“Who is she?”
“That’s my mother. It concerns me that she was able to get this close to where I am, but she always was one step ahead of everyone.”
She fell to the ground, and Jessie laughed.
“Don’t worry she’s been doing that for years. I finally stop paying attention to it.”
They watched as someone came to check on her. They shook her, but she didn’t get up.
“It’s a trick, I know it is.” There was fear in her voice. That was her mother even if she wasn’t a nice one. Nothing could happen to her.
“Jessie, we should go back.”
She knew he was right, but her feet were rooted to the earth. She couldn’t move if she tried. The stranger pulled out a phone, talking frantically from the looks of her.
They stood there staring at her on the ground until an ambulance pulled up.
That’s not right the firemen always come first.
She heard the voice but never paid attention to what was being said. The medical personnel got out of the ambulance and began to work on her mother. They gave her CPR. Had her heart stopped?
Her hands curled into a ball her nails sinking deep into her palms to keep her steady. Her teeth bit her bottom lip as she told herself not to worry it was a trick. Then those flashing lights were turned off, and the sirens she could hear in her mind but not with her ears were turned off. They put her mother on the gurney and covered her up.
“No!” The scream was torn from the small child that still resided within her. “Please don’t let her be dead.” She always believed that one day they would sit down and talk. Her mom would explain everything and apologize for how she treated her. She would want to be a family.
“Jasper, take Mia to her father.” She was already running towards the barrier. Her mother couldn’t be dead their second chance couldn’t be snatched away by the cruel hands of fate.
“Jessie don’t.”
“Mama.”
She heard it all but she needed to take care of her mother Mia would be okay as soon as she found out what was happening she would be back. She crossed the barrier hearing a wail of terror rent the air. Mia? Then she was across the barrier running to the ambulance.
A male came from the side of it with a smile on his face and shot her. Her hands went down to her abdomen watching in horror as blood spilled out of her. There was a second roar that shook the earth. That sounds like Cole. Then she hit the ground.
Declyn grabbed him as he ran for the barrier taking him down in a tackle worthy of any football player. Enzo jumped in, and the two of them kept him from running to Jessie. She was lying in the street bleeding out. Her mother got out of the ambulance and started yelling. Soon Jessie was on the stretcher and placed in the back of the ambulance. The lights came on, and they roared away.
“She’s gone.” The fury in his voice was a warning.
“No, she is not. Listen to me, Cole.” Declyn was no longer the club owner he was the Alpha that had kept them alive. If you had run to her, your life, her life, and our lives would have been forfeit. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
“I’m not leaving her there.”
“Since when have I ever left one of mine behind? Someone find Tristan and Cait. Cole take your daughter she needs you. Everyone change into uniforms. We move in thirty.”
Cole stood and took Mia who was sobbing uncontrollably into his arms.
“I’ll get her back, Casca. We will be a family if I have to press her every day for a hundred years.” He sang an old lullaby that Ven taught them a long time ago. His mother used to sing it to him before she found a mate that wanted him dead.
He rocked her in his arms until she settled down. When he came to Deja’s, the door was open. She walked up to him and took Mia.
“Go get her.”
He nodded and turned away. His world, his life wouldn’t be right until she was back with him. His trasire would have to wait and take her daily walks with him because her heart was too big. Her mother knew that, knew if she looked like she was dead it would draw Jessie out. What she hadn’t expected was that Jessie would have the presence of mind to still protect her child.
Declyn pulled up with Ven and Enzo behind him. Ven had learned to drive and was proud of it. Enzo thought he still needed to be watched.
Behind him were Xavier and Caden with Tristan and Jasper in the back seat.
Cait pulled up in her car with her husband. Each one of them was dressed in uniforms. They were all a standard gray that would help their bodies blend into the surroundings so they wouldn’t be seen. They would also change with their bodies. Cole got into Declyn’s car, and the mini caravan took off.
“Do we know where we are going?”
“Cait believes she will be at Shady Grove. It’s the closest hospital to us.”
“We go in and get her.”
“No, we go in and access the situation. We do this by the book Cole. That means doing it right. We won’t leave without her, but we have to know how to do it without bringing the authorities down on us.”
He gave a stiff nod of his head and fell silent. They looked for several spaces together before they parked not wanting to get separated.
Cait took the lead, she understood hospitals better than they did.
“Hi, I have a friend that was brought in for emergency surgery. Where would I find her?”
“There’s a waiting room on three. You can register there and let the secretary know who your friend is. The family should be up there, and you can sit with them.”
“Thank you.” She gave the clerk her best smile and blinked her green eyes at him.
The look she got said he would remember her for her beauty nothing else. They took off looking for the elevator. She waited for Cole to cringe when he got on but nothing. He was finally recovering.
They walked off the elevator and disappeared into their surroundings. The waiting room wasn’t hard to find. There was no one in there except Jessie's mother and several hired guns.
