by LeAnn Mason
Unfortunately, that was the least of the pain that I would endure for a good long while. Only a moment after the horde returned to the room, I realized that my earbuds would need to make an appearance. Just one would do wonders for muting the raging thoughts of the room’s inhabitants and still allow me to keep a mental eye on the doctor, should he get overzealous in his ministrations. I fished in my pocket and found gold.
“Don’t leave home without it,” I muttered sardonically as I pulled the items free from my pocket and shoved one end into my ear. “What kind of playlist do you think is appropriate for the occasion?” Everyone had a bit of a smirk in place at my coping mechanism, but no one verbalized their response, afraid to break the solemn or something. “Right, then. Steve, I like your suggestion of ballads. It will be a kind of ironic lament.”
“I’m going to numb the area, but that is going to sting a bit,” the doctor said, bringing forth a large syringe filled with a clear substance and topped with a rather large needle. I couldn’t help but snag Holden’s hand and squeeze for dear life as I stared at the instrument of death with rounded eyes.
“Seriously?” Steve said in disbelief.
I just squeezed Holden’s hand harder and tried my best to get those damn death lasers to shoot from my eyes and obliterate the one called Boat Shoes. The man still irritated me to no end.
First came a sharp prick, and then a cold sensation, then again, in a slightly different area. Again. Seven times, the bastard stabbed me in order to “numb” the area, and it only kind of worked. I wasn’t sure if my body was burning through the medicine too fast, or if it just wasn’t as effective as I wanted it to be, but when he began flushing out the hole and rubbing it with sanitizing gauze? That freaking hurt. When he tried to assess the damage?
I passed out.
CHAPTER 19
HOLDEN
We were kicked out of the recovery room once “visiting hours” were cut off, about twenty hundred hours. Nat had been pretty out of it on pain meds since the doctor went about cleaning her up, but none of us left her side other than to piss or eat. My uncle had been notified of the situation and asked to be kept apprised of her progress. When she was able, we’d be heading back to Minefield. Obviously, the city was not safe for our group. Not right now, maybe not ever.
It had been the worst day of my life. Worse even than the day my own father had nearly killed me. That had been me; I could deal with me getting hurt. Not her. I could not deal with her being hurt. Thank God, the bullet had avoided anything major. I knew she could heal, but even she said she couldn’t heal everything. I had a feeling that a fatal gunshot wound would affect even her. So, again, Thank God.
They had to keep the emergency room open twenty-four hours a day, so we had all crashed there. Well, none of us slept, but that is where we spent the time. At zero-eight-hundred hours, I could once again see her. I needed to get back there, make sure all was well, or at least relatively. My whole body flushed with anger again as I recalled that she’d been shot.
Shot!
Most of the team had finally drifted into a kind of too-tired-to-move sleep, so I made my way back toward Nat’s room alone. A little bump from behind had me turning to see what had run into me. Turns out it was a little blonde Sage Enhanced pixie. With a small smile, I sat an arm on her shoulder; it was easier than going any lower. For that, I’d have to bend, and my body was far too stiff and drained to be able to do that while walking.
“I can’t believe she was shot,” Jade breathed quietly, like she was telling me some pent-up secret. “It could have been any of us. Why did he only shoot once? Was he aiming for her? Where the Hell were the detail guys?”
I didn’t have any answers for her and, seeing as the shooter hadn’t made it out of surgery, we’d likely never know for sure. I thought that was scarier. It left too many questions unanswered, keeping all of us looking over our shoulders and flinching at loud noises. It was more than clear we were not safe here. Jade, of course, couldn’t hear my thoughts like Nat could, so I just gave her the most reassuring smile I could muster. It fell flat, and Jade put a hand to mine that was draped over her shoulder, giving a squeeze. Her own form of silent reassurance.
After too long, we found ourselves at the threshold to Nat’s room. Miller, the resident asshole detail officer was stationed outside. Jade and I both nodded at Miller in acknowledgement before we took a moment to gather ourselves, to be strong for our girl. I could only imagine how scared she was and how much pain she was in. She would hate the fact that our only lead was dead. She had wanted to question him herself. Jade gave a quick nod when I glanced at her with the silent question: ready?
