He pulls away from the curb and we drive toward Dini Bridge. “W-Were you at a party?” he asks.
“Yeah. It’s V’s birthday.”
“Oh, right. I-I’m sorry to have dragged you away.”
“I’m not. Wasn’t in much of a party mood.” I turn up the heat. “Just a miserable night all around.”
“W-We’re su-supposed to get two inches by tomorrow,” Jem offers.
Oh God we’re talking about the weather like perfect strangers. Has it really come to this? “So, the message. That was all it said on the slip: ‘Diamanda Roth, Re: Doris?”
“I just got off the phone with Miranda. She told me the caller was a man, a sick man who kept coughing. She thought it was about a patient.”
“But this caller definitely said ‘Doris?’ Because only a couple people know we call her that. How the fuck would Roth know it?” I gaze out the window at the passing city and shake my head. “And why call you and not me?”
“Your new number is unlisted. Anyone can reach me at the hospital,” he points out.
“If Doris is compromised, I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”
“We’ll figure it out. We-We’ll rebuild her if necessary. We talked about it before. Moving her and the lab from the mansion someplace safer. The apartment directly below us is still vacant. We—”
“For fuck’s sake, will you please stop saying ‘we?’” I snap. A knot twisted in my stomach every time he did and now I can barely breathe.
“I-I-I’m so-sorry,” he all but whispers before hanging his head as his mouth twists into a frown. Great now I’ve hurt his feelings. Again. “I-I just—”
“No, I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was uncalled for. It’s been a really long day after a really long month.”
“I understand. You’re forgiven.”
We drive in silence for a full minute but every passing second that knot tightens until the tension brewing inside me must be palpable because Jem keeps glancing at me. We’re in crisis mode. Focus on Doris, Jo. This isn’t the time to bring up anything but work. I—
“Jo, are you—” Jem begins.
My gaze whips in his direction so fast I’ll probably get whiplash. “China? You’re moving to fucking China? How long have you been planning this? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
His mouth opens and closes like a moored fish as he attempts to find the right words. “I-I-you knew about the offer. We talked about it.”
“Not seriously. We also talked about taking a year to sail around the world. Hell, we talked about changing our names and moving to the damn suburbs, but it was just that. Talk.”
“I’m not…I’m simply exploring my options.”
“Seriously exploring?” I ask, voice brittle.
His silence speaks volumes and acts like a punch to my already tender gut. “It’s a fantastic offer. My own lab.”
“You have a lab. Here.”
“The drug study’s almost complete. There I could focus on research without the politics and patients. The laws and regulations are far more permissive.” He glances at me. “And it’s not as if there’s anything keeping me here. Anymore.”
I just stare straight ahead. I’m not taking the bait. I let those horrid words hang between us for a few agonizing seconds. “You’ll hate Beijing. It’s crowded. And you’ll never find a decent Italian restaurant. I know you, you can’t go a week without chicken parmesan. And what about the case? You’re just going to leave without finding the villains? Leave this city unprotected?”
“The case has gone cold. If they were planning something it would have happened already.”
“You can’t know that. You’d be abandoning…the city. That’s not like you.”
“Well, I haven’t felt much like me lately.” He pauses. “Nothing is set in stone.” He pauses again. “And speaking of stones…” Oh, fuck. “I understand the Society is coming along well. I’ve heard a lot about what you intend to do. Rebuilding. Counseling. Lobbying. You’re going to do a lot of good for a great number of people, Joanna. You should be proud of yourself.” He pauses again. “I’m proud of you.”
I keep my expression flat and eyes forward, but inside I swell with pride. “I’m kind of proud of me too. I’ve never done anything like this before. Built something from the ground up. Something that’ll endure even after I’m gone.”
“And I haven’t a doubt you’ll succeed. None.” He pauses again, and I can sense it coming. The question he doesn’t want to ask but has to. My stomach knots again. “And has Stone been…helpful?”
“He’s barely been around. Him being hands off is part of the deal.”
“But you went to the gala together.”
“Because he has connections I don’t. It was work.”
The tension from his side of the car lowers to a tolerable level. “So you’re not…in love with him?”
