Healing Danger

by Maddie Wade

  “Right, did you have any luck on the identity of the mystery man from the car park?” Dane said turning back to Lucy

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

  “Okay I also want you watching all surveillance in and around Lauren’s place and anywhere else you think pertinent.”

  “I want to help,” said Drew, “you know I’m good on computers.”

  “Fine, help Lucy.” Lucy looked at Drew, there was more to him than met the eye, and he had an innate sense of right and wrong even if he had be brought up by a bastard.

  “Nate, I want you to stay with Lauren 24/7 do not let her out of your sight.” said Dane with authority.

  “What are you going to do?” she interrupted.

  “I need to see some friends of mine who might be able to help,” he replied vaguely. He hated the censure he could see in her eyes but hardened his heart and just looked at her.

  “I never had you down as such a jerk.” she said angrily. She looked at him with hurt-filled eyes. “But you run along to your friends, I can take a hint, you had your fun, and now it’s back to business.” Each word was said with more and more anger. “Well fuck you, fuck you very much, I had a blast.” With that, she turned and stormed from the room.

  “You bastard,” Drew said, “how could you do that to her?” Dane gave him a look that would scare most grown men and to his credit, Drew never even flinched.

  Lucy started clapping “Well done bro, when you fuck up you do it properly.”

  Dane turned his gaze from Drew to Lucy then.

  “Bloody hell Lucy, I’m trying to protect her and I can’t concentrate properly around her, its better I hurt her feelings than get her killed.”

  Nate shook his head.

  “God, I thought I was green with women, hermano but you take the prize.”

  “Just do your fucking jobs and let’s get these bastards dealt with.,” he said in frustration.

  ~~~

  Lucy found Lauren in the bathroom wiping her eyes

  “You okay?” She said putting her arm around her.

  “Yeah I guess, I can’t believe I got so angry. That’s not like me. I just thought he would be different you know, but that was naïve of me, men are all stupid idiots,” she said with conviction.

  “You know he really likes you, sweetie. Lucy said gently. I’ve never seen him like this, he’s just being a complete dumbass at the moment, don’t worry he’ll see reason soon, just hang in there.”

  She gave Lucy a watery smile,

  “Thanks I appreciate it, but I think I’ll just leave relationships to other people, they don’t seem to work for me.” Washing her face and the little cuts on her arms from the glass, Lauren straightened up and smiled. “See all better, who needs men?” she said in a slightly shaky voice.

  Lauren came out of the bathroom to find Nate waiting for her.

  “Your chariot awaits, Chiquita,” he said, offering his arm in a flamboyant gesture. She curtsied daintily.

  “Lead the way, kind sir.” She said playing up to him and knowing Dane was watching through the glass window of the conference room. Well screw him, she wasn’t gonna let him see how much he’d hurt her. With a big smile, she allowed Nate to lead her to his car.

  He watched his surroundings and put himself in front of her, but he was much less intense than Dane had been. Shaking that thought off, she settled into the soft leather of Nate’s Porsche Cayenne and listened to the mundane chatter of the radio.

  ~~~

  Walking back into the conference room, Lucy looked from the hole in the wall to her pacing brother who was rubbing his bloody knuckles.

  “What the hell!” she exclaimed, with some frustration.

  “I had a little accident,” he said shrugging, “it seems, I can’t control my temper any better than I can do my job.”

  “Stop being an idiot and come and sit down, I’ll clean that up and put some antibiotic cream on it.”

  “Its fine-I’ll clean it in a minute.”

  “Sit” she said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “God you’re so much like mum,” he said, “well, what I can remember.”

  “Really, you never told me that before,” she said quietly as she reached for the first aid kit in the cupboard.

  “I don’t normally think about it to be honest.”

  “Why did you hit the wall?” she asked while cleaning his hand with an alcohol wipe.

  “Cos I fucked up and I hurt her after promising I wouldn’t.” He looked at Lucy then with genuine regret on his face. “I know I have to put her safety before my feelings for her. I’d rather hurt her now than get her killed because I wasn’t concentrating.”

