“Hey Taco.” Grace smiled and held up a coin.
Taco grinned and handed her a folded newspaper. “Hey Miss. Grace. Boy am I glad to see you.”
“I always love seeing you, Taco.” The cold pit in her stomach returned when she remembered the letter in her bag. It would affect Taco and his younger brother. She scanned the front page of the newspaper. “New leads, huh?”
He shrugged, unconcerned as only a child would be. “Wasn’t them.”
Then Taco gave her shifty eyes and checked over his shoulder. His mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but there were too many people around and he shut it again.
Odd, Grace thought. She hoped he was okay. She’d had a soft spot for Taco and his younger brother since the bombing. Most of their family perished in the explosion except for a single aunt who was pulled from the wreckage, much like Grace. Grace had found them an apartment in her own building, but even being rent controlled, it was hard for the woman to manage. Better to stay a minute and see if Taco was okay.
“I agree. It can’t be them. I don’t think they’ve been sighted around town for months. Probably given up or gone missing,” Grace elaborated.
“Nah… just waiting.”
“For what?”
“Someone to believe in them.”
“Yeah, I know, buddy,” she said with a sigh, and resisted the urge to ruffle his hair. It was flattened on the top, most likely from the cap he’d removed to collect payment. “It would be nice to have something to believe in, wouldn’t it?”
“I mean it, Grace. They didn’t do it.”
“You’re preaching to the choir.” She’d been touting the same words since the bombing. During the first month the police had humored her and listened to her wild stories. She’d told anyone and everyone about the strange people she saw dressed in white robes and masks. Except, the CCTV footage showed only the Deadly Seven lurking suspiciously before the bomb went off. Looking back now, no wonder they thought she suffered post-traumatic stress. The things she saw sounded crazy. She still had trouble organizing the events in her head. Better to avoid the subject in public, and tackle it at home because either someone doctored the video footage, or she really was insane.
“You watch the game last night, Taco?”
“Sure did. We won!”
“Didn’t Cardinal City lose?”
“Nah, nobody goes for Cardinal these days. They’re at the bottom of the ladder. Miss. Grace…” Taco hushed his tone and ushered her closer. “I really need to tell you something.”
The poor boy was busting to tell her something. It looked like he needed to pee.
Grace dipped her head, close enough to hear the wheeze in Taco’s lungs as he took a breath. Sounded congested. Way too much fluid in there.
“We found someone in the alley this morning,” Taco said. “Took him to the hospital for you. And get this, he was… well. You need to talk to him.”
Grace’s brows lifted. Another homeless person for her to rescue? While her heart warmed at the altruistic innocence of those boys, they flirted with danger. “Have you been out before sunrise again? You know the neighborhood’s not safe, Taco.”
“It wasn’t too early.”
“Taco!” Grace shook him gently by the shoulders. “It’s dangerous. Do you hear me? Never go out at night again. Promise me.” The desperation made her voice tight. The things she’d seen in Emergency on night shift still gave her nightmares. The streets were filled with stupid and violent people, they were certainly no place for children.
“Okay, okay.”
“Say it.”
“Fine. We won’t go out at dark again.”
“Even for a few minutes before the sun comes up.”
“Yeah, okay.” Taco coughed.
“Good. And that wheeze doesn’t sound good. How long have you had that?”
“Yeah but—”
A shadow smashed past the two of them at an alarming speed, scooping up Grace’s bag, tugging it roughly from her shoulder. She almost lost her arm as the bag tore free. The cry of surprise barely left her lips before the crowd swallowed the thief again.
“Damn it!” Grace desperately tracked the path the thief had gone.
“You want me to chase him Miss. Grace?” Taco’s words caught on some phlegm and he coughed into his fingerless gloved hands.
