The Longing of Lone Wolves

by Lana Pecherczyk

  Grace squeezed the man’s arm. “Don’t worry, Raseem. Your technique is second to none. Even the interns gossip about how great it is. You got this, buddy.”

  He gave her a soft smile and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m being stupid.”

  “Nope. You’re not.” She was the one afraid to get back into an operating theater. “Sometimes the unexpected happens. Getting anxious before an unfamiliar case is normal.”

  “You never did.”

  She swallowed and looked away.

  “Sorry,” he added. “I know you haven’t operated in a while.”

  “And you’re in there every day. You’re going to ace it. Do what I used to do. Say something funny to break the ice.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he mumbled absently. “A joke.”

  “Do you know what else is a good idea? Letting me clock on early.”

  “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  Grace pretended she didn’t hear the tone of pity in Raseem’s voice and shook her head.

  “Okay then. If you really want to, I guess they do need the extra hand in there. I’ll see if someone can handover. It’s been a wild night. Meet me here in five.”

  Yes. She mentally fist pumped. For a minute she thought he would tell her to go home or tell the Chief of Staff. Grace went to the staff locker room and pulled on a fresh pair of green scrubs. When she returned, Raseem waited for her with the ER schedule open on his iPad.

  “They’re all a bit busy, so I said I’d show you,” he said.

  “So, busy night, huh?” Graced asked.

  “Busy and mad. You know how it is. I know the city has gone downhill since those vigilante cowboys disappeared but, honestly, sometimes I wonder if they feed people crack in the tap water for this amount of crazy to turn up in one night. We’ve had a few gangland stabbings, bullet wounds, another stuck a cucumber up his anus, and then there’s the special one,” he said.

  “The cucumber wasn’t special enough?” Grace laughed.

  Raseem handed her the iPad and brought up a patient file. “I consulted briefly on this one. Puncture wound is cleaned and stitched by a nurse. You might want to check the suture work. We suspected internal bleeding, maybe some broken ribs. Bruises over his body. Diagnostic scan reports are just in. I haven’t seen them yet.”

  “Why is he so special?”

  Raseem gave her a wry look. “Probably high. Didn’t want to relinquish his bag of clothes, fought with the attendants when he was brought in, bit of an A-hole… take your pick.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “If we hadn’t dosed him, maybe. He’s a big man. Just check the scans then bump him out unless he needs surgery for the internal bleeding, then call me. He’s in the observation unit.”

  Raseem handed her the iPad, gave her a lip twitch of gratitude, then walked away.

  She checked the scan report and her jaw nearly dropped to the floor. Wow. Just wow. Raseem would be sorry he handed this one over.

  Chapter Three

  From the corner of his eye, Evan watched his mother pace beside his hospital bed. Preferring to fixate on the scrap paper in front of him, he ignored her muttered obscenities and traced the lines of the portrait he scribbled with the HB pencil he’d found on the floor.

  “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t prepare you for this,” Mary Lazarus said, stopping to glare at him in the way only a parent could. “It’s not like you didn’t spend your entire life training to avoid this very thing.” She punctuated her last words by hitting her palm on the bed.

  “Exactly. I’m big and ugly enough to take care of myself. How did you know I was here, anyway?”

  She ignored his question and continued with her lecture. “A mother will always be worried about her children, no matter how big and strong they’ve grown. I gave you the tools to be what this city needs, what this world needs, but ultimately it has to be up to you. Your sin doesn’t control you. You control it. Evan. Are you listening?”

  “Yes.”

  “I encouraged you when you chose to slip out into the night and fight crime. I supported you when you chose to pack it all in. But, Evan”—she made a pointed look at his faded bruised face and arms—“I won’t stand by idly while you punish yourself for something that’s not your fault.”

  Evan stopped the sweeping line of his pencil stroke and lifted his gaze to focus on her.

