What You Can’t See

by Allison Brennan

  “I can’t do this!” In frustration he hurled the sword across the room. It sang in the air, hitting home in the wall behind Michael’s desk.

  “You can,” Michael calmly said.

  “How?”

  “Possess the Trinity and the Starkeeper.”

  “The hell I will.” Zach moved toward the door. He stopped and looked at Michael, who stood as calm and collected as a marble statue. “I’ve fucked up my life and everyone else’s, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to go fuck up again.”

  Michael’s voice boomed against the walls and reverberated in Zach’s brain. “Sephora is building an army of Immortals. They will wipe out humanity for the Trinity!”

  Zach blanched at the power of his words. He swallowed, the pain in his throat nearly unbearable. “What happens if I choose not to go back?”

  “You walk through that door.”

  Fuck.

  “What if I go back and fail?”

  “Then you live life on earth knowing you are responsible for the release of hell on earth.”

  “Great. What happens if I succeed, but screw up after that?”

  “Succeed and stay clean, you go north when your human life is up. Screw up?” Michael inclined his toward the burning door. “You’ll go to hell.”

  “I’ve been living in hell.”

  “Silence!” Michael roared. “You have been a bad man. A vigilante cop, a liar, and a cheat. Go to hell or do what you were born to do.”

  The flames curled around his ankles, the intense searing a welcome replacement for the crushing pain in his heart. He raised his hands, welcoming it.

  Dani’s sweet face appeared in front of him. Her smile sincere, loving. He reached out to touch her, to tell her goodbye forever.

  “Choose now, Zach. There is no more time.”

  Chapter Two

  D ANICA STOOD IN THE CORNER of the room, staring at the motionless body in the hospital bed. The man she’d loved and trusted, the man who knew every intimate secret clear down to her soul, the man who had sold her out so he could keep his job.

  Zach Garett.

  Emotions swirled so violently inside her body she felt as if a superhuman force were pushing from the inside out. And that if one more ounce of pressure was exerted she would explode into a million pieces.

  Her skin tightened, her lungs constricted. Her hands balled into fists. Her jaw clenched hard against her teeth. And her heart? Her heart felt the full weight of Zach’s betrayal again as if it were the first time.

  In IA she had not only gone to the wall for him, but dug up a witness who could prove the murder charges against Zach were trumped up. What she didn’t know was she’d been set up. By Zach himself. The case and her, tossed. She caught a sob. Not only had he set her up to get himself off, in the end she realized he had committed murder, and by her actions alone, he was allowed to walk. It was the final nail in the coffin of what had become a hollow life.

  When Mark called three days ago to tell her about the accident she fell to her knees and sobbed. Her emotions startled her. For three days she’d convinced herself she didn’t care if Zach Garett lived or died. And in her heart of hearts, she believed his death would finally give her peace. With it she would no longer feel the hate, the contempt, the utter disdain for the man in front of her. The one person on earth who could—no, who had so completely destroyed her life.

  Hot tears welled in her eyes. She fought them back, unable to comprehend why she had such an emotional reaction at this moment for the man she despised. After three years her life was finally back in order. She’d been promoted to head of security at the Hope. While she did socialize on a superficial level, she had no interest in dating. She was in all aspects of her life comfortably numb. And content to keep it that way.

  Then Zach had to go and get himself nearly killed!

  Damn him for tearing her in half a second time! Damn him for everything he was! Damn him and all his lies and smiles and—she sobbed—damn him for making her love him and hate him as passionately.

  She didn’t want to feel any more. Especially for Zach.

  She stepped closer. His handsome face was swollen and bruised. Small cuts dotted his forehead. His right hand was wrapped in a soft cast. Several different bags hung from a pole and dripped into the IV stuck into the back of his right hand.

  Jammed into his throat was a life-giving trach tube. All she had to do was reach over and slowly pull it out. Take his life. As he had hers. Watch him slowly suffocate. As she had.

  Could she?

