Last One Standing: Dark Paranormal Tattoo Taboo Romance (The Chronicles of Kerrigan Book 11)

by W. J. May

  Fodder made no commitment either way. “We need to consider this,” he said simply. “We’ll discuss it as a group. In the meantime, it would help if you could give us any and all information you have on Cromfield. Any evidence that could prove he is still alive.”

  Rae bowed her head. “Well, that’s going to be a problem.”

  “Why is that?”

  She glanced up. “Because both of our resident experts are asleep in your medical wing with little chance of waking up.”

  But even as she spoke, there was a sound of pounding footfalls from down the hall. The door crashed open and Julian stood frozen in the frame, beaming with uncontrollable joy.

  “Actually, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

  Chapter 3

  According to the doctors, there was no earthly explanation for why Angel woke up. The head wound she sustained should have put her into a coma from which there would be no escape.

  And according to the medical staff the Xavier Knights employed, even if she did somehow awake, the damage caused to her brain would be irreparable and have devastating effect—destroying the girl they once knew.

  Clearly these doctors had never met Angel.

  “I don’t care what your instructions were—I’m the patient, so I’m changing them. Now you’re going to take these wires off of me, or I promise you, sweetheart, you’re going to end up exactly like your friend!”

  Rae and the others ripped back the curtain and saw Angel half-risen from bed, tugging impatiently at two of the IVs still stuck inside her arm. One orderly stood frozen on the other side of the bed—looking rather terrified—and the other was cowering in the far corner, staying carefully out of reach of her threats.

  The second she saw them, Angel stopped struggling. Her face relaxed into a huge smile which she gifted to each of them before settling on Julian. “Finally, honey. When you said you’d be right back, I had assumed that implied it would be in some sort of timely manner.”

  Julian laughed aloud and paced forward. With a look of profound tenderness, he knelt on the ground beside her bed and leaned in for a long kiss.

  There was some awkward throat-clearing and eye-averting from Fodder and the Knights, but to Rae, the scene could not have been more natural. She thought her heart was going to burst with happiness for Julian. There was some good out of this nightmare. Cromfield, Mallins, and any other piece of crap that wanted to take them down wasn’t going to succeed.

  They had been through enough. Julian and Angel deserved whatever happiness they could find. And no one, no one was going to fault them for stealing precious little moments whenever or wherever they could get them.

  As the two lovers finally parted, Devon lowered Rae gently to her feet. There was no way she would have been able to keep up with the crowd surging towards the hospital wing, so he had picked her up and carried her. She kept a steadying hand on him, as her eyes darted wildly around.

  The curtains in the ICU had been pulled up around each of the beds, so she had no idea what was happening on the other side of the partition.

  “And…Gabriel?” she asked hopefully, glancing first at the doctors and then at Julian for a response. There was nothing but silence and her cheeks flamed red as she lowered her eyes to the floor. As soon as she said it, she realized how stupid it was. She didn’t know why she thought that one would affect the other. Of course they wouldn’t.

  It’s just…it seemed like Angel and Gabriel did everything together.

  They were taken together. They were raised together. They survived together.

  Couldn’t it stand to reason that they would wake up together too? Couldn’t that, please, just once, be the way the world worked? Instead of all this?

  “Sorry,” she muttered, keeping her eyes on the ground. “…that was stupid.”

  Devon squeezed her hand, and when she looked up, even Fodder’s face softened sympathetically. Angel, however, straightened up on high alert.

  “What happened to Gabriel?” she asked sharply, daring each of the people in the room to meet her eyes. When no one did, she turned to Julian. Long gone was the gentle smile and her sarcastic sparkle. She looked like an avenging angel—out for blood. “Jules.” There was ice in her voice, and for the first time in a long while, Rae was reminded of the girl she’d met in the hotel room in San Francisco. The cold-blooded killer. “Where. Is. He?”

  Julian’s eyes flickered automatically to the other side of the curtain and he sighed. “He got shot, love. In the chest. The surgery was technically a success, but he hasn’t woken up yet.”

  Just hearing the words said aloud made them all the more terrible. Rae’s eyes welled with automatic tears, and for a moment, every other problem in the world seemed to fade away.

  She didn’t care about Cromfield, or the Privy Council, or whose side the Xavier Knights were going to decide to take. All she cared about was whether or not Gabriel Alden was going to open his eyes. It was the only thing that mattered.

  “But he’s going to, right?”

  Angel’s voice shattered her reverie and brought her back to the present. Despite having just woken up from a coma, the girl looked like she was about to set the whole building on fire with every Xavier Knight inside.

  Dr. Roscoe, who had joined them in the infirmary when she heard all the commotion, put on her best ‘temper-your-expectations’ tone. “We’re not sure yet. His body went through an unspeakable amount of trauma.”

  Angel didn’t even blink. “And?” When Roscoe paused, she turned to Rae in frustration. “Do they not know who we are?”

  Rae opened her mouth to answer, but the doctor cut her off. “I would simply recommend that you don’t get your hopes too high. As resilient as you lot have proven, there’s still an extremely limited possibility that he may ever wake up.”

