Talking about it made me uncomfortable. Except with Rella. But I'd made her go home. I needed to be alone with my thoughts for a while, and I couldn’t do that with her in the same room. At least if she was in Boston, there was a chance of blocking each other without giving myself even more of a headache.
“Make him come in here, Sam. I need him too.”
Tolli and Sam were kind of a package deal. I was closest to Sam and Tolli, because of my position in the family company. They had mentored me. They trusted me as an adult, where the rest of my parents still saw me as the tiny baby they’d almost lost.
“Tolli!” I yelled, and screwed up my face in pain.
Sam’s brow crumpled. “Tolliver, get your ass in here before she does something dumb like yell with a broken jaw again,” he shouted, sending me a disapproving look. I tried not to grin because it hurt, but I doubted I was hiding my mirth well.
Tolliver strode into the room like he owned it. It was just his natural bearing. It made him good at business, and once upon a time, had made him a great model. But I could see the small things that were off. He didn’t look me in the eye and there was tension in his face that aged him. Not by much, but it was noticeable to me anyway.
Finally, he looked at me, and the tension seemed to leave his shoulders. The roiling guilt was still there, you couldn’t hide emotions from me, but the lines of his face eased.
“Hope…”
I interrupted the apology he was about to give me. I didn’t need it, and it changed nothing. “It isn’t your fault. Come and tell me what’s going on with the company. I’ve been gone for three days and it feels like an eternity.”
He came over, pulling up the blanket and fluffing my pillows. The space was packed now, and I was glad I had a private room.
“Should you be talking with a broken jaw at all?” Tolliver asked, his eyebrow raised.
“It’s only a small fracture now. Raphael fixed it that much. It hurts but at least it didn’t need surgery.” Though they’d had wired it shut to keep it supported while it healed.
Everyone tensed at the mention of the Archangel Raphael, the way they did at the mention of any of the Archangels. It’s been twenty-odd years since whatever went on with them and Luc and the Angels, but they were still on-guard. Like they expected their lives to be recalled at any moment. It was my mom that spoke. “We are grateful for what Raphael did.”
Lux nodded from where he was leaning against the wall. He was well into his fifties now, his formerly dark hair now streaked with grey.
Tolliver filled the awkward silence, telling me about how the NRH Foundation was functioning without me.
It was a testament to how injured I was that his words pulled me into sleep.
When I woke again, they were gone, though traces of my family remained; a thermos of soup that smelled amazing, extra pillows, a huge bouquet of flowers, a terrified beat cop that now physically checked on me every ten minutes like clockwork.
I squealed when I saw my laptop. I could work. Or binge watch Netflix. Maybe a week in hospital wouldn’t be so bad. Just like a forced holiday.
Chapter Three
“Hello Hope. I’m Villette, the welfare officer here at the hospital. I’m here because you’ve suffered a traumatic event, and your doctors would like to assess your emotional wellbeing.”
I tried not to physically cringe. Therapists were the worst on my empathic abilities. They either cared too much or not enough, but both types were jarring to my nerves.
“I’m fine, really. I don’t remember much and I’d really just rather go home.” I smiled sweetly at her, praying she’d just agree and leave.
Unfortunately, Villette fell into a third category. The type that hated me because I was rich. I could feel her disdain as she looked around my private room, at my top of the range laptop, and the huge bouquet of roses.
“It is okay to admit that your… situation has caused you emotional distress. There is nothing shameful about PTSD.” She stared at the colorful bruises on my jaw, her tone professional but her emotions anything but.
I sat up in bed, wincing as my ribs ached. Villette's corresponding glee at my pain made me feel ill. She was feeling superior now. She must have seen the disgust on my face, because she reached out to touch my hand.
“Tell me what you do remember.”
I didn’t pull away fast enough, and I got her thoughts as well as her emotions.
Her kind deserves to be brought down to the real world. Fucking trust fund princesses.
I didn’t always pick up thoughts. Only sporadically or if the thought was really loud and believed with overwhelming conviction. I jerked my hand away.