She shook off the irritation of having her bag stolen. No use chasing him down. He was too fast, and she was already late. Muggings were a dime a dozen in Cardinal City, hence why she never carried valuables. “No, that’s okay. There wasn’t much in the bag, anyway. You’ve got work to do and, besides, like I said, that cough doesn’t sound good. Come and see me at the clinic tomorrow, okay? Promise? I’d better go.”
Grace gave a hasty wave and then plunged back into the horde, barely hearing Taco’s protest. She had to stop encouraging his self-proclaimed mission to clean up the streets. Cardinal City was a lost cause.
Big rain drops started to fall, and she flicked out her newspaper to shield herself, rushing until she arrived at the hospital a few blocks away.
By the time she walked through the emergency entrance, she’d mentally catalogued the items she’d lost in her bag. She rarely brought her wallet to work because she had an account at the cafeteria. Only her phone was in the bag and it was a cheap burner she’d picked up recently when her old cell had died.
That left the letter.
Grace pushed through the emergency entrance and into the waiting room with her game face on. Her heart wrenched at the sound of babies crying, people coughing and groaning. As heartbreaking as it sounded in there, the free clinic was worse, and the reason she worked there two days a week. Those poor people needed medical assistance, and the busy environment was music to her empty soul. When she went through the triage bay door, she paused to gather herself. Hospital smells assaulted her nose: disinfectant; plastic; bleach. It all infused her lungs with an odd sense of rightness. This was where she belonged.
This was who she was.
And she was good at her job.
Grace moved into the secure area and passed the exam bays. All beds were full, and all curtains were drawn. A man laid on a gurney in the hallway, sleeping on his side. He looked stable, so Grace assumed he was where he was meant to be for the moment.
A curtain to Grace’s right opened and closed, and Doctor Raseem Patel stepped out. Grace and Raseem interned together years ago but lost contact when she deferred from surgery after the bombing. He wore scrubs, a beaded necklace, and his long dark hair was tied back into a bun at his nape. Despite being a modern, young and hip doctor (his words, not Grace’s), Raseem took his job at the hospital seriously, and followed the rules to a T.
“What on earth are you doing here, Grace?” Raseem’s thick dark brows rose. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re here but… aren’t you a few hours early? I just checked the roster.”
Grace bit her lip. Out of everyone, he’d probably send her home. “I know. Thought I could be some help.”
“We’ll always need help, especially in the ER, but… walk with me.” His tone sounded ominous.
Grace followed him to the rotation board where he stood staring, hands on hips.
A yellow square with an affirmation in Grace’s handwriting was stuck next to each of the surgeon’s names. She had a habit of randomly placing them around the place. Someone had to lift morale, and it may as well be her. The nurses were tired, and the surgeons were exhausted. She should know, she was one once.
Envy ate nothing but its own heart, and she knew that better than anyone. It was all she thought of when she recovered from the bombing that had taken her parents’ lives. Her anxiety reared its head too much, and she was fearful of having an attack in the operating theater, so opted to stay out. It was either give in to the guilt and self-loathing, or put it to use. So rather than pine over who she used to be, she put her efforts towards making others feel better.
The Post-it notes were an ide
a she’d taken from her mother, the high school teacher. A moment of kindness from you could mean the world to someone else.
“Is everything okay, Raseem?” Did he hate the notes? Were they too intrusive?
“Well, it’s like this.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “You remember how we did that emergency appendectomy together in our first year on rotation?”
“How could I forget? The guy had a pericardial tamponade. Completely out of left field considering what he was in for. I still can’t believe we saved him.”
“Right. But you get what I mean.”
“Ugh.” Was there a question?
Grace paused and inspected the man. Often people spoke without words, and sometimes you had to look harder because the truth was crippling. His lips were pinched around the sides, and his pupils were dilated. She caught the twitch of his fingers at the side. He was definitely agitated about something. She cast her mind back to the appendectomy surgery. It had been hours long, and almost a disaster on many fronts. Not only did the patient almost bleed out on the table, but in closing, an exhausted Raseem had fumbled with the stitches, and Grace took over before anyone could notice.
