by J. R. Ward
Z didn't have a last word; he had a last image, one that totally eclipsed the double-barreled action that was at point-blank range of his head. In his mind he saw Bella and Nalla together in that rocker back in the nursery. It was not a picture from the night before when there had been Kleenexes and red-rimmed eyes and his twin looking grave. It was from a couple of weeks ago, when Bella had been staring down at the young in her arms with such tenderness and love. As if she'd sensed him in the doorway, she'd lifted her eyes, and for a moment the love that was in her face had wrapped around him as well.
The two gunshots rang out, and the weirdest thing was that the only pain he felt was the sting of the sound in his ears.
Two flopping thunchs followed, echoing around the stolen riches.
Z lifted his head. Qhuinn and Rhage were standing right behind where the lessers had been, their guns just lowering. Blay and John Matthew were with them, their guns drawn as well.
"You okay?" Rhage asked.
No. That would be one big fat hairy fuck-no. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm tight."
"Blay, back into the tunnel with me," Rhage said. "John and Qhuinn, you stay with him."
Z let his head fall back and listened as two sets of shitkickers headed off in the distance. In the eerie silence that followed, a wave of nausea rolled over him and every inch of him started to shake, his hands flapping like flags in a brisk wind as he brought them up to feel his face.
John's hand touched his arm and he jumped. "I'm okay . . . I'm okay. . . ."
John signed, We're going to get you out of here.
"How--" He cleared his throat. "How do I know this is happening?"
I'm sorry? How do you know . . . ?
Zsadist's fingers skipped along his forehead as he tried to prod where the slayers had aimed their guns. "How do I know this is real? And not a . . . How do I know I didn't just die?"
John glanced over his shoulder at Qhuinn like he had no idea how to respond and was looking for backup. Then he pounded on his own chest with a solid thumping. I know I'm here.
Qhuinn leaned down and did the same, a heavy bass sound rising from his chest. "Me, too."
Zsadist let his head fall back again, his body scrambling in its own skin so badly his feet tap-danced on the hard-packed floor. "I don't know . . . if this is real . . . oh, shit . . ."
John stared at him as if measuring his increasing agitation and trying to figure out what the hell to do.
Abruptly the guy reached down to Z's broken leg and gave his turned-around shitkicker a quick tug.
Z shot upright and barked, "Motherfucker!"
But it was good. The pain acted like a great broom sweep of his brain, clearing out the web of delusions and replacing them with a focused, pounding clarity. He was very much alive. He really was.
Right on the heels of that realization he thought of Bella. And Nalla.
He had to reach them.
Z shifted to the side to get his phone, but his vision went furry from what was doing with his leg. "Shit. Can you get me my cell? In my back pocket?"
John carefully rolled him over, took out the RAZR, and handed it to him.
"So you don't think there's any working this out?" Rehv said.
Bella shook her head in answer to her brother's question, then remembered he couldn't see her. "No, I don't think so. At least not in the short term."
"Shit. Well, I'm always here for you, you know that. You want to stay with mahmen?"
"No. I mean, I'm happy to have her come visit during the night, but I need my own space."
"Because you're hoping he comes after you."
"He's not going to. This time is different. Nalla . . . has made everything different."
The young snuffled and burrowed in closer to her favorite nook between upper arm and breast. Bella propped the cell phone against her shoulder and stroked the downy-soft hair that was growing in. The waves, when they grew out, were going to be multicolored, with blondes and reds and browns mixed together, just as her father's would be if he didn't trim it so tightly.
As Rehv laughed awkwardly, she said, "What?"
"After all these years fighting to keep you on my property, now I don't want you leaving the Brotherhood mansion. For real, nothing is safer than that compound . . . but I do have a house on the Hudson River that's tight. It's next to a friend of mine's, and it's nothing fancy, but there's a tunnel linkup between them. She'll keep you safe."
After he gave her the address, Bella murmured, "Thank you. I'm going to pack a few things up and have Fritz take me there in an hour."
"I'll get the fridge stocked for you right now."