“I think you should leave,” I said, my voice as cool as the ice princess she thought I was.
Now it was Villette’s turn to rear back. “Excuse me?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “If you have such hatred in your heart, perhaps it’s best you find a different career path.”
The welfare officer sat there gaping like a fish. Then her face twisted in a sneer. “Are you threatening me?”
I sighed, suddenly feeling very tired of everything. “No. But I do not need or want your help.” I wished I could threaten her, but what would I say to the Hospital Board? She was perfectly professional and outwardly concerned. It wasn’t as if I could show them her heart.
“She may not be threatening you, but I am. Leave,” a dark voice said from behind her, and Memphis stepped from the shadows. I hadn’t even felt him come in.
Villette took one look at Memphis, his wings gone but his expression one that promised pain and death, and left as fast as she could.
“Back again, Mephistopheles?” I raised my eyebrows, and hoped he didn’t notice how relieved I was to see him.
“Yes. Call me Memphis.”
I huffed. The disdain of the the so-called Welfare Officer lay across my skin like an oil slick, and it was making me testy. I didn’t want to deal with this ancient angel bullcrap. I hated that I had to second guess everyone's intentions. Why could no one just be straight up? Except Rella and Ace. They really were a lot alike.
“Why? Why are you here? We don’t know each other. I’ve met you like twice in my entire life. I know you and Luc are friends, but seriously, Luc and Ace are a whole lot more than acquaintances and they don't see the need to babysit me. So why are you really here? Or did Luc ask you to guard me?”
I tuned into his emotions. It was cheating, but fuck it. He was complicated, in the way all the Fallen were complicated. They felt so much, yet it was buried deep. A millennia of experiences all stuffed deep down into their psyches. They didn't taste the way the Angels did, even Raphael. They all felt overwhelmingly of loss. A loss so profound that I wasn't sure I’d be able to describe it to another person.
But warring with the loss and the anger that normally colored Memphis’ emotions was that soft feeling again. Not quite love, or passion, or respect. It was something shinier than that. It almost felt like hope.
“I am here because I want to be here. That is all.” His deep voice rumbled through my bones, and down to some of the happier parts of my body. Memphis had a voice that could tempt you into sinning.
I closed my eyes and relaxed back into my pillows. “That's not really an answer,” I grumbled, but let it go. The less time I was alone with my thoughts, the better off I would be. “If you are going to loiter around the place, you should tell me about yourself.”
Memphis walked to the darkest corner of my light drenched room. “There is not much to tell.”
“Well, I refuse to let you stand there in dark corners like a floor lamp, so make something up,” I argued quietly. Last thing I needed was for the nurses and the beat cop thinking I was going nuts, talking to myself.
“What would you like to know?” he said, leaving his place to sit in the chair beside the bed. His emotions told me he was annoyed, probably from being compared to a piece of interior decor.
Hmm, what did you ask
a Fallen angel? I knew the general story of how they fell. The Hell version. They got kicked out for questioning the status quo. Ace always painted them as revolutionaries for the rights of every being to have a choice. Luc didn't talk about it. I had a feeling there was more to it than either side let on.
Actually, when Ace told the story, it was always her and Luc, Gusion and Memphis against Heaven’s legions. She made them sound close, inseparable appendages of the same being.
“You and Ace were a thing?”
Memphis actually looked embarrassed, which meant his brows lowered and he shifted to stand primarily on his other foot. Nothing in his visage actually changed. Empathic abilities for the win. “A long time ago now. We have thousand of years of friendship behind us. Of companionship. But there is never any doubt that Acerezeal loves only Lucifer. Their relationship exceeds the human concept of love. We were merely diversions to waste away the years. Hell can be lonely. And that ended decades ago,” he qualified in one long rush, and I put my hands in the air.
“That's your business.” I was glad I was the only empath in the room, because I felt a strange mish-mash of jealousy and relief. “Want to ask me something? A tit-for-tat kind of thing?”
