by Sarah Wynde
But the scene his headlights revealed had him picking up his transceiver. “Copy, Rudean, I need backup here. And rescue. One down, one injured, and an armed shooter.”
His vision had a surreal clarity, as if his car’s headlights had become halogen spotlights. In a glance, he took in the license plate of the car in the driveway; the woman who lay next to it, her dark hair spread out in the gravel; the size and shape of the man standing, blood staining his shirt; the African-American boy beyond him with a gun in his hands, shock in his face.
He kept talking, his voice not shaking. “Confirm BOLO on the vehicle, subject is present and injured.”
Four missing boys. Could there be another shooter, somewhere out of sight?
His radio exploded with sound as his deputies responded. Colin opened his car door and slid out behind it, staying low, as he unholstered his weapon. He reached into the car and flipped the switch to turn on his rarely-used speaker. “Drop the gun,” he ordered, his enhanced voice echoing into the night.
The boy looked down at the gun in his hands as if he’d never seen it before. Colin didn’t wait. “Face down on the ground. Now,” he ordered.
His radio crackled. “Where the hell are you, Sheriff?” Rudean demanded. “This damn machine has you out in space somewhere.”
Colin didn’t answer. A dark pool of shadow was spreading along the ground off Nat’s left side. It held his eyes as if they were magnetized. “Drop your gun,” he shouted again.
Wait for backup. Secure the scene. Maintain control of the situation. He knew the procedures.
But that was Nat bleeding out twenty feet away from him.
This shouldn’t be happening.
Couldn’t be happening.
But it was.
The man, Thompson, dropped to his knees. He swayed. Colin could see his lips moving, could tell he was muttering something, but the words were indistinct. The boy hadn’t moved.
“Drop your gun,” Colin shouted again, not bothering with the speaker. He had his weapon free. He could step out from the car and shoot as many times as it took to take the kid down. But he’d never fired his weapon out of fear before.
And that was a kid.
The boy bent and set the gun down on the gravel road in front of him. Colin inhaled, a gigantic gulp of air that felt like the first he’d taken in since he’d seen the blood seeping into the ground.
“Step away from the gun,” he shouted. “On the ground, face down.”
The boy didn’t listen. He turned and ran, disappearing around the side of the house in the seconds it took Colin to step out from behind his car and lift his weapon.
“Where the hell are you, Sheriff?” The radio crackled again. “This thing don’t make no sense.”
Colin grabbed the radio transceiver. “All units,” he barked. He fell into so-familiar official language as he gave his location and demanded two ambulances and backup, but with every word he was aware of the heartbeats that were passing, that were pumping blood into the dirt.
The moment he was through, he ran for her.
He fell to his knees next to the car, ignoring the sharp gravel digging into his skin, the pain that told him this was no dream.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Her eyes were open, alive. One hand covered the hole in her chest, but without pressure. Immediately, Colin dropped his against it, firmly pushing the fingers into the soft tissue.
“Nat.” The nickname said everything.
Her eyelashes fluttered. She pulled them open again as if it were a great effort. “Not Travis’s fault,” she breathed. “Thompson wanted to kill me.”
“Nat,” he said again, his voice broken.
Her lips curved into the tiniest of smiles. “Not how it was supposed to be. Huh.” Her eyes closed.
“Natalya Latimer,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare.” He hadn’t cried in so long, in so many years, that he didn’t even recognize the feeling inside his eyes.
She opened her eyes again. “Gotta stop the bleeding,” she whispered, tongue tracing her lips. “I’m so cold. So cold. Not a good sign.”
“The ambulance is on its way,” he promised her.
Behind him, he heard a scuffling noise. Was the boy back? He could be picking up the gun, aiming at Colin’s back, but Colin didn’t even look. He didn’t care. Not while Nat still bled.
It was a breath, not a chuckle, but somehow Nat conveyed amusement through it. “Tassamara,” she said. “Love the place but…” She paused and gasped, pain crossing her face. “Middle of nowhere’s not where you want to get shot.”
“What can I do?” Colin demanded.
She grimaced. “Pressure. No arteries or I’d be dead already. But…” She fell silent.
“Tell me what to do.”
Her head fell to the side. “Not Travis’s fault,” she whispered again. Her eyelids closed. He could barely hear the words as she breathed, “So cold.”
“This isn’t right. This isn’t how it was supposed to be.” He choked out the words, fighting to get them past the knot in his throat.
Her eyes didn’t open.
“You should have moved on,” he told her, not shifting his hands. “Gone to art school. Gotten married. Had kids. Lived the life you deserved to live. This is wrong.”
A tiny flutter of her eyelashes said maybe she heard him, but she didn’t respond.
Colin didn’t move. He just pushed harder, his fingers pressing into hers, into the blood still seeping out of her.
