by Carly Fall
“Or gold coins,” Talin said.
“Ride that rainbow, Jovan,” Cohen said with a laugh.
“Okay, here they come,” Jovan said. “Put on your friendly faces, boys. Remember, we’re
supposed to be the goodwill ambassadors.”
Cohen turned to see Micah and two others of The Platoon, Simon and Jael, walking down
the street.
Jovan rolled down his window, and Talin handed him the box with the contacts.
Micah stepped up to the car.
“Hey, Micah, good to see you again, man. I got the contacts with me. Your life is about
to become a lot easier, my friend,” Jovan said. “And Noah says hey, and hopes that you enjoy
this gift.”
He handed Micah the box, and Cohen’s gut clenched. Something wasn’t right.
Micah smiled, and Jael appeared behind him. It was as if everything went into slow
motion. The gun came up, and two shots were rapidly fired, one hitting Jovan in the chest, the
other hitting Talin. Then the gun swung in Cohen’s direction, and he saw the flash of the muzzle
as he dove for the floor. He felt the fire and pain of the bullet as it pierced his bicep. There was
another shot, then he heard footsteps running away.
Cohen sat up and looked at Jovan and Talin. Jovan’s eyes were wide as he watched the
blood seep from his chest, and Talin was unconscious, but still breathing. The fourth shot had
apparently hit Talin, which made him the big winner with two holes in his chest.
Quickly, Cohen evaluated what needed to be done. First, he needed to get all of them out
of there. That was priority number one. Who knew if The Platoon would be back to make sure
the job was complete, or worse yet, the police. He heard sirens in the distance, letting him know
that someone had called in gunshots.
“I need to get us out of here,” he said to Jovan, who nodded. Cohen got out of the
Hummer and opened the front door. He pulled Jovan out and helped him into the back seat.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, he threw up a prayer that he would be able to get them somewhere safe in time so that he could heal both of them.
He pulled away from the curb and turned right. The freeway was dead ahead. If he could
get on it, they should be home free. Once they reached the deserted stretch of Highway 85, he
could pull over and heal them. He figured it would be about twenty minutes. Looking at both of
them, he didn’t know if they had twenty minutes. He might have to come up with a Plan B. A
garage somewhere? A neighborhood street? Dammit! He needed somewhere secluded. He
needed to concentrate, not worry about someone witnessing a good old-fashioned SR44 healing.
Once he reached the freeway, he fished out his phone and dialed Noah. It went to
voicemail. He cursed and dialed Rayner.
“Hello?” It was Faith.
“Faith, it’s Cohen. I need you to listen very carefully.”
He gave her the rundown, told her to have everyone meet him outside the silo, then hung
up. He was going to have to hope Talin and Jovan made it to the silo and he was need help
getting these guys out of the car.
Shit.
Both Talin and Jovan were bleeding, but breathing. Cohen took off his shirt that read,
There is no such thing as stupid questions, just stupid people, and ripped it in half. He pressed
one half to Talin’s chest, hoping to stop some of the bleeding. He might as be trying to stop a
tornado with a hand-held fan.
“Both of you fuckers better hang in there!” he yelled. Jovan groaned, which Cohen
considered an excellent sign.
Once he hit Highway 85, he stepped on the gas. There were very few patrols down here,
which was good. A few minutes later, he turned onto the dirt road, dirt and rocks flying all
around him. He noticed the chain link gates leading to the silo were opened, which meant he
didn’t have to slow down.
As he pulled up to the front of the silo, the front door burst open.
“Jovan!” Liberty screamed, tears streaming down her face, the others in the silo right
behind her. She rushed to the backdoor and threw it open.
Noah grabbed her and spun her around. “You need to focus, Liberty. Losing your shit
now isn’t going to help him. We need you to apply pressure to the wound and remain calm so
Cohen can do his thing, okay?”
She nodded, and in controlled chaos, Talin and Jovan were lifted out of the Hummer and
into the house.
Annis stood at the top of the steps. It was obvious to him that she was irritated at her lack
of sight. “Cohen?” she called.
“I’m right here,” he said, climbing the metal stairs.
“You’ve been hurt as well!” she said, reaching for him.
“How did you know?” he asked, pulling her in to his chest.
“I can smell the blood!”
He guided her into the house and was met in the kitchen area by everyone.
“It doesn’t look like either have much time,” Noah said. “We better just get the healings
done ASAP.”
Cohen glanced over at the kitchen floor, where Talin and Jovan laid side by side. Liberty
sat with Jovan’s head in her lap, pressing on the chest wound. Her face was dry, her demeanor
calm, but the storm of emotions brewed just below the surface. Everyone else was gathered, the
silence in the room deafening. As he studied their worried faces, he knew they were all
depending on him to save Jovan and Talin. He took a deep breath and went over to them,
kneeling in between Jovan and Talin.