Something about Memphis’ stern control made me want to tell him things, to shock him into feeling something.
“How long have you been an empath?”
“Since I was born,” I answered automatically, before slamming a hand over my mouth. Then belatedly realizing my jaw was broken when waves of pain shot up and down my face. “Fuck!” I screamed. Memphis was on his feet, looking down at me helplessly.
“Should I call the nurse?”
I let out a low moan. “No. There's no antidote from stupid unfortunately.” The pain started to ebb excruciatingly slowly. “What I should have said was that I have no idea what you’re talking about. But how did you know?”
Memphis curled and uncurled his hands, and my eyes were drawn to the gesture, to his length and shape of his fingers, to how shiny his nails were. Each hand was divine perfection. “It is my,” he hesitated over the words, “ability to know people's darkest secrets. It is what makes me such a horror to humanity. Their souls are laid bare before me.” His old world pattern of speech was so soothing that I momentarily missed what he was saying.
“Wait, you know everyone’s deepest secrets?” I thought my ability was kind of scary. But knowing the closest held secret of every person alive? That sounded like a kind of horror show I never wanted front row seats to see.
“Secret. Singular. Only their deepest, darkest, secret. Quite frankly, your empathy is a balm after the normal depravity of humankind.”
For some reason I didn’t want to investigate too closely, my mind went to Azriel. “Even the secrets of other angels?”
He nodded solemnly, loneliness emanating from him in a steady pulse. I reached out, and placed my hand over his huge, clasped ones. “I’m sorry.”
He waved away the platitude, though his eyes held warmth. I worked hard at blocking his emotions. I found that I didn’t want to take more than this man wanted to give.
I heard voices in the hall, voices I knew, and my face split in a grin. “You might want to go invisible right about now. We have incoming.”
Memphis’ brows swooped down over his eerie blue eyes, but he did what I asked, just as the Mulligan women swarmed into my hospital room. All talking at once, they sounded like an angry flock of geese with distinct Bostonian accents.
“Hope!” Granny Mulligan said something completely unsavory in Gaelic as she saw my face. Aunt Clary was around her in a flash, and pulling me into a hug. She looked me over, inventorying my wounds, my dressings, my machines. Nodding once, she stood so she could look at my chart. Clary still worked as a nurse in Boston, and she was as no-nonsense as she was loving. Granny Mulligan wrapped me in her arms, still tsking, as she kissed my head.
“What kind of evil would do this to my sweet Hope?” she asked the room, though it was rhetorical.
“Johnnie, you tell Colin he needs to fix this,” Aunt Bea said, waving a bunch of flowers around like a scepter. “To a soul as sweet as Hope’s at that. The devils work!”
Memphis stepped from the shadows, and I froze. But apparently he was still invisible to everyone but me. Angels couldn’t hide from me or Rella. Another oddity of our DNA.
“It wasn’t the Devil who did this. Pretty sure the Devil is going to flay the skin off whoever did do this to you, though” he said, and only I could hear. “They are an interesting group, these Mulligans. I’ve met many of their kin over the years,” he said conversationally. “Their deepest secrets are… intriguing.”
I internally groaned. I desperately wanted to know now. Way to wave a red flag in front of a bull. But that was a massive invasion of their privacy, right? Whatever, I’d read their emotions every day since I was three. Probably too late to worry about privacy now.
“Oh?” I said, directing it to Granny Mulligan, but looking at where Memphis stood behind the completely oblivious Mulligans.
He pointed to Aunty Bea. “Hit a man with her car and never stopped.” Then to Clary. “Smuggled a family out of Africa on fake passports, their pockets stuffed with pilfered blood diamonds.” He looked at Granny Mulligan and grinned. “Tempted a Priest into sin in a confessional.” He raised his eyebrows, a small smile on his face. “Granny Mulligan, I am shocked and awed!”
Granny banged her cane on the linoleum floor. “Stop fussing like a bunch of old hens. Hope, my sweet child, we have brought you a gift on behalf of the Family. Your accident does not sit well in the hearts of any of us; you know how much we love you. I heard your former protection was killed, may God bless his righteous soul. We have brought you a replacement. Blue!” she yelled, and another person entered the room.