  The woman stood at five-five but had a deceptively powerful body you wouldn’t expect to see on a fifty-year-old woman. Sheathed in black workout attire, she looked fresh and fit. Her dark, silver-streaked long hair had been pulled into a convenient bun at the base of her neck. There were tiny worry lines around her eyes and in between her brows, but if he saw her on the street and had to guess her age, he’d say early forties. You’d hardly know beneath her slick surface laid an ex-assassin of the Hildegard Sisterhood and a sleeping dragon capable of killing the instant it woke. And she’d taught him everything she knew.

  “My visions don’t predict everything, Evan. I’d much rather you return home where you belong. What’s this?” Mary’s eyes snagged on something. She caught Evan’s wrist in her strong vice-like grip and turned the inner flesh toward her eyes, displaying his Yin-Yang tattoo. Each of his siblings had one, but Evan had embellished his with black geometric and organic patterns that traveled up the natural lines and veins of his body, turning his arm into a work of art reminiscent of his paintings. His eldest brother, Parker, had infused the tattoo ink with an acid based indicator that reacted to each of their individual sins. The more envy registered in Evan’s body, the darker his tattoo. It was almost black.

  Mary sighed and dropped her forehead to his wrist. She inhaled a shuddering breath, gathering herself. The sight broke Evan’s heart. She was disappointed, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. The urges were too strong. Envy had driven him to fight in the underground ring. When they wanted him to fail, it urged him to win. Now he sensed envy in the hospital. In every bed. In every room. Sick people wanted to be someone else. Staff wanted to be somewhere else. Everyone wanted something they didn’t have. Including him.

  He tugged his wrist from his mother and scribbled madly on the portrait.

  “We should just go,” Evan stated, shifting to get out of the bed. “The longer we stay, the more likely they’ll discover things they shouldn’t about me.”

  She pushed him back down. “Absolutely not. Your sudden absence will raise more red flags than not. Besides, I’ve seen the outcome. It’s best we stay.”

  Mary’s supernatural visions were what led her to rescue him and his siblings from the lab that created them. Those visions kept them safe from the Sisterhood she betrayed, and the mysterious Syndicate who bank rolled their experiment.

  Evan resisted, and she responded with more force. “You may be ten times bigger than me, Evan, but I can drop you like a fly.”

  He eased off. She was right.

  Large brown eyes looked down at him over a straight, no-nonsense nose. Evan supposed he and his siblings didn’t look so different from her. It was easy to mistake them as relatives. Evan’s biological mother was Caucasian—pale and dark-haired. Mary had been born in Mexico, had olive skin and dark eyes. Her husband Flint, their father figure, was Caucasian too, rounding out the perfect appearances for their family brood.

  “I brought spare clothes for you to dress in. Lord knows you can’t wear the battle gear home.”

  “I wore it last night. Nobody seemed to care. In fact, they cheered louder when I took a hit.”

  “La Hostia.” Mary pulled out the gold crucifix from her top and kissed it.

  “Since when did you find religion? You didn’t even pray when you were a fake nun back in the day.”

  “I’m not praying now. I’m cursing. And maybe it’s because none of you children listen to me.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry. What else did you see?” Evan asked, scratching the tattoo on his wrist. “What’s got that gleam in your eye?”
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br />   Mary toyed with the zip on her jacket. The smile dancing on her lips was almost undetectable before she squashed it down, letting the hardness take back her features.

  “I’m relieved to see you’re alive, that’s all.” She tapped on his drawing. “You need to stop this business about Sara. Focus on finding your own woman. Evan. Look at me.”

  He did.

  “It’s not healthy to pine after your brother’s dead fiancé.”

  The pencil snapped in Evan’s fingers.

  “You know there’s another reason for this…” he waved at the paper, unable to come up with the right word.

  “Obsession?”

  “Investigation! I thought you of all people would understand the dreams. I don’t pick them, they pick me.”