The phone made a beeping noise as a text came through. "Thank you."
"Have you told him?"
"Z knows it's coming. And no, I'm not going to keep him from seeing Nalla if he wants, but he's going to have to choose to come and see her."
"What about you?"
"I love him . . . but this has been really hard on me."
They ended the call shortly thereafter, and as Bella took the phone away from her ear, she saw that a text had come through from Zsadist:
I'M SO SORRY. I LOVE YOU. PLEASE FORGIVE ME--
CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU.
She bit her lip and blinked hard. And texted back.
FIVE
I stared at the screen of his phone, praying for a response from Bella. He would have called, but his voice was so shaky he didn't want to alarm her. Plus getting into a huge emotional thing wasn't a great idea, considering he had a broken leg on lesser real estate.
Rhage and Blay came back through the tunnel.
". . . is why they didn't come into the house," Rhage was saying. "The entrance to this storage unit is through the shed out back. They were checking on the security system first, clearly less concerned that the house had been infiltrated."
Z cleared his throat and warbled, "The alarm is still blinking. If it doesn't get shut off, more will--"
Rhage leveled his gun at the red light, pulled the trigger, and dusted the thing. "Maybe that'll work."
"You are such a techie, Hollywood," Z muttered. "Right up there with Bill Gates."
"Whatever. We need to get you and the civilian out--"
Z's phone vibrated and he opened the text from Bella, holding his breath. After he read it twice, he shut his eyes hard and clipped the phone shut. Oh, God . . . no.
Propping his upper body off the dirt floor, he made a lurch to get on his feet. The shot of agony that ran up his leg helped to distract him from the sight of all the blood that had pooled underneath him.
"What the . . ."
". . . fuck are . . ."
". . . you doing . . ."
John signed what the other three were saying: What are you doing?
"I need to get home." Dematerializing wasn't an option because of his leg--which was making him want to throw up as it flopped around. "I need to--"
Hollywood shoved his perfectly beautiful face right in Z's grille. "Will you just relax? You're in shock--"
Z grabbed the male's upper arm and squeezed to shut the brother up. He spoke softly, and when he was done, Rhage could only blink.
After a moment Hollywood said quietly, "Here's the issue, though. You have a compound fracture, my brother. I promise we'll get you back, but we need to take you to a doctor. Dead is not where you want to be, feel me?"
As a wave of light-headedness came swooping in from out of nowhere, Z had a feeling his brother had a point. But fuck it. "Home. I want--."
His body collapsed. Just folded on him like a house of cards.
Rhage caught his weight and turned to the boys. "You two, carry him out of the tunnel. Move it. I'll cover."
Zsadist grunted as he changed hands and was hauled off like a deer carcass found in the middle of a road. The pain was a stunner, making his heart palpitate and his skin shiver, but it was good. He need the physical manifestation of the emotion trapped in the center of his chest.
The tunnel was about fi
fty yards in length and tall enough so that only a hob-bit could have any headroom--so the trip out was about as much fun as being born. Qhuinn and John were cranked over, scrambling to hold on to him while hauling ass, two grown-ups in a kid-scaled model. As Z's body jangled and his fucked-up foot rang like a bell, the only thing that kept him conscious was the text from Bella:
I'M SORRY. I LOVE YOU, BUT SHE AND I HAVE TO GO. I'LL GIVE YOU
THE ADDRESS WHEN WE'RE SETTLED LATER TONIGHT.
Outside the air was cool, and Z dragged the shit into his lungs in hopes of calming his stomach. He was taken directly to the Hummer and settled in the back, along with the civilian who had passed out cold. John, Blay, and Qhuinn piled in, and then there was a stretch of hurry-up-and-wait.
Finally Rhage bolted from the house, flashed three fingers and a fist, and dove into the shotgun seat. While the brother started texting on his phone, Qhuinn hit the gas and once again proved he had half a brain: The guy had been smart enough to back in so he had a straight shot down the driveway, and he took the way out with a vengeance.