“You fools,” she was whispering furiously. “Why would you shoot her in her abdomen. She might die on the table, and then we’ll never get our hands on her brat.”
“Whoever has her will turn her over to Children and Youth Services. No one wants to raise someone else’s brat.”
“It doesn’t work that way people always want babies and Mia’s gorgeous. She looks just like her mother wild black hair and blue eyes.”
Cole walked into the small area where they were sitting. The recovery room was broken down into intimate areas for family and friends to gather as they waited for the news about their loved ones.
There were four rockers three of them occupied. There was a television they could watch. Across from them was a beverage area. There was also a long screen that showed a series of numbers telling you where your loved one was.
Cait checked the secretary’s books when she walked away. Jessie was in surgery which meant they had to wait. He knew it, but he wanted to rip her away from the doctors that operated on her and get her home where he knew she would be well.
He sat down in the fourth rocker the one beside her mother and watched as they looked at it moving.
“I told you it was cold in here. Even the stupid rocker is moving on its own.”
“Or it’s haunted maybe Jessie is sitting there because of what we did to her.”
“You killed my baby.” Her head dropped into her hands when she raised it there wasn’t a tear in her eye.
“You’re not that upset.”
“With her out of the way I can go back to abducting children and selling them.”
“Times are different it won’t be that easy anymore.”
She shrugged, “Then I’ll take all the money I got saved and retire somewhere warm.”
“Not until you get me the last child you promised, black hair and blue eyes. I have someone who wants her.”
“Children don’t last long with him.”
“When did yo
u start caring?”
“The Murphy family.”
“I’m Ms. Murphy.”
“The doctor is waiting for you in the meeting room.” After giving them the direction she smiled.
They silently followed them until they entered the room. The doctor was already there.
“Mrs. Murphy?”
“Yes, how is my daughter?” Her voice was laced with concern as if she loved her child.
“I regret to inform you she died on the table.”
Her mother doubled over before standing and straightening her shoulders.
“You can sign for the body to have her moved to the parlor of your choice.”
Declyn silently told Cole, Enzo, Tristan, and Cait to retrieve her body. The others he wanted with him.
“I can’t bear to handle my daughter’s body. Please dispose of it in any way you see fit.”
They followed the mother
Chapter fifteen
Cole’s body was vibrating it took every bit of discipline that he learned through the years when he was fighting to stay in control. The anger that burned in his eyes promised that each of them would die. The pain that shredded his heart wondered what he would do if he never saw Jessie’s smile again.
Cait took the lead having memorized the layout of the hospital. They walked silently until she came to an elevator that was marked hospital staff only. They boarded with another staff member and hit the button to the floor with the morgue on it.
“Damn elevator. One day someone most likely me is going to get stuck in it. Like I want to get stuck next to the morgue. Haven’t they ever heard of the night of the living dead?” He continued to mumble to himself until the doors opened. He got off, and they waited for the elevator to descend to the bottom floor.
Once the hallway was clear, they opened the door and slipped into the morgue. Jessie was lying on a metal table in the middle of the room. There were instruments on the side.
“They were going to cut her open.” The anger in his voice made the air around them cold.
“Jessie.” His lips on hers were soft.
“Cole.” There was a gasp in the room as both Tristan and Cait ran to her.
“I told him you would come for me.”
“Told who?”
“The doctor he was going to send me upstairs, but I woke up. He said I shouldn’t have. I told them everything…well not everything. I told them how my mother tried to kill me and told him if he didn’t believe me go tell her I was dead.”
“You still might be. There are fragments of the bullet in your heart.” Cait had a small handheld device over her chest.
“I know the doctor told me. I told him my real family was coming for me. I wanted to die with you.” Cole squeezed her hand.
“Tristan, Cait?”
“Pick her up but be careful I don’t want those fragments shifting. We’ll be right behind you, we just need to liberate some blood.”
He lifted her carefully from the table.
“Cole I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize you saw your mother die. I never had one. I would sit around when I was younger and wonder if it would be nice to have a mother or a father.”
“It’s not nice.”
“I see trasire.”
“I used to dream that one day my mother and I would talk and she would confess her secret love for me, and we would be a family. How stupid, she has no love for me.”
“It’s not stupid you have a heart big enough to love anyone, everyone. Your mother doesn’t have a heart she doesn’t know what love is. I don’t know why and as of right now I don’t care why.”
“She laughed Cole. I could hear her laughter in the darkness as I search for a way back to the light.”
“You have to let go of your dreams of your mother. She’s poison, Jessie.”
“I know. I couldn’t believe that she told them to shoot. No, I’m lying I could believe it, but I just didn’t want it to be true.”
“Why does she hate me?”
“Don’t cry trasire.”
He placed her in the back of Enzo’s car and climbed back there to hold her tight.
“I’ll get us home as soon as possible.”
He nodded and watched Jessie breath as she slept in his arms.