Neither of us were prepared for what we saw when we entered the room, which was… nothing. There was no one in the room. It was bare and sterile, like any other of the hundreds of rooms in the building. I turned myself in circles, thinking that, for sure, this wasn’t real. I must still be awkwardly laying across a chair in the emergency waiting room, hand propped uncomfortably against my cheek. I was probably drooling, because the only thing I knew for sure was that this couldn’t be happening. Where the Hell is she?
I tried to convey my sheer panic to Jade who, like me, was in a state of shocked disbelief.
“I have no idea where she is…” Jade looked crestfallen and at a loss. “Why would they have moved her? We need to find her! Miller! Where is she?” Every word out of Jade’s mouth became more and more frantic, her disbelief morphing into the panic that was already coursing through my veins. She was well on her way to an asthma attack with how rapidly she was breathing.
“What’s wrong? Where? Where is Nathalee?” A stunned Miller floundered as he spun, much the same as what Jade and I just finished doing. I needed to get out of there if I didn’t want to deck the jackass. It was his job to watch over her when we were forced out.
I could do nothing but shrug helplessly—or lay him out on his ass. I had no answers, either. Yet. I waved a hand over my shoulder in a “come on” motion and escaped the blankness of the room, which should have held a sleeping or irate Nathalee Dae. I would take either at that moment. I just needed to see her. I needed to know she was alright.
I had a feeling that she was anything but.
All I heard as I ran from the room was the slapping of my feet against the freshly-cleaned floor and my heart thudding heavily in my chest. How could she be gone? Where would they have taken her? Who was they?
A haphazard skid brought me to a stop at the nurse’s station for this area, I flung an arm over the counter top, searching for something, anything to write on and with. Jade appeared at my side, no less agitated as she pounded on the surface with nearly uncontrolled movements.
Miller tossed a determined, “I’ll rally the guys,” as he moved past us toward the elevator bank, sounding much more helpful than he had at any point prior. It made me twitchy.
“I need a nurse, NOW!” Jade’s wild demand got the attention of a few nurses milling throughout the area. I assumed them to be starting and ending their respective shifts and exchanging information pertinent for the day. Well, I damn sure thought that Nat was included in that information, and I—we—needed to know it. I continued flinging anything that wasn’t writing material across the lower portion of the desk, sending a cup full of paperclips and a stapler crashing across the surface. The cup containing pens tipped as I yanked one from center mass. My hands shook so badly that my handwriting would probably be wretched to decipher. Thankfully, Jade was my sidekick in this endeavor. “Hel-lo! I need to know where the patient in room three-eleven went!”
The women exchanged a quick look of condescension, one that said “here we go again.” They clearly experienced this on the regular. That kind of worried me. I could not be sure if they often saw people in a panic due to their own emotions or if they misplaced patients repeatedly. I slapped my palm to the top counter’s surface in attempt to make the middle-aged brunette move my way at a more reasonable pace. She only narrowed he
r eyes at me as she came to a seat in front of the computer situated in the bend of the drab, gray, crescent-shaped structure. No rush. No heed of the urgency we conveyed.
“How can I help you this morning?” the nurse said with false sincerity and enthusiasm that matched her plastic smile and patronizing gaze.
“The gunshot victim in room three-eleven. Where has she been moved?” Jade got right to the point. Again. Her fingers drummed along the dull surface in a nervous tick that mirrored my own. I did not know how much longer I could just stand there. Jade must have sensed that in me, because she wrapped a small hand around my forearm, sending me a pleading look. One telling me that my panic would send her over the edge soon. “I’ll calm you if you can’t do it yourself,” she said quietly as the nurse clicked away on her computer. Hopefully, she was actually looking for Nat’s information and not just blowing smoke up our asses.
“I’m sorry, our records show that room three-one-one has been vacant for more than twenty-four hours.”