  “Could you not just have explained that, instead of going all cold, hard uncaring bastard on her?”

  “Apparently not” he said with a chagrined smile. “Seriously though Lucy, I care about Lauren a lot and I can’t do my job properly if I’m not concentrating fully, I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her because of me. This is for the best.”

  The last was said with such conviction that Lucy decide to let it go for now.

  “So what’s your real plan, are you going to see the guys at the camp or are you doing something else?”

  “I’m gonna go see Tucker, Sly and Smithy see if they can lend us some help. I’m also gonna put a call into Eidolon and see if they can help out. There are just too many variables now and with Zin and Zack away and Daniel and Will out of the picture, we are spread too thin.” Lucy nodded in agreement, bringing in Eidolon would be a big help.

  They were a very secret Black Ops Ghost squad and had helped Fortis out on multiple occasions. Zack and Jack Granger, Eidolon’s team lead had done some missions together in the past and the two remained good friends. It also helped that Jack was also Sly’s cousin. Lucy finished cleaning his hand quietly.

  “So the whole unit’s back?” Lucy asked, thinking about Sly’s team.

  “Yes, they re-deploy in a few weeks.”

  Lucy hoped they could help. Her brother was right, they were spread thin and there was nobody she would rather have around than the guys from Dane’s old unit.

  ~~~

  Marcus let himself into Terry Griffith’s old dilapidated farmhouse and looked around with disdain. How could anyone live in such filth? The orange and brown patterned wallpaper was faded and peeling, there were water stains all over the ceiling and down the walls and the carpets looked like they hadn’t seen a vacuum in years.

  It made his skin crawl. He decided to wait for Griffiths to come home; he wasn’t going to kill him yet. The man had an uncanny ability to find the information that others couldn’t. But he wanted to scare him a little and let him know that getting too close to the subjects they were trying to recruit was forbidden.

  A short time later, he heard Griffiths arrive in that rusty old jeep he drove. He walked into the house muttering to himself about caring and being a family and stopped in his tracks when he saw Marcus Preedy.

  ~~~

  Preedy was a tall man with wiry muscles and not an ounce of fat on him, but it wasn’t that that made Griffiths nervous it was the man’s eyes.

  He had the coldest eyes he’d ever seen and it was as if he could see straight inside your soul. Griffiths hated being surprised and hated feeling scared even more. He straightened his spine and in his best show of bravado said.

  “What the hell are you doing in my house?” Before he had a chance to finish that thought, Preedy had him against the wall with a knife to his throat.

  “Who do you think you’re talking to?” Marcus was angry now and trying to stop himself from just slitting the man’s throat there and then.

  ~~~

  He could feel Griffiths stale breath on his cheek and see the sweat that had popped out on his forehead. The feeling of having power over him gave Marcus a rush like no other. Tilting the knife so it just nicked Griffiths neck he asked again “I said, who do you think you’re talking to?�
� Griffiths gulped, causing the knife to nick him again.

  “I’m sorry Mr Preedy, I didn’t realise it was you. Please forgive me.” Griffiths hated apologising to this man, but he was smart enough to know that he couldn’t out match him in fighting skill. No, he had to out-smart him. Marcus stepped back and dropped the knife from his throat.

  Who the fuck had he thought it was, the stupid fuck?

  “Sit” he said motioning to the chair with the knife. Marcus walked around the chair he had placed in the centre of the room. He could see it was making Griffiths nervous.

  “Now do you remember our rule about not getting involved with subjects?”

  “Yes, Mr. Preedy?”

  “So why then are there people wandering round with pictures of you and Claire Thompson, and asking questions?”

  Griffiths swore inwardly, he’d been careless about his pursuit of her friends and now it was coming back to haunt him.

  “It’s not what you think I was just trying to talk her into the trial, that’s all.”

  Marcus walked around Griffiths, trying to decide if he believed him. He didn’t trust the man, but Claire was dead now, so as long as he got the message not to do it again, that would do.

  “Well that’s not your job, from now on stay away from the subjects and just be a good little boy and gather the information, or next time....” he let the sentence tail off knowing that imagination was worse sometimes.

