The vest isn’t dead, but he unconscious. Alannah flails and kicks as the attendant drags her from beneath the vest and pries her away from Alex’s damaged hands.
I’m rooted to my spot, unable to reach her in time. The attendant pulls Alannah’s front to his back while pressing a handgun to her temple.
The shooters are getting jumpy as the bearers climb to their feet and emerge from their hiding spots. We don’t stand a chance, but we’re in this shit together.
This is it.
“I love you,” I yell to Alannah, holding her big electric blue eyes with mine.
“I love you too,” she shouts back.
Then all hell breaks loose.
Gunfire explodes all around us. Not from the attendants, from other shooters hidden in the forest. Alannah uses the momentary distraction to elbow the attendant before sprinting toward me. I’m running faster, bullets peppering the ground around me.
Bearers die.
Attendants die.
My only focus is on Alannah. She’s almost to me with her arm stretched out, fingers straining to feel my touch. Then her body jerks violently as a bullet pierces her chest just before I pull her into my chest.
“No, no, no, no,” I mutter over and over again, lowering her body to the rock. “Alannah, stay with me.”
Her breathing is erratic as I press my hands to the gaping hole in her chest.
“Kane,” she rasps. “The…baby.”
“No, you’re not goin’ anywhere. You’re stayin’ here with me. Do you understand me? You’re not leavin’ me,” I growl.
I have no sense of what’s going on around me. I don’t hear anything. I don’t feel anything. I’m just here with the love of my life, the match to my soul as the life begins to leak from her big blues.
I chant.
It’s the only thing I know to do.
“Tashanu Nokrelah Grulmah.” Safety. Love. Peace.
Over and over again. I keep chanting and looking into the eyes that beg to be safe within my arms. I want to keep her safe. I want this all to be a bad dream, forced on me to teach me to be a better man.
She has to be okay. I can’t live without her.
Please don’t take her from me.
Please.
“I love you,” Alannah breathes out.
And then she’s gone. She doesn’t take another breath in. Her chest doesn’t move, and the bright glow fades from her skin.
Tears stream down my face, landing on her pale cheeks.
“I love you,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to her still warm lips.
Then I move to her bump, her womb that my son will never emerge from. I pull her shirt up and kiss the soft skin, telling my son, “I’m sorry.”
Then I climb to my feet. Standing in the middle of a war. Bullets hit me as I look around numbly. A few attendants attack me with blades before I snap their necks without effort or thought. I search the area until I find my target.
She’s running toward the trees with Deacon at her side.
I sprint after them. I run faster than my legs have ever carried me. I hear someone familiar in the distance screaming my name, but I ignore it. Nothing matters.
They’re gone. I lost the last of my family. Only death is important now.
Deacon looks over his shoulder when he hears my heavy footfalls. He gets the knife first. I pull the blade from the holster around my naked shoulders and launch it in his direction, hitting him right in the spine.
He’s instantly on his knees, dragging Dr. Sadist to the forest floor with him. She screams, hastily trying to climb to her feet as my arms wrap around her body. I tackle her to the ground as she shrieks in fear.
“Don’t,” she pleads, attempting to roll away from me. “You don’t understand. Please, just listen.”
Deacon grabs my ankle, saying, “I shot her.”
Alannah.
I take out my second knife, hold Dr. Sadist’s hand against the log above her head and slam the blade all the way through to the hilt.
Cries of agony rip from her throat as I climb off her and attack Deacon. I rip the knife from his back before rolling him over. I straddle his waist and begin plunging into him. Repeatedly, the knife sinks all the way through his body, touching the forest floor.
Dr. Sadist wails and pleads with me to stop, but her begging only fuels my rage. Each thrust feels better. Each sloshing sound is music to my ears. Each crunch of bone reverberates down to my dead soul.
When there’s nothing left to stab, I beginning punching. I slam my fists into blood and flesh. I pound into him until my knuckles are covered in pine needles. I’ve beaten my way through his body. Entire sections are missing. It’s not enough. I realize at this moment nothing will ever be enough.
