Taken by Fire

by Sydney Croft

“Dude, come on, turn around,” Creed said quietly. “You’ve been through fucking hell, okay? You look wrecked—sound wrecked.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” He turned to see Creed had his hand on the door leading to Annika’s room.

  “Come on in here and sit down—Annika’s awake.”

  “I’m sure I’m the last person she wants to see,” Stryker muttered.

  “No, definitely not the last,” Creed said with more sympathy in his voice than Stryker could stand, but he followed the man inside.

  He owed as much to Annika anyway.

  She was sitting up in bed, the baby sleeping next to her in a bassinet. These hospital rooms were more like hotel rooms than anything—at least the ones for the recovering patients. There were no machines in here, and Annika looked as healthy as ever.

  “You look good, Annika,” he said, because he didn’t know how else to start. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

  “Wyatt and Faith had a big hand in healing me. And you … you had a big hand in saving Devlin.”

  “No, that was you,” he pointed out.

  “Both of us,” she said, and he didn’t argue.

  “Look, you were right about not trusting Phoebe,” he said. “I’m not saying I couldn’t trust Mel, because I’ll never believe that. They’re two separate people. But Phoebe never should’ve been allowed to get that close to you and Dev and the baby. I’ll never forgive myself …”

  He couldn’t finish. Needed to get the hell out of here, because he still had more true fucking confessions to get out, and he needed air.

  “Stryker, wait.” Annika’s voice stopped him from leaving. “Don’t go—not like this. I get it, okay? You don’t need to apologize for believing in someone you love.”

  He did believe. But he also knew Phoebe had left a trail of death behind her yesterday, including her two guards and a trainee, according to the email he’d seen on his phone on the way into the hospital.

  He’d shut down his phone after that. And now he didn’t know what else to say to Annika.

  “Go to Mel,” Creed told him.

  “Thanks,” he mumbled, left Creed and Annika and the baby behind, because the need to see Mel was too great to ignore. The halls were pretty silent, just light beeps from monitors coming from some of the rooms.

  As he approached Mel’s room, he saw a nurse leaving and he slid in before the door closed—it was a locking door, just in case, as if Mel was still somehow a danger to all of them.

  Even in death, Mel couldn’t shake Phoebe and the distrust of everyone around her.

  She was in the same position as before, long hair hanging limp around her shoulders, tubes everywhere, her hands down by her side—and he walked to her and lowered a rail, pulled a chair over so he could rest his head near hers.

  He took her hand in his as well.

  “Sorry I left before. If I could’ve stayed … I would have.” He paused. “It’s just that I might have taken down the hospital, with you in it, and you don’t deserve my temper like that, Mel. I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you I loved you before all this. Because I do—but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. You paid a heavy price for being attached to Phoebe … at first, I didn’t want to believe, and forgiving you was even harder. But now I know you did nothing that needs forgiveness.”

  He watched the blinking lights on the monitors, wished he could pretend the perfect waves for the heartbeat were really hers and not the life-support system. And still, he continued to talk to her.

  “I wish you’d had more time here. I would’ve taken you all around—showed you where I used to sneak and hide when I didn’t want to go to school or practice.” He reminisced as though she could hear him. “I hated school—all the paperwork and memorizing shit. Although geography was cool … I needed that. I liked studying the terrain of different countries, and earth science too, discovering where the fault lines in each continent were … all of that felt like such a part of me.”

  He remembered other things from that time too … things that had kept him up, tossing and turning at night. Things he’d never told Mel, and he knew he wouldn’t get the chance if he didn’t admit them now. “I realized then that I could take my gift and put it to damned good use—I could help people. At least I thought I could.” He paused then, wondering if he could say it all out loud and knew that he could’ve told Mel anything—that she, of all people, would’ve understood.

