Chapter 9 - The Aftermath
The gunfire ceased. The only sound left at Pier 44 was the heavy, rhythmic drumming of the rain and the distant wail of NYPD sirens. Jax had called them, tipping them off to the Senator's real killer.
Jax repelled down from the crane, landing softly beside Eleanor. He looked at the unconscious, bloodied Marcus, then at Eleanor.
"Area secure," Jax said quietly.
Eleanor dropped the knife. Her hands were shaking violently now, the adrenaline leaving her system in a sudden, crashing wave. She turned around.
Leo was standing at the edge of the shipping container. He was fourteen now. Too tall. Too thin. Wearing clothes that were ragged and unwashed. He looked at the carnage around him, then at the fierce, bloody woman in the torn evening gown.
Eleanor took a hesitant step forward, suddenly terrified. What if he didn't remember her? What if the trauma had erased the mother who used to read him bedtime stories?
She dropped to her knees in the mud, regardless of the cold, regardless of the dirt. She held her arms open, unable to speak around the massive lump in her throat.
Leo’s lower lip trembled. He walked forward, slowly at first, then broke into a run. He collapsed into her arms, burying his face in her shoulder, sobbing violently.
"I knew you'd come," he cried, his fingers gripping her coat like a lifeline. "I knew you wouldn't stop."
Eleanor buried her face in his wet hair, inhaling the scent of him, letting the tears fall freely for the first time in seven years.
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"I've got you, my sweet boy," she wept, rocking him back and forth in the rain. "I've got you. You're safe now. Mommy's got you."
The police cruisers swarmed the pier, casting the shipyard in chaotic flashes of red and blue, but Eleanor Vance didn't notice the lights. Her world, for the first time in an eternity, was finally whole.
