by Ladew, Lisa
The driver pressed a button and the side door slid closed behind them. He pulled away into traffic and Katerina saw the FBI agent at the hospital screaming into his radio and gesturing after them.
Kane turned to her, not giving her even a second to react to what had just happened, malice lacing his words. “They say you are psychic. Is that true?”
Katerina nodded, knowing it would do no good to lie.
“Tell me what you saw that made you call the police that night.”
“I saw you, with that gun in your hand, holding it up to Ronan’s head and telling him to take another pill, swallow another pill.”
Kane nodded, his black eyes glittering dangerously and the scar on his neck thickening and lengthening as his chin rose and fell. “Tell me what else you saw.”
“Nothing, there was nothing more,” Katerina said as the van shot through the streets of Westwood Harbor, ignoring traffic signals. Her heart slammed against her breastbone and she wondered if they would get out of this alive.
Kane watched Katerina closely, then swung his gun towards West, never taking his eyes off of Katerina. “Perhaps if I shoot this man? Perhaps then you will remember what else you saw, what else Ronan knew?”
“No!” Katerina cried. “I swear there was nothing else-”
The gunshot boomed loudly in the confined space. Kane had never taken his eyes from hers, and yet he had pulled the trigger as if he had nothing to lose. Katerina’s gaze flew to West. He was turned towards them in his seat, his eyes open wide, staring. His hands flew to his chest and Katerina saw blood burst from between his fingers. She screamed, one loud piercing scream that sounded impossibly loud in the enclosed space. Louder even than the gunshot had been.
No! This couldn’t be happening. Not West! Not ever West!
Katerina flung herself towards West, trying to climb over the seat to get to him, completely unaware that Kane even existed anymore. Kane put a hand on her chest and shoved her back into the seat, then brought the gun around to settle on her forehead. Bright, hot hate filled Katerina. He had shot West and she hadn’t been able to stop it, but Kane would not keep her from going to West, from helping him. No way.
Kane leaned forward and hissed in her face. “What else did he know? Tell me quick before I put a bullet in your boyfriend’s face. He can die with a face, or without, your choice.”
Katerina’s hands, her healing hands that had been reaching for West found Kane instead. In her anger, in her rage, all she could think was die, you bastard, die and let me reach West. Her hands went to either side of his head and immediately grew hot. Before Kane could react, before his expression could even change, his eyes flopped shut and his head drooped to his chest. He fell forward on Katerina and she pushed him away from her, feeling the heat in her hands disappear as soon as she broke contact with him. Blood leaked from the man’s ears and nose and mouth and she scrabbled away from him, not seeing it. She only had eyes for West.
The man in the seat with West cried out. “What did you do to him?! Oh my God, he’s dead!”
Katerina looked back at Kane for a moment and she could see it. His eyes were glassy and staring. His color had gone a dark, dusky gray, like dead blood had leaked behind the very skin of his face.
“What?” the driver yelled, craning his neck to see in his rear view mirror. Katerina’s eyes drew back to West. Kane was of no importance to her as long as he wasn’t going to shoot West again. West’s hands still covered the hole in his chest but his gaze had started to go soft. Katerina knew that look. He was dying.
She shot up and climbed over the seat in front of her, her mind only on West, completely unable to think of what the other men with guns would do to her. The man next to West jumped up from his seat and pushed backwards towards the front of the van as Katerina approached the seat he was in. “No, don’t touch me!” he shouted, his eyes transfixed on Katerina. The man driving slammed on the brakes and they all flew forward.
The driver turned around in his seat and lifted his head so he could see Kane over the other man. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he breathed, then threw the van into park and opened his door. He jumped out in one swift motion and ran away down the street. The man next to West looked at the gun in his own hand, then looked at Katerina who was only a foot from him. His whole body shook violently and his gun hand went limp. He climbed over the center console, following his partner out into the road.
Katerina paid them no mind. They could go. They could run forever for all she cared.