  Three years of pushing down her anger, her frustration, her heartbreak, reared. Yeah, she could do it. She welcomed the opportunity to stand by and watch him die a slow agonizing death just as he had stood by three years ago and watched her die. Watched the career she’d worked so hard for yanked out from underneath her in one simple, selfish tug. He could have stopped what he’d set in motion, but he stood silent. The final blow was the day he turned his back on her and walked away. No heartfelt goodbye, no reason for his actions. He’d just simply cut her out and moved on.

  Bastard!

  She laughed, the sound brittle. And to think she was engaged to him at the time. Danica took another step closer and glanced at the monitor that began to beep faster.

  So, he knew she was there.

  Good. Perfect payback. Attached to tubes and machines, he was completely at her mercy. She’d be happy to give back. An eye for an eye. He sold out their love and the life they built together. She reached out to his throat. He’d suffer as she continued to do.

  He sensed her presence long before he heard her short caustic laugh. Zach struggled to open his eyes. It felt like bags of sand weighed them down. The ache in his throat burned. His right arm throbbed. He tried to swallow but the agony of the pain was too much to bear. He groaned. His hands fisted. Pain shot up his arm. His chest heaved as he tried to gulp in air but the pressure in and around his throat was excruciating. His pain so thorough he ached to his marrow.

  Her soft rose scent wafted to his nostrils, the antiseptic odors of the hospital room fading. He moaned. Despite the pain it caused, his hand opened toward her, where he knew she stood.

  Had he died? Was Danica here with him? His angel of mercy?

  His heart quickened. It didn’t matter if he was dead, so long as she was by his side. And she was. Here. Now. She must still care.

  Zach forced his eyes open, the grainy scrape of his lids over his eyes agonizing. He pushed harder, wanting to see his sweet Dani. He could see her as she was in his dreams. Soft and golden. Her thick chestnut-colored hair haloed in the sunlight. Her big blue eyes smiling at him with love.

  Walking away that day had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. And it was also his biggest regret. Yet, he’d had no choice.

  His eyelids slowly opened, his eyes mere slits in his swollen face. The Danica who stood beside him was not haloed. Her once bright hair was darker, pulled back into a snug bun. He hated her hair like that. He loved it long and thick between his fingers. Dark circles framed once brilliant eyes. Her golden skin looked sallow, taut. The dark sweep of her eyebrows drew heavily over her eyes. Her lips pulled back from her teeth, the gesture adversarial. Her hand hovered near his shoulder. Slowly she lowered it.

  “I had to see for myself you were alive. How unfortunate for me, you are.”

  Zach closed his eyes and swallowed, the pain jarring his senses. He wanted to speak, to tell her he was sorry. To ask for a second chance. He opened his eyes and stiffened. The hard edges of her face, the rigid set of her jaw, and the flash of her eyes told him she meant each word she said. He opened his lips, and hoarsely whispered, “Dani—” He grabbed her hand, flinching in anticipation of the pain it would cause. Instead, warmth radiated from her skin to his.

  She gasped and pulled her hand away, stepping back. “I hope you burn in hell.”

  She turned and walked away from him. He reached out, and called to her, the effort severe. He started to coug
h, his chest tightened. His throat flamed in pain. She didn’t hesitate. When the door closed behind her Zach pushed his head back into the pillow and winced. Gritting his teeth he carefully swallowed, this time welcoming the pain. It didn’t compare to the devastation in his heart.

  The door opened and he flinched. She’d come back! Instead, from beneath swollen eyelids he watched a man dressed in green scrubs walk in. Intuitively Zach knew he was not a nurse. He squinted and tensed.

  “How are you feeling, Zach?” the man asked, the voice rough. Familiar. He’d seen him recently. Was he a collar? A snitch? Was he here to finish Zach off for putting his ass in jail? Zach didn’t care. He welcomed death. He closed his eyes. Heat infiltrated his body, like flames licking at his skin. Sudden realization dawned. Zach’s eyes flashed open.

  “I’m Raiden,” the man said. “We met at Mike’s?”

  He shook his head. Denial hot on his lips. No.

  Images crashed in his brain. Hot, warm, cold, more heat. A man in black. A white room. A video of the crash.

  It was a dream!

