The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  “We’re trying to get you a discharge. It won’t be long.”

  “But she died. I have to do something,” I said in a plea to the hospital staff.

  “We’ll take care of the body. We’ll contact the family.”

  “This was her family. Three-fourths of her family died within minutes of one another. I was going to be part of that family. This isn’t right. These were the most beautiful people in the world.”

  “We have people you can talk to.”

  “I don’t want to talk to anybody! I want to hold my fiancée. Please let me go to her. I love her. We were going to get married. Only a few hours ago, we ordered the wedding flowers.”

  The nurse saw the pain and anguish in my eyes and said softly, “Such a tragedy. My deepest condolences, sir.”

  I didn’t want to leave Maya. The last thing I did as the nurses teamed up to guide me away from her was to hold her hand, one last time. It was still warm. I held it until I was dragged away from her.

  “She’s still warm,” I choked out. But with my acute werewolf hearing, I did not detect any heartbeat from Maya. She was truly gone and I was bereft, abandoned. All I could think of was to run outside.

  I turned around and went through the double doors to get to the lobby. I knew that all I had were scrapes on my arms.

  I needed to find Josiah before they talked to him. I didn’t want them to tell him the bad news the way they had told me. They didn’t know Maya, Daniel and Margaret. They didn’t love them. I did.

  I bolted out of the emergency room, still wearing their hospital gown. I had left on my tighty whities even though they told me to strip down completely naked.

  Josiah hadn’t seen anything yet. This was going to destroy his existence. I knew that whatever goodness and mercy that I had left in my emotional tank—which wasn’t much—I had to give it to Josiah, because he would be even worse off than me. I was pretty fucked up with grief. I had just lost my fiancée, along with her folks. But Josiah had lost all his entire family in one fell swoop.

  I went outside and waited for him, shivering in what was now night.

  He needed to hear everything from a person who loved him like a brother. Eventually, around 8:45, Josiah arrived at the hospital, which was expected in traffic.

  Josiah parked in a parking space and saw me out front.

  He rushed over to me, saying, “Why are you out here in a hospital gown? There is no reason to be out here, Tommy. Why are you goofing around out here, dressed like that?”

  I sat down hard on the curb and let Josiah speak.

  “Why would you be out here? Why are you out here with me? Why aren’t you in there with my family? There is no reason for you to be out here waiting for me. I can clearly read the sign pointing to the ER lobby.”

  “Yes, there is a reason I am out here. I wanted to be the one to tell you, Josiah. Not them, in there. Me.”

  “No, Tommy! Please! No, Tommy!” Josiah cried out as I had done earlier.

  “It’s true, Josiah. They’re gone.”

  “Gone, as in… died?” Josiah said in horror.

  I nodded my head.

  “Who died?” Josiah asked in one last bit of hope.

  “All of them.”

  “All of them?” Josiah dropped to his knees. “My entire family is gone? Just like that?” Josiah didn’t say a word for about a minute. I could see all the range of emotion that grief does to someone. Suddenly, he looked up at me and said, “I don’t believe you.”

  “I wouldn’t put you through this if it wasn’t true.” I was losing my mind, but I tried my hardest to be there for Josiah, even as my own heart was shattering over and over.

  “None of them made it?” Josiah asked in a soft emotional plea. He got to his feet.

  “I’m so sorry, Josiah! They have left us.” I reached out and hugged him. I didn’t want to let him go, my good friend, my brother of the heart.

  Josiah embraced me and then asked, “How did you survive?”

  “I saw the accident, but I wasn’t in it. I was in a different car, following them in their minivan.”

  “…and?” Tears gathered in his eyes, but had not yet spilled.

  “…and this gray truck—it came out of nowhere, driving recklessly, bobbing and weaving—”

  “A drunk?”

  “I don’t know. His driving style looked like it.”

  Josiah’s mouth turned into a thin, tight line. “And then what?”

  “The gray truck went slamming into your dad’s minivan, knocking them into the ditch right off of Gypsum Canyon. The minivan rolled multiple times.”

  His eyebrows raised in a question.

  “Five times, Josiah. It rolled five times.”

  He grimaced. “Did you get a license plate of the gray truck?” Josiah asked, pleading for anything he could cling to.

  “It all happened so fast. I didn’t have time to get it. I was too busy trying to help get them out of the minivan.”

  “Why are you so cut up?” Josiah asked, trying to wrap his mind around this horror.

  “Because I had to go through the front windshield. It was busted. The doors were smashed in tight. I had to crawl past your dad.”

  “Was he alive?”

  “Barely.”

  “Mom? Maya?”

  “The same. Just hanging by a thread.”

  “If you found them and they were still alive, why are they dead now? Did the EMTs do something wrong? Did the hospital do something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so. They tried so hard to save them, but I don’t know, bro.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  I flinched.

  “Sorry. Sorry, Tommy. It just hurts. I was almost your brother, and now, I never will be.”

  “You’re already my brother, Josiah.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah. Of course you are. We’re in this for the long haul. Together.”

  “That was never more true than right now. Are you okay, bro?” he asked me.

  “Physically, I am. You don’t even want to know about my mental state. I’m about to run away, howling.”