  Mary opened her mouth to say something, then shut it. There was nothing else to say. Hadn’t been for two years. He couldn’t prove it. They couldn’t prove it. As far as everyone else knew, Sara had died a martyr in the explosion that ended life as he knew it. But Evan knew. He’d always known.

  Sara had been filled to the brim with deadly levels of envy. She wasn’t as innocent as she seemed, and when he’d told his family after the fact, they blamed him. Some said he lied, others accused him of making a mistake or taking too long to tell them, and then there was the kicker from Wyatt—You’re just jealous I had someone who loved me.

  They were supposed to support each other as a family, but the truth was, since Sara had entered their lives years ago, they’d never been the same.

  “Whatever,” Evan said and scrunched up the drawing. “Maybe you’re right. She’s dead. It’s over. You would have seen a vision otherwise. My dreams aren’t the same thing as yours. I’ll never be as good.”

  Mary sighed and searched his eyes with hers. “Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong, Evan. I’m not all-seeing. Far from it, in fact. The older I get, the less my gift seems to work, and yours... it’s something new. It’s bio-engineered. Mutating animal DNA mixed with human. It’s one of a kind and we’re learning as we go. But, what I am saying is, you need to focus on yourself, on finding the one who will be your perfect balance. From what Gloria said about your condition, I don’t believe your dreams are the ability she spoke of. It might be a side-effect, but not the one that should manifest when you meet your perfect balance.”

  Evan rolled his eyes. “Not this again.”

  “Yes, this again. I’ve always believed you would be the first, Evan. You will show them all the way. You’re the youngest, you’ve been exposed to your sin the least. Despite what they all think, Sara wasn’t the one for Wyatt. He would’ve felt a noticeable biological response. Gloria programed your DNA that way. Wyatt didn’t develop any special abilities, so Sara couldn’t have been his match. Simple as that. Everyone needs to forget her and move on.”

  Mary’s faith in him kept Evan from an early grave. But he shook his head, staring down at the crumpled paper in his hand. The idea of there being one person out there for him was too hard to comprehend. “It’s all bullshit. My birth mother told you bullshit.”

  “Watch your language.”

  “Sorry. But it’s true. She was a genius geneticist but she was grade-A crazy. Mad scientist doesn’t even begin to describe her drivel.”

  “Have a little respect for the woman who gave her life for your freedom.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Evan resisted the urge to say she was the one who’d enslaved them in the first place. Instead, he finished scrunching the portrait into a tight ball and threw it at the curtain surrounding his bed just as it parted on the rails with a fast, metallic whoosh.

  The ball bounced off the head of a young brunette woman dressed in green scrubs.

  “Oh, good aim,” she said, patting her head.

  All at once, every hair on Evan’s body stood to attention.

  Three words, and she held him captive. He could do little else but stare.

  Babe. Hot. One word impressions flashed through his mind.

  Fascinating. A sprinkle of freckles covered the tip of her button nose. A fine white scar feathered up her chin to her rosy pink lips.

  Lick. He had the irrational urge to lick his way up it.

  Want.

  What the?

  He blinked madly as his body reacted uncontrollably. Heat flared up his neck, hitting his cheeks. Pin pricks of sweat tickled his skin as it flamed. He was a long way from being a school boy, so when the telltale tightness grew in his groin, he rushed to cover himself with the sheet.

  Shit. What the fuck was wrong with him?

  Biological reaction.

  The woman bent to pick up the crumpled paper and straightened. When her whiskey brown eyes met his, there was an inexplicable moment of intimacy, of human connection. The world around him fell away, and he felt nothing, no envy, no self-disparagement. It was him and her and the strange notion that she saw through it all. The moment lasted long enough to make his heart thud once… twice in his chest, and then it was gone.

  She lifted the paper ball in her hands. “Is this important?”

  He shook his head like a dumb-ass.

  “He’s an artist,” Mary said with a pointed look at the paper. “He’s very talented.”

  Evan cleared his throat and glared at his mother, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “He has an exhibition in a few nights—”

  “Mamà,” Evan warned.

