by Scott, R. J.
"Nothing. Just shit in my head." He shrugged and Dale crossed his arms over his chest.
"Phone Jake, yeah?" he said simply.
"If I have to." Subject closed, Kayden deliberately picked his cell up from the table and pretended to scrutinize
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it. Dale huffed his own laugh and left, presumably to pack his gear. Kayden wondered for a moment if Dale's new posting was all on the up and up, or if it was more of this unofficial shit. If the case he was on now, babysitting this kid who'd had the snot kicked out of him, had been official then Sanctuary would have put him in one of the city located safe houses with medical units. Being out in the middle of freaking nowhere surrounded by trees and behind a wall of security smacked too much of his childhood. Jake knew damn well Kayden only took cases in the damn city.
So why dump him here?
His cell vibrated again and Kayden simply turned
the phone off. All he was doing was delaying the inevitable lecture. He wasn't actually cutting off total lines of communication simply because the whole place was wired to Sanctuary ops. Jeez. You could even contact them from the bathrooms. Still, he felt a little thrill at ending the call.
Jake Callahan may well be rich enough to have created, run, and built the Sanctuary Foundation but hell if that meant a thing to Kayden. To him, Jake was his annoying elder stepbrother. The young man who, at the tender age of nineteen along with his dad, had liberated Kayden and a few others from a compound at the ass end of nowhere. An ex-veteran compound, it was all Kayden had known from a young age but when Jake arrived as part of some liberating
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mission, fourteen-year-old Kayden had been the first to switch sides.
Hell. That was only because his dad had made him.
"You're a waste to us here. Fucking useless when all you want to do is book learn." His dad had spat that at him with the fire of trauma-driven hate in his eyes. "May as well do what they say and move out. I can't protect you no more. You have to make your own way." Stupid thing was, book learning remained a useful tool. With both the
learning and the experience Kayden was the best in the compound. The best learner, the best fighter, the best at strategy. Still, nothing he had done for his father had ever been good enough and the young Kayden had tried so damn hard every single day.
Kayden closed his eyes and leaned his head back on
the sofa. Only when his dad had held his hand tightly with blood and air escaping his chest from a wound as big as Kayden's fist did he get the real reason why his dad had screamed he was useless. It was, according to the fucking idiot, the only way Jack Summers knew to get him to leave the place that his dad called his own form of sanctuary.
God knows why Kayden was so damned
introspective today. He turned the cell back on and near
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immediately it vibrated in his hand. This time Kayden answered the call with a curt hello.
"Kayden. Stop avoiding my calls." Jeez. Jake sounded pissed.
"I'm not avoiding them. I was busy." Kayden lied.
Jake didn't even call him on it but he was used to Kayden's avoidance tactics.
"Dale's been re-assigned so you're Robert Bullen aka Beckett Jamieson's case controller now."
"There's not a lot to control. The kid's still
unconscious."
"Still?" Jake sounded skeptical and professional pride put Kayden's back up. He contemplated retorting with reasons why the kid, beaten to within a breath of dying, was probably not choosing to join humanity for a while but he didn't. That the trauma the young man had undergone had left him with internal injuries and a fractured arm and swelling so bad on his face that it was near unthinkable he would ever heal. Instead, Kayden resorted to what Jake expected from him. What everyone expected from him.
"I poked him with a stick. He didn't move."
Jake snorted. He could see through his brother's
smoke blowing instinctively. "Just keep me apprised."
"I'll keep you apprised." Kayden confirmed with sarcasm dripping from the words.
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"Hell K, what crawled up your ass and died?" For the first time in a while Jake sounded stressed and tired. It wasn't easy juggling millions of dollars in investments to the face of the world and then running Sanctuary behind the scenes. Added to that he knew Jake was being shadowed by some kind of FBI internal investigator. What the hell for no one other than Jake knew. As a man he should be
respecting Jake and answering civilly. As a younger brother he really didn't know what to say to Jake's question. 'You sent me to the middle of freaking nowhere with a comatose patient', would probably be a start. Instead he just chose silence and finally Jake huffed his disapproval. "Not all your cases can be action filled little brother."
Kayden frowned and felt more than a little
uncomfortable. Jeez. How did Jake do that? How did he manage to cut to the heart of what drove Kayden's bad mood.
"You know I don't do sitting around well. I have all this need in me to get physical. I'd give anything for a good fist fight," Kayden replied. Jake was the only one on this earth he would ever say that to. The restrained violence that lived inside of Kayden was only thinly veiled by civility.
He had a temper but it never blew. He couldn't allow it to.
That would mean losing control and Kayden didn't lose control. Ever.
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"A few days, K. Get him awake and debrief him.