  He nodded in understanding.

  “I have to go in, right? Sign papers or something?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  “Come back inside with me and get your pants on, Tommy, and I’ll take you home.”

  “No. The Mustang’s still on the side of the highway. Will you take me to get it?”

  “Can you drive, Tommy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right. I’ll take you to it. And I’ll follow you to my house first to get some of my stuff and then I’ll see you home safely to your house. Surface streets. No freeway.”

  I gulped. “Okay. You come to my house tonight, but stay with me. You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Neither should you.”

  “We’re all each other has now, Josiah.”

  “I have to see them in order to believe that’s true.”

  “Understandable. Don’t take anyone’s word for it. Not even mine. See for yourself. But it’s going to be hard, you know?”

  “Life is hard. But death is harder,” Josiah replied. His eyes were about to spill over. Mine, too. “I know you’ll tell me the truth, Tommy. Did you have anything to do with that accident?”

  “No. All I did was move out of that asshole’s way. To let him change lanes. When I did, he went out of control and hit your family’s minivan. He had plenty of room to move that truck through the gap and he failed. I couldn’t have stopped it.”

  “I don’t blame you. I just had to know how it happened. I’m so glad you’re safe, Tommy.”

  “Me, too. We’re going to need each other.”

  “Yeah.” His voice broke and he hugged me so hard that my back crackled. I held him for a few moments and when he let go of me and backed up, he was no longer just a kid. Josiah was a man now, with a man’s sorrow written all over his face. It was the worst way I could think of to grow up fast.r />
  I stared at Josiah, realizing that we were now man to man. This was the first time that I ever saw him as an equal. His pain was my pain. His loss was my loss. He was an eighteen-year-old man who had just been told that his parents and sister were dead.

  We stood there, breathing hard, no need to hurry into the hospital. Nobody was going to be coming home with us. We could take all the time we needed.

  His face wasn’t what I expected. I’d expected a sobbing child. Instead, he looked like a man in charge of his own destiny. He wanted to know why they died and how they died. He wanted to see them. And he wanted to make sure that I was all right, too. Josiah was ready to man up and take responsibility for what came next with the hospital.

  We went in and Josiah calmly identified himself as blood kin of the three deceased from the accident scene on the 91 freeway. They asked for his ID and he confidently showed it. The registration clerk scanned it into her computer and handed it back.

  “Now I want to see them,” he said. “Show me where they are.”

  The clerk called someone to take him back there. I wasn’t family and therefore, was not allowed to go back with him to view the bodies, nor decide what happened to them now. Like, what funeral home would they go to? Josiah was the one who had to make the decisions and I was not included in that conversation.

  Instead, they kept me busy by asking me to go get dressed and then they processed me out on a discharge after I signed some papers.

  I waited in the ER lobby, trying to hold back my own grief so I could be there for Josiah when he came out. We needed to be strong and hold each other up. Now, more than ever.

  Because he was blood kin and an adult now, they allowed him to see all three bodies. I think he needed some kind of proof that this actually happened, so that he would have closure. I completely understood and my heart went out to him about the horrible sight that awaited his eyes.

  “Maya,” I said out loud to the empty E.R. lobby. “Maya, if you can hear me, just remember, I will always love you.”

  I closed my eyes, waiting for some sort of reply from Maya’s spirit, but there was none. Oddly though, I could totally smell her shampoo. She had used strawberry shampoo today and there it was, Maya’s scent. In the disinfected hospital lobby, there was one last shred of my lover, my wife to be: a whiff of her strawberry shampoo. I would never forget that scent.

  I whispered to Maya, “Go into the light, honey. Go into the light.”

  And then the scent of her was gone. I sobbed into my hands and tried to get myself together, for Josiah’s sake.

  ***

  He walked out from the E.R. into the lobby and said something that I would never forget. He said, “Tommy? How am I supposed to go on?”

  I replied, “I don’t know how we’ll get through this. But we will.”

  I broke before Josiah did, but he was not long after, once he saw me break down. Tears dripped down my face. Josiah’s eyes were bloodshot with tears rolling down his cheeks, too. Here we were, two fist-tough MMA fighters, completely devastated by life. No, not by life, but by the death of life.

  “Josiah,” I said. “I will always be here for you.”

  In typical Josiah fashion, he replied, “And I, for you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Eventually, Josiah and I had to get the hell out of the hospital before we went postal in it. We jumped into his white truck, the one his parents had given him for his eighteenth birthday. Even though they had Maya’s wedding to pay for, they didn’t short Josiah on his birthday. He drove that vehicle like he was doing the driver’s license test. Super careful. It was a ride I’d never forget. It was where, together, we broke down our walls for the very first time.

  Josiah did not know that I was a werewolf and I would protect him from that knowledge, under all circumstances. There was certainly no way that I could lay that at his feet right now. He had so much to absorb and deal with.

  I knew this was information he did not need to know, that I was a part of some werewolf Carni immortal race. I didn’t know why I thought it might be a good idea to tell him that information now. I had to bite my tongue not to say anything about that to him. Maybe a part of me wanted him to become a werewolf, too, and as soon as possible, because I knew if he became one, that it would make him immortal. And then, we would always have each other.

