She was dying. It was now or never.
The smirk on Wade’s face deepened into a lopsided grin. “Guess you’re not such a badass after all,” he said and took a few steps toward her.
Her arm jerked upward in response, her finger tightening around the trigger. The bullet slammed into the ground that separated them. The loud bark of it knocked the smile right off Wade’s face. He stopped midstride, his head cocked toward the woods.
“Well, ain’t that interesting,” he said and started forward again, closing the distance between them in long, confident strides.
She tried to move back, tried to keep distance between them, but her legs were a tangled mess beneath her and she went down hard, slamming into the rear fender of Lucy’s car as she did. Desperate, she pulled the trigger again as she fell. This time the shot went wide, shattering the rear window of the car.
Even though she knew it was only midafternoon, Sabrina watched, flat on her back, as light faded from her field of vision. The darkness was tired of waiting.
She widened her eyes, tried to steal as much light as possible, but all she could see was Wade, standing over her. Laughing at her. “I’m gonna need that gun back, now—”
A final surge of strength cycloned its way through her body. It wrapped around her bones, fortified her muscles. She screamed, jerked the gun up, and carried by that final surge, drowned out his words with one last pull of the trigger.
The bullet slammed into Wade’s face, ripped through his cheek— splintering bone as it burst through his opposite temple in an explosion of torn flesh and blood.
He fell to his knees. She pulled the trigger again. And again. His ruined face was the last thing she saw before the darkness took her.
89
Multiple shots fired, just beyond his line of vision. Michael broke through the trees, at a dead run. “Sabrina!” he shouted, stopping short at what he saw.
Legs, those black lace-up boots of hers, stuck out from behind the car. He rounded the hood and found Sabrina sprawled in the dirt, motionless. He fell on her, gathered her into his arms. She was breathing, but barely. Her skin gray and cool, the gun he’d left for her held in a grip so tight her knuckles were white.
She was alive.
He looked at the body that lay a few feet away. Wade’s face was gone, torn away by bullets. The only distinguishable feature—the only thing that made him recognizable—was the badge pinned to his chest. Michael resisted the urge to stomp on it, tear him apart with his bare hands.
He held her, buried his face in her hair. She was alive, but he could feel her slipping away, like water between his fingers.
This darkness was different.
This time it was a healing void into which she retreated. The cool black pressed around her. Held her. Kept her safe.
Sounds penetrated its dense folds. The far-off approach of a helicopter. The mindless drone of voices sounding hurried and authoritative all at once. Someone spoke in angry, frantic tones while another someone spoke in a calm, quiet voice.
Through it all the warm, protective pressure of her hand being held in the grasp of another.
It was Michael. He was here with her, had come for her. It was a good thought and she clung to it. Needed it to see herself through.
90
The pilot put out a restraining hand, barring him from boarding the air-evac helicopter. “I’m sorry, sir, there isn’t room for extra passengers. We’ll fly her to Good Shepherd in Marshall, if you want to follow along on the ground,” the pilot said.
Michael looked down at the hand on his chest then bounced his glare back up. The pilot took one look at his face, dropped his hand, and took a step back, but still refused to move out of his way.
He looked at her, stretched out on a gurney, tubes and needles sticking out of her arms, her hair matted with dirt and blood, her pants hastily cut away to reveal the gruesome hole punched into the grayish skin of her thigh. Her eyes were closed, and he found himself wishing she would open them, just for a moment, so that she could see that he was here, that he’d come for her. That he’d kept his promise.
Realizing he was being stared at, he tore his gaze from Sabrina’s face to find the pilot still standing there, wedged between him and the chopper, waiting for him to either press the issue or relent. He was wasting time. He gave one terse nod before stepping back, letting her go.
The helicopter lifted off the ground, carried her away.
She’s going to be fine … The words were worthless, and they rang false even as he thought them.
The blood loss had been tremendous; the fact that she was even still breathing was a miracle.
Miracle.
She was a fighter. A survivor. That she was even alive was a testament to that. She was a miracle. She was going to be okay. He had to believe that.
She’d survive—but he wouldn’t be there to see her through. He stared up at the sky, watched until it was silent and clear. The helicopter was gone, and so was she.
91
The faint, rhythmic beep that punctuated the silence and the gnawing pain in her thigh told her everything she needed to know.
She was alive.
“I’ll hate you—do you hear me? If you die, I’ll never forgive you, I’ll hate you for the rest of my life.” It was said low, but the terrified tone pulled Sabrina out of the dark.
She felt her face crumple into a frown, but she didn’t open her eyes. “Shhh … sleeping,” she said, in a weak, thready voice she barely recognized.
A sharp intake of breath delivered a strange half-laugh, half sob. “You aren’t sleeping, jackass. You’ve been out of it for almost a week.” It was Val.
She forced her lids open a crack, but through the slits, she could see her. It was just like last time … Val staring at her, hoping against hope that she’d be whole when she finally opened her eyes. Denial and grief when it became clear she’d never be the same.
It was too much.