She put her hands on West’s chest as tears leaked down her face. “No, no, not West.” she said under her breath, then stilled herself long enough to look inside and see what she knew. Heart stopped. Shock. Bullet nicked it. Hole in it. Losing blood.
Katerina took a deep breath, and poured every ounce and essence of life and breath and being that she had inside of herself into West. He couldn’t die. She pressed hard against his chest, giving him everything she had, everything she was, and whispered, “Come back to me, West. I can’t lose you,” as she ignored the furor inside herself at her actions. She told his heart heal, stop bleeding, patch the hole. Fill back up with blood. Beat. Beat!
West remained motionless, his face white and slack. Katerina pressed her hands harder against his chest and repeated her commands. They were not requests. They were commands and demands and she would succeed! She would not fail him. Beat. Heal and beat. The raging hunger tore through her again but she paid it no mind. She felt her body being consumed from the inside as it used up all of her fat stores and started working on her muscles. The energy she needed for whatever she was doing was way beyond her normal stores and capabilities. Still, she pressed on, as her hands grew hotter and hotter, until West’s shirt began to smoke.
Finally, spent, she collapsed on top of him, as her hands went cold and motionless.
Chapter 14
West’s eyes flew open and he took a deep breath, feeling his ribs crackle in his chest. His hands flew up. Shot! He was shot in the chest and dying. He took in great, whooping breaths, waiting to feel his heart beat its last. Would he know when it happened? Would he live for a few more moments? Or would everything go dark immediately?
But his heart galloped along in his chest, like he was running a race, not sitting still in a van. He looked down at himself and probed his chest at the center of the bloody hole in his shirt. He felt whole and unharmed. But at his feet was Katerina, still and quiet, her eyes closed, her hands curled into skeletal fists.
“Katerina,” he cried. He bent and lifted her to him, noticing she weighed no more than a feather.
Her cheekbones stood out in acute relief, sharp enough to cut glass, the skin stretched across them painfully. “Oh, Katerina,” he moaned. “What did you do?”
That was obvious though, wasn’t it? She had healed him. Healed him at her own expense. He pressed two fingers to her wrist and was glad to feel a heartbeat there, but it was soft and faint and fluttery. He was the one who had been shot and she was the one now possibly dying. He looked around and realized they were alone. The van was stopped in the middle of traffic and horns honked as people went around him. Where had the three gunmen gone? He looked in the back of the van and saw Kurt Kane, slumped in the very rear seat, obviously gone beyond a chance of help. He grimaced and wondered what that had been like for Kane, and for Katerina.
He slid to the side door and opened it, holding Katerina on his lap, then he lifted her gently and climbed out into traffic, trying to get his bearings. From what he could tell they were at least a mile from the hospital. Too far for him to carry her. Although he felt like he could. He felt full of energy and ready to run a marathon, but no matter how fast he could run it could be too long. He needed a car.
He stood in the path of traffic and started to wave people down. “Help us,” he cried. “We need help. We need to get to the hospital. Please!”
Almost immediately, someone stopped. It was a blue minivan with a teenage boy driving.
“Oh thank God,” West said. “Thank you for stopping. Can you take us to the hospital?”
“Jump in,” the boy said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder to the sliding door behind him. West threw him a grateful look and opened the door, gently lifting Katerina in and kneeling with her between the seats.
“That her blood?” the boy asked as he stepped on the accelerator and hung a right.
“No, that’s my blood. I was shot.”
The boy’s eyes met his in the rear view mirror and West saw only admiration and belief there. “Hashtag awesome,” the boy said and West blinked, not sure he had heard correctly.
West dropped his eyes to Katerina’s face. What the boy had said didn’t matter. Only Katerina mattered. He was dismayed to see that the color in her face had gone paler, and the darkness under her eyes, darker. He pressed a finger to her throat and still felt a fluttery pulse there, but her breathing was slow and shallow. Her shirt had blood on it and he lost it for a moment, thinking she had been shot too. But then he realized it was his own blood, rubbing off on her. He grimaced and tried to wipe it away but ended up just smearing it.
