by K.N. Lee
“Shhh. Quiet.” Konner sat up straight and held up his finger.
Both Kara and Richter stilled.
Konner’s face turned pale. He removed the headphones and turned on the speaker system.
“Agent Jaidon Wright, am I correct?” a male voice said through the speaker. It sounded exactly like Cee-El.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jaidon said. “My name’s Red Fox.”
“Your name’s Dead Dog in about two minutes if I don’t get the answer I’m looking for.”
A chill rippled across Kara’s scalp. “Holy crows. We’ve got to do something.”
“Stay put, Falko,” Richter ordered. “We follow protocol. We’ve got a team in place. They’re prepared to take action if needed.”
Cee-El’s voice rang out in a dark laugh. “Don’t be coy, agent. We’ve known about this sting for weeks, now. And you’re about to made dead in three, two...”
“Fuck protocol.” Without waiting for a command, Kara threw open the door of the van and raced across the street, gun in hand.
“Agent Falko! Stop! That’s an order.”
Richter’s voice only made her run faster. Jaidon was in danger—her Jaidon—the man who held her heart. She would stop whatever, or whoever, wanted to bring him down.
She crossed the street and keyed in the door code. Then, she flung open the door. Clattering across the apartment lobby floor, she forced open the door to the stairwell. Taking them two at a time, she sprinted up the stairs of the apartment building. She bolted down the hallway to apartment 305, where Jaidon and Cee-El were meeting. She’d seen Jaidon power his way through a closed door a time or two by throwing his bulk against it. She threw her weight against the door. “Ow!” All her stupid move did was bruise her shoulder.
She hammered against the wood with her fists. “Open up! This is the FBI!” She pulled her gun from her holster and stood back.
An older scrawny man looking more like a pizza delivery guy than a killer wrenched open the door. The guy grinned. “Hey, boss, look who we have here,” he called over his shoulder.
Inside the small, dirty living room, a handsome young man—who had to be Cee-El—held a gun to her lover’s temple. He blinked at her, a grin forming on his boyish face.
Behind him, Jaidon was on his knees, his hands bound at his back. The whites of his eyes shone when he saw her.
She trained her weapon on Cee-El.
“So, this is the infamous Agent Falko. She’s brought her wittle gun,” he mocked in a child-like voice. “I’d know that red hair anywhere.” Cee-El paused. “Oh, I get it.” He snapped the fingers of his free hand and pointed at Jaidon. “Red Fox. You named yourself after your girlfriend.” He laughed.
Jaidon glowered. His gray sweatshirt bore stains under his arms and along his abdomen. Sweat made his silky brown hair cling to his head.
“Good one. She is a fox, I’ll give her that. The term’s a little outdated, though. I’d go with...” He stroked his chin with the muzzle of his gun. “PYT...or, maybe sexy kitten...” He snapped his fingers again, pointing at Kara, his evil clown grin making her want to vomit. “Bad kitty. Yeah. That one’s my favorite! You’re now ‘bad kitty’ to me.”
“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Jaidon growled.
Cee-El’s eyes narrowed. He brought the muzzle of the gun back to Jaidon’s head. “Or what?”
He looked far too fresh-faced to be holding a gun to anyone’s temple. Sporting freckles and dirty blond hair, all mussed, like he’d recently rolled out of bed, he appeared more like the spokesman for a breakfast cereal than the mastermind behind his cyber-crime syndicate.
Kara held her Glock steady, positioned at Cee-El’s chest. She scrunched up her face to keep the sweat from dripping into her eyes.
Jaidon shook his head, his gaze boring into her.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs behind her.
Cee-El’s eyes widened. He pointed the gun at her, and then brought it back to Jaidon.
Agent Richter shouted, “This is the FBI!” in a breathless, winded voice.
The scrawny dude pulled a Glock from his waistband. He sprang like a jack-in-the-box into the hall, bouncing past Kara.
“You’re going down—both of you,” Cee-El snarled.
“You’re not going to die, Jai.” She threw herself toward Jaidon, right as Cee-El discharged his weapon.