“What? No! I’ve barely known him a month!”
“You fell in love with me in less than a month,” he points out.
“We’re different,” I say offended without thinking.
Crap. I snap my mouth shut and keep my eyes forward so I don’t have to see his expression. I can’t look at him or I’ll lose it again. He’s moving to China. Maybe. No good can come from me looking at him. Be strong. Be…fuck.
I glance at my companion at the same exact moment he glances at me. Our eyes connect and bang. I’m back to the night he drove me home in this very car. The first night we’d spent the night talking and laughing and dancing for hours. I wanted the night to last forever. Would have sold my soul for it. He made every moment happy. Peaceful. Perfect. That was the night I began to fall in love with him. Even after everything, even now, if I could rewind the clock, talk to my past self, would I warn myself? Would I have walked away from him?
No. Hell no.
This man gave me the best months of my life. He showed me I was worthy of love. That I could give it in return. He made me a better person. I liked who I was with him. I will never love anyone the way I love him. What we have is pure, true, God anointed love that should last a million nights and a million more. Even now. Even after what we’ve done to each other.
Forever.
I break the gaze first, staring straight ahead and willing my heart to stop pounding. Goddamn it. Why can’t I hate him? It’d be so much easier to live with the hate. I hate what he did. I hate he made a fool of me. And I hate that I’m not sure if I can forgive him. I hate that it still hurts to look at him. I don’t know if I can let go. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to trust again.
“Please tell me I’m not crazy,” Jem whispers desperately, drawing me out of my own head. “Please tell me I’m not imagining this.” I want to look over, but I won’t. I can’t. “Please…tell me you still feel this too. Please.”
Fuck. “I want to,” I whisper. “I want to more than almost anything. I just…don’t know if I have it in me.”
“Well, that makes one of us.” I finally look over at him this time, to that sympathetic, sad, heartbroken, imperfect face I adore. “I believe in you. I trust you with my life. I trust you with my heart. And I trust you with this. Because the one truth I know for sure of in this universe is you never underestimate Joanna Fallon. Never.”
His sincerity, his utter belief in those words makes me swell with pride again. A large smile fills my face at the same time I take his hand in mine. We ride the rest of the way to the mansion that way, smiling and fingers entwined. More than good enough. He doesn’t let go until we pull up to the mansion gate when he punches in the code. The gate rolls open.
All the lights are off inside the mansion, and there are no other signs of life. So far so—
Just as the gate closes behind us, headlights flip on behind us from the wooded area and the roar of a car engine echoes through the night. There’s barely time to look back before the Sedan guns it across the two lane road straight toward us. As it clears the gate, my hand intuitively goes for the gun in
my purse. Jem jerks the wheel right, veering us out of the crazy’s path. The madman skids to a stop right at the top of the driveway. We slow as well, stopping fifty feet from the interloper. Both our pants fill the silence. Ten seconds pass. Twenty. No one exits the other car. He’s waiting. For us. He can wait. Thirty seconds.
The car door opens. I clutch the gun tighter, but there’s no need. The driver literally collapses out of the car onto the snow. “Wait here,” Jem says.
I open my door. “No way.”
He knows better than to protest. I do let him take the lead but stay close behind, gun trained on the crazy in case he’s playing possum. But as I hear the wet, hacking coughs while we approach, I realize he’s not. Oh, dear God. The gun nearly drops out of my hand and I literally swallow back bile at the sight of the poor man. What the…?
Recent, raw blistering burns cover every inch of his visible skin, weeping blood and clear liquid from the cracks. His nose is nothing but a welt with bloody nostrils and lips pulled back showing of his bloody teeth. “Call 911!” Jem says as he sprints the rest of the way to the coughing burn.
911. 911.
I whip out my cell phone from my purse as Jem reaches the man, kneeling beside him. “Hello, I need an ambulance at 67625 Timm Lane right fucking now. Th-There’s a man, he’s severely burnt and coughing up blood.” I step beside them. Jesus fucking Christ if possible he’s worse up close. He reeks of seared flesh, coppery blood, and something metallic I can’t place. “He-He’s in critical condition.” The man stares up at me, bloodshot eyes pleading for deliverance. His mouth opens and closes as he tries to speak. Jem begins taking his pulse. “He—”
“Joanna,” the man croaks. “Help me.”