  “It’s hard for a kid who thinks he can master the universe to realize that sometimes he’s simply a pawn in Mother Nature’s game. Usually, she’s well ahead of me and I found myself chasing my tail trying to predict earthquakes and the like. It was a horrible feeling, realizing that I was going to lose at that most of the time. When I can’t help people in a natural disaster situation, it kills a part of me. Maybe that’s how I understood why you hated losing control to Phoebe so much. Because I hated not being able to control the earth to the point of stopping the disasters. It sucks to have partial control over things …”

  He stopped then, put his head down on her arm, and tried to pull it together. Moved onto other topics that weren’t as heavy, memories that made him smile.

  When he got tired of talking, he just held her hand. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, knew there was sunshine on his back and that another shift of nurses had come on duty.

  The new nurse had been surprised to see him, but when she noted he’d actually handcuffed himself to the bed, she hadn’t confronted him. He supposed she’d called Devlin, though, because he heard the man clear his throat and then he finally looked up.

  “Sorry. Hope I didn’t cause trouble, but I needed to be here,” Stryker said, his voice hoarse from lack of sleep and grief and, yeah, talking so much.

  Devlin sounded much the same when he said, “It’s okay, Stryker … I knew you’d come back. You don’t have to stay chained to her bed. No one’s going to make you leave.”

  “You still have the drugs, though—just in case?”

  “No. You don’t need them. I’m counting on you to keep in control. She deserved that. So do you.”

  Stryker nodded and reached into his pocket for his keys and undid the cuff. Rubbed his wrist where the red mark remained and then took Mel’s hand again.

  “They’re going to pull the plug now, aren’t they?” he asked, and Devlin nodded.

  “Yes. I wanted to be here too.”

  “Do you need some time with her?”

  “I already had my good-bye with her before you came,” Devlin said. “I told her I wished we had more time together. That she’s family. That she was trusted.”

  “Thanks, Devlin.”

  Dr. Pauling came inside then, after a quick knock on the door to alert them of her presence.

  Stryker recognized her instantly as having treated him once, years earlier, after a particularly nasty knife wound, courtesy of an Itor agent.

  Now she simply nodded at him and Devlin, her eyes sympathetic … and focused on the task at hand.

  “She’s really gone?” Stryker asked before he could stop himself.

  “She is. I’m so sorry. We tried everything, but she’s simply unresponsive,” Dr. Pauling told him. “She made her wishes clear to Devlin before going to Australia: She did not want to live on life support.”

  They all had to submit their medical wishes before each mission—renew it each time, in case they’d changed their minds.

  Devlin had made Mel part of the team by doing so.

  “If you’re both ready,” Dr. Pauling said, and no, Stryker knew he’d never be ready. Devlin nodded because Stryker couldn’t.

  “Okay, then.” Dr. Pauling began to switch off the various machines around the bed, and Stryker looked away.

  He had one of Mel’s hands, Devlin the other. Stryker watched her face as he heard the beeps of the machine—faster first, and then slower … and slower, until there was nothing but silence.

  Mel really, really hated hospitals. She’d been in way too many
of them … mostly Itor facilities when Phoebe got them hurt on a mission. But the hospital she remembered the most was the one in Japan, after the earthquake.

  It was the smell that got to her. That funky odor of sickness that no amount of disinfectant could get rid of.

  And then there were the noises. The beeping and whoosh-whoosh of machines. The clank of metal instruments.

  The sobs of people in mourning.

  Mel opened her eyes to that sound. Well, not really sobs, but the distinct ripple of breath shuddering from lungs. Stryker’s lungs.

  He was kneeling next to her bed, his head on the mattress. On the other side, Dev was sitting with one hand on hers, his head hanging loosely on his shoulders, eyes closed.

  God, this must be bad. She wiggled her toes, was instantly relieved to realize she wasn’t paralyzed. Was she sick? Closing her eyes, she let herself just … feel. But she felt fine. No pain except for a headache. Granted, it was a bad headache, and she got the sense that there was something around her skull. A bandage, maybe. An instant of panic welled up … but was cut off by a shock that stopped the massive breath she was about to take.

