kekoa. “How many am I looking for?”
“Two,” my brother croaked. First thing he said.
The first one was easy. A few centimetres into his abdomen; the light caught the metal right away. It hadn’t hit anything. I’m guessing that he was on his way down when they fired the shot again, or he moved slightly or something, but it hadn’t knocked anything and it was an easy fish.
The second one…
That was where all the bleeding was coming from.
“He has a perforated bowel,” I whispered.
“Oh, fuck—” Koa said under his breath, and I hated it so much because even though I already knew it was dire, something about Kekoa’s acknowledgement of that made it insurmountably worse.
“It’s still in there — light—” I shook my head. “I — give me a clamp.”
I tried to stop the bleeding. Packed him with gauze.
I looked up at Kekoa. “I — I don’t think I can—”
Julian started to go pale. More pale than he already was.
I pointed to the drawers. “I have a Maglite in there — get it and shine it in here.”
Christian obeyed.
“His stats are dropping, Dais—” Tiller told me.
I shook my head. “I can get it, I can’t close the perforation but I can get the bullet out and make the bleeding stop… Hemostatic forceps… Clamp—” I held my hand out and Koa passed them to me.
“Dropping,” Tiller said even though I could hear the beeping. I still hear the beeping now, actually.
The monitors were going berserk and my brother’s breathing was getting more and more faint and Koa was yelling for me to stop and I was yelling that I could get it and for more gauze and he was yelling there’s too much blood — and then I felt that horribly gratifying feeling of metal clamping onto metal and I knew I got it. I got it.
I pulled the bullet out and dropped it on the table next to my brother.
And then he crashed.
Christian stared down at him. “Holy fuck—”
“Julian?” I shook him. “Oh my God—”
“Daisy—” Tiller grabbed me and held me by both shoulders. “Do you have a defibrillator?”
“Um — uh — yes?”
“Where is it?” he asked loudly and calmly.
“I — in the—” I pointed to a cupboard. I was shaking. The edges of my vision were blurring — I’m embarrassed. How embarrassing. I should have been better than that. I should have been the one remembering there’s a defibrillator in my cupboard, should have been the one getting it, putting electrode gel on his chest.
“Julian?” I knelt down next to him, pushed my hands through his hair.
“Daisy—” Koa said, holding a manual resuscitator. “Move.”
Tiller powered up the defibrillator. “Clear?” he yelled, and I didn’t let go of my brother, so Christian yanked me away, holding me from behind, not letting me go. Part of me wanted to hold on to how it felt with him on my body again but I lost the moment to the swirling trauma.
And then they shocked him.
And nothing.
My brother’s body did that horrible leap off the table, thudded back down.
Koa started pumping the McKesson.
I elbowed my body out of Christian’s arms and snatched the paddles from my boyfriend because I am better than I was being in that moment.
“Clear—” I said again then I shocked him.
And it hung there — a little infinity where my brother wasn’t alive. I was alone. Unshielded from everything this world might throw at me and I’d shoulder it all myself anyway if he’d just wake up. He is so many things, so many terrible things, and still he’s my favourite person on the planet. I don’t remember my dad, really. Not any more, and that used to make me feel sad, but now I think it’s because Julian did such a good job I don’t need to remember this guy who died on a beach because I had my brother instead.
I banged his chest as hard as I could with my fist — twice for good measure — and then, beep.
My brother took a massive, gasping breath and his eyes peeled open and caught mine. I dropped my head on his chest crying, and he weakly dropped his arm on my head and held me how he could.
He fell unconscious again shortly after and I got back to work.
It was imperfect and he’d need to be seen by a proper doctor. All I did was stop the bleeding, clear the wound and transfuse some blood. The perforation was still there.
I looked over at Tiller and he flashed me a quick, tired smile.
“You good?” His breathing was heavy, like he’d been holding it.
I nodded once.
“I’m going to get a shower.” He nodded back then left the room.
“Tiller—” I walked after him. He stopped in the hallway and looked back at me.