I spit on his corpse as I stand.
“Forty-two,” Dr. Sadist whimpers.
“Kane. My name is Kane Rand. Son of Sorcha Fannon and Robert O’Dea. Husband of Alannah Carey. Father of Kane Junior. Say my fucking name!” I roar, leaning an inch from her face.
“Your name is Lorcan. I named you the day you were born,” she whispers.
“Fuck you! You crazy bitch,” I seethe, rotating the knife in her palm until the hilt breaks off in the log.
“Your biological mother was dead when she was brought into the clinic. I pulled you from her womb. I held you in my arms. But someone stole you,” she gasps out, writhing in pain.
“I don’t believe you,” I declare, slamming the knife I used to kill Deacon into her stomach.
“I knew you were special,” she groans. “Your skin…I couldn’t…you made all of this possible.”
“Then I’ll make sure nothing like this is possible ever again,” I declare.
I drag the knife up her body until it stops in her throat. I stare into her brown eyes and watch life leak from their depths.
I want that. I want my life to leave this impenetrable shell. There’s nothing left for me here. Please just take me away.
“Kane,” a heaving voice calls from behind me.
I turn to find my best friend’s pale blue eyes staring at me.
“Chann,” I croak before collapsing between the death I’ve caused.
“You gotta get up and quit bein’ a pussy,” he growls, trying to heave me off the forest floor. “I’m not jokin’. Get the fuck up!”
I use his thin frame to drag my body to my feet. He shoves me hard to force me in the direction of where I left Alannah’s body. I can’t go back there. I can’t see her again. Not like that.
“Move!” he bellows.
“I can’t,” I say quietly.
“I don’t know what the fuck kinda weird shit’s been goin’ on in this place. But you better get your ass out there. She needs you!”
Pain radiates through me with his words. I turn to face him and thrust my fist toward his face. He dodges it easily because I’m slow due to exhaustion. There’s truly no fight left in me.
“Fine,” he seethes before wrenching an arm behind my back, bending me over and forcing my body to go where he wants it.
I could get out of the hold, but I don’t care. Nothing matters. Not even seeing his boyish face brings me any comfort.
When we break free from the trees, my eyes instantly go to where I left Alannah. I can’t see her though. She’s surrounded by bearers and a few familiar faces from the O’Donnell Clan. They’re all wearing sorrowful expressions as we get closer.
I close my eyes, trying to block out the scene. I can’t do this. I halt our progress, digging my heels in.
“Goddammit, Kane,” Chann huffs. “Little help,” he implores the group.
Thirty-seven and Thirty-six snatch me off the ground, carrying me under my armpits before lowering me to the ground next to Alannah’s lifeless body.
The blizzard is cradling her head in his lap, his long fingers stretched around her head.
“Kane,” Caelan’s voice calls out next to me. “Look,” he instructs roughly, pointing at her bump.
It�
�s moving.
He’s moving.
My blood-covered hands cover the area as my pulse sky rockets.
“How?” I ask whoever has an answer.
“She’s fighting back,” the blizzard answers. “I’m keeping her brain cold for now. She shouldn’t have any brain damage when she wakes up.”
“She’s not asleep,” I snarl. “She’s dead. We need to get the baby out somehow.”
Pain. Speaking those words causes gut wrenching pain to slice through me.
“Look at her,” Thirty-seven demands from the other side of Alannah’s tiny body.
I shake my head. I can’t.
He growls and rips her shirt up while strong hands force my head toward the direction of her wound.
“It’s healing,” Thirty-nine’s deep voice informs me.
He’s right. The skin is slowly closing as the bullet pushes its way out. Her body is healing itself again. But she’s not breathing. She’s dead. The shell is simply trying to preserve my son’s life within it.
He’s swirling and kicking beneath my hands, and I start to panic that he’s trying to fight his way out. I don’t know how to remove him. He’s alive and begging for my help, and I can’t do shit.