  ~~~

  Griffiths had never hated anyone as much as in that moment. Not his parents who ignored him, not his grandparents who had treated him with contempt, not Daniel Thompson, not even that weasel of a teacher that thought it was ok to abuse young boys. No, in that moment he wanted to kill Marcus Preedy with a need so strong, he could hardly breathe.

  ~~~

  Marcus could see that Griffiths was trying to control himself and found it rather funny that this pithy little man thought he was any competition for him. Taking a few deep breaths Griffiths gained control of his temper and nodded.

  “Yes sir.”

  With a final stroke of the knife down Griffiths neck, Marcus left.

  Quickly rushing to lock the door Griffiths slumped down behind it, breathing hard. He loathed feeling weak and vowed that Marcus Preedy would rue the day he had ever met Terry Griffiths, and his payment would start with the Lovely Lauren.

  Chapter Twenty

  Lauren decided that as she had missed her visit with the kids in paediatrics on Saturday, she wanted to go today. She couldn’t believe it was only Tuesday. She felt as if weeks had gone by, but it had only been three days since this had started.

  Nate had agreed to drive her and said he’d like to stay and watch her with the kids. She suspected that it was because he had to stay with her for security not because he wanted to spend the day with sick kids.

  Walking up to the nurse’s station at the start of the corridor she greeted the nurses on duty and asked about some of the kids. She was relieved to hear that some of the children she had spent time with last week had gone home after huge improvements over the weekend.

  She then inquired about Noah Mitchell. Noah was a seven-year-old boy suffering from leukaemia. She had met Noah and his mum Skye, in the early spring. He had only just been diagnosed. They had struck up a firm friendship. Lauren suspected that Noah had special abilities but hadn’t broached the subject with Skye yet.

  Noah had been responding well to treatment at the beginning but the last test had showed that the treatment was no longer working, and he needed a bone marrow transplant.

  “How’s Noah?” She asked the nurse in charge.

  Casey Bridges shook her head. “Not so good.”

  It broke her heart to hear of the lovely little boy’s plight. He was such sweet child, with a wonderfully upbeat attitude. It frustrated her that her gift would allow her to heal certain things but not others. She could heal a wound or cut or even gunshot wound, but illness that involved cells was different. She could slow them down or alleviate some of the pain but she couldn’t fully eradicate the disease. It didn’t help that he was a rare blood group so that finding a donor was proving difficult.

  ~~~

  Nate stood quietly at her side, strangely upset hearing that a little boy he didn’t know was so sick. He’d always been a sucker for kids and wondered if there was anything he could do. He’d ask first chance he got. They walked down the corridor towards a side room, knocking before stepping in.

  ~~~

  Entering the little hospital room Lauren looked at Noah in the bed and then went over to hug Skye, who she could see had been crying. Noah was asleep but she could see from the hollows in his cheeks and the dark shadows under his eyes that he was deteriorating.

  Walking to the child, she lifted his little hand in hers while his mother did the same the other side. She let some of her healing energy leave her body and infused Noah with as much as she could. Her body soon became weak and so, she stopped. For some reason this kind of healing weakened her quickly. She looked down at the boy, his colour seemed better for now, and his face seemed more relaxed.

  “I swear your very presence is good for him,” his mother commented. Lauren sat down in the chair opposite.

  “I’m sorry Skye, this is my good friend Nate Jones,” she said indicating Nate.

  He offered her a shy smile,

  “Ma’am,” he said.

  “Oh please call me Skye; I’m pleased to meet you.” Skye said with a shy smile of her own.

  ~~~

  Nate had never felt anything like it before, the minute he had walked in the room it was as if he had been sucker-punched. Seeing the boy looking so fragile in the big hospital bed had caused an ache in his chest, then Skye had turned around, and his world had tilted.