  He’d dreamt going to hell then to where? Not heaven, he’d gone to—

  “Michael sent me to keep an eye on you. We need to move fast, there isn’t much time, and you’re one broke fuck.”

  Zach only nodded in stunned silence. Maybe this was the continuation of the dream. Maybe he hadn’t woken yet. That would sure as hell explain Dani’s presence.

  He closed his eyes and relaxed back into the pillows. Go back to sleep, man, and when you wake up you’ll see the light of the real world.

  “It doesn’t work, man,” Raiden said. “The longer you hide in denial the more miserable you’ll be.”

  Zach opened his eyes, the pain of the movement secondary to his dread. “It wasn’t a dream,” Raiden told him. He moved closer to Zach’s side. He reached out a hand to Zach’s face. Zach flinched. Raiden laughed. “Stop being a girl.” Then for a man so big and menacing, he gently pressed one hand to Zach’s throat and the other to his right hand.

  A soft tingle began at the points of contact. It went from cold to warm to hot. It intensified, then eased into soothing warmth that infiltrated his skin. His bruised and battered body lightened, the throb of pain lessening. Raiden removed his hand and stood back, a half smile twisting his lips.

  “Say something,” he said.

  “Something,” Zach said, shocked he could speak and more shocked there was little pain involved. “How the hell?”

  “Company secret. Get some rest. The docs will be amazed at yet another miracle. Get them to sew up that hole in your throat and get out of here ASAP.”

  Before Zach could respond Raiden started for the door. He turned abruptly and walked back to Zach’s bedside. “You forgot something, man.” He reached behind his back and withdrew the golden sword Michael had given him. The same sword Zach had thrown across the room.

  “You’re going to need it.” He set the hilt of the blade in Zach’s repaired right hand. Zach hesitated to accept it. His gaze swept the sleek lines of the weapon, admiring the damage it could do in the right hands. Michael’s words reverberated in his brain. “Only in the hand of a Caladian warrior can this blade destroy an Immortal.” His fingers wrapped around the handle, he looked up to Raiden, wanting reassurance, but he had disappeared.

  Zach lay quiet for a long moment. Images and emotions swirled in his head. His brain was telling him it must all still be a dream. He was a practical man. A man of action. He’d never been a religious person, hell, with the exception of funerals he’d never set foot in a church. So, how had this happened? Was he being played for a fool? Had someone drugged him, and this was the result?

  He looked down at the sword. His heart pounded. The sword warmed in his hand. He tried to let go of it, but it cleaved to his fingers, heating up, as if in protest of his thoughts. It felt real. His hand tightened around the warm metal. And with clarity he knew it was all real.

  The sword cooled, and his fingers opened around it; releasing it, he slid it beneath the sheets and sat up. He needed to get the hell out of the hospital.

  Tentatively he swallowed, anticipating the pain, and was surprised there was only a faint dull drag along his throat.

  Zach looked down at the soft cast around his arm and IV in his hand. He pulled the useless cast off then yanked the tape and needle out of his vein. The tube flopped to the floor. Fluid puddled. Before he disconnected himself from the machines and had every doctor and nurse on duty rushing into his room, he rifled through the drawers next to his bed looking for his clothes. Empty. Shit!

  Realization hit him. He wouldn’t have any clothes. Fire would have cut them off.

  He stood motionless for a moment, and thought. The last thing he remembered was being in the car with Santos and trying like hell to get his seat belt fastened. They’d hit another car and then the lights went out. The bastard had tried to kill him! Why? Did Santos know Zach was going to see to it he not only lost his badge but did jail time?

  Zach sat back on the edge of the bed. He moved farther back, then sank into the pillows. It occurred to him he was in no rush to get back to the job. For the first time since he’d decided at the age of ten to become a cop it didn’t hold any attraction.

  It had tarnished. But so had he. He was not the supercop he’d dreamed of becoming. The one who was bigger than life, who delivered damsels in distress from evil villains. He wasn’t a stand-up cop putting the bad guy behind bars the old-fashioned way—by following the justice system. No, he had more than strayed across the line. He’d sold out when the system didn’t do its job. He’d had no regrets at the time, and if he were honest with himself he had no regrets now, except one. And from what he’d experienced, it would take hell on earth to make it right.