She wanted Michael … loved him. She loved him. Needed him here with her, but she knew he was gone. That he wasn’t coming back.
She didn’t want to be here. She could just close her eyes and float away. She’d done it once before. Escaped from the horror that was her life. Let go. Shut down.
She could do it again. The thought was tempting.
She looked her friend over. “You look like shit,” she said, taking in the total lack of makeup, the deep smudges under Val’s eyes that said she hadn’t slept in days. “… smell too.”
Val smiled, looked relieved. “Oh, yeah? When was the last time you brushed your teeth?”
“Been busy …” She tried to smile, but it felt weak and faded quickly. “Wade?”
Val’s face went blank. “Dead. When he took longer than expected to radio in after checking out the BOLO on Lucy’s car, Chief Carson went after him. Found him trying to drag you into his little shop of horrors. Carson ordered him to stop at gunpoint, there was a struggle for his weapon. Carson killed Wade but not before taking one in the shoulder at close range. Some hunters in the area heard the shots and found the two of you. Two of them took Carson to the hospital by car while the other stayed with you and saw you onto the chopper.”
Sabrina was quiet for a moment. Remembered pulling the trigger. Watching Wade’s face explode under the impact of several bullets before she let the darkness take her. Carson hadn’t been there. It was Michael. He’d been the one to follow her into the black.
He’d saved her.
It was a bogus story. One that Val had an entire week to rehearse. One with holes big enough to drive a truck through. Holes that must’ve been plugged with Carson’s badge and slicked over with a thick topcoat of lies. How Michael got Carson to comply and how he got shot were a mystery. One she didn’t want to think about just yet. “Carson. Is he okay?”
“Yeah. He’s been by a few times. They were keeping him down the hall, but he was released yesterday,” Val said before going quiet. She looked uncomfortable. “Tom
stopped by too. He had a little girl with him.”
Tommy had come to see her, probably looking for answers. Her hand settled on her chest. Her ring was gone.
“It’s in an envelope,” Val said, nodding her head toward the stand by her hospital bed. “They had to take it off when they took you in for surgery.” Val reached for the drawer. “Do you want it?”
“No.” She shook her head against the pillow. “If he comes back, give it to him. Tell him I’m sorry for … everything.”
“Tell him yourself,” Val said, her voice taking on a slightly panicked edge.
Her mouth quirked for a moment. Seeing Tommy was something else she didn’t want to think about. She changed the subject. “Kids?”
Val smiled. “At home with Devon. Worried.”
Her eyebrows raised a bit at Val’s use of Nickels’ first name but she didn’t say anything. He’d kept his word. Protected her family. “Tell them I’m fine.” She tried for another smile but couldn’t quite make it stick.
“Are you?”
No. She wasn’t fine. Michael was gone. Her career was in shambles. She was more than likely facing twenty-year-old murder charges. The foundation of lies she’d been living on for the better part of two decades had crumbled away to nothing. She was floundering. She was heartbroken. She was alone.
But she was free.
“No, I’m not,” she said, answering honestly. “But I will be …” She was exhausted. Her eyes slipped closed again, and she felt Val’s grip tighten around her fingers.
“Don’t. Don’t go,” Val said. “Don’t you dare leave me again.”
She tried for another smile, but it slipped away before she could finish forming it. “Be back … tired.”
“Promise me. Promise you’ll come back,” Val said. This time she managed a smile. “I promise.”
Sacrificial Muse
A Sabrina Vaughn Novel
For Joe.
I love you… I guess.
1
Good Shepherd Medical Center
Marshall, Texas ~ October, 2013
She wasn’t alone.
Sabrina’s eyes snapped open, but she didn’t move. Her heart hammered against her ribcage so fast and hard, the thump of it echoed in her ears as she fought to keep her breathing deep and even.
He was watching her… always watching her.
No… it was another dream. Running in the woods—blood streaming down her thigh, Wade chasing her down, faster and faster…Wade. It’d been Wade who took her… hurt her. Her half-brother. She could still see him standing over her, laughing at her—
You’re mine. No matter what you do, no matter who you try to become, you can’t change that…
Punching her fists into the mattress, she pushed herself up until she was leaning against the headboard. Pain squeezed around the hole in her thigh, the pressure pulling at the stitches that kept it closed.
Another dream.
She dropped a heavy hand on the wound in her leg and pushed. Pressure pinged off every bone and muscle, a dull throb buried beneath the hefty dose of painkillers they had her on. Bright red seeped through the white gauze—a small spot, spreading wider and wider with each pound of her heart. Watching it grow grounded her, brought her back. She was alive. Safe and in the hospital. Wade was dead. She knew because she’d killed him—
“You push much harder, you’re gonna re-open that wound for real.”
Her head snapped up, eyes narrowed as she peered into the darkest corners of the room. A reporter. They’d come in droves—sneaking into her room dressed as orderlies and nurses. One even tried to pass themselves off as her mother. A bit ironic considering the death of her mother was very much a part of the story they were all pursuing. The worst of them all was Jaxon Croft. He was relentless, pushed his way in at least once a day to hammer her with questions. Thinking of Croft, she felt an odd combination of relief and annoyance. “Get out of here, Croft, before I call for one of the burlier orderlies and have him toss your ass out the window.”