“What are you going to do?”
“Take Jessie home and do everything in my power to make sure she recovers. I want to be a family, Enzo. I want to walk down the street with that stupid look on my face, the one you have ever since you and Deja mated. Then I want to kill them.”
He watched Enzo nod and knew he understood. There wasn’t a male or female without blood on their hands unless you looked at Jade, Mia, and Jessie. The rest of them killed and then killed again. They came to the earth and blended in, but that didn’t stop the fact that they were killers. It was written in their enzymes, and they would pay for what they did to her.
Enzo pulled up in front of his house. “Tristan says they’re five minutes behind us.”
“The door will be open.”
“We’ll keep Mia tonight.”
“Thank you, for everything.”
He walked in taking Jessie to their bedroom. She was dressed in the clothes she was shot in, he stripped her and put the clothes in a pile to be burned later. He placed the covers over her. Cait or Tristan was going to have to operate, so there was no need to cover her from the chest up. He growled when he thought of Tristan seeing her without clothes.
Possessiveness, that was something he never felt before. He dressed her in a half shirt so they would be able to access her wound and put a pair of shorts on her. Her life was in danger, and he felt stupid for being jealous, but that didn’t stop the feeling.
“Cole, thank you for dressing her appropriately, now I need you to move back.”
He growled while he held her hand. Tristan bristled making Cait step between them.
“We need a sterile field, and it’s only going to work on so many bodies. We’re not on the ship. It comes down to hold her hand while she dies or step back.”
He stepped back. Tristan deployed the shield that took up a large part of the room. They pulled out several different tools for healing. The tools had been modified to keep them from showing up on the government's radar.
He watched every move. Tristan opened her up with a laser. They took her heart out of her body at one point. He knew they were detecting the shrapnel the bullet left behind. There was a big hole in her aorta showing the path the bullet took.
He paced, he sat, then he paced again as several hours passed. Declyn came in to check on him and made him drink fluids. They didn’t do well if they weren’t nourished properly. Then he paced some more until he saw her heart go back into her chest and they began to seal it. Cait turned to the wound in her abdomen and began working on that until finally they were done.
They deconstructed the sterile field calling him to come join them.
“Now we wait. I feel like we’ve been here before. I don’t know if her heart will recover. She’s young and healthy. I gave her two transfusions while we were working on her. When she recovers, she will have to take it easy, no waitressing, no lifting anything heavier than Mia. I want this to work, but we did a mix of alien medicine and human medicine.”
“I understand. Can I lay next to her?”
“Yes, but don’t move her.”
He watched as they cleaned up and then left. He went to take a shower not wanting to take the risk that some foreign body clung to him. He came out and slid in the bed next to her. He moved over until his shoulder was touching hers. He entwined his finger with hers and fell asleep.
It was the feel of a cool cloth being gently applied to her face that made her struggle to open her eyes. What was wrong with her? She felt like there was an elephant sitting her chest. There was cool water wiped on her lips, and she wanted some. Her throat was parched, but her eyes refused to open. So, she decided to do them on at a time. She got the first one to rise a little, b
ut the light in the room made her slam it shut.
“I turned the light off.”
Cole. The name rolled around in her brain she knew him he was special but she couldn’t put all the pieces together. She tried to open her eyes again. They came up to half mast, and she looked around the room wondering where she was.
“Thirsty.”
“No liquids until you get looked at.” He pulled out his phone and gave Tristan a call. He sat on the bed and took her hand.
“They will be here in a couple of minutes. You’re going to have to take it slow and easy until you heal, but you’re awake that’s all that’s important.”
“I was sleeping?” Her voice was still groggy. Who was she?
“You slept for eight days healing. The procedure wasn’t an easy one for your body.”
“Who am I?”
“You’re Jessie.”
There was a knock on his bedroom door.
“Come in.”
“She’s awake.”
“She doesn’t know who she is.”
“That’s to be expected,” Cait said coming in after Tristan. “She had massive blood loss and a few minutes where the brain was starved. Her memory will come back. Temporary amnesia.”
She moved closer to the bed to examine her. “Jessie, what’s your mother’s name?”
“Carol Murphy.” Her voice shook, and fear entered her eyes.
“Do you have a daughter?”
“Mia Murphy.” A smile curved her lips. “Where is she?” She tried to sit up, but Tristan pushed her back down.
“No moving until we check you out.”
“Mia is fine. I take care of her every day, but Deja keeps her at night. Both Declyn and Enzo say they made the best call ever when they hired Deja to be a bartender since I’ve not been there. Everyone says they miss you.”
“People miss me?”
“Yes, Jessie you are loved.”
“You’re Cole. I know you’re important to me, but I can’t put it all together.”
“Stop trying trasire it will come back to you.”
“You call me that all the time but I don’t know what it means.”
Cole (The Wolves Den Book 2) Page 10