My head was swimming, and my eyes hurt—throbbed, really. I knew they had become the silver color Nat always mentioned when I was worried about her, because damn it if I wasn’t scared out of my fucking mind right now. My girl was gone, and I had no idea how to find her.
The thundering of my heart got louder, completely eclipsing all other sound with it’s too-fast tempo. The people chattering, the machines beeping, the scraping of chairs; I missed it all as I was consumed with worry. If I didn’t calm down, I’d probably pass out. I hadn’t had an anxiety attack in years. Maybe I hadn’t cared enough about anything that had been threatened. Whatever the reason, it was not the time to fall back into old habits. Nat needed me.
Furiously I scribbled a few lines and thrust the result at the nurse. So much so that I nearly boxed her in the face with the paper.
“I’m sorry, I don’t really know what to tell you. My shift just started for the day. I have not seen or heard of the patient you are referring to. I have no record of a,” she squinted at my pitiful attempt at communication again, “Nathalee Dae. I can page the floor attending and see what they can tell me. Are you sure it was this hospital and not another? We have many in the city…” The feral look on my face must have spooked her, because she just stopped everything to gape at me.
“I’m sorry, Holden, but you’re going Primal on me. Calm,” Jade soothed me, which must have been excruciating for her. I knew she was not holding it together any better than I was. Calm flooded through me, beginning at our point of contact—my arm—and radiating toward my heart, my head, and then lower.
You tranqed me, I thought accusingly at her as my eyelids floated closed and took way too long to open again. When they did, the nurse was gone. To where, or to do what, I had no idea. It better have been to get me answers.
Nat’s missing and you TRANQUILIZED me? I scribbled on my pad. Writing was much more difficult than normal, my brain moving too slowly and my hands following suit.
Jade grabbed my arms and stared me down with those big green eyes. They were somehow both cold as ice and hot as lasers. How the Hell did she pull that off? “We need to talk to the rest of the team, figure out how we can get the information we need, who has it, and how the Hell to get it. To get her. I need you functional for that, Mister Silver. Nat needs you.”
Well, if that wasn’t a slap to the face. She was right. Me flipping my switch wouldn’t help us; it would only give the ninnies more ammunition against Enhanced and keep us from finding out what we needed—even if my response was perfectly reasonable to the fact that they lost my girlfriend!
I wrote: You’re right, I’m sorry. We need to get back to the others. Tell them what’s going on. Maybe the chief can give us some backup. My uncle, too. Our detail guys are obviously useless… or had a part in it.
“I’ll stay here for another minute, see if I can get anything more out of anyone. I’ll surveil feelings to see if anyone is acting shady. Comm me once you guys talk. We’ll go from there.”
I nodded, my energy renewing from Jade’s dose of lethargy. I shook out my limbs, feeling a tingling sensation as my body and mind both came back to me. I tore into another page of the pad. Damn girl, you are potent. Thank you for keeping me off the cliff. But do not make a habit of persuading me. My feelings are my voice in this world. I need them.
“I’m sorry, you know how much I hate doing it, but I needed to. We can’t all lose our shit, or else there won’t be anyone to figure out the puzzle. Now go. Rally the troops.”
With a decisive nod, I turned on my heel and ran, once again only feeling the worry for Nathalee and hearing my own efforts to get to her. It was like the bustling hospital was muted, just filler for my purpose. The elevator slowed me down, the buttons lighting up each number as I waited, less than patiently, for its appearance. I couldn’t stand still, so I paced the area in front of the doors until a ding finally announced its arrival.
I waited only for the doors to open enough for me to enter before charging forward. I didn’t look to see if it was empty and nearly ran headfirst into someone; only their arms coming up to restrain me kept me from plowing right into them. “Bro, calm. We were coming to meet you,” Devlin said with an audible edge. The worry and lack of sleep were affecting us all.