  Julian and Devon flinched at the same time, but Angel’s eyes flashed fire. “But that’s what you said about me too, right?” The room went dead quiet as her words echoed away. “Right?!”

  “That’s right.” Dr. Roscoe looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “That’s settled then.” Angel leaned back against the pillows looking drained, but satisfied all at the same time. “He’ll wake up. I know he will. Just give him a little time.” She swallowed and blinked hard. “He was always a step or two behind me.”

  Rae wasn’t sure if she imagined it or not, but she could have sworn that as she said it, Angel gave her a little reassuring wink.

  “In the meantime,” she completely bypassed the terrified-looking physicians and looked imploringly up at Julian, “I could really use some chocolate. Or maybe some wine?”

  His dark eyes flickered to the look of fury twisting Roscoe’s face. “Uh…”

  Rae felt a soft poke in the ribs, and Devon lowered his lips to her ear. “I think that’s probably our cue to get out of here.”

  With hushed and hasty murmurs of goodbye, he picked her up again and they were quickly followed the rest of the group outside into the hallway. The door was just swinging shut as they heard the beginnings of what promised to be an explosive argument regarding the Patient’s Bill of Rights.

  Now that Devon and Rae were alone again with Fodder and his group of not-so-merry men, Rae felt suddenly afraid. She didn’t know exactly what she should be doing in this situation. She didn’t know why it was that her opinion seemed to matter more than, say, Carter’s. And perhaps most importantly, she noticed—from her perch in Devon’s arms—that all the ex-members of the PC and the Xavier Knights were standing in two distinct groups. It was as if there was an invisible line that they were both only subconsciously aware of, but were both either unwilling or unable to cross. And yet, Devon and Rae stood in the middle.

  Fortunately, Fodder stepped graciously forward to break the ice. “Well on behalf of both myself and Knights, I’m very pleased your friend is on her way to a recovery.” An echo of Angel’s profanities filtered through the door and the PC group collectively flinched. “A full recovery
, from the sounds of it.” Rae could have been mistaken, but she could have sworn she saw his lips twitch into a smile. “At any rate, we’ll be holding several meetings to discuss the information you shared. In the meantime, I invite you all to take full advantage of our facilities here. Anything you need will be completely at your disposal. You need only ask.”

  With that, he turned sharply on his heel and marched away, followed by a company of his increasingly-menacing looking men.

  Rae looked after them with a grin, but turned to surprise when she turned back to see the hard expression settling over Devon’s face. “What’s the matter?” she asked curiously. “You don’t like it here?”

  He shifted restlessly, arms tightening automatically around her. “No, it’s not that. This is a state-of-the-art facility. We couldn’t expect anything more.”

  “Then?”

  His eyes fixed on the door that Fodder and his men had just disappeared through.

  “Try asking them if we can leave.”

  * * *

  Rae couldn’t sleep again that night. Although exhausted to the point of delirium, she found herself tossing and turning just like the night before. It wasn’t that anything in particular troubled her, by all measurable accounts, it had been a good day.

  Angel had woken up, they’d finally laid all the cards out on the table for the Knights, and just that afternoon, Roscoe had given Rae permission to go outside the following morning.

  Yet try as she might to count her blessings…none of that meant shit while Gabriel was still lying in the hospital.

  Quiet as a mouse, she once again pulled herself to her feet and began the same nightly trek she had made the previous evening. This time, instead of finding the hallway deserted, groups of men and women walked past in tightly uniformed groups, one after another.

  There has to be some sort of training exercise going on, she thought to herself, as she turned invisible and shrank back against the wall. Most of the people looked as young as she and her friends.

  After a few minutes, the last group filed past. She was just about to creep forward once more, when some talking from the back of the ranks caught her attention and she hesitated slightly.

  “…just went in there and busted them loose. Like they were one of us or something.”

  “I think it’s good,” a higher voice countered. “They probably would’ve died if the Commander hadn’t done anything—”

  “So go ahead and let them,” the first voice interrupted. “What business is it of ours what goes on at that damn school? Why should we care?”

  Rae froze in her tracks and turned around, trying to locate the source of the conversation.

  “I just don’t get it,” another voice interjected. This one was clearly trying to be the rational mediator of the group, but he was spewing pure venom. “I know Luke is his son and everything, but I mean, look at who we’re talking about. Molly Skye? The girl who could black out a city block if she put her mind to it? Julian Decker—the infamous psychic? Devon Wardell?! He’s the most promising agent the PC has ever seen. Do you remember how long you were trying to break his marksmanship record? And these are the people we risked our lives to save?”

  Rae saw them now. Two guys and a girl. All in their late teens. Engaged in a rapid, yet hushed discussion at the back of the line. The man who was talking shook his head disapprovingly.

  “Gabriel Alden—we couldn’t even get a file on that guy! The only thing we found was an unconfirmed report of a man fitting his description involved in a single-handed agency take-down in Southern Turkey. Single-handedly took out an entire agency. And the girl—Angel? She’s a freaking ghost, man! No reports, no records, nothing but black holes and casualties. And of course…then we have bloody Kerrigan herself.”