With a jolt, she found herself falling, and falling, and falling, as if from a great height, finally landing on the floor with a crash. One last thought drifted through her head. If this is what it’s like to die, it’s not so bad. And then she thought nothing at all.
2
Kara blinked, then smooshed her face like a young girl, studying the figure below her—the one on the hospital bed who looked exactly like her. Tubes linked the impostor below to bags of fluid and monitoring devices. The body had the same long red hair as her, spread across the starched white pillowcase below. The delicate eyelids, crisscrossed with tiny veins, were closed. The body’s skin looked like too-white porcelain, though. Even the familiar freckles were hiding.
This can’t be good. I’m up here. A lifeless body who resembles me is down there. Shouldn’t we be all synchronized up or something? This is quite a conundrum.
Next to the body who looked like her, Jaidon sat, holding its hand. He kept squeezing it, like he could bring it back to life if he milked the fingers.
She wanted to shout and wave her arms, saying, “Up here! I’m up here!” Instead, all she could manage was watching him, impassively, like viewing her least favorite show on television.
He kept looking at that body with his lucid brown eyes, which always reminded her of the beloved German Shepherd she had as a youth. That dog would have given its life to protect her—same as Jaidon.
A strand of silky brown hair fell across his brow.
She wanted to push it away from his face, the way she did right before they kissed. But, hovering up here like a ghost, drifting along the ceiling, she couldn’t to access the controls for that body—her body.
A violent shiver ripped through her as recognition hit home—she was lying in a hospital bed about to die. Along with the realization came awareness of a silvery strand leading from the body on the bed to her, like a delicate umbilical cord.
A single, translucent tear slid along Jaidon’s cheek like a mollusk’s slimy trail.
The silver strand twanged like a discordant violin string. Oh, baby. Don’t cry. She longed to brush the tear from his face, but from up here, she couldn’t even make her body’s finger twitch.
He let out a sob, dropping his head to her forearm.
It tore through her like a jagged blade, piercing her heart. But then she remembered her heart was inside that blasted body, laying prone on the bed below her, looking two beats away from flat-lining. How do I get back into my body? I don’t want to die. The night before the sting they’d talked of building a future together, in between the comfort of love-making. Today I’m dying?
Jaidon’s chest rose and fell, letting out a huge shuddering sigh. He lifted his head and said in the low voice reserved just for her, “Baby, I was going to wait to show you this. But now seems like the right time. We might not have a tomorrow.” His lips pressed together, the edges pulled tight, in the way he did when he had made a firm decision.
He released her hand, picked up his dark blue coat from the back of the metal chair, and fished in the pocket. Then he pulled out a shiny blue jeweler’s box. He held it out to her lifeless body and pried open the lid.
There, nestled in black velvet, sat a sparkling diamond engagement ring.
Open your damn eyes! Come on! Do something! She tried to force herself back into the body below. This is a big moment. Come on! She tried to reach for the ring, for Jaidon. Nothing. Damn it all to hell!
“What do you think? Do you like it, baby?” Jaidon reached out to brush her hair with his fingertips. He removed the ring from the tiny box, turning it back and forth
to catch the light. “It’s all I could afford. I’ll buy you a huge forty-carat rock someday.” He scoffed. “As if. We both work for the FBI.” Then, he picked up her hand and slid the ring in place.
Longing shot through whatever part of her hovered above. I should be present for this moment. I should be throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him senseless with my answer. She wished she could cry, scream, shout—anything but stare at the body below who looked like her, being proposed to by the love of her life. I took a bullet for you. And I’d do it again to protect you, save you, and keep you alive and well. But to miss this moment I’ve longed for, for years? She let out a long, loud scream—the kind that could raise the dead. It sounded like a dog howling with its head stuck in a jar.
Jaidon didn’t seem to hear her. He propped her limp hand in his big soothing one and stroked her fingers with this thumb.