  She looked so hauntingly beautiful, with her big brown eyes surrounded by the longest lashes, and more poignant was that they were glistening with unshed tears. He’d felt the overwhelming urge to go to her and comfort her and offer his protection to her and Noah. Of course hadn’t, he didn’t reveal any of what he was feeling, just smiled and kept his mouth shut. He didn’t want come across as crazy and she could be married or all he knew. Although he didn’t see a ring.

  Turning back to Lauren, he noticed that the boy –Noah-was awake and was looking at him as if he could see into his soul.

  “Don’t mind him,” Skye said, “he does that sometimes.”

  Then the boy offered him the biggest smile and said,

  “I knew you’d come, I’ve been waiting!” Nate didn’t know what to say to that.

  Turning his head to his mother, Noah said, “He’s the one, mummy, he’s the one I told you about. It’s going to be okay now he’s here.” With that he closed his eyes and fell back to sleep.

  Lauren and Skye looked at Nate with looks of complete awe and wonder on their faces. Nate just shrugged feeling awkward and slightly unsettled by the incident,

  “Cute kid.”

  They sat with Skye for a little longer making small talk before saying their goodbyes.

  ~~~

  When they reached the car Lauren looked at Nate, he seemed shaken by what had happened with Noah and Skye, and honestly so was she. She’d spoken to Skye about Noah’s dreams, but Skye had never wanted to believe in it as she couldn’t bear the disappointment if it didn’t happen. Nevertheless, Noah had been having dreams for the past two months about the big super hero man who was going to fix his blood and make him all better. He’d even described the man but she’d never made the connection to Nate; of course it was obvious now. She pondered if she should tell Nate everything but feared it might scare him away. His next question soon made her realise how she had underestimated this man’s compassion.

  “What blood type is Noah?”

  “He is AB-.” She didn’t expand as she wanted what would happen next to be organic. She instead watched as a massive sigh of relief flowed through Nate’s body.

  “I’m AB-too,” he said in a near whisper, “can I
be tested to be a bone marrow donor?” Lauren nodded, trying not to show her excitement.

  “Yes I can call the hospital and get them to set it up.”

  “Okay, do it.”

  For the first time in days she felt hope, hope for a little boy that had done nothing bad to anyone.

  “Thank you Nate, you have no idea how much this will mean to Skye.” He looked at her funny then.

  “You know I think I might.” He turned back to concentrating on the road then. Lauren decided not to confide in Nate about Noah’s dreams; she didn’t want to put undue pressure on him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Dane felt like crap, he’d hardly slept for thinking about the look on Lauren’s face when he’d rejected her. He had spent the rest of yesterday trying to follow up leads on Hale and trying to search the CCTV for signs of Preedy.

  Thanks to Drew identifying the Mystery Man as Michaels, they now knew that Preedy was close. It had been the first bit of luck they had when Drew had seen that photo on Lucy’s computer and identified. That still didn’t explain how he had found them at the pub, and made him suspicion that he and the man from the pictures were linked. There was no way that they both just happened to be there.

  He had worked until 2am and then headed home hoping that he would be tired enough to sleep. He had done two drive-byes past Lauren’s place just to check that all was quiet, before eventually going home.

  He’d tried to sleep but every time he closed his eyes he heard her call him a jerk. She was right, he was a coward. But he wasn’t scared of his feelings for her, he recognised that he had strong feelings for her, hell he was half-way in love with her and wasn’t scared of that, he was only scared stupid that he would lose focus again and get her killed, and he couldn’t bear that. He just kept going back to that last mission in Afghanistan when his unit was ambushed and two of his team-his friends had been killed, and all because he had missed the signs.

  He allowed his mind to drift back to that day two years ago

  He hadn’t talked to anyone about that day-not even Daniel, his best friend. In fact, the only person who knew was Zack and he wasn’t sure how he knew. Shaking off his horrible trip down memory lane. He instead thought about Daniel.