“That’s just two,” Aidan said. “Surely they’re not all scattered around like that.”
Mirren shook his head. “Look on the last page, at Jerry’s report.”
Aidan flipped to the last sheet in the clipboard. “So, one of them said that Owen’s been chaining his humans up in the old mill? And nobody’s found this till now?” Hell, he’d been out there himself and hadn’t seen anything.
Mirren nodded. “Yep. I’m wondering if there’s some kind of basement space in the mill that isn’t on the original blueprints—something underneath or on the other side of that collapsed basement we know about—and maybe that’s where they’ve been hiding.”
The clipboard hit the coffee table with a clatter as Aidan threw it aside. “Under our noses, damn it. If it exists, there must be outside access or we’d have seen it.”
“How about we burn the mill? It might run ’em out.”
Aidan frowned, thinking. “We don’t want to burn out the humans, so we’d have to move them or let them go. Any idea how loyal they are?”
“Can’t be that loyal if the man keeps them chained up all day,” Will said. “Maybe we can just go in and release them if we can find them. They’d probably run like hell if we popped their chains.”
Aidan pondered the options. He hated sending the Penton humans out to clean house again, but if they wanted to release Owen’s humans with as little violence as possible, they needed to do it while Owen and his scathe couldn’t fight. Will was right: Owen wouldn’t have earned his humans’ loyalty unless he’d kept them enthralled for so long that he’d fried their brains.
“Let’s send a couple of extra teams into the mill tomorrow,” he told Mirren. “See if we can find them, how many people we’re talking about, and how loyal they are—or aren’t. Let the rest of the searches go on as they did today.”
“What should our humans do with theirs? Just let them go?” Will asked.
Aidan thought for a moment. “Have our people take them to the secure rooms at city hall and lock them up till tonight. Then we’ll scrub their memories, drive them to Atlanta, and release them. We don’t want them coming back here for any reason.”
Mirren headed for the door. “I’ll find Tim and let him pick who goes in with him. He knows the mill building best.” He looked back at Aidan. “Then we burn it?”
His brother might be in there. Aidan clenched his jaw and nodded.
“Then we burn it.”
Snow flurries had already dusted the ground with a light layer of white by the time Krys scurried to the Dinosaur and drove to the clinic.
She had asked Mark to buy a new computer and a pile of medical software, and they had arrived. The boxes sat in the lobby—turned out Penton had UPS service just like anywhere else, but she bet none of the vampires signed for their packages.
She had dragged the computer box to the reception desk and was digging the monitor from its Styrofoam packing when Melissa came in, stomping snow off her shoes.
“So, tell.” She grinned and threw her purse behind the desk.
Krys had been expecting this conversation. Aidan had come to get her as soon as the lieutenants left, and they’d spent a long night in his suite. She’d run into Mark when she slipped out just before dawn. She knew that he’d blab.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, smothering a yawn as she crawled under the desk to plug in the computer. When she pulled her head back out, Melissa stood with arms crossed, waiting.
She laughed. “I am not going into details, so forget it.”
“But you’re on the permanent menu? Every other day? Or do you want me to go on the sub list? I mean, I’d miss Aidan like crazy but I’d understand.”
Krys stopped in the middle of finding a spare USB cable. She hadn’t thought about it. As much as she liked Melissa, she didn’t want to see that blissed-out look on the woman’s face while Aidan fed from her. There was no point in being ridiculous about it, though. He’d have to make that call. If he wanted to keep feeding from Melissa, Krys would just have to get over it.
“That’s Aidan’s decision.” She plugged the cable into the back of the monitor.
“Uh-oh, girl’s jealous.” Melissa piled pieces of Styrofoam into the computer box, laughing. She picked up the last bit of packaging, stuffed it into the carton, and closed the flaps.
Krys had never felt happier, but she wasn’t going to share that, either.
They spent the rest of the day installing software and playing around with ways to log patients, inventory drug stock, and set up appointments. At four they shut down the computer and got ready to go home.
Krys wondered if she should go to Aidan’s or her own house. Her house. She liked the sound of that.