Her adopted mother and father stepped into the room. Her real mom had given her up in the birthing room. Her parents had taken her in as a baby and she’d been loved throughout. Their combined mood washed across her body like a crushing wave.
“Oh, Jaidon,” her pretty, auburn-haired mother said, her high-heels tappity-tapping like pebbles flung along the white linoleum. “We got here as soon as we could. The traffic in downtown Boston was atrocious.”
Attired in light green slacks and an Ann Taylor shirt and jacket, she looked like a breath of minty air—unless one caught the lines of fatigue make-up couldn’t cover. “Is that an...?”
He lifted his gaze to her mother. “An engagement ring? Yes. I’m such an idiot. She should be wearing it right now, sitting somewhere at a normal job, not laying here in the fucking hospital.” His mouth clamped shut. “Sorry, I meant frigging hospital.”
Her mom rested her hand on his shoulder, gazing at him with typical mom-compassion eyes. “It’s beautiful.”
Jaidon reached up and squeezed her hand. “It’s not enough. I wish I could buy her a diamond the size of Texas.”
“She’ll love it,” her mother soothed.
Her dad remained in the doorway. His arms crossed his chest like he might fall apart if he let go. His face revealed nothing, as usual. His attire, however, spoke volumes. Despite being dressed in a suit and tie, he looked rumpled and crumpled. Her dad never let his appearance go. “Appearances matter,” he’d said to her on many occasions. “You can be miserable inside, but on the outside, you have to look like a million bucks.”
Now, Kara guessed even a Bespoke suit couldn’t hide his anguish. And, besides being grief-stricken, he was probably simmering inside. He’d never supported her choice of careers, preferring she get married and let her husband care for her. Talk about an old-school idea. He wanted the life he gave my mother. But she knew he adored her, like any good father, and wanted her to be safe.
A couple of shadowy figures floated into view. They huddled behind her father, appearing to look over his shoulders with their faceless heads.
“Psst,” one of them said. It sounded male. “Hey, Red.”
“Are you talking to me?” Kara said aloud. Or, she thought she said it aloud, since no one below indicated they’d heard her.
The shadows seemed to laugh.
“Yes, you,” the same voice said. “Come with us. We’ve got something to show you.”
She glanced at the body on the bed. “I think I need to stick around. I might need me...er, my body might need a mind...er...I’m so confused right now.”
The male voice laughed. “Girl, you’ll get it. Think of yourself as dreaming right now. You can leave your flesh while you dream, right?”
“Yes.” His reasoning made sense. “But I always get to come back to the...” She hesitated, not liking the word “flesh” used to describe her. It sounded so clinical. Her eyes narrowed—at least the place where her eyes were supposed to be felt like it was narrowing. Are they some version of the grim reaper, come to take me away?
“Yep, you always return to your anchor, attached by a thread of life. So, trust us,” the male said.
“Oh, please,” a feminine voice said, the tone sounding like shattering glass. “Why on Earth should she do that?”
She was certain the female’s eyes were rolling.
The disembodied female spoke again. “She’s got to choose. She’s got to feel this moment. You know that.”
“She’ll choose correctly. She always has,” the male countered.
Confusion fell like a fog around her brain. What are they talking about? Choose what? Or why? Do I honestly have a choice in death?
For a second, it sounded like the two shadows were arguing in a box beneath the sea.
Kara heard sound, but no distinct words.
Then, their voices resumed clarity.
“What are you waiting for? Destiny awaits,” the male said, in a cheery, motivational-speaker kind of voice.
Kara stared at her deathly form on the bed below. Since waiting around like a balloon on the ceiling hadn’t gotten her anywhere, she shifted her awareness in their direction. She seemed to bob along behind them like a balloon, drifting out into the hallway. Wait a minute. She paused. Her head, or whatever she thought was her head, pivoted to look back in the room labeled 501. There’s Jaidon. There’s the body which looks like me. My mother and father are there, too. We’re in a hospital. She turned to look down the hallway.
Instead of a white-walled institutional corridor or whatever she expected to see, she found herself in a snow-covered forest.