He looked back up at the road, and was gratified to see the hospital in front of them. The boy drove quickly and competently. As the boy maneuvered the minivan into the emergency room drop-off lane, West tried to express his gratitude. Words seemed inadequate and he felt tears threaten. “Thanks, man,” he finally croaked. “You may have saved her life.”
“Yeah, dude, get her in there,” the boy said as his vehicle came to a stop, but West was already moving. He yanked the side door open and jumped out, running through the emergency room double doors with Katerina in his arms. He approached the glassed-in reception desk, passing the dozens of people in the waiting room. Katerina lay limp and motionless in his arms, not making a sound. Her body felt hot and light, dry as kindling.
He knew the woman behind the desk but in his dismay he had forgotten her name. He held Katerina up so she could see her. “She’s really sick, buzz us in,” he said. The woman took one look at his face and reached for the buzzer. West ran to the doors and pushed them open, walking down the hallway he’d traversed so many times before, but never with this sick feeling of dread in his heart. He didn’t have a room waiting for him, he had nothing, so he stopped at the triage desk. The nurse there stood, concern crossing her face. West could remember her name, thank God.
“Carol, you have to get us into a room quickly. She needs attention right away,” he said, his voice breaking.
Carol grabbed his sleeve and pulled him down the hallway. He followed her with relief. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know really. She just collapsed. “She’s got …” he trailed off, not sure what to say, “… a metabolic disorder,” he finished.
Carol pulled him to the left, into the first empty room. “Put her on the bed. I’ll get somebody in here to start working on her.”
Carol disappeared and West laid Katerina on the bed gently. “Katerina, can you hear me?” he whispered into her ear. No response. If he had been on the ambulance, this was when he would have checked to see if she was responsive to painful stimuli, rubbing her sternum, or pinching her trapezius muscle. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that to Katerina. He couldn’t knowingly inflict pain on her.
Two nurses rushed into the room and he stepped back, grateful. They would do what needed to be done. He would pray. The doctor came in behind the nurses and West was glad to see her. Her name was Doctor Reyes and she was one of the more competent doctors on staff. If anyone could fix Katerina, she could.
Doctor Reyes looked Katerina up and down, then pinched the web between Katerina’s finger and thumb. West winced when there was absolutely no response. Doctor Reyes turned to him. “What happened?” she said.
“She collapsed, Doctor Reyes.” He had already decided he wouldn’t mention her psychic thing or the healing that she had probably done. It would just confuse people and wouldn’t help anyone treat her. Doctor Reyes looked at West’s chest and raised an eyebrow. “What happened to you? Whose blood is that?”
West groaned internally. What could he say? He couldn’t admit it was his own blood, because as far as he could tell, he didn’t have a wound anymore. And it obviously wasn’t Katerina’s blood. The doctors eyes narrowed as she watched the result of the thought processes flash across West’s face.
“Uh, there’s a guy in a van back there and he’s dead and I need to call the FBI agent who is somewhere in the hospital because he needs to know about it,” West said, not really answering her question.
Doctor Reyes nodded, then spoke to the nurses over her shoulder. “When you get an IV in, normal saline, wide open.” Talking to West again, she said, “Why does she look so thin? Is she malnourished?”
West shook his head. “There’s something going on with her right now. Some sort of metabolic or metabolism issue. That’s why she collapsed. She’s using up too much food. The last time she was awake, she ate enough food for three grown men and she was still hungry.”
Doctor Reyes crossed her arms and held a finger up to her bottom lip, tapping it there. “Has she been under stress or strain?”
“Yeah, this guy that’s dead in the van? He tried to kill her. That’s why the FBI is involved. I really have to call him and let him know.”