Mark’s car careened into the lot just as they got to the door. He rushed in, melted snow pooling on the shoulders of his leather jacket. “Take your coats off. We’ve had some folks hurt—they’re on their way.”
“Who is it?” Melissa asked.
Before he could answer, Krys held up a hand. “Wait. First, tell me what kind of injuries so we can get ready.”
“Tim got shot, close range, and it looks pretty bad. Couple of others with minor stab wounds.”
Krys left Mark and Melissa at the front desk and went into the exam rooms one at a time, making sure she had what she needed. In a few minutes, Melissa joined her in the larger room, pulling out tape and sutures, bandages and antiseptic.
“Mark OK?”
Melissa nodded. “He’s gone to leave a note for Mirren, although there’s no point. He’ll know something’s wrong with Tim as soon as he wakes.”
“What happened?”
Melissa didn’t get a chance to answer. A couple of men Krys had seen at the town hall meeting opened the door to a swirl of cold air, while two more brought in Tim. She recognized the older man as Jerry, the one who’d been hurt in the mill village fire. He’d been a joker at the meeting, but his expression was grim now.
“Put him in Exam Two,” she told them. “How far behind are the others?”
“Couple of minutes,” Jerry said. “They ain’t hurt as bad.”
Krys pulled out the extension on the exam table, lifting one end to keep the head higher than the feet, and Jerry and the other man laid Tim down gently. His ruddy complexion had turned pale and clammy, and his breathing was ragged. But he was alive.
The facial wounds were all surface stuff. Bruises and cuts, nothing too deep or serious. Pulling on gloves, Krys turned to the gunshot wound, which had turned his chest to a sickening mix of sweatshirt fabric and raw hamburger. She said a quick prayer and steadied her breathing. This was very, very bad.
Using a pair of long-bladed scissors from the exam tray, she cut up the middle of his sweatshirt and pulled the shreds away, then blew out a frustrated breath. He needed an emergency room with a full setup and medical team and an OR, and he needed them a half hour ago.
Melissa appeared at her shoulder. “The other two guys are in Exam One. I bandaged them up and told them to wait. Nothing life-threatening. They’ll just need stitch—oh God.” She finally got a look at Tim and swallowed hard. “What do you need me to do?”
“The best thing we can do is try to stabilize him enough to get him to the hospital in Opelika—and if he survives that, they’ll send him to Birmingham or Atlanta,” Krys said, removing the blood-soaked packing and replacing it quickly. “Call an ambulance, then look in the supply room and find something to stop the bleeding.” At Melissa’s deer-in-headlights look, she added, “Should have a name like Celox or QuikClot. And a couple of units of blood.”
Melissa disappeared, and Krys finally noticed Jerry and the other men who’d brought Tim in standing against the wall, watching. Jerry looked scared. “You guys get out of here. Go home or wait in the lobby,” she said. “If you leave, keep your phones handy. Aidan will want to talk to you.” She glanced at her watch. He should be up in a half hour.
Melissa returned with a couple of envelopes an
d a small cooler. “These boxes say Celox. Is this what you wanted?”
Krys nodded and grabbed one, ripped off the top, and uncovered Tim’s wound. She poured granules in and quickly replaced the packing. Once the bleeding stopped, she could get a better idea of what she was dealing with, but the biggest thing she needed was an ambulance. “Did you call nine-one-one?”
Melissa shook her head. “We can’t.” Her hands shook as she took a wet cloth and began wiping the blood and dirt off Tim’s face. “We have to wait on Aidan.”
Krys glanced at Tim to make sure he was still unconscious. “We can’t wait on Aidan or he’s not going to make it,” she hissed. “Call them.”
Krys hooked Tim up to a heart monitor and blood pressure gauge. She set up an IV and ran a bag of blood to one port and a line of morphine to another. She didn’t know what else to do for him.
His eyes cracked open, aimed at the ceiling.
“Tim? You’re at the clinic. Can you talk to me?”
No reaction. He was in shock; not surprising, given the trauma and blood loss. The man was conscious in name only.