Then we can move him to another safe house, assign this elsewhere." He paused and Kayden imagined his brother ticking off items in his head. "Also, we have a training camp for some newbies and I could use your skills on that after you're done."
Great. Just what he needed. Raw recruits from the
alphabets—FBI, CIA, who the hell ever. All needing to be retaught skills and how to control being the one that stopped the bullet.
"I need my martial arts expert," Jake continued. "I need the strategy expert."
"Yeah, yeah." Kayden waved away the words. He didn't need to hear he was the best. Jake had him on the training team for hand to hand, strategy and survival.
Whatever people insisted on labeling his skills, he knew that was the type of thinking that led to letting your guard down, didn't keep you at your peak. He had learned his lessons well and scars on his back and thighs proved just how much he had suffered for what he got wrong. At least in Sanctuary the training was civilized and included beer after. The irony of it all was being so damn good at hurting and defending didn't count for anything when the call to want to train as a medic happened. The intensity of his focus led him to want to be a healer. He had seen so much
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illness and pain, psychological damage, and PTSD that went untreated or remained misunderstood when his dad refused outside help for his fellow Veterans. Kayden wanted to learn to fix everyone. Jake had never commented when Kayden had announced his degree choice. Just
supported the decision in the way an elder brother would.
Kayden's portion of the Callahan estate stretched
into the millions and became his entitlement when Callahan senior had adopted Kayden officially. Not that Kayden wanted it nor did he officially change his surname from Summers. Still. It saw him through medical school and as soon as he had that pass under his belt he was back at Sanctuary. Home.
"I'll get him conscious, assess him, then pass him off. Agreed?" Kayden asked. Kayden could help a person heal phy
sically. He knew exactly how every nerve and muscle connected in a web of life inside a broken body. He could support broken bones and organize meds. He just preferred it when his patients were awake.
Jake sighed. "Okay. Agreed. Keep in touch, K."
"Yeah." He ended the call there. They didn't need to exchange anything else. What was unsaid remained in his head and would be in Jake's. The brotherly things that men had a hard time vocalizing.
"He give you a hard time?" Dale piled three bags on
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the table and knocked Kayden's feet off of their
comfortable perch.
"Big brothers do that." Kayden offered with a grimace.
"Did he mention the training camp?" Dale wasn't looking at him. He was rifling through his munitions bag and carefully pulling pieces of a dismantled Sig from the inside.
"Yeah, he did."
"You take care," Dale said simply. He picked up his bags and with the disarming wide grin, that really would not give up, Dale left Sanctuary eighteen.
* * * *
Kayden checked in on the kid and analyzed another
problem he was having at the moment. The young guy
remained unconscious and the bruising on his face was spectacular; a myriad of green and black as well as splits in the skin. The bruises would disappear; the splits would close when the swelling decreased. Under the sheet
Robert's body was covered in similar marks. Clearly the Bullen brothers had decided that the prodigal son's return was a good excuse for using the kid as a punching bag.
Kayden wondered if Robert had given anything up under
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the punishment that had been meted out. What the hell did they think he had that warranted this kind of abuse?
Compassion flooded him as it did whenever an innocent was caught up in something dark and undefinable.
Had he broken or had Dale and Joseph arrived in
time to stop anything being said? Gregory may well be dead but Alastair was alive and bemoaning his brother's terrible self-inflicted accident. Kayden pulled the sheet back to check on his patient and that there was where his final source of stress with this whole shit-fest of an assignment lay. Shit, the kid was pretty.
Very fit, tall and slim but not too skinny. Possibly five nine or ten he was all lean, toned flesh with a swimmer's build—narrow and spare. He was naked under the sheet and Kayden felt like some kind of pervert to be checking vitals and at the same time checking everything else. Every single mark and muscle stood indelibly burned into Kayden's brain. From the top of his patient's head and his short dark hair to the tip of his toes he was gorgeous and that thought made him squirm.
Kayden was twenty-six; only five years older than
the kid in years but so much older in experience. That didn't stop Kayden from thinking what he did. Shit. Really, under the bruises and the pain the kid was gorgeous. And the very fact that Kayden even registered that with
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someone as young and in need of protection as Robert Bullen made him feel sick with himself. Besides, Robert was straight as evidenced by the girlfriend murdered in the alley.
It had been too long since he had enjoyed fucking
someone. At least three months. Way too long. Perving on a patient was top of his no go list.
Dropping the sheet he edged back, noted vitals on
the pad at the end of the bed then left his patient's room.
For some really strange reason he couldn't bear to be in the same room as the innocent youth that lay in that bed.
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CHAPTER 3
"Good evening, Robert." The words startled Beckett and hung there like this Kayden guy expected a response.