  He pulled down the hospital gown and ripped the heart monitors off his chest and flung them away from him. He touched the tube attached to his throat. It was the only thing keeping him from walking out the door.

  Zach pressed the call button. He needn’t have; the machine tracking his vitals started to furiously beep. The door to his room was flung open. A rather attractive blonde, who back in the day would have spent more than one night in his bed, rushed in. Panic distorted her features.

  Zach pointed to his throat and hoarsely said, “Get this out and sew me up.”

  “Mr. Garett, you need to get back in bed, you’ve had severe trauma to your entire body. Please!”

  Zach put his hand to the tube and wrapped his fingers around it. He started to pull. “Stop! Please,” the nurse shrieked. “I’ll get the doctor.” She scurried out of the room, giving him a quick look over her shoulder to make sure he had released the tube.

  Zach nodded, grabbed the stand the damn thing was attached to, and started to walk himself but was pulled up short by a tug on his dick.

  Fuck! A catheter. Just as he was about to yank the damn thing out a tall thin man in his early fifties hurried in. “Mr. Garett, you are in no condition to have the trach tube removed. Your larynx is too swollen for air to pass through.”

  “If I can talk, enough air is getting through.”

  The doc’s jaw fell open. “How?”

  Zach shook his head and sat back down on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know how or what or why, all I know is if you don’t take this thing out of my throat, and this hose out of my dick right now, we’ll have a bigger problem.” While the words came slowly and his voice was husky, his words were clear.

  “Lie back in the bed and let me examine you.”

  Zach obeyed.

  After some poking and prodding Dr. Samuel stood back and shook his head. “Fucking amazing.”

  “Fucking get the tube out.”

  “There is more involved than sewing up the hole.”

  “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’ll have to schedule surgery—”

  “Do it here. Get what you need, or I’ll walk like this.”

  “But you’re signing your life away. I won’t be
responsible for any relapse. Your throat can swell up in less than thirty seconds and you’d be up shit creek. It’ll be the end.”

  “So noted, now get these tubes out.”

  Less than thirty minutes later the tubes were removed and the hole in Zach’s neck and trach sewn shut. “Take it very easy, Mr. Garett. I want to see you in my office tomorrow, the nurse will give you the info.” He went on to give Zach a list of dos and don’ts.

  As he listened to the doctor’s droning voice it occurred to Zach for the second time he didn’t have any clothes. “Where are my clothes and belongings?”

  “I—” The good doc looked at the nurse.

  She hurried to answer. “You went to the ER then to ICU before you came down here. I’m not sure what happened to them. I’ll go look.”

  Zach nodded.

  Zach just wanted out, and would have put on a dress if that’s what it took. After the doc left with stern warnings, Zach jumped into the shower in his room, brushed his teeth, and just as he wrapped a towel around his waist the nurse came in with a plastic bag.

  “All I could come up with was scrubs and a pair of size thirteen plastic clogs.”

  Zach nodded. The nurse’s gaze ravaged his body and he felt a heat begin at his groin. But it wasn’t for the buxom blonde standing in front of him with hungry eyes drinking in his body. No, it was for the haggard-eyed woman who was devastated he wasn’t listed in the weekly obit.

  Zach smiled, the gesture tugging at his lips. Another time and another place and he would have nailed Nurse Betty right then and there. Now? He had no interest.

  “I get off in about twenty minutes, I’ll be happy to drive you home,” the nurse offered.

  Zach nodded. “Thanks.” He took the bag from her, dropped the towel, and walked naked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. He heard her sharp intake of breath, and his dick flexed in response. Maybe he wasn’t as dead as he thought he was after all.

  Less than an hour later he was standing in front of his modest single-story house. It nestled snugly in the Oakland hills with a stellar view of the bay and San Francisco, which was why he’d paid a small fortune for it. That, and Danica had had her heart set on it. It was supposed to be the house where they lived happily ever after and raised their children.