  “He’s also a tattooist. Has his own studio.”

  Christ. He scrubbed his face, letting his hand drag down over his stubble. He caught a whiff of his body odor and flinched. God, he must look awful. He wanted to crawl under a rock or, better yet, sink beneath the floor and never come out.

  Mary kept talking about him. Stop. Please, God, stop embarrassing him. He ground his teeth. “Mary.”

  “Right.” Understanding entered Mary’s eyes as she ping-ponged between him and the doctor, then she gathered her things, including the plastic bag holding his Envy fighting leathers. “Right. I’ll get out of here and let you do your job, doctor. You’ll be wanting some privacy. I’ll go and get a coffee. I’ll wait for you outside, Evan.”

  With a secretive smirk, Mary opened the curtain to exit, and then closed it behind her, tugging the width tight to the edge, ensuring maximum privacy.

  The last sense of envy in the tiny space vacated. Evan turned his gaze back to the doctor in surprise, realizing only then why he hadn’t sensed her approach. She held no envy. None.

  Chapter Four

  After the patient’s mother left, Grace deftly discarded the balled up paper on the bed, and then assessed him. At first glance she noticed his perfect bone structure. High cheek bones, razor cut jaw, intense green eyes. Good looking in a rugged sort of way except his overgrown brown hair and facial scruff meant he didn’t look after himself. Big, muscular, powerful… dangerous. Raseem said he had been a handful to constrain when admitted—she believed it. The hospital gown barely contained his broad shoulders and revealed a full sleeve tattoo on one arm and possibly more from the dark shadows underneath the gown. The artwork both intrigued and puzzled her with its simultaneous violent and harmonious subject matter. Skulls with flowers. A snake around a heart. Death with life. Her eyes tracked down the inked arms to where his fists clenched in his lap. Knuckles were grazed.

  She had the impression he’d brutally earned that carved physique with every punch thrown. Possibly psychopathic from the way he watched her, tracking every movement.

  But she’d seen the way his mother adored him.

  She smiled. “Good morning Mr. Lazarus. I’m Doctor Grace Go. You were admitted earlier this morning with a”—she squinted at her iPad—“shoulder laceration and suspected internal bleeding. You’ve had some scans and have been administered something for the pain. How are you feeling?”

  “Go?” His voice came out a low rumble. He scrubbed his scruff, inspecting her face. “You’re Japanese?”

  “Ah.” Grace blinked, mentally thro
wn off key. Most people joked about her last name, but he’d identified its origin. “Sort of, not really, half I guess. My father was.”

  He answered with a dismissive grunt.

  Boy, this guy needed a Post-it note.

  She cleared her throat and lifted her iPad. Right. Scans.

  “Mr. Lazarus—”

  “Evan.” He growled the word as though she’d done something wrong.

  “Evan. Your scans are back and, good news, there are no signs of internal bleeding. However, there’s something interesting the radiologist picked up on that I’d like to discuss before checking your sutures.”

  The man grew quiet, deathly still, until the wall of silence between them electrified. He had presence, she gave him that.

  She turned the iPad to face him and pulled up the scan, zooming in on the area she needed. “Were you aware that you have three extra organs?”

  He said nothing and, after a beat of awkward silence, she felt his eyes on her face. That charged energy prickled her skin until she turned to meet his gaze, inches from hers. Try as she might, no other words came to mind. In a sudden off-putting moment, she realized he held her captive and not the other way around. There was something about him. He drank in the details of her face, caught on the tiny scar at the base of her lip, and instead of glossing over her imperfection, he appeared intrigued with it. Then he seemed to catch himself staring, and his brow furrowed.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You have three extra organs. See here, here and here?” She pointed to the dark masses on the scan behind his ribcage and stomach. “It’s incredible, really. They don’t appear to be the same shape as any other organ. And preliminary scans can’t pinpoint a common function. Something new entirely.”