Doctor Reyes gave him one more appraising look. “Call him, but stick around. Don’t leave the emergency room.” She dismissed him, turning on her heel and addressing the nurses, giving orders almost too fast for West to follow. But he knew that Katerina was in good hands. The best possible hands. And he had something to take care of.
He left the room quickly and found a laundry cart. He snatched a scrubs shirt off of it and walked to the bathroom. He cleaned the blood off of himself quickly and changed into the scrubs shirt, folding up his bloody shirt and looking around for somewhere to put it. He didn’t want to just throw it away. Something told him that it would be a better idea to save it. He didn’t know what for, but he didn’t want to ignore his impulses. Proof, maybe. He folded it as flat as possible and lifted up the large metal trashcan, then placed the shirt on the ground and put the trashcan on top of it. It was a little wobbly, so he pushed it into the corner. Perfect. He would come back and get it as soon as possible.
West left the bathroom and hurried to the reception desk. Now he remembered the woman’s name. Robin. She was sitting at the desk, talking to an irate woman outside the glass. “Robin, can I use one of the phones?”
Robin nodded distractedly to him and he picked up the handset and dialed nine for an outside line before he realized he didn’t know Craig Masterson’s number. He sat there for a moment, a blank look on his face, and then dialed another number.
He got Emma Masterson’s secretary on the first ring. “Sylvia, It’s West. is Lieutenant Masterson around?”
“Sure West, hold on.”
“Lieutenant Masterson.”
“Emma, it’s West. I really need to talk to your husband. He’s somewhere in the hospital but I need him to come to the ER. Katerina’s hurt and I know where the guy he is looking for is.”
Emma sucked in a breath and West hoped that she would hurry. He needed to get back to Katerina quickly.
“I can’t always get ahold of him right away, West. But I will try right now. Here, let me give you his cell phone number.”
“No thanks. I don’t have a phone. Just have him come see me in the emergency room, room A11.”
“Got it,” Emma said and West hung up the phone gently.
“Thanks Robin,” he said and hurried back to the room, praying that when he got there there would be some change in Katerina. Some good change.
Chapter 15
When West arrived back at Katerina’s room, there were even more people inside it. As far as he could tell, Katerina had not woken or moved at all. There was an IV in her left arm, and a tube in her mouth. It was a small tube, much smaller than a breathing tube. It was atta
ched to a bag and a small, white machine that was pumping a bland looking liquid through the two. She was being forcefed. Good.
The doctor and the two nurses were still there, and now there was a portable x-ray machine and two x-ray technicians. Waiting in line outside the door was an EKG technician with the EKG machine. West saw that everything possible was being done for Katerina and he knew he should feel better, but he felt worse. Her eyes were so sunken, her face completely ashen, and her skin was drawn tight over her bones. It was painful to look at her.
The x-ray technician ordered everyone out and while West was waiting in the hallway, Craig Masterson came in through the stairwell door, large strides eating up the distance to West quickly. Craig looked straight at him and West wasn’t sure how to read his expression. Angry? Determined?
“What happened?” Craig said as he drew even with West.
West was beginning to loathe that question. Here was another person he couldn’t tell the real story to. Craig hadn’t believed Katerina when she told him how she had seen what Kane had done. So he couldn’t be trusted with the rest of it.
“Katerina collapsed,” he said. “Kane got us, right under the nose of your agent, and then he died in the van and the two other men ran off. Katerina collapsed with the stress of it.”
Craig shook his head in disbelief and West could see the thousand questions just behind his lips. “Kane died? What? Where is he?”
“In a full-size van, stopped in traffic, on Government Street about a mile away.”
Craig brought his radio to his lips and spoke into it, his eyes burning holes into West. West wondered how much trouble this guy was going to make for him.
Craig jabbed a finger into West’s chest. “I’ll be back. Don’t you leave the emergency room.”
West nodded, but he knew if Katerina came around and he had a chance, he would be out of here in a second. They could leave, go anywhere, get out of California for good. Hide somewhere far away, another country maybe, where none of this could touch them.