Grace squeezed the man’s arm. “Don’t worry, Raseem. Your technique is second to none. Even the interns gossip about how great it is. You got this, buddy.”
He gave her a soft smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m being stupid.”
“Nope. Your not.” She was the one afraid to get back into an operating theater. “Sometimes the unexpected happens. Getting anxious before an unfamiliar case is normal.”
“You never did.”
She swallowed and looked away.
“Sorry,” he added. “I know you haven’t operated in a while.”
“And you’re in there every day. You’re going to ace it. Do what I used to do. Say something funny to break the ice.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he mumbled absently. “A joke.”
“Do you know what else is a good idea? Letting me clock on early.”
“Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Grace pretended she didn’t hear the tone of pity in Raseem’s voice and shook her head.
“Okay then. If you really want to, I guess they do need the extra hand in there. I’ll see if someone can handover. It’s been a wild night. Meet me here in five.”
Yes. She mentally fist pumped. For a minute she thought he would tell her to go home or tell the Chief of Staff. Grace went to the staff locker room and pulled on a fresh pair of green scrubs. When she returned, Raseem waited for her with the ER schedule open on his iPad.
“They’re all a bit busy, so I said I’d show you,” he said.
“So, busy night, huh?” Graced asked.
“Busy and mad. You know how it is. I know the city has gone downhill since those vigilante cowboys disappeared but, honestly, sometimes I wonder if they feed people crack in the tap water for this amount of crazy to turn up in one night. We’ve had a few gangland stabbings, bullet wounds, another stuck a cucumber up his anus, and then there’s the special one,” he said.
“The cucumber wasn’t special enough?” Grace laughed.
Raseem handed her the iPad and brought up a patient file. “I consulted briefly on this one. Puncture wound is cleaned and stitched by a nurse. You might want to check the suture work. We suspected internal bleeding, maybe some broken ribs. Bruises over his body. Diagnostic scan reports are just in. I haven’t seen them yet.”
“Why is he so special?”
Raseem gave her a wry look. “Probably high. Didn’t want to relinquish his bag of clothes, fought with the attendants when he was brought in, bit of an A-hole… take your pick.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“If we hadn’t dosed him, maybe. He’s a big man. Just check the scans then bump him out unless he needs surgery for the internal bleeding, then call me. He’s in the observation unit.”
Raseem handed her the iPad, gave her a lip twitch of gratitude, then walked away.
She checked the scan report and her jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Wow. Just wow. Raseem would be sorry he handed this one over.
Chapter 3
From the corner of his eye, Evan watched his mother pace beside his hospital bed. Preferring to fixate on the scrap paper in front of him, he ignored her muttered obscenities and traced the lines of the portrait he scribbled with the HB pencil he’d found on the floor.
“I mean, it’s not like I didn’t prepare you for this,” Mary Lazarus said, stopping to glare at him in the way only a parent could. “It’s not like you didn’t spend your entire life training to avoid this very thing.” She punctuated her last words by hitting her palm on the bed.
“Exactly. I’m big and ugly enough to take care of myself. How did you know I was here, anyway?”
She ignored his question and continued with her lecture. “A mother will always be worried about her children, no matter how big and strong they’ve grown. I gave you the tools to be what this city needs, what this world needs, but ultimately it has to be up to you. Your sin doesn’t control you. You control it. Evan. Are you listening?”
“Yes.”
“I encouraged you when you chose to slip out into the night and fight crime. I supported you when you chose to pack it all in. But, Evan”—she made a pointed look at his faded bruised face and arms—“I won’t stand by idly while you punish yourself for something that’s not your fault.”
Evan stopped the sweeping line of his pencil stroke and lifted his gaze to focus on her.