Both were in bad shape, but Talin had two holes while Jovan had one. He needed to start
with Talin and hoped that Jovan would hold on.
He closed his eyes and put his hands on Talin’s chest and abdomen. Channeling his
energy into him, he got a lay of the land. Both bullets had missed his heart, but an artery was
nicked, and one bullet was lodged in his lung. The other had traveled down to his liver and out
his side.
Next he waited for Talin’s energy to join with his own so that the healing process could
begin.
Nothing. He shifted on his knees and focused again. “C’mon, Talin,” he whispered.
“Where are you?”
Again, nothing.
“Rayner!” Cohen yelled. “Where’s his goddamned energy?”
Rayner looked around and a string of curses left his lips as his gaze fell on Talin’s body.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rayner yelled.
Cohen stood and looked down at Talin. He couldn’t see anything, but he knew Rayner
had found Talin’s energy.
“What’s he saying?” Cohen asked.
“You don’t want to do this, Talin,” Rayner said, shaking his head.
“Rayner, a little help here,” Cohen said.
Rayner shook his head again. “He’s floating right above his body. He doesn’t want to
live. He says his reason for living died when SR44 was destroyed.”
There was silence for a moment, then Rayner said, “He wants you to help Jovan. He . . .
he doesn’t want to be helped. He’s . . . asking that we let him go.”
Cohen looked around at the shocked faces. The fact of the matter was that there was
nothing he could do for someone who didn’t want to be helped. Unlike human medicine, he
needed Talin’s energy in order for the healing to be effective. Without Talin’s energy, there
wasn’t anything Cohen could do.
He looked over at Beverly, Hudson’s mate and a human doctor. She had tears in her eyes
as she met his gaze. “Beverly?” Cohen said.
She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s lost so much blood, Cohen. We would need to get the
operating table set up, and I don’t have the right instruments . . . I don’t know if it would do any
good.”
“We have to try!” Cohen yelled.
She nodded.
“Talin is begging you not to,” Rayner said quietly. “He’s asking us to please let him go to
be with his lovren.”
Cohen swore and looked over at Jovan and Liberty. He didn’t have time to fight with
Talin, but he could save Jovan. He knelt next to him and put his energy into Jovan’s body. Jovan
met him right away, and together they were able to repair the damage the bullet had left.
As the final moments of mending were taking place within Jovan, Rayner said, “He’s
gone. Talin’s gone.”
Chapter 45
Annis stood hesitantly at Cohen’s door.
After Jovan had been healed, Cohen had told Liberty that Jovan needed to rest, and then
Cohen left. She heard the door to the stairway shut.
They all stood in shocked silence, the only noise from those quietly crying.
“We . . . we . . . uh, need to get this place cleaned up,” Noah said, his voice choked with
emotion.
Shadows formed in front of Annis, and a moment later she could see. She was stunned as
she gazed around at the bodies and blood.
There was so much blood everywhere. Jovan was trying to sit up, and Noah and Liberty
were helping him. They led him to the elevator and disappeared.
“We’ll need to do a burial,” Hudson said quietly. “Someone help me with the body.”
“I’ll go get a gurney,” Rayner said, and he and Faith went to the stairway.
They returned minutes later, and Annis stepped up to help Hudson lift Talin on it. She
couldn’t help but notice that Talin looked peaceful, and she realized she had never seen him look
so content. She spread a white sheet over him.
Hudson, Beverly, and Rayner wheeled the body out of the silo, and Abby and Faith went
to the pantry to get buckets and mops. Blake, Nico, and Annis stood in silence.
Faith and Abby both had tears streaming down their faces. They didn’t need to be doing
this awful job. They had known Talin a lot longer than Annis had, and Annis imagined this
would be very difficult for them. “Go and be with your mates,” Annis said. “Please. Go comfort
each other.”
“Yes. I’ll help Annis,” Blake said.
“As will I,” said Nico.
Abby and Faith began to argue, but Annis, Nico, and Blake would have none of it.
Slowly, everyone disappeared, and the three of them cleaned the blood in silence, making sure
that the black marble floor shone brightly and was free of any reminders of the bloodbath that
had once been.
When the blood was cleaned up, Nico excused himself, and Blake and Annis held each
other for a long time. Words weren’t needed, and Annis felt comforted by Blake’s embrace, but
she knew there was someone else who needed comforting more than she did.
And here she was at Cohen’s door.
She knocked softly.
The door opened a moment later, and Cohen stared at her, anguish showing in his face.
“Hello, Cohen,” she said.
He nodded. “I was hoping it was you,” he said, stepping aside.
She walked into the room and turned to face him.
He took two steps toward her and wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his head in
her neck. Annis held him, feeling the wetness of his tears against her skin. She noticed he had
healed the wound in his arm.
“There was nothing you could do, Cohen,” she said. “You can’t make someone want to
live.”
He nodded. “I know, Annis. I know.”
