by J. M. Madden
“Maybe you should call her for Christmas.”
The lines around his mouth deepened. “Would if I could. She passed on many years ago.”
Raine brushed his arm with her fingers.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It happens, you know?” He glanced at the people milling around the room. “This is a good thing you did here, Nurse Walters.”
Raine smiled softly. That seemed like high praise from Noah. “Thank you for helping me.”
“Did you send your mama pictures?”
Raine blinked at the totally innocent question. It took her a moment to shake her head. “No,” she said softly. “She died a couple years ago, too, on Christmas Eve.”
Noah blinked at her, then muttered a curse. “I’m sorry. The way you talked I thought…”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her in a quick hug, and for a timeless moment Raine let herself absorb the comfort. Raine loved the feel of his arm around her and missed it as soon as it was gone. Technically she wasn’t on duty but they were at work, so, him pulling away was probably the right thing to do.
“I understand why Christmas is so important to you now,” he murmured.
She sighed, her eyes filling with tears. “Yeah. It’s the most important thing I shared with my mother. Her love of lights and the hope of the season. Amazing things can happen during the holidays. I don’t know how she pulled off some of the things she did because very often we had no spare money for anything. And it wasn’t that my dad didn’t work, he did. But it just wasn’t enough to keep us all afloat. And then mama got sick…” her voice trailed off. This was too perfect of a night to blemish it with hard, hurtful thoughts. “Anyway,” she said, smiling brightly, “I want this room to be about finding new joy. And reminding the men that even though they may not be with their real family, we’re happy enough to step in for now.”
Noah grinned crookedly. “You know, that’s good enough for me,” he said softly.
Throughout the night people wandered through. Raine loved seeing the joy break over their faces as they entered the room. It helped to beat back her own sadness. She thought that by building this room she would be able to feel closer to her mother, but it wasn’t working that way yet. Instead it was making her feel like she was that much further away and she found herself fighting tears.
Inevitably there were stories, some from the men from the states and others from around the world as the men spied things from their culture. The two Germans shook their heads when they spied the pickles, but loved the rest of the decorations. One man cried when he found the menorah display and sat down to stare at it for a long time. His joy at being recognized made her cry as well.
When Paul rolled into the room pushing Haven in a wheelchair, she was startled and a little worried. If Haven went into an attack it would be difficult to control all the people in here. There were men sitting at the rec tables, some talking, some just sitting as they absorbed the wonder of the long room. Even the nurses were hanging around talking, enjoying the ambiance. Raine would like to think that the room had brought good memories and enjoyment for everyone.
Haven’s eyes had gone wide as he rolled in, but he didn’t appear to be panicking. Raine walked over and held out her hand to him. After a short hesitation he took it, his gaze connecting with hers. “This is really something,” he whispered.
Raine grinned. “Thank you. I’m glad you let Paul bring you down.”
Haven stared at her, blinking. “Why aren’t you happy?”
Tears filled her eyes again and she tried to pull away. She shouldn’t cry because a resident asked her a question. She started to turn away and brush her tears away, but she stopped. She was building trust with Haven and he deserved truth. “Because it reminds me how sharply I miss my mother. She died at Christmas two years ago, and this is the first time I’ve gone all out to decorate anything. I thought it would feel like I was honoring her, but I only feel pain at her loss.”
The tears rolled down her cheeks and she just let them. When her mama had died Raine had thought she was going to die, the pain was so devastating. It had taken her months to even feel like she was living again.
“What would your mother say about this room?” Haven asked, cradling her hand in both of his.
The question forced Raine to look around, and see. “She would love that it had brought people together in a way they hadn’t had a chance to before. She would love that they seem to be enjoying the work I put into it. And I think she would love that something that she had started was living on.”
Haven smiled slightly, his deep-set eyes glinting with some emotion. Then the room dimmed and she thought someone had flicked off the lights. Curious, she looked down the length of the room and gasped. Her mother stood looking up at the tree, her eyes gone soft with the multi-color light. Without even realizing she was moving, Raine walked toward her mother, holding Haven’s hand, afraid to blink. She knew that Haven had to be creating the vision, but for the moment she didn’t care. Her mother was standing less than twenty feet in front of her, looking so real Raine thought she could reach out and touch her.
Mama’s blonde hair was piled on top of her head in one of the messy buns she used to do, and she was dressed in one of Daddy’s flannel shirts she liked to wear around the house. There was a radiance to her face as she looked up at the house. Raine thought that was the memory she was seeing; one of her childhood memories before everything had changed. Even as she watched her mama looked up at the sky and the falling snowflakes, holding her palms out to catch them. Raine looked around, entranced as snowflakes began to fall around her. She held out her hand, the one Haven wasn’t holding, and let the snowflakes fall on her palm. Was she actually feeling the cold or was she merely imagining it as the flakes melted against her skin?
Mama looked at her and Raine swallowed, her throat threatening to close off completely. Her mother had been so beautiful, her skin weather-worn, smile lines around her mouth and cheeks. She and Daddy had been in love like teenagers and though they’d been poor, they’d made the most of everything they could.