  At this point, Rae leaned forward, actually rather interested to hear.

  “The girl’s a freak—a menace. No one person should have that much power, it’s not natural. And the longer she stays in here, the greater the chance is that she’ll take all our ink as well.”

  The girl, a short, curly-haired brunette, rolled her eyes. “First of all, let me say that it’s a little counter-intuitive to talk about ‘natural’ when discussing superpowers.” Rae stifled a grin; she liked this girl very much. “And second, not only has she done absolutely nothing to threaten us, but the poor thing can barely walk. She got stabbed through the stomach. She’s not exactly in fighting form here—”

  “But that’s exactly my point,” the guy who had been so threatened by Devon continued. He ran a hand through his greasy blond hair. “Do you want to wait for her to get back into fighting form? Do you really want her to be here when that happens?”

  A collective shiver ran between them and even the girl fell thoughtfully silent. The first man who spoke was eager to join in on the hunt.

  “Plus they’re all sleeping with each other. It’s just freaking weird.”

  What?! Was this published somewhere?!

  But this time, the girl scoffed. “You’re just jealous. I saw the look on your face when they carried in those girls. The two of you practically wet yourselves. Not that they’d be interested in any of you, of course…”

  The men flashed each other a quick look, before the first one asked, “And why is that?”

  “Oh please.” She smirked and rejoined her place in line. “Did you see those guys?”

  With that, the three of them walked away with their platoon, leaving Rae frozen in their wake. Wondering what exactly was in their files.

  Another day, Rae. One step at a time.

  Shaking it off as best she could, she made her way down to the ICU and peeked inside the door. All the curtains were pulled back now, and the room appeared deserted. In a similar streak of good luck, Angel had apparently worn herself out with all the cursing and screaming and was out cold with a rather self-satisfied look on her face.

  Not that Rae didn’t want to talk to her. She just…had other people on her mind.

  She slipped inside without a sound and sat down on the chair next to Gabriel. He hadn’t moved an inch since the last time she saw him. Each golden lock was splayed in exactly the same place across his forehead; each monitor chimed with the same, repetitious beeps.

  Rae hated it. A part of her wanted to throw caution to the wind, unplug him from the wall, and carry him off far away from this place. He didn’t belong in a place so sterile and cold. It wasn’t right for him to be so still. He wasn’t supposed to be strapped down to a bed…at least, not like this.

  Despite the cold shadows that dripped off the mechanic furniture, Rae couldn’t help but smile. If he had been awake, Gabriel would surely have made a joke about that.

  Without stopping to think about it, she leaned forward and took his hand. Things had always been like that between them, she realized. They did things impulsively, acting and speaking without thought. And while it had admittedly gotten them into serious trouble on a few occasions, she honestly wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. It engendered a rare kind of honesty, one she wasn’t sure she shared with anyone else on the planet. Not even Molly or Jules. Not even Devon.

  “I wish you were awake,” she whispered, lacing her fingers through his. His hand was ice cold and she rubbed it gently, her eyes drifting to the paned windows as she stared out into the dark night. “You’d know exactly what to say right now. You’d know exactly what to do. All these people, they’re turning to me like I have answers but…well, I think you and I both know that’s not true.”

  Her eyes flickered sideways and landed on his sleeping face.

  “That was your cue. I was wide open there.”

  Nothing.

  “No jokes? No mockery? I’ll give you a free shot.”

  Silence.

  A shudder ran through her body and she brought his knuckles up to her lips.

  “Why did you do that?” she whispered. Her voice grew almost angry as her eyes welled up with tears. “Why did you jump in front of the bullet? Y
ou know it couldn’t have killed me, but you?” She glanced at the wires and tubes stringing out from his body, and a sudden wave of uncontrollable anger rose her blood to a boil. “You had no right to save me like that. You had no right to be so reckless with yourself. I need you here—do you understand me? I need you alive. And awake.”

  A dry sob rattled through her chest as the tears began to fall. “Please.” Her head bowed to the floor, spilling her hair forward as she wiped at her cheeks with her free hand. “I need you, Gabriel. I need you to wake up.”

  But there was nothing but silence, and Rae sat slowly back in her chair.

  She held on to Gabriel’s hand for what felt like forever, crying silently as the peaceful night carried slowly on. She had no concept of time anymore. No concept of space. Her thoughts were focused on one thing, and one thing only.

  Please Gabriel…I need you to wake up.

  The monitors continued to beep and the soft noise of Angel’s breathing continued. If Rae had the energy to sob she’d have tried.

  She gasped and nearly dropped Gabriel’s hand when a soft voice broke the never-ending stillness—a voice that brought her back to life.

  “Well darlin’, I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 4

  In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to jump on top of a man who’d recently been shot and underwent heart surgery, but Rae couldn’t help herself. She didn’t even consider the cut deep into her abs.

  Truth be told, the thought of it being dangerous never even crossed her mind.

  “GABRIEL!”

  The word slurred slightly as her voice muffled in the blanket covering his chest. His body jerked back in pain, but he didn’t pull away. Quite the contrary, aside from shifting her slightly so that her weight wasn’t near his heart, he refused to let her go.