Chapter 46 – Two Weeks Later
Cohen paced the bedroom, no drink in hand. He was going to go to bed at some point, but
when that was, he didn’t know. Nico lay in the cot, his arm over his face.
“Cohen, its three in the morning. Please. Just go to fucking bed.”
Cohen looked over at him, both highly curious and pissed off. It was Nico’s fault that he
couldn’t go to sleep. Most nights he’d be very, very drunk right now having curled up with the
good Captain and sleeping it off.
But not tonight.
Tonight he was dead sober.
Things had been incredibly busy and devastatingly sad around the silo. They had buried
Talin in a midnight ceremony out in the middle of the desert, in the exact spot where he had told
Cohen about his scorpions and snakes that haunted his life. Then they had come back to the silo
and began the three-day party ritual that was custom on SR44 where they remembered the
deceased with memories of his life.
There had been ample booze, more food than was necessary, and by the end of the three
days, Cohen felt as if he was ready accept, and eventually move past Talin’s death. Talin had
brought them all so much joy in life with his brilliance and practical jokes.
A lot of memories had been traded during the three days, from both SR44 and Earth,
which led to a lot of laughs. Yes, there had been some tears as well, but Talin had led a good,
honest, solid life, and it was definitely one to be remembered and celebrated. Both Blake and
Hudson decided that they wouldn’t be getting new phones in memory of Talin, as neither could
figure out how to get past the locking mechanism on their ringtones to change them.
There hadn’t been any talk of retaliation against The Platoon, but Cohen knew that would
come at some point. The Saviors and their mates had stuck with celebrating, but eventually the
need to have Micah atone for cold-blooded murder would come into play when they got past the
shock and devastation of the senseless death.
Cohen had spent hours thinking about Talin dying, and there was a small piece of him
that believed it was for the best. Talin didn’t want to live without Lana, but would never take his
own life—it went against everything a Warrior stood for. Getting shot had been his way of going
to be with Lana for eternity, and Cohen hoped that Talin found his happiness and peace in death
that he didn’t have for over two-hundred years of his life.
Presently, Cohen looked over at Nico. He both recoiled at the thought of Nico entering
his dreams, but wanted him to just so he could make sure that what Nico said was true—that Mia
wanted to release him of his Tambaran.
And that also had his engine going as well. There was so much confusion where that little
slice of information was concerned. Yes, he wanted Annis—there wasn’t any argument there.
Things between them had been going well since Talin's death, and they were definitely on good
terms with each other. However, he didn’t know if he was ready to let go of Mia even if Nico
was right and she wanted him to let go of his oath. What if Nico was wrong? What if he broke
his Tambaran? Where would that leave him? He would drown in his own guilt, his own betrayal.
Nico could spew his shit on what that meant or what this meant, but unless he heard it
from the horse’s mouth, so to speak—because Mia didn’t resemble a horse in any way, shape, or
form—he couldn’t believe it. He needed her to release
him, to allow him to go on with his life.
Whether he was ready for that or not was a different question.
He had spent a couple of hours discussing things with Hudson, of all people. Usually
Rayner was his go-to guy, but Cohen thought Hudson might have the answers to his questions.
He’d been wrong.
“How is that you’ve fallen in love twice now, Hudson? SR44 males are supposed to have
one mate, and one mate only.”
Hudson shrugged. “Don’t know, my man. I know I loved Iris, and I love Bev. It’s a
different love though. I don’t think its possible to love two people the same because there are
different kinds of love. You have parent love, kid love, and lovren love. Iris is not the same as
Beverly.”
“Yeah, but why? How is it all possible?”
“I don’t know, Cohen. Maybe we’re evolving. Maybe the gods are seeing that an SR44
male without his mate is an ugly thing to witness, and they’re changing us. The why’s aren’t
important to me. I just know that I was in a bad place for a long time, and now I’m happy. I’m
not questioning it. I just accept my blessing and move on.”
A lot of help he had been.
Cohen threw himself on the bed and switched off the lamp.
“Finally,” Nico mumbled into the darkness.
A moment later, Cohen heard his soft snores. Jesus, that was the last thing he needed. He
flipped over on to his stomach and covered his head with a pillow, making a mental note to pick
up some earplugs.
Chapter 47
Cohen was in an inky darkness. He held up his hand in front of his face, but he couldn’t
see it.
In the distance, a red-rose pinpoint slowly grew larger.
He suddenly felt another presence and looked around, but couldn’t see anyone.
“The darkness represents where you are now,” Nico said. “What your life has become. It
is a black void. Lonely.”
No shit.
“I will be here, but you won’t be able to see me. I will remain hidden as not to interfere
with anything, but I will be able to see and hear all.”
Cohen nodded.
It seemed to take forever and a day for the red-rose pinpoint to come closer, and
eventually, Mia floated before him.
His chest constricted as he looked at her swirling smoky form. The love he had for her