“I love you, mama,” she whispered. “And I miss you so bad.”
“I love you, baby girl,” her mother responded, before she gently faded away and the rec room returned.
Raine clapped a hand over her mouth to contain sobs and she was vaguely aware of strong hands on her shoulders guiding her into a chair. As tears rolled down her cheeks she looked up at Noah. “That was my mama.”
He nodded, kneeling down in front of her and she realized his eyes were swimming with tears too, though he wasn’t crying like she was. “I saw my grandmother, by the nativity.”
She looked around the room, suddenly aware that she wasn’t the only one distraught. Others were crying, mostly the female nurses but some of the male patients, as well. One man had passed out on the floor and Paul had moved to make sure he was okay. One man had his hand stretched out toward the nativity scene, saying Pépère over and over again. She thought it meant grandfather in French. Had all of these people seen something like she had? Turning, she looked at Haven.
The man appeared to have shrunk down in his wheelchair, the circles around his eyes even deeper. “Did you do this?” she whispered. “Did you give me that glimpse of my mother again?”
He didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes. Raine reached out, her eyes filling with even more tears as she realized what Haven had done for her. What he’d done for them all. “You are amazing,” she breathed. “Thank you. She looked beautiful.”
“It was your most clear memory of her,” Haven whispered. “You’d remembered it several times over the past couple of days so you were almost broadcasting it. I just gave it a little spark.”
Raine heaved a breath, looking around the room again. Those that had been affected by the visions were coming back to themselves and the man on the floor sat up, looking dazed.
Noah rested his hand on her knee. “Are you
okay?”
Raine nodded, feeling…ephemeral. Lighter in her skin. “He gave us all a vision of our lost loved ones.”
Noah nodded, still rubbing her knee. “I like those visions a lot better than the ones trying to kill me.”
Haven seemed to have wilted in his chair. With a pat on his hand, she moved away from Noah and to the resident. “Are you okay?”
“I think I might have done too much.” He blinked up at her. “I feel like I’m going to crash, Nurse Raine.”
“Okay, I’ll get you back to your room.” She moved around behind him and turned the wheelchair to leave the room. She caught Paul’s gaze and he nodded, acknowledging what she was doing. Then she pushed Haven back down to his room, Noah trailing along behind. Within just a minute she was maneuvering Haven down his hallway and into his room. He barely had the energy to stand so Noah helped him to the bed. It spoke to how wrung out he was that he didn’t protest being in the bed itself, rather than on the floor where he normally stayed.
“Can I give you a cover?” she asked quietly.
“Yes,” he whispered.
She pulled the light blanket up over his shoulders, draping it over him carefully, then she rested her hand on his shoulder. “Tomorrow I’ll get you all the Coke you want, buddy. Thank you for what you did tonight.”
Raine wasn’t sure if he heard her or not. His breathing had already deepened. She watched him for a moment, looking for anything medically wrong, but he just seemed to be super tired.
Making sure the light was on in the bathroom, she left Haven’s room. Noah was leaning against the opposite wall. He gave her a long look, his golden eyes probing. “You okay?”
Raine nodded. “Just… thankful, I guess. She looked so real, standing there. Strong, before the sickness took her.”
Noah rocked his head. “My grandmother, as well. She was looking down into the nativity crib, checking to see if we’d stolen Jesus again.”
Raine snorted and started down the hall, hands in her scrubs pockets. “I have a feeling when we talk to everyone else they’ll report similar scenes.” She glanced at her watch. “I think I’d better call Elizabeth and update her on what just happened.”
Noah laughed lightly. “You can tell her she missed the Christmas miracle.”
Blinking at him, she shook her head. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. And for the first time, I don’t know if he recognized it or not, but Haven manifested something other than doom and gloom. Deliberately.”
Noah lifted his black brows and gave her a nod. “We’ll all be thinking about and analyzing this night for a while,” he said thoughtfully.
Yes, they definitely would.
Noah walked her back to the nurse station, but everyone appeared to still be down in the rec room. Even as she thought it, she saw Paul walking a couple of the residents back to their rooms. Raine wondered what he had seen.
Tiredness suddenly dragged at her eyelids.
“I think you need to take some time off, Nurse Walters, and get some real sleep. You’ve been running hard to get the room done. You need to take some time for yourself, now.”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she sighed. “I think you’re right.”
Paul agreed with Noah’s assessment when he walked up. “Go to bed, woman. We’ll talk tomorrow. Everyone is okay. Get some rest.”
Noah guided her down the hallway to the elevator and punched the button for their floor. Raine held onto the siderail. “That was amazing,” she said softly.
“It was,” he agreed.
When the elevator stopped, he held a hand out for her to step off ahead of him, then he followed her down the hallway. Raine stopped in front of her door and keyed in the code, swinging the door open. Then she turned back to Noah. “I want to thank you for helping me out with everything today and yesterday. It wouldn’t have been as cool without your help.”