Melissa stood in the doorway. She hadn’t called for help, damn it. Krys turned back to look at Tim. Shit. Time for a reality check.
She hung her head in defeat. Even if the ambulance was here now, even if they had a freaking helipad, they couldn’t reach an ER in less than a half hour, minimum. No way he’d survive the trip, and she’d be endangering Penton’s secrets for nothing.
“Mel.” Krys motioned her to one side. “You need to get in touch with Tim’s wife.”
Melissa closed her eyes and nodded. “Oh God. Jennifer. She works down at the Superette.”
“Call her, then come sit with Tim a few minutes. I’ll take a quick look at the other guys, then you can suture them.” Melissa had been practicing stitches on a dummy with Krys watching. Now she could try the real thing.
Melissa nodded and swiped a tear from her cheek, pulling her cell phone from her pocket and returning to the hallway.
Krys pulled a stool over and tried in vain to get a response from Tim, talking to him, stroking his hand, while she watched his vitals. He wasn’t stable enough for surgery, even if they had been set up for it. Krys had seen enough gunshot wounds when she’d done her ER rotation. This was unfixable.
Melissa returned from the hallway. “Jennifer’s on her way. I didn’t tell her how bad it was. Want me to stay with him?”
Krys nodded. “Keep trying to get any kind of reaction from him, and call me if you do. We got any blankets?” She opened cabinets along the wall until she found some, and handed Melissa a couple of thermals. “Cover him up. Keep him warm. The longer we can keep him alive, the better chance he has. Call me the second anything changes.”
Melissa wiped away more tears with the back of her hand and climbed on the stool. Krys could hear her talking softly to Tim as she headed into the adjacent exam room.
“Sorry it took me so long,” she told the men. One sat on the exam table, the other in a chair. Melissa had been right. Both had knife cuts that would need stitches and minor scrapes a simple antiseptic would handle.
“What happened out there?” Damned if Penton wasn’t getting to be a dangerous place. But she couldn’t see herself anywhere else now.
The older man, Michael, shifted on the exam table, wincing as Krys examined his injury. “We’d gone to the old mill, trying to run off the humans Owen’s scathe was keeping tied up,” he said, his heavy Southern accent sounding more local than most Krys had heard there. “There was only four of them, all dogs.”
“Dogs?” Krys frowned at him.
“Humans who’ve been enthralled so many times they can’t do much besides follow orders,” the other man said, introducing himself as Gary. He was younger, and Krys remembered seeing him with Will at the town hall meeting. A fam, maybe? “They were armed and waiting for us. It was FUBAR start to finish.”
“How’s Tim?” Michael asked.
Krys shook her head. “Not good. Next hour is going to be touch-and-go.”
“Mirren’s gonna do some damage,” Gary said. “I don’t want to be here when the big guy finds out somebody put a hole in his fam. Can we leave?”
“I guess, soon as Melissa stitches you up. Keep your phones on you, though.”
She called Melissa in to do the suturing, and glanced at her watch again on her way back into Tim’s room. Four forty. She, too, kind of wished she could be somewhere else when Mirren heard what had happened, but she figured she’d have a front-row seat.
Krys was adjusting the fluids feeding into Tim’s IV when Jennifer arrived, a petite blonde who looked scared and half in shock herself. She caught the distraught woman’s arm before she got to Tim. “Take a deep breath,” she said softly. “Calm yourself down. Then sit with him, talk to him quietly, try to get him to respond to you. Don’t let him see you’re afraid.”
“Is he going to make it?”
Krys hesitated and Jennifer covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”
“What you can do for him is to not let him see how scared you are. Talk to him. Can you do that?”
Jennifer swallowed hard, wiped her eyes, and nodded. She took a couple of deep breaths and walked to the stool next to Tim. As soon as she said his name and took his hand, his eyes shifted and latched onto her.
At least he won’t die alone. Krys squeezed her shoulder. “He sees you. Keep talking to him.”