“Who’s Croft?” The question delivered from the shadows, in a voice she didn’t recognize, caused her shoulders to tense and her palms to itch for the heft of one of her SIG P250s. Tommy had brought them back to her but according to the charge nurse, allowing her to wear a shoulder holster was against hospital policy. She’d given them to Val for safekeeping—which did her absolutely no good right now. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a reporter. She shot a quick look at the door. No way was she making a run for it, either. Not with the silver dollar-sized hole and half a bullets’ worth of shrapnel she was sporting in her leg.
She was trapped.
“Can’t shoot me. Can’t run for it… maybe you could push your little call-button and ask that cute blonde at the nurses’ station to bring me a pudding cup,” the voice said from the dark.
Shapes began to pull themselves from the gloom. An empty chair in the corner. The rollaway table the nurses put her meals on. She didn’t see him until the second sweep. There—in the corner, leaning against the wall. Knee bent, foot kicked up and pressed flat. She could just make out the rounded toe of a lace-up boot. Staring hard, she saw the suggestion of an outline. Broad shoulders, dipped forward, hands dug into the front pockets of dark fatigues.
Her hand found the light switch on the control panel next to the bed. Soft light drove the shadows back, revealing the stranger. Only he wasn’t a stranger. She’d seen him before.
“I remember you. You’re Benjamin Shaw.” The kid who’d shown up with Michael’s friend, Lark, and taken him away. That’d been a week ago. Six days since she’d been running for her life, teetering on the brink of death. Seven days since Michael had kissed her and promised to come back.
I’ll come back for you. I’ll find a way…
And he had. Michael was the only reason she was alive. He’d saved her. “Where is he?” she said.
Ben cocked his head, giving her a wry grin. “Gone.”
She nodded like she understood, like she agreed, even though she didn’t understand or agree to any of it. “Gone where?”
“This would be one of those if I tell you, I’ll have to kill you moments, Sabrina. He’s just gone, and your chances of seeing him again are between slim and none.” He used the flat of his foot to push himself away from the wall, coming at her in long-legged strides. “Truth be told, O’Shea is the least of your worries right now. You’re in some deep shit, Chica,” he said, sitting on the edge of her bed. His eyes, as calm and clear as lake water, pinned her with a look that told her he knew everything.
He knew that when she was seventeen, her mother’s boyfriend had tried to rape her and she’d killed him by taking his head off with a baseball bat. That only a few days ago, her half-brother, Wade, used that same bat to kill a fellow police officer before leaving it at the crime scene, implicating her in both murders. The bat was in police custody. It was only a matter of time before she was arrested and charged.
She’d survived. Stopped a serial killer… and was staring down the barrel of a double homicide. Right now, it was a toss-up between life in prison and the needle. She wasn’t sure which she preferred at this point.
“I can take care of myself,” she said, even though she was pretty sure there was no way to pull herself clear of the mess she was in.
Ben’s smile widened to a grin but the warmth of it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I don’t doubt, under normal circumstances, that you’re a force to be reckoned with, but as it stands, you are truly and deeply fucked,” he said, his tone so sure and confident, set her teeth on edge as much as it scared the shit out of her.
“Get out,” she said, anger and fear stiffening the back of her neck. “Right now, before I figure out a way to kill you.”
Now he laughed at her—not really helping his cause. “You really aren’t listening to me, are you? You’re in trouble. Not convicted for murder kind of trouble. I’m talking snatched out of this bed and disappeared forever kind of trouble.” He shook his head.
“My father doesn’t like loose ends, and that’s what you are—a loose end. The only reason you’re still flapping in the breeze is because he doesn’t know about you. Yet. But he will—it’s only a matter of time, and after that, my hands will be tied.”
“Why would your father care about me?” she said. “I’m nobody. I don’t know anything—about him or whatever it is you people do.”
“You know just enough about us people to make you dangerous. As for who you are… you’re the woman Michael loves. That makes you more valuable than you can imagine.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I—”
“Ever heard of El Cartero?”
The question came out of nowhere, threw her off balance. “What? El Cartero? Yeah, we get FBI most wanted updates at the station—killer for hire, operates mainly out of South America. No one knows who he is but he’s suspected to be an American…” her voice trailed as understanding took root. She shook her head even harder than before. “No. No. I don’t believe you.” But even as she said it, she knew Ben was telling her the truth.
Ben’s father, Livingston Shaw, was Michael’s boss. The man that had him implanted with some sort of tracking device that kept tabs on his every move. But it had an additional function. It was there to kill him if he got to be more trouble than he was worth. She’d asked Michael why Livingston Shaw would do such a thing and he’d told her.
Because I’m one of the bad guys, Sabrina.
Michael was El Cartero. The thought squeezed every bit of air from her lungs, built pressure behind her eyes. He’d tried to tell her—warn her—and she hadn’t listened. In that moment, she hadn’t cared.
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 1 Page 30