Then, before she could think better of it, she stepped forward, went up on tiptoe and kissed him on his lean cheek, one hand braced on his muscular chest. Noah went completely still, and she thought he might have been holding his breath, too. She was about to pull away when he suddenly cupped her head in his hands and brushed his lips against hers, ever so gently. Raine gasped, shocked at the sudden bolt of heat through her body. All her tiredness disappeared as she tasted him for the first time and she cupped his neck, stroking his jaw with her other hand. Noah tasted of danger and temptation, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for the kind of storm he would be.
Reluctantly, she drew back. “Good night, Noah.”
His steady golden eyes watched her as she let herself into the apartment. “Good night, Raine.”
Closing the door behind herself, she watched him until she couldn’t see him anymore, then she turned and leaned against the panel, feeling like she’d just brushed against the tail end of a comet.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he called through the door, and she took it as a promise.
Catalyst
Chapter 1
There was a pounding on his door. Noah rolled to his feet, frowning. He snatched his old t-shirt on, then the pounding came again.
Crossing to the door, he took a deep breath, preparing himself for the wave of noise he was about to let in.
Raine Walters stood on the other side of his door, hands twisted together in front of her. As soon as he saw the petite nurse, Noah frowned. “Haven?”
She nodded her head, her dark golden curls loose around her face. “I stopped in to check on him before I went to bed. He’s rambling on and on that they’re coming to get him. I’ve given him a sedative, but things are happening. He’s been responding well to you, so I thought…”
Nodding, he pulled his door shut and took off down the hallway. Raine quickly followed.
“Is it the same people again?”
“Yes. He says they want his bones. Or something.”
Noah snorted softly. Haven was one of the test subjects rescued from Guyana. Wulfe Terberger, Aiden Willingham and Drake Fontana had all been imprisoned in a Brazilian camp and tested on with the original Ayahuasca concoction. They had escaped two years ago and gone into hiding. What they hadn’t known at the time, and what they were only beginning to realize, was that there were other camps where variations of the ayahuasca serum was being tested. They’d found another camp just a few weeks ago in Mexico. The Dogs of War had gone in and cleaned it up, with the help of the CIA, bringing them four more men. The people running the facility had very quietly disappeared.
Elizabeth Cole had hired a team to wade through the massive amount of information they’d gathered about the serum experiments. Thankfully it seemed to all be separate from the Silverstone Collaborative’s legitimate pharmaceutical interests.
Haven Wendell had been one of those rescued from the Guyana camp, and he was not settling in well. Though he’d been here for months, it was almost as if he was going through withdrawal from the drug. When they ran his blood trace amounts of dozens of different drugs were in his system, as if the ayahuasca had been cut with other things. By now, most of the concoction should have been out of his system, but it didn’t seem like that was the case. He struggled with his sanity on a daily basis. Since Christmas, Noah had gone down to talk to him several times, and he admired the fight in the former Army Ranger.
The past two days, though, it seemed as if the nightmares and fears were getting worse.
Noah glanced down at Raine. “Have you seen them?”
Her big blue eyes went dark with pain. “Yes.”
As they’d sorted through the men and all of the different enhancements that the ayahuasca created in their personalities, it had become apparently fairly quickly that many of the men had issues with attachment. If they had been in a group when rescued, they wanted to stay with the same group in a dorm if possible. If they had been experimented on individually, Dr. Cole and her team had realized that they adjusted better if they each had individual care. Raine was the nurse assigned to Haven, as well as a few other p
atients, and he admired the woman for what she did every single day.
Haven had a tendency to project his deepest fears to those around him. When he was coherent and aware, he could restrain the ability. The only person that hadn’t initially been affected by his rather drastic mental ability was sweet, sweet Raine. The nurse was beautiful and kind to a fault. Noah knew from experience that she had the most amazing soft touch. When she’d first been hired several months ago to take care of the survivors he’d been one of the ones going through the exams. From the first time he’d met her Noah had believed she would have been an amazing Kindergarten teacher— bright, engaged, and determinedly bubbly, she had the kind of constitution that no one could bring down. She also happened to be a damned good nurse, level-headed in an emergency. He’d seen her deal with many men on the floor and she treated them all with complete respect and total honesty. And she had an unending salt-of-the-earth work ethic. Her shift might run from seven to seven, but she was present just as much in her off hours.
There was a Southern sweetness that seemed to reach out to every single man. No one wanted to disappoint Raine.
Noah, himself found her absolutely intriguing. It was hard to keep focus around her. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to want anyone or anything. His focus was on the job. It always had been. He’d been paid good money to care for Blake. Now that the boy wasn’t his responsibility, though, and his schedule had evened out, he found himself wondering if he dared want more. If he thought Raine would consider going out with him, he would be terribly tempted to ask her. They’d had breakfast together once when he’d been helping her shop for Christmas decorations, but he didn’t feel like it had been an actual date. Though they had had that kiss…
Haven needed them now, though.