I’d tuned out most of the emotions in the room, but his hit me like a wave of nothingness. Not because he had no emotions, but he seemed to be purposefully blocking them. I knew they were there, I could feel them circling beneath the surface like fish trapped in a barrel. Physically his face was impassive, but his ice blue eyes all but simmered. They were like steam off a frozen lake.
I looked at Memphis, and his eyes were narrowed, his face scary as he looked at the newcomer.
Uncle Johnnie stepped forward. “Hope, this is Blue Halloran. He is the best in the family at what he does.”
I swallowed hard. “And what's that?”
For the first time, the man spoke. “Whatever is necessary.”
The words sent a chill down my spine. “What's your darkest secret?” I asked him, my eyes on Memphis though.
Blue answered. “You don’t want to know.”
Memphis’ face was granite. He didn’t say a word.
I couldn't drag my eyes from the killer. Because there was no doubt in my mind, that was what he was. He was a strongman. An enforcer. A hitman. A murderer.
Chapter Four
The hitman wouldn’t leave. Or more exactly, when the Mulligans had all headed back to Boston, and I’d asked him to leave, he’d sat in the hard plastic chair with a blank look.
“The Family are scarier than you are,” was all he said, and then promptly pretended to go to sleep.
I wasn’t going to lie. Blue Halloran petrified me. His compressed emotions felt like a grenade that I was holding in my hand. Even the slightest fumble would have catastrophic circumstances for us both. He was all edges, dressed down in a pair of blue jeans and a perfectly ordinary white tee. He looked like someone you’d find sitting in a sports bar, drinking beer with his buddies and yelling at the umpire. Until you got to the eyes. The eyes gave him away, like fragmented ice, cold and deadly.
He ignored me unless someone walked into the room, then he was casually alert. Nothing about his outwards appearance changed, he still looked bored as hell, but there was a subtle tension in his shoulders. Whenever the beat cops changed shifts, every single one eyed him like he was a rattlesnake curled in the corner of the room. Whe
n the nurses asked, he’d just say, “I’m her bodyguard,” and they’d leave it at that. Because I was a goddamn heiress. Why wouldn’t I have live-in bodyguard?
For some reason that defied logic and self-preservation instincts, I didn’t protest too much about his presence. Despite the fact he was obviously a criminal, and his emotions were buried so deep that I’d need the mental equivalent of an excavator to get to them, my gut said that he was okay. That should the cast of my recurring nightmares appear, he would get rid of them, once and for all. On the flipside, my angelic visitors didn’t return overnight either. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I’d had enough self-reflection to last me a lifetime.
His stony silence was starting to get to me by the following day though. It had been twenty-four hours since he’d arrived and he’d said a total of twelve words to me. Seriously, I counted. Silence was something that totally unnatural to me. Even if someone's lips weren’t moving, to me they were always saying something. But not Blue-freaking-Halloran.
“Seriously, don’t you ever say anything? Hum a tune, or whistle, or move a little louder, or something. You are driving me insane,” I complained. Hospital was driving me insane. I wanted to go home.
“Grumpy today.” It wasn't a question. He said it like it was fact. It made me want to punch him in the nose. Such violence was usually Rella’s domain.
“I’m bored. I should be working. Last week I was talking to world leaders. Now I’m napping in the afternoons while you watch me sleep like a creeper.”
His cheek twitched. “I do not watch you sleep.”
I rolled my eyes and turned over, giving him my back. I could hear the rustle of him standing, and the quiet whoosh of the door open and closing.
Great, I’d offended the hitman. And now I felt bad. Great.
I wished Rella was here. She was great at dealing with people. It wasn’t always with the best of manners, but she made friends easily and she usually got what she wanted. I’d always envied that. She’d know what to say to Blue. Unfortunately, it would probably be, “You have the right to remain silent.”
Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset Page 61