  I choked back a sob, trying to get a hold of my emotions and failing.

  Josiah only had one thing on his mind: his family. “Where do we go from here, bro?” Josiah asked. Every time he cried, he stopped himself, only to tear up a few minutes later and start heaving sobs again.

  “Can you drive like that?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he insisted. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and I found a box of Kleenex in the glove compartment and put it between us.

  “Okay, Josiah. Let it out. You need the release. If you hold it in, it will turn you into someone dark and someone you don’t want to be. Let the tears wash away the grief.”

  So, he let go, and I let go, too. “Okay, bro. We’re doing it. Letting it out.”

  “Is that what we are? Brothers?” I asked.

  “Yeah, you were right. We’ve been spiritual brothers for a long time. I think we’re going to have to get through this together. There’s no other way. Nobody could do this alone. It’s too big.”

  I agreed. “Hey, there’s my Mustang ahead. It looks like your parents’ minivan is getting towed away.”

  “Let them have it. I’m never gonna go get it.”

  “Yeah. There’s hardly any traffic at this hour. So, pull over and let me get my Mustang. I’ll follow you to your house, so you can get some stuff. And then, you follow me to mine,” I offered.

  There was a long, long pause. “Tommy,” Josiah said. “Would you?” He stopped himself from talking. He seemed like a mental mess. I was torn up inside to the point that I had a hard time breathing. I probably shouldn’t drive my Mustang home, but there was no way I was going to leave it on the shoulder of the 91.

  “Would I what, Josiah?” I asked, as he pulled over on the shoulder and I took out my car keys. I waited for Josiah to answer me.

  “Instead of me bunking at your place, would you move in for a while at my parents’ house? I guess it will be my house now, when the legal stuff gets sorted out. It can be our house.”

  For the first time in my life, Josiah looked scared. I was the closest thing to family that he had left.

  “Of course I can,” I said. “And thank you. My lease is up next month anyway.” I paused and said, “Josiah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We are going to need to figure out your parents’ will and bills and stuff. We need to pay the mortgage if there is one. We need to find out what they wanted in terms of funerals and burials. Headstones. All three of them need to have a proper goodbye.” Just saying that out loud made me feel sick. They were words I never thought I would ever have to say.

  Josiah looked at me and said, “My dad’s best friend, Miguel Arroyo, takes care of all that kind of stuff. He’s our family attorney. And my dad taught me how to do online banking and online bill pay. He gave me the passwords in case we ever had a big emergency, like if he had a heart attack or something. On my birthday, Dad added me as a signatory to their checking and savings account. I have full access.”

  “Wow, that is a lot of trust. What a great dad.”

  “Yeah, he was a great mentor. But when he trusted me with all of that stuff, it was like he knew that something was going to happen.”

  “We are mortal.” At least, he is, I thought. “Eventually, something will happen. Just not as soon as we expect.”

  “True,” Josiah said. “And my mom, too. She was the glue of our family, the most dependable, the most stable and kindest one of us. And Maya, she was our great hope for the future of our family. We didn’t know what she was going to do, but it would be big, you know?”

  “Yeah. And you, too. Great expectations for you, Josiah.”

 
Josiah sighed. “I don’t know about that. I was just coming into my own as an upcoming fighter. I have barely started my adult life. I don’t even know what I am yet. I know what I want, but wanting and being are two different things.”

  “I know, bro. They are. We will need to get a hold of Miguel in the next 24 hours and let him know what happened. Who knows, maybe he’ll contact you if he finds out on the news…”

  “Let’s go get your Mustang and get off this freeway,” Josiah said.

  “You want to talk on our Bluetooths while we drive?”

  “No,” Josiah said. “I just want to see you to your apartment to get your stuff and just come on and… stay with me.”

  I stopped talking because I didn’t need to say the obvious.

  That was how we dealt with it. We took care of the necessities. We took care of things that needed to be done. Josiah even cut the grass and ran the family laundry and put it all away in each person’s bedroom. I was blown away.

  I took out the garbage and cleaned the kitchen and living room. I cooked. Neither of us ate, so I put the food in the fridge, but at least, we tried to keep order in the house.

  We just quit talking about what happened. I kept everything inside for fear that Josiah couldn’t handle talking about it. What I didn’t know was how bad not talking about it was going to affect me. Unfortunately, I had a lot more growing up to do. In some ways, more than Josiah did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  That night, with some of my crap from my apartment boxed up and in duffle bags and thrown in his parents’ garage, Josiah and I both slept in his living room, draped in comforters, like we were having a sleepover.

  We were both in so much shock we didn’t know what to say to one another. Out of habit, we put on Jimmy Kimmel Live and we both just stared at the TV, but not one time did we laugh. That was a first. Jimmy Kimmel was one of Josiah’s favorite shows. He usually laughed the entire time. Not on this night. He was aching inside. I was aching inside. This didn’t seem real.

  For a moment, I thought just maybe I could fall asleep and everything would be back to normal tomorrow, and that this would be one of my horrible nightmares that I pushed aside.