Again.
“Say the words again,” Alex whispers into my ear, crouching behind me. “Whatever you were sayin’ before. Say it again.”
I nod.
“Tashanu Nokrelah Grulmah.” Safety. Love. Peace.
I whisper the words mindlessly. Alex starts to repeat them after a few times. The dragons chime in not long after. Then we’re all chanting around my woman’s cold body.
My son kicks harder, fighting like the warrior he is.
Minutes pass and the bullet springs free, clattering to the rock as Alannah’s wound seals completely. Caelan rests a heavy hand over mine as he chants along with the group. Chann follows suit and so on, until the pile of hands reaches a few feet high.
When the blizzard climbs to his feet to add to the stack, I finally look at Alannah’s face. She looks peaceful, lost in a dreamless sleep. Her lips are still crimson red, begging my mouth to take them. But they won’t be warm. I can’t do this.
I start to pull my hands away when her chest moves. A slight, barely noticeable rise and fall.
I had to have imagined it. I’m losing my fucking mind. The chants still falls from my lips though, and my son continues to pummel my hand.
“Please,” I silently beg my mother and her gods.
Alannah’s chest moves again. A longer more steady breath. I didn’t imagine that shit.
“Alannah,” I plead, tearing my hands off her bump, cupping her cheeks gently. “Please come back to me. I’m right here. Our son needs you to wake up. He’s waiting for you. I can’t live my life without you in it. You have to come back to us. Please, Alannah. Please.”
Beneath my pinky finger that’s resting on her neck, I feel the faint thrum of her pulse picking up. Then her long lashes flutter and her lips part.
“Alannah, open your eyes,” I demand. “Look at me.”
She doesn’t, but she keeps breathing in and out, slow, methodical breaths.
I look around at the people surrounding my woman who are still chanting with joy in their voices and smiles on their faces.
Alex is still behind me. All the dragons are here. Thirty-seven’s necktie is by his side. Thirty-nine has tears streaming from his black eyes. The cop vest is wordlessly apologizing to me. The blade that lost her man is sobbing while Forty whispers in her ear. The blizzard is leaning his shoulder against a desert.
That’s it. No other bearers are here. We began the day with thirty bearers, only twenty-five deciding to escape. Eleven are now huddled around Alannah, twelve if you include me. Not even half of us survived.
“Kane,” Alannah rasps and my eyes fly to her face.
“I’m right here. Are you okay?”
“Weird question,” she wheezes through a wince of pain. “I need to pee. Something’s smashing my bladder.”
“That would be us,” Alex informs her as they all remove their hands from my son.
“Better,” she says through a sigh.
“I need you to look at me, Doc,” I whisper only a breath away from her.
Slowly, she cracks open her electric blue eyes, locking on mine. Worry and horror streak across her face, and I realize I probably look scary as hell covered in blood and guts.
“You died. I got pissed,” I respond to her unasked questions.
“What?” she gasps.
“Later. I wanna get you outta here. Do you think it’s safe for me to move you?”
She nods.
I want to kiss her so badly right now. But I won’t touch my lips to hers with those motherfuckers’ blood covering me. I have her now. I’ll have a lifetime to kiss her. And I’ll spend as much time as I can doing just that.
I scoop her body to my chest and rise to my feet as our group slowly disperses.
“Vehicles are about a mile out. No road access here,” Caelan informs me.
“Uncle Caelan?” Alannah questions, trying to find him.
“Scared the fuckin’ shit outta me, Alannah. Love you,” he responds with emotion thick in his throat as he brushes her hair away from her forehead before pressing his lips there.
Tears begin to leak from her eyes, and her body begins to sag in relief. We’re actually getting out of here. Our group walks silently, following O’Donnell soldiers.
Jeff’s body is the first I see. He has a hole in his head right where the attendant had been holding it. He died for me. All of these people died for me. The heavy weight of guilt begins to press down on my shoulders as we move past bearers. A few embracing each other in death while others are alone.