The shadows hovered before her.
“Come on. What are you waiting for?” the male voice said.
“Where are we?”
“Holy stars in heaven,” said the female in a too loud voice. “Do you need me to hold your hand? Let’s get moving.”
The shadow seemed to shove out her hand toward Kara, but she couldn’t tell since she didn’t think the shadow even had a hand.
Frowning, Kara said, “Uh, sure. I’m coming.”
“Thank you,” the female said, her voice laced with snark.
They drifted over snowy fields and snow-flocked evergreens.
A wolf pack looked up as they passed.
“Can they see us?” Kara asked.
“The wolves?” the female asked. “Of course. They’re kindred spirits.”
“You’ve got a lot of remembering to do,” the male voice said.
This must be one of the strangest dreams I’ve ever had.
She followed them over icy blue ribbons of water feeling like an untethered kite. They flew across tall mountains. Vistas of winter rushed past them, as she moved faster and faster, until her surroundings became a blur.
The overall effect of flying made her dizzy.
The shadows drifted ahead of her, a finger’s width away from her grasp.
“Stop!” Kara called. “Where are we? Where are we going?” She sped up, trying to catch one of the shadows. She reached for it—or she thought she reached.
Both shadows evaporated.
She popped into some new awareness of possessing a body again. Her FBI training kicked in. Alert for danger, she put out her hands, crouched, and whirled in a circle. “What is this? Where am I?”
A long stone hallway stretched in both directions. When she turned to look behind her, something resembling her childhood home stood at the end of the hall. Squinting, she made out the colonial house she’d grown up in, which nestled in a cul-de-sac in Lexington, one of the established suburbs of Boston. When she spun to look in the other direction, a fiery doorway shone at the other end of the hall. Flames danced along the entire length of the hallway, heading toward the door.
Right. Nice marketing. I’m supposed to choose between my relatively happy childhood and whatever flaming horror waits beyond the door. Kara scoffed. Uh, I choose hell! Not... She peered up at the stone ceiling which danced with orange and red light like a kaleidoscope. “Uh, hello. Anybody here? This isn’t funny. I’m ready to go home, now.” Something glimmery-green caught her eye.
Her gaze skittered toward her body. Her hands flew up, like a startled baby, and she jumped backward. “What the...? What the hell am I wearing?”
Shimmering green overlapping scales draped along her body. It made her think of dragons, something she loved reading about as a child. She hoped no dragon had been harmed in the making of this garment. Her hands brushed across the fabric—or whatever it was. Warm to the touch, it conformed to her, as if a part of her. She made a few of her favorite dance moves, as if clubbing with Jaidon. “What do you think, baby?” she said to the imaginary Jaidon, making a pirouette. The supple garment moved with her, not constricting in the least. “I wonder where I can get one of these when I’m alive again?”
“Nice moves.”
She stilled, her gaze darting about. The voice sounded just like the one she’d heard when she’d seen giants on top of Copley Heights. “Who’s there?”
“Over here,” the female voice called from behind her.
She whipped around, her heart in her throat.
A tall, statuesque figure, dressed in an iridescent, gold-scaled garment, hovered about a foot above the floor. Huge black wings spread at least fifteen feet in either direction, holding her aloft. Down-to-the-waist raven-colored hair fluttered around her head, like caught in a tempest. Her eyes, the color of the sun, focused on Kara. Those sunburst globes could scorch one’s soul.
Wow, strange angel. Kara shrank away from the stunning female creature. Her gaze slid to the suspended hunk of sexy by her side.
The winged man could have blessed the cover of a body-builders’ magazine. His snow-pale wings held him aloft like some sort of fallen angel. His garment of black leather, which clung to him like a second skin, revealed muscles in stark relief.
Kara wondered what he did with those muscles...pick up artillery? Heft dead bodies? Hurl ponies for sport?
He regarded her with the blackest, most velvety eyes she’d ever seen.
“So beautiful,” he uttered in a deep, panty-melting voice. His long silver-blond hair streamed behind him.