“Oh, God,” Jem gasps.
“What?”
Jem moves the man’s palm up, revealing the bone-line tube peeking out of the man’s wrist dripping pink liquid searing the man’s skin even now. My eyes dart back to the man’s eyes for confirmation. Oh, dear God in heaven.
“Hello?” the 911 operator asks, snapping me out of my shock. “Ma’am?”
“Y-You need to c-contact Captain Harold O’Hara at Priority Homicide and Agents Jackson and Devitt with the Marshall Service with emergency priority and have officers escort the ambulance.” I stare into those brown pools and feel mine tearing up.
“And tell them…I’ve found James Ryder.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
With A Whimper
Jem carries Ryder inside the mansion as I switch off the alarm and flip on the lights. It’s as cold in here as outside, but with my pumping adrenaline, the temperature barely registers. At least Ryder’s out of the snow, though he might be better off there. His skin is hot enough to fry an egg. Jem gently sets him on the foyer hardwood floor before shrugging his jacket off and setting it over his patient. Wherever Ryder came from he forgot shoes. All the supervillain wears is a set of green scrubs and parka, the former caked in blood. His blood, or someone else’s, I don’t know. All that matters now is keeping him alive. Me keeping James Ryder alive. How times have changed.
“Stay here with him,” Jem says. “I’ll get the med kit from downstairs. I suppose I could fly him to the hospital. He—”
“How would you explain that? The ambo’s on its way. Get the pack. Now.”
Jem nods and begins flying down the hall toward the Chamber of Justice. But there’s nothing I can do for Ryder except hold his hand. Let him know he’s not alone. He squeezes mine with the strength of a dying kitten. “It’s okay,” I whisper. “You’ll be okay.”
It takes him two tries before he can whisper back, “Liar,” before coughing again, this time bringing up blood from his lungs.
Jesus fuck. “Who did this to you?” I ask, voice as brittle as he is.
“Do-Doctors,” he whispers before groaning in pain and coughing again.
“Were you at a hospital? Were the others there?”
“Lab,” he gasps. “In…lab. Strapped. Tests. Shots. Made…breathe something. Days maybe then this. Started.” He coughs again, this time for almost thirty seconds, as he squeezes my hand. “Don’t know…about others. Killed a nurse. Ran. Escaped.”
“Where’s the lab?”
He gasps and begins coughing, this time digging his fingers into the palm of my hand so hard I wince. If he still had fingernails, he’d draw blood. He needs water. I extract my hand and the skin of his index finger comes with me, clear liquid pouring on my hands. That’s it. I dry heave. Oh, fuck me. “I-I-I’m going to get you some water. Ju-Just rest. Be right back.” I leap up and run toward the kitchen. Oh fuck. Fuck. I wash the blood and fluid off my hands before getting a glass. I’ve seen some gruesome shit in my life, but what’s become of him ties with the sight of Rebecca and her mother after the man in there murdered them. Poetic justice or not, I still wouldn’t wish what he’s enduring on anyone. What the hell did they do to him?
Jem’s returned before me and a damn good thing too because Ryder lies on his side coughing up blood and what looks like sticky coffee grounds. The slurry sizzles on the floor. Acid. Jem holds Ryder’s head until everything’s out, at least for the moment. But Ryder’s spent. A man, even a supervillain, can only take so much. He collapses onto his back, eyes firmly closed. Fuck. Jem checks his patient’s pulse and after a second, his face falls. “I need your help. His heart’s stopped.” I drop to the floor. Jem hands me scissors. “Cut off his shirt.” As I perform the task, revealing more burns and gore, Jem removes the portable defibrillator and turns it on. Shirt off, I begin chest compressions. There’s no way in hell I’m giving him mouth-to-mouth. Jem places the pads on his chest. Ten more seconds pass before the defibrillator’s ready. “Clear!”