  She was alone in her head. Completely alone. All her life, there’d been a faint buzz on the left side of her brain, almost a tickle. Now there was nothing, and she knew as sure as she knew she loved boeuf bourguignon that Phoebe was dead.

  Grinning, she opened her eyes. “Hey.”

  Jesus Christ, you’d have thought she’d sent an electric shock through her body. Stryker bolted to his feet, Dev jumped about three feet into the air, and the doctor—who had been sneaking out the door—shouted and knocked her head into the door frame.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Stryker breathed. “Mel?”

  The doctor’s hands shook as she palpated the pulse in Melanie’s neck. “This is … ah … let me run some tests.” She flipped on one of the machines and adjusted the monitor.

  Okay, this was weird. “What’s going on?”

  Stryker grabbed her hand and held so tight she winced. “You were dead. Mel, you were dead and we had to take you off life support, and …” He shook his head as though trying to clear it.

  “Why was I dead?” When Dev and Stryker exchanged glances, her stomach knotted. “Phoebe. Oh, God, what did she do?”

  Dev explained it, his voice cracking often enough that he’d have to repeat what he said, and Mel felt sick. Phoebe had gone on a killing spree, had tried to kill Dev and nearly killed Annika.

  And then Stryker had shot Phoebe.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, squeezing Stryker’s hand. She couldn’t even imagine how hard it had to have been for him to do that, and then to sit here and watch as the machines keeping her alive were turned off. But why, if they had been turned off, was she sitting up and chatting like she just woke up from a good night’s sleep?

  Stryker said nothing, merely wrapped his arms around her and tugged her hard against him.

  “Doc,” Dev said quietly, “what’s going on?”

  “I have no idea. She was brain dead. The EEG is showing activity now, but there are some gaps. Hold on, I’m going to get Faith.” The doctor left, but what she’d said sparked a thought, and for a few moments, Mel let what had happened sink in before she pulled back a little from Stryker.

  “I was brain dead?” When Dev and Stryker both nodded, she frowned. “What side of my brain did the bullet go into?”

  “Left,” Stryker croaked, and then his eyes shot wide. “That’s Phoebe’s side.”

  The doctor returned with Faith. “Melanie, I’d like Faith to poke around in your head a little, if that’s okay.”

  Melanie agreed, and sat still while Faith put her hand on Mel’s head, being careful to not disturb the bandage. A tingling sensation vibrated her scalp, but there was no pain, and after a few minutes, Faith stepped back.

  “I repaired some of the damaged tissue, but it’s weird—the left side of the brain has an area inside that I couldn’t access before when Melanie was in control, and now it’s just … empty. It’s like a tumor was removed.”

  “I knew it,” Mel whispered. “Phoebe’s gone. I can’t feel her.”

  The doctor nodded at the EEG screen. “The pattern is very different from the readings we took when you first arrived at ACRO. Before, there was an echo we guessed was Phoebe. It’s no longer there.”

  “So how could there have been no activity at all after the shooting if I am still alive?”

  Faith and the doctor exchanged glances, and it was the doctor who answered. “Phoebe was in control when the bullet entered your brain. So the death was hers.”

  Faith nodded. “I think that when you turned off life support, Mel’s half of the brain kicked in and took over. Kind of like it woke up from sleep.”

  “There have been instances of people having entire hemispheres of their brains removed,” the doctor said, “and the remaining side takes over the function of the missing half. So with Phoebe dead, Mel took over the other side.”

  “She’s gone,” Stryker murmured. “She’s really gone.”

  Mel wanted to shout with joy. “I can be normal. I can finally be free. No more cave. No more drugs. No more worrying about hurting people.” She grinned. “We can be—” She cut herself off before she made a fool of herself. What if Stryker didn’t want to be with her?

  He seemed to know what had made her stumble, and he glanced at Dev, the doctor, and Faith. “Can we have a few minutes?”

  They all headed out, but Dev stopped at the threshold. “I’m glad you’re with us, Mel. I’m damned happy to have a sister.” He left before she did something humiliating, like start crying, leaving her alone with Stryker.