I ran up to him, held his face in my hands.
I choked. He didn’t.
“You saved him.”
“No.” He shook his head, turning it in my hands and kissed my palms. “You did.”
“Hey—” I looked for his eyes and I know the truth whether or not he’s willing to admit it. My brother is alive because of him. “I love you too,” I told him.
And it was true. Is. As much as I love someone else? No, but I can’t love that person anymore, even if I still do. Christian still lived behind that door that I bolted shut15 and Tiller was still straight ahead. I still wanted to be normal. That night changed nothing. I love normal, so I love Tiller.
He gave me another tired smile and went upstairs.
I walked back into the room and Christian was leaning back against the wall, exhausted.
“Are you okay?” I asked, frowning at him. “You look a bit pale.”
“Yeah, fine.” He shrugged. “Just a bit dizzy.”
“Come on.” I nodded my head towards the kitchen. “You need a banana.”
He followed me there wordlessly, leant back against the bench.
I peeled him a banana, handed him a glass of milk.
“Blood cell builders.” I flashed him a quick smile.
I felt like I might cry, I don’t know why — what had just happened aside, seeing him at any point I think would fuck me up a bit.
“You were incredible tonight, Dais—”
I shook my head at him and sighed. “What are you doing with my brother?”
He thought about it for a few seconds then shrugged. “We’re friends now.”
“Why?” I blinked and he gave me a look. I sighed. “What happened tonight? Why was someone shooting at him?”
“We’re tracking down a missing piece—”
I nodded, staring straight ahead. “Which?”
“A Van Gogh.” He swallowed some milk.
I turned to him as I lifted an eyebrow. “He’s looking for Poppies?”
Christian nodded.
“Oh.” I got it. “He’s trying to come back.”
Christian nodded again.
“And you’re helping him.” I bit down on my bottom lip.
“I am.”
“Why?”
He poked me in the ribs and I sniffed a sad smile.
“Dais—” Koa called, nodding his head. “He needs some morphine.”
“Yeah, okay.” I nodded. “Coming—”
I looked back at Christian and went to move past him.
He grabbed my hand, held it for a few seconds, squeezing it. I glanced up at him, ran my thumb along his a couple of times and he swallowed heavy.
Lifted my hand up to his mouth and kissed it.
He didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes on me, blinked a few times then let me go.
They were gone when I woke the next morning.
I would have nearly thought it was a dream if there wasn’t still my brother’s blood all over my house.
Tiller and I, we never spoke about it again. About the fact that he saved my brother, about the painting, about the weird little hospital room I have hidden in our house, that I think he knew that I still loved someone else too—
There were too many layers to that night, what it said about me, what it said about us, me in context of him with that painting in the house we both, for the most part, live in. He saved a criminal, he now had incontrovertible proof that he was also dating one —the implications of that alone — he couldn’t pull at one thread without pulling at them all and so he pulled at none, and that whole night became a thing we put in a box and hid away under our bed.
1 A white button-up nightshirt, and Tiller just in CK bed pants.
2 I hear things.
3 Julian’s birthday. The only pin I remember.
4 And the Heart Tag Hemmes necklace Christian gave me, but I hope no one finds it because I probably shouldn’t have kept it.
5 1625. Oil on panel. 29.5 × 34.4 cm. It hangs in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem (Netherlands). Or so they think.
6 Him. My only family, my best friend, my saviour, my protector, my nemesis, who I have loved and will always love, every day of my life. Even if I never speak to him again.
7 Drowning
8 And it’s not my boyfriend’s.
9 And my boyfriend in the background shifted on his feet.
10 Edan iM60 Patient Monitor.
11 Citrate phosphate dextrose-adenine, which helps the red blood cells last longer.
12 600mL blood bag with a pre-attached 16-gauge venipuncture needle pinch clamp.
13 When you don’t have enough blood for your body to pump around to the rest of your body.
14 And do.
15 That tonight was blown wide open.