Little did he know, I was going to make it so much worse. I’d kept the little yellow pad of sticky notes and thrust one at him as he backed me out of the way of the elevator’s doors and into a corner out of the way of foot traffic. I scribbled the situation as I knew it. I need to get a hold of my uncle. He’ll know what to do.
Devlin read the note, Trent and Steve both poking their heads around his formidable frame. “What do you mean, Nat’s gone?” Devlin asked, confused.
I scribbled again, my panic rising—again. Her room is vacant. Like she was never there. The nurse coming on shift said the computers had no record of her ever being here. Jade’s still there.
“This is not good,” Trent breathed, wringing his hands in worry. He had a tendency to get lost in his own thoughts and scenarios when a situation arose. I could only hope that his internal struggle would lead to some badass insight.
“We need to figure this out. I’ll get in touch with the chief. See what I can find out. Can you connect with Commander James, Trent?”
“What? Oh, uh… yeah. Our comms can connect with our own network, but the phones we got from the ninnies wouldn’t. They run off of a more advanced network than Minefield has access to. Commander James does have a satellite setup, though. I’ll get through.”
“So, yes. Great. Contact Commander James, see what he can do on his end. I trust him a hundred times more than I do anyone in this city—especially now. Let’s try not to make too much of a scene. We don’t need any more eyes on us than absolutely necessary. Quick and quiet, if we can manage it.” Dev was solid in a crisis, always had been. He was a good team lead—once he had calmed down about having Sages as enforcers—and exactly what we needed then.
“Uh, small problem,” Steve interjected with a pointed finger in the air. “I don’t know about you guys, but I left my comm in the hotel room yesterday… along with the rest of my stuff.”
Shit, he was right. I didn’t have my comm on me to contact my uncle. I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed at an eyebrow in frustration. I moved my attention to Trent and gave my best body language for “can you figure something out?” and moved my fingers around like I was typing. Trent had never had to communicate with me without Nat there to translate, so I didn’t know how well I was doing.
Thankfully, he seemed to understand. “I’ll see what I can do. I have the laptop they gave me. I’ll see if I can create a channel for him. Well… one that he’ll see in a timely manner anyway. Would our detail have a way to contact him? I would think there would be some fallback measures, even if it’s just through a chain. You know, their commander to ours…” He shrugged, unsure. “I’ll get on it. By the way, where is our detail? Why weren’t they on the door?”
&nbs
p; Miller was on the door when Jade and I got there. Next pad page. Seemed surprised Nat wasn’t there either. Ripped another sheet. If I see him again, we’ll get answers.
“At this point, I don’t care. I think they’d be more of a hindrance than help, though I’m sure they’re around here somewhere,” Devlin said in a distracted tone as he located the police chief’s card he’d been handed as we concluded our meet-and-greet. When Nathalee was shot. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. Her worst fears were being realized.
Nat had been taken, but we didn’t know why or by whom, or where she was. We were strangers in a strange land; no contacts, no resources, no familiarity. Our team was good, but we were working against tremendous odds, and we didn’t have a tracker. We had no one who could follow her scent, lead us right to her. Dane was dead. Any others were back in Minefield and had no investment in our cause, no investment in seeing Nat returned and safe.
I lashed out, throwing my right fist into the nearest thing, which happened to be a wall. Plaster and sheetrock caved away from my balled fist as it lingered in the newly created-hole before I had the presence of mind to retract the limb. Devlin, Trent, and Steve had all stopped what they’d been doing to stare at the blemish, then at me.
“Whoa there, Silver. Dude, you need to calm down,” Steve said, almost patronizingly, making me want to put my fist into his face next. Dev must have seen it, because he moved the dumbass Sage behind him with a smooth arm motion.
“Holden, I know where you’re at, man. I do. But you need to keep it together. You can’t flip. Not here and not now.” True to form, Devlin was the voice of reason. Jade had told me the exact same thing only a short time ago, at the start of this wretched day. But I slipped, and would continue slipping until we found and retrieved Nathalee. Nothing would be okay until I could wrap my arms around her and kiss her sultry lips.
I wouldn’t rest until that was my reality.