I don’t pay attention to the attendants. They don’t matter.
We walk past the carcasses I left in the woods. Every person spits on them as we pass by. They’re responsible for this. One lunatic of a woman and her horror of a sidekick. This is their doing. They captured us. Imprisoned us. Tortured us. Slaughtered us.
I’ll carry the guilt of getting innocent people killed. That’s my burden to carry. But I’m not responsible for this. They are. Canyon Nine.
A massive explosion almost takes me to my knees as it erupts behind us. One of Caelan’s men comes sprinting toward us with a huge smile on his face.
“That shit’s gone,” he announces, kicking Deacon’s corpse before running up to the lead group.
“That kid’s nuts,” Caelan snorts.
I leave him when he pauses at my handiwork. I shield Alannah’s face as we move. I don’t want her to see that shit. Not after she spent months with Deacon. I don’t want her to experience any more pain or scars because of them.
“I love you, Kane Rand,” she mumbles against my neck, nuzzling closer.
“Not as much as I love you.”
New Mexico. That’s where we’ve been all this time. An isolated facility neighboring nature, undetectable by anything.
We’re still in New Mexico. Caelan rented out an entire small hotel an hour from Canyon Nine. There’s so much shit to sort out, but all I can think about is Alannah.
Watching her die.
Watching her come back to life.
“I’m here,” she assures me when I squeeze her too tightly for the thousandth time since we crawled into bed together.
I’ve got two 1911s under my pillow, four knives in the bedside tables, a rifle next to the door and a few grenades stashed around the quaint blue and green accented hotel room. Caelan also has two men posted outside our door.
We’re safe.
I cup Alannah’s bump a little firmer and my son kicks back, telling me he’s all right.
“You saved us,” Alannah whispers, looking up at me from my bare chest.
“I didn’t save you, Alannah. Our son did,” I respond with a bite of shame in my voice.
“No, you saved all of us. You got us out. You led the bearers and saved them over
and over. I can see the guilt eating at you. I won’t have it. Not after what we’ve been through. What we’ve lost and just got back. There’s no goddamn way I’m letting you imprison yourself in guilt.”
I start to argue, but she presses a delicate finger to my lips and continues.
“We’ll mourn. I’m sad. I’m fuckin’ devastated. That won’t go away quickly. But the people who died today would want us to live. They were fighting for just that. Their lives. So you take your time to come to terms with this. I’ll be here with you. You’re the man I fell in love with as an eighteen-year-old girl. You saved me back then, and you saved me again today,” she finishes strongly before pushing up to kiss my lips.
I roll her beneath me, cupping her cheeks and drinking her in. I haven’t left her side since the canyon. I don’t know if I ever will. She wasn’t happy when I insisted on standing in the bathroom while she took a piss. She got over it.
Alannah’s not in pain. Her vitals are normal. There’s not a mark on her skin. She’s clear-headed. She’s fine.
I know she’s fine, but I can’t let the events of the day go.
She doesn’t remember dying. Thank Sorcha’s gods for that shit. She remembers running to me, getting shot and waking up. That’s all. She says she didn’t hurt. There was no pain wherever she was. It was a dreamless sleep.
I deepen the kiss, slanting my mouth over hers. Alannah moans and arches into me as one of my hands travels down her neck, along her collarbone, pausing at her invisible wound before cupping her tit. I tweak her peaked nipple as her hips begin to rock against my hard dick.
She’s naked.
I’m naked.
I needed to feel every inch of her skin tonight. And every other night from now until forever. Foreplay would be nice, but it’s not happening. Not after today. Not after losing my world.
I palm my dick and slide into her in one long thrust. She hisses as I stretch her but pushes her hips up to drive me deeper.
I take it slowly, moving in and out with purpose as she clings to my shoulders, her legs wrapped around my waist. My mouth stays on hers even as we gasp and groan. We stay connected.
Misunderstood Miracles Page 19