I pull away, and Jem presses the button. Ryder’s body jerks as electricity passes through him. Nothing. I begin compressions again as the machine recharges, and Jem prepares a shot. Thirty seconds later the machine’s ready. “Clear!” Another jerk but nothing. Fuck. One last option. Jem raises the needle and plunges it straight into Ryder’s heart. Before it’s even out, Ryder’s eyes open and he takes a gasping breath, only to fall back into oblivion. Jem feels for a pulse and breathes a sigh of relief when he finds it this time. The villain’s breathing is shallow but present. He’s alive. For now. “Keep your fingers on his pulse point and tell me if it stops,” Jem orders and I obey.
Jem begins looking the comatose man up and down for a place to start treatment. The finger skin I ripped off wins the prize. Jem removes gauze and topical cream from his bag. “Did he say anything?”
“He woke up in a lab. They tested him, gave him shots, he said something about an inhalant, then this started. I assume he meant the burns.”
“So this isn’t from fire or chemicals?”
“I don’t think so. And Jem, he has the same healing factor you do. He survived a subway station collapse. Now he’s coughing up blood and has a fever?”
“I think whatever made it so his own alkaloid rich blood and organs were resistant to the heightened pH in his system has been shut off,” Jem says. “I think his body’s in essence eating itself.”
“Fuck me.”
“Did he say anything else? Where this lab is?”
“No, he started coughing and wouldn’t stop. I went to get water. He did say he killed a nurse. I assume he stole a car after. He’s the one who called you, isn’t he? He is the one who told me about Diamanda. He knew I called the computer Doris. He wanted you here. Maybe me. Why?”
“I’m a doctor? He knew I’d bring you? Both?”
He wanted us to save him. Save the others. He trusted me. Jesus Christ.
“What the hell could have done this, Jem?”
“I don’t know. Could be auto-immune. The body thinks something normal inside you isn’t normal and begins attacking it.”
“What causes it?”
“Genetics, external environmental factors, viruses, bacteria, but those are merely hypothesis. We don’t really know.”
“Brillia
nt.”
“We need him to wake up to narrow the potential inciting act down.”
“And to locate the others,” I remind him. “Whatever they did to him, they probably did to them all. But why? Why the fuck would anyone do this?”
“God knows, Joanna. I don’t…I’ve never seen anything like this. If it is autoimmune, it’s extremely fast acting. These diseases are gradual. Years not weeks.”
“Is there a treatment for autoimmune?”
“Steroids can help but it depends. There’s no cure. And,” Jem inserts an IV into Ryder’s arm, “it might not be an autoimmune disease.”
I take the IV and hold it up. Where the hell is the ambulance? “He’s going to die, isn’t he?”
Jem simply remains silent as he continues patching up the worst of the seeping burns. He’s really going to die. I wished for his death, almost killed him myself, then why do I feel sad? Angry even? He’s dying and there’s precious little I can do. Except this. I lean down to his ear and whisper, “I’ll tell Grace you love her. That your last words were about her. And we’ll find who did this to you. On my life, I promise I will.”
That must have been what he was waiting for. He lets out one rattled breath but no others follow. His pulse disappears. “Shit! Jem!”
The defibrillator only has three charges left. Not a one works, nor CPR or more drugs. I keep pressing on his chest. “Come on,” I whisper.
“Joanna…”
“Nope. We need him to find the others. We need him. We need him.”
“Joanna…” Jem places his hand over my pumping fists. “He’s gone. Stop. Just stop.”
I gaze into Jem’s sympathetic sapphire eyes, and the fight goes out of me. He’s right. He usually is. My boogeyman. The only man who never lied to me. The world’s a better place without him in it, but my heart literally hurts staring at him. I’m gonna miss him.
Some villains go out with a bang. They take whole buildings, whole cities with them. But not the worst Galilee Falls has ever seen. He meets his demise without even a whimper. Perhaps that’s the death he deserved. Perhaps that’s justice. I don’t know. It’s not for me to judge. All I do know is I’ll do all in my power to make sure no one else meets this fate. I owe him that.
The Galilee Falls Trilogy (Book 3): Fall of Heroes Page 19