  “Nothing has changed, Mel. I told you I want you, and I meant it. I want you to move in with me, but that’s up to you. The guesthouse will always be yours. I know you’re going to need time to adjust to having total freedom—”

  “And time for everyone here to adjust to me having it.” She looked down at her hands, realized she was wringing them. “What if they—and you—still see me as Phoebe?”

  “Hey.” He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted her face. “I don’t. They won’t. We couldn’t have taken down Itor if it weren’t for you, and everyone knows that. And even if that doesn’t change their minds, they now know you’re Dev’s sister, and trust me, no one will mess with you. Ever.”

  She swallowed a huge lump in her throat. “But you,” she whispered. “Can you truly get past everything? Can you forgive me?”

  For the longest time, he said nothing, and she had to struggle to breathe. “I love you, Mel. I don’t know why I couldn’t say it earlier, but I love you. You’ve given me a sense of peace and wholeness I was missing before. I mean, I have a family—my parents, ACRO—and I thought that was enough.” His brows pulled tight, and he locked stares with her, the intensity in his gaze so startling clear. “But then Akbar died, and revenge carved out this black hole that wouldn’t have been filled even if I’d killed Phoebe that first day in your apartment. It was like a cancer, eating me alive. You stopped it from growing, Mel. And then you filled it with something a lot less poisonous. So yeah, I stopped seeing you and Phoebe as one a long time ago. There is nothing to forgive.”

  Doubt rang through her, but somewhere in her mind, his voice echoed.

  I don’t know why I couldn’t tell you I loved you before all this. Because I do—but I couldn’t bring myself to say it. You paid a heavy price for being attached to Phoebe … at first, I didn’t want to believe, and forgiving you was even harder. But now I know you did nothing that needs forgiveness.

  “You”—she swallowed another lump—“you talked to me while I was out. Dead. Whatever. You said you loved me and nothing I did needed forgiveness.”

  “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse with emotion, same as hers. “Did you hear anything else?”

  She considered that, and then smiled. “You hated school. Except geography. You want to show me the places you used to hide so
you wouldn’t have to go to your classes.”

  He inhaled raggedly. “Did you hear me say I wanted to make love to you so often that you might as well not ever get dressed?”

  A slow burn began in her belly. “No,” she murmured, “I missed that.”

  “Huh. Guess I’ll have to show you, then.” He brought her hand to his lips and pressed a lingering kiss into her palm. “As soon as you’re discharged, you’re mine. And I’m yours. All yours. For as long as you’ll have me.”

  Mel’s eyes stung. All her life she’d longed for something to call hers. And now she had more than she’d ever believed possible. She had a home, a brother, and freedom. Stryker had given her all of that, but best of all, he’d given her his heart.

  Mel had gone from having nothing to having it all.

  * * *

  The annual ACRO picnic wasn’t usually held at this time of year, but, as Devlin noted in the invitation to his agents, they all had a hell of a lot of celebrating to do. And they also needed time together to mourn, to talk … to simply be.

  And be they were, on this sunny Sunday where the chill of early autumn wasn’t in the air, as if it knew they all needed the comfort of warmth.

  Now, from his spot under an old oak tree, a cold beer in his hands, black-booted feet crossed in front of him, Creed looked around and took stock of the agents and their families as Kat chattered away happily in his ear.

  Annika—his wife—was close, sitting on the ground under the same shade, next to Haley, their children on the blanket in front of them. Annika’s powers had returned, better and stronger than ever, and each day she seemed to get more comfortable in her own skin as a mom.

  It was the coolest fucking thing to see, ever.

  And Haley and Remy’s boy … well, it appeared he would have his daddy’s powers. Haley was simply praying they could get through the afternoon without a temper tantrum, which could translate into a thunderstorm. Nowhere as strong as Remy’s—not yet—but the toddler would need to be trained, quickly.

  Just then, a little person streaked by—faster than the wind—followed by a much larger streak, which, when the game of tag came to a stop, turned out to be Ender and his third girl, the youngest and smallest at birth.