The woman stood at five-five but had a deceptively powerful body you wouldn’t expect to see on a fifty-year-old woman. Sheathed in black workout attire, she looked fresh and fit. Her dark, silver-streaked long hair had been pulled into a convenient bun at the base of her neck. There were tiny worry lines around her eyes and in between her brows, but if he saw her on the street and had to guess her age, he’d say early forties. You’d hardly know beneath her slick surface laid an ex-assassin of the Hildegard Sisterhood and a sleeping dragon capable of killing the instant it woke. And she’d taught him everything she knew.
“My visions don’t predict everything, Evan. I’d much rather you return home where you belong. What’s this?” Mary’s eyes snagged on something. She caught Evan’s wrist in her strong vice-like grip and turned the inner flesh toward her eyes, displaying his Yin-Yang tattoo. Each of his siblings had one, but Evan had embellished his with black geometric and organic patterns that traveled up the natural lines and veins of his body, turning his arm into a work of art reminiscent of his paintings. His eldest brother, Parker, had infused the tattoo ink with an acid based indicator that reacted to each of their individual sins. The more envy registered in Evan’s body, the darker his tattoo. It was almost black.
Mary sighed and dropped her forehead to his wrist. She inhaled a shuddering breath, gathering herself. The sight broke Evan’s heart. She was disappointed, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. The urges were too strong. Envy had driven him to fight in the underground ring. When they wanted him to fail, it urged him to win. Now he sensed envy in the hospital. In every bed. In every room. Sick people wanted to be someone else. Staff wanted to be somewhere else. Everyone wanted something they didn’t have. Including him.
He tugged his wrist from his mother and scribbled madly on the portrait.
“We should just go,” Evan stated, shifting to get out of the bed. “The longer we stay, the more likely they’ll discover things they shouldn’t about me.”
She pushed him back down. “Absolutely not. Your sudden absence will raise more red flags than not. Besides, I’ve seen the outcome. It’s best we stay.”
Mary’s supernatural visions were what led her to rescue him and his siblings from the lab that created them. Those visions kept them safe from the Sisterhood she betrayed, and the mysterious Syndicate who bank rolled their experiment.
Evan resisted, and she responded with more force. “You may be ten times bigger
than me, Evan, but I can drop you like a fly.”
He eased off. She was right.
Large brown eyes looked down at him over a straight, no-nonsense nose. Evan supposed he and his siblings didn’t look so different from her. It was easy to mistake them as relatives. Evan’s biological mother was Caucasian—pale and dark-haired. Mary had been born in Mexico, had olive skin and dark eyes. Her husband Flint, their father figure, was Caucasian too, rounding out the perfect appearances for their family brood.
“I brought spare clothes for you to dress in. Lord knows you can’t wear the battle gear home.”
“I wore it last night. Nobody seemed to care. In fact, they cheered louder when I took a hit.”
“La Hostia.” Mary pulled out the gold crucifix from her top and kissed it.
“Since when did you find religion? You didn’t even pray when you were a fake nun back in the day.”
“I’m not praying now. I’m cursing. And maybe it’s because none of you children listen to me.”
“Okay, okay. Sorry. What else did you see?” Evan asked, scratching the tattoo on his wrist. “What’s got that gleam in your eye?”
Mary toyed with the zip on her jacket. The smile dancing on her lips was almost undetectable before she squashed it down, letting the hardness take back her features.
“I’m relieved to see you’re alive, that’s all.” She tapped on his drawing. “You need to stop this business about Sara. Focus on finding your own woman. Evan. Look at me.”
He did.
“It’s not healthy to pine after your brother’s dead fiancé.”
The pencil snapped in Evan’s fingers.
“You know there’s another reason for this…” he waved at the paper, unable to come up with the right word.
“Obsession?”
“Investigation! I thought you of all people would understand the dreams. I don’t pick them, they pick me.”
Mary opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. There was nothing else to say. Hadn’t been for two years. He couldn’t prove it. They couldn’t prove it. As far as everyone else knew, Sara had died a martyr in the explosion that ended life as he knew it. But Evan knew. He’d always known.
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