Rhage looked at his watch as they bumped along. "Four . . . three . . . two . . ."
The house behind them exploded into a fireball, the aftershocks sending waves of buffering energy through the air--
Just as a minivan full of the enemy pulled into the end of the driveway, blocking the way onto Route 9.
Bella double-checked the two L.L. Bean bags and was pretty sure she had everything she needed for the short term. In the one with the green handles she had some clothes for herself, along with her cell phone charger, her toothbrush, and two thousand dollars in cash. The blue-handled one had Nalla's clothes, bottles and diapers, along with wet wipes, rash cream, blankies, a teddy bear, and Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss.
The title of Nalla's favorite book was a shitkicker on a night like tonight. It really was.
When there was a knock on the nursery door, Bella called out, "Come in." Mary, Rhage's shellan, popped her head in. Her face was tight, her gray eyes grim even before she looked down at the bags.
"Rhage texted me. Z's been injured. I know you're going to leave, and the why is none of my business, but you might consider waiting. From what Rhage said, Z is desperately going to need to feed."
Bella slowly straightened. "How . . . how badly injured? What--"
"I don't have any more details other than that they'll be home as soon as they can."
Oh . . . God. It was the news she had always dreaded. Z injured out in the field.
"What's their ETA?"
"Rhage didn't say. I know they have to drop off an injured civilian at Havers's new clinic, but that's on the way. I'm not sure whether Z's getting treated here or there."
Bella shut her eyes. Zsadist had sent her that text while injured. He'd been reaching out to her when he was in pain . . . and she'd slapped him back with the fact that she was abandoning him to his demons.
"What have I done," she said softly.
"I'm sorry?" Mary asked.
Bella shook her head as much at herself as in response to the female.
Going over to the crib, she looked at their daughter. Nalla was sleeping with the hard, dense exhaustion of the young, her little chest pumping up and down with purpose, her pink hands curled into fists, her brows bunched together as if she were concentrating on growing.
"Will you stay with her?" Bella asked.
"Absolutely."
"There's milk in the fridge over there."
"I'll be right here. I won't go anywhere."
Back in the driveway of the Jolly Green Giant house in the sticks, Z felt the heavy-duty lurch of Qhuinn slamming on the Hummer's brakes. The SUV held steady as the laws of physics gripped its mass hard, putting an end to its acceleration just before the vehicle crushed the frontal lobe of the minivan in its path.
Gun muzzles came out of the windows of the Lessening Society's soccer-mom special like the bitch was a stagecoach, and bullets went ape shit, pinging the Hummer's reinforced-steel body and ricocheting off its inch-thick Plexiglas windows.
"Second night out with my ride," Qhuinn spat. "And these fuckers are Swisscheesing me? Hell, no. Hold on."
Qhuinn threw them into reverse, jumped the SUV back fifteen feet, then punched the engine into first gear and nailed his foot to the floor. Wrenching the wheel to the left, he dodged around the Town & Country, chunks of earth clumping up and clapping against both cars.
As they bounced around like a boat in bad weather, Rhage reached into his jacket and took out a hand grenade. Opening his bulletproof window just far enough, he popped the pin with his teeth and tossed the fist-size explosive out. By the grace of God the damn thing tripped off the minivan's roof and rolled under the vehicle.
The three lessers leaped out of that fucker like the thing was on fire.
And ten seconds later it was, its flames lighting up the night.
Fuuuuuck, if Z thought the trip through the tunnel had been bad on his leg, it was nothing compared to the bump-and-shatter act it took to get away from those slayers. By the time the Hummer burst out onto Route 9 after having clipped at least one of the lessers on its hood, Zsadist was on the verge of blacking out.
"Shit, he's going into shock."
Z realized with little interest that Rhage had turned around and was looking at him, not at the civilian.
"Am not," he mumbled as his eyes rolled back in his head. "Just taking a little break."
Rhage's spectacular Bahama-blue stare narrowed. "Compound. Fracture. Motherfucker. You're bleeding out as we speak."