He formed one in his mind. Good evening. Where am I?
What happened?
"Ngah," was what actually came out of his mouth.
"Okay. We have a conscious patient. Open your
eyes, Robert."
"Beck—can't…" Pain shafted from one temple to the other and he was so thirsty.
"Come on, open your eyes and I'll give you an ice chip." There was no threat there exactly but it wasn't a deal Beckett could engage in. He lifted a hand and a scraping clicking sound came from his shoulder, the pain
accompanying it existed way past what he could handle.
"Pain…" he gasped and blackness crept at him from the edges. He pushed it away ruthlessly. There was no way this side of hell that he was giving in to it again.
"Okay, I'm dialing you up here." Beckett wasn't sure what Kayden meant but the pain subsided and the ice placed on his lips proved blessed relief. So much for the deal. "Open your eyes now."
Every single fiber of his being willed his eyelids
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open and he could feel them move but there remained
darkness, a milky textured confused blackness that let nothing in. He closed his lids again tight.
"Don't go back to sleep."
Beckett swallowed. His throat felt better and
Kayden gave him another ice chip.
"M'not sleepin'."
"Sure looks like it, kid."
"Not kid." Beckett winced as the Doc pulled at his hand and sharp insistent pain pulled at his skin, biting and cutting. What the hell? "No."
"Just changing your drip. Keep still. Everything will be all right in a second." There was a pause but it didn't sound as if Kayden left. That was proven when the man started talking. "Got yourself a little beaten up. No cracked ribs that we could see, but one hell of a lot of bruises. Your face took the brunt of it but no permanent damage turned up on the X-rays. One broken arm all plastered. Can you tell me where the pain is?"
"Head." Beckett lifted that same hand but this time he bent it at the wrist and cautiously he pressed cool fingers against his face. It didn't feel like his face, which was numb to his touch. Everything was numb except the pain in his head and in his eyes. Fire ants were behind his lids biting at him. He placed a finger on his eyelid and opened that one.
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Still the same fuzzy darkness. "Eyes."
"Your face is quite bruised."
"Can't see." He really couldn't see. There was no way around it. He could feel his eyes were open but there was nothing. Only a little light and no clear face to put to the speech. From the voice Beckett could tell this was the guy who wanted to be the filling in some kind of sex sandwich. Not that this memory actually made one lick of sense. His voice was deep and authoritative and he was explaining why Beckett couldn't see. Beckett wasn't really following the explanation; every word he heard remained wrapped in confusion. Still, the man's confident tone comforted despite the cotton wool in his brain.
"The swelling is pressing on your eye. It's a
temporary blindness. Give it a few days and you'll be back to normal. For now you need sleep." Brisk and efficient, the voice was giving him permission to do what he most
wanted to do. Shut his eyes and let sleep take him away where he didn't have to remember anything of how he came to be in this much freaking pain.
* * * *
"Up and at 'em Robert. Let's get you out of bed today." That damn voice was the bane of his life. One
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minute telling him to sleep, the next telling him to sit, roll over, swallow pills. It was never ending. Beckett's arm ached, his head hurt and he was one annoyance away from totally los
ing his shit.
"My name is Beckett," he snapped irritably.
"Okay Beckett, I'll mark it on your records."
"Are you laughing at me?" He wished, not for the first time that he could see the expression on the doctor's face.
No," Kayden sounded puzzled. "I'm genuinely marking it on your file."
"Oh." Well, that was a lame response. But seriously.
Was Kayden actually marking his records? Couldn't he remember a single name any other way? Jeez. Did he have other patients? Was there a whole ward of victims here? He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Being blind was like a life sentence to not know anything about anything.
"So tell me what you can see now." Kayden's firm touch was over his body. From the brush of air against his skin it was clear he was naked and the doc would probably see everything. Fuck, he really hoped there wasn't an entire ward of other people.
"Blurred, dark. Why am I naked? My head hurts."
"You've had painkillers that should kick in soon,"
Kayden replied thoughtfully. "Do you need something else
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that will work quicker?"
"No," Beckett replied. "I don't want anything else."
Nothing that made his head as muddled as it had been. He wanted to get his thoughts in order.
"It wouldn't hurt to—"
"I promise you. More tablets or whatever the hell it is you keep pumping into me isn't what I need."
"Okay." Kayden slipped two hands under his arms and effortlessly helped Beckett upright before moving pillows and settling him back to a lying position. The scent of the doctor was a mix of clean clothes and soap and the feel of harder material against his skin implied the doc wore one of those stiff starched white coats. He wondered what this Kayden looked like. Older than Beckett by miles was his first thought. And strong. Beckett was no