She slipped into the hall and leaned against the wall, exhausted, closing her eyes and beating her head gently against the painted paneling. There were still two patients in the clinic who’d been injured in the restaurant explosion, and now Tim. How was Aidan going to fix this? In her visions Hannah had seen Krys helping him, but how? She could treat the injured but that wasn’t going to solve the problem.
After checking on Tim again, she walked to the front reception desk, leaning against it and waiting for Mirren or Aidan. She wasn’t sure who would get there first. Tim was Mirren’s fam, so he’d know something was wrong as soon as he woke. But Mirren and Aidan were bonded as well, so it was a toss-up as to who’d get where, and when.
Turned out to be Aidan. She’d barely registered his car pulling into the lot before he strode through the doors, his eyes pale and angry. If she’d had an ounce of sense, she’d have avoided him when he looked like that—very predatory and not so human, despite his iron self-control. But she hurt for him. This was one more thing he’d blame on himself.
“How is he?” Aidan put a hand on Krys’s elbow and headed toward the exam rooms.
With him she had to be straight up. She stopped outside the door and kept her voice low. “Honest answer? I’ve done all I can. It’ll be a miracle if he makes it—I’m surprised he’s still alive.”
She stopped him on his way into Exam One. “Not that one, next one. You had two guys stabbed but the wounds were minor. Mel’s stitching them up, and I told them they could go home but stay by the phone in case you wanted to talk to them.”
He nodded. “Names?”
“Gary Thomas and Michael something.”
Aidan nodded again and eased into the second room. Krys followed close behind in case he tried to talk to Tim, but he stopped just inside the door, watching Jennifer as she continued to chatter in the face of Tim’s unblinking stare.
Aidan looked devastated.
A minute later, Tim flatlined. Krys had already moved the clinic’s portable defibrillator into the room, so she ordered everyone but Melissa outside and used the paddles. His heartbeat bounced erratically for a few seconds, then flatlined again. Krys knew it was hopeless but she worked on him for another ten minutes before calling time of death. Even Penton would have to file reports, but she’d figure out the paperwork later.
She turned off the monitors and unhooked them before nodding to a tearful Melissa to open the doors again. Jennifer could be as hysterical as she wanted to be now.
Mirren stood motionless in the hallway, and whe
n Krys shook her head, he clenched his jaw and followed Jennifer into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
“I’m sorry.” Krys took Aidan’s hand.
“This has to stop,” he said, his voice so quiet she strained to hear. “It ends tonight.”
Gun: check.
Knives: check.
Extra bullets: check.
Pissed-off, righteous fury: check.
Aidan slipped into his Kevlar vest and jerked the straps tight.
Mark handed him a jacket, but he shook his head. “It’ll slow me down.” He’d fed from Mark at his insistence, since Krys and Melissa were busy at the clinic, but now it was time to go.
Mark pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket and checked the clip.
“Go home,” Aidan said. “This is my job.”
“Listen, Ai—”
“No. I won’t have Mel go through the shit Jennifer’s dealing with tonight. Besides, I need you to contact Will and Hannah and the other scathe leaders. They know the chain of command if something happens to me. I’m shutting down the bonds between me and everyone except Mirren. Tell him if that bond gets cut, he’s in charge.” He paused. “Mating bonds can’t be cut, so keep an eye on Krys.” That was a factor he hadn’t dealt with before.
He didn’t give Mark a chance to answer, brushing past him to the porch, down the steps and to his car. He cranked it and was backing out of the driveway when a figure behind him gave him no option but to slam on the brakes.
Mirren got into the passenger seat, sliding it back to accommodate his long legs. His voice was quiet. “You aren’t taking this one by yourself. That son of a bitch is mine, and I want his human shooter too.”
Aidan nodded. He didn’t like it, but a man had a right to avenge his own. He backed his car out of the drive and headed toward downtown.
“What’s the plan?” Mirren checked the clip in his gun.
“Kill Owen,” Aidan said. “I haven’t thought much beyond that.”
“Works for me.”
They drove in silence to a side street a block from the mill. It was still early evening, and Aidan thought chances were good that if the scathe had found day spaces nearby, the vamps might not have gone far.
Redemption (The Penton Vampire Legacy) Page 25