Z lifted his eyes to Qhuinn's in the rearview mirror. "Sorry 'bout the carpet."
The male shook his head. "Not to worry. You, I will abso trash my ride for."
Rhage put his hand on Z's neck. "Damn it, you're white as snow and about as warm. You're going to have to get treated at the clinic."
"Home."
In a low voice Rhage said, "I texted Mary not to let her go, okay? Bella's still going to be there no matter how long it takes us to get back to the mansion. She's not leaving you before you get home."
A whole lot of resounding quiet settled in the Hummer, like everyone was busy pretending they didn't hear any of Rhage's newsflash.
Z opened his mouth to argue.
But fainted dead away before he could marshal any more objections.
SIX
Bella paced around the PT room in the training center, orbiting the examination table on shaky legs. She stopped regularly to check the clock.
Where were they? What else had gone wrong? It had been over an hour. . . .
Oh, God, please let Zsadist be alive. Please let them bring him back alive.
Pacing, more pacing. Eventually she paused at the head of the gurney and looked down its length. Putting her hand on its padded top, she found herself thinking of when she had been on the thing as a patient. Three months ago. For Nalla's birth.
God, what a nightmare that had been.
And God, what a nightmare this was . . . waiting for her hellren to be rolled in injured, bleeding, in pain. And that was the best-case scenario. The worst case was a body with a sheet over it, something she couldn't even contemplate.
To keep herself from going crazy, she thought about the birth, about that moment when both her and Z's lives had changed forever. Like a lot of dramatic things, the big event had been anticipated, but when it arrived had nonetheless been a shock. She'd been in her ninth month out of the usual eighteen and it had been a Monday night.
Helluva way to start the workweek.
She'd had a craving for chili, and Fritz had indulged her, whipping up a batch that was spicy as a blowtorch. When the beloved butler had brought the steaming bowl to her, though, she'd abruptly been unable to stomach the smell or the sight of it. Nauseous and sweaty, she'd gone to take a cool shower, and as she'd lumbered into the bathroom, she'd wondered how in the hell she could fit another seven months of the young getting larger in her belly.
Nalla, evidently, had taken the random thought to heart. For the first time in weeks she moved strongly--and, with a sharp kick, broke her water.
Bella had lifted her robe and looked down at the wetness, wondering for a moment whether she'd lost control of her bladder. Then light had dawned. Although she'd followed Doc Jane's advice and avoided reading the vampire version of What to Expect When You're Expecting, she had enough background to know that once your water breaks, the bus has left the station.
Ten minutes later she'd been flat on this gurney, with Doc Jane moving quickly, but thoroughly, through an exam. The conclusion was that Bella's body didn't seem ready to get with the program, but Nalla had to be taken out. Pitocin, which was used frequently to induce labor in human women, was administered, and shortly thereafter Bella learned that there was a difference between pain and labor.
Pain got your attention. Labor got all your attention.
Zsadist had been out in the field, and when he'd arrived he was so frantic that what little hair was left from his skull trim was standing straight up. As soon as he got through the door, he'd ditched his weapons, the pile growing to the size of a love seat, and rushed to stand at her side.
She'd never seen him so scared. Not even when he woke up from his dreams of that sadistic Mistress he'd had. His eyes had been black, not from anger but from fear, and his lips drawn so tightly they were a pair of white slashes.
Having him there had helped her get through the pain. And she'd needed him. Doc Jane had advised against an epidural, as vampires could experience alarming decreases in blood pressure with them. So there had been no buffering at all.
And no time to move her to Havers's clinic. Once the Pitocin had fired up her body, the labor had progressed too fast for her to be taken anywhere--although it wouldn't have mattered because dawn was near. Which meant there was no way to get the race's physician to the training center, either.
Bella came back to the present, smoothing her hand over the thin pillow that rested on the gurney. She could remember holding on to Z's hand hard enough to break his bones as she'd strained until her teeth hurt and she felt as if she were getting ripped in half.
And then her vitals had crashed.
"Bella?"