And he waited.
The air was still, quiet. Colin strained to hear the sound of sirens. Was that them in the distance? But a scraping noise on the driveway behind him drowned out the faint wail. Without moving his hands, he risked a glance over his shoulder.
Thompson had somehow pulled himself to his feet and gotten to the gun. It dangled from one hand while he made his way toward Colin, one laborious step after another.
Colin’s position didn’t change. He turned his gaze back to Nat.
He’d just failed Police Basics 101, secure the scene. Under other circumstances, he would have been cursing himself up, down, and sideways. But Nat was dying under his hands and he couldn’t bring himself to care what Thompson was doing.
Colin didn’t want to die. Life had tasted so sweet these past few hopeful days. But he should have been dead already. If Thompson shot him and he died here next to Nat, well, it was way too Romeo and Juliet for his taste, but at least he’d be with her. Maybe they’d turn into ghosts like Rose and haunt this abandoned mansion together.
It wouldn’t be the worst fate.
Thompson reached his shoulder. Colin looked up at him. Thompson’s shirt was stained with blood, his face grey and beaded with sweat. He was struggling to breathe, his chest heaving, but as he gasped for air, he said, “Blood washes away sin. Faith. I have faith in the Lord.”
Bending at the waist, he set the gun on the ground next to Colin, but as he tried to stand again, he overbalanced, toppling forward. He caught himself with one hand, breaking his fall, and landed hard in the gravel. He moaned, a hoarse, guttural sound, and gave a wheezing cough.
The sound brought Natayla’s eyes open again. Her lips moved as if she were forming words. Colin leaned closer, but he couldn’t hear what she was saying.
“Don’t try to talk,” he told her automatically. “The ambulance is on its way. It’ll be here soon.”
He could read disgust in the faint wrinkle of her nose, the flutter of her eyelashes. Yeah, maybe it was a stupid thing to say. She had to know even better than he did how dire her situation was. Her eyes fell closed again but with what looked like enormous effort, she shaped her lips into words. “Find Kenzi.”
Oh, God, it was just like Nat to still be worrying about the little girl for whom she felt responsible.
“I will,” Colin promised her. “I’ll take care of her. You don’t have to worry.”
“Not… not…” She fell silent again, her face relaxing. She was slip
ping away, he knew. Leaving him behind. But what did she mean? Not? Not what?
Chapter Twenty
In her fifty-plus years of afterlife, Rose had never been so darn annoyed.
She’d been trying to pour her own energy into Natalya, to use her own life force to keep the woman’s heart beating.
It wasn’t working.
Oh, maybe Natalya felt something. A sense of peace, perhaps? Some relief from the pain? Having a bullet in her chest didn’t seem as agonizing as Rose would have expected it to be. But Rose’s energy couldn’t heal the wound or even slow the bleeding.
She needed Kenzi.
The first time Kenzi had healed Jamie, Rose hadn’t tried to help. She’d been too unsure of what might happen if she did. But the second time—when the very bad man was fighting with Natalya and the boy—Rose had poured her energy into Kenzi like a broken drain pipe gushing water. And it had worked. Jamie wasn’t just better, he was healthy.
Kenzi’s gift needed energy. Rose had energy. It was a perfect match. Like Bogart and Bacall. Hepburn and Tracy. Dean and Castiel.
But Kenzi wasn’t here and Rose had no way to summon her.
“Oh, drat.” Rose sighed.
Natalya was sitting up, looking around in confusion. She passed straight through Colin’s hands. He was leaned over her, his hands still pressed to her chest, talking to her in a desperate voice. “What’s happening?” Natalya asked.
Rose clenched her fingers into fists, not wanting to explain. Sure, death was a natural part of existence. Everyone moved on eventually. But not today, not Natalya. “Do you see a passageway?
“A what?”
“A door,” Rose said, crouching down next to her. Colin had seen his right away. If Natalya couldn’t see hers, then she wasn’t supposed to die. If she did, she’d linger as a ghost, trapped at this house indefinitely. Rose wouldn’t mind having another ghostly friend, but most ghosts didn’t enjoy their afterlife as much as Rose liked hers. “Over your shoulder, maybe.”
“I don’t—” Understanding started to smooth Natalya’s expression. She looked around her, down at her body, at Colin, and back at Rose. In a bleak voice, she said, “No, I don’t. Should I? Are you—do I know you?”
“You’re not supposed to be here. You need to keep fighting.” Rose put her hands over Colin’s where they were pressed against Natalya’s chest, ignoring her question. She closed her eyes and concentrated, trying to push energy into Natalya’s body. A bizarre sizzle of power tingled against her fingers, unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange. She ignored it.
Colin was talking, words, low and frantic, spilling out of his mouth. He was reminding Nat of the time she’d broken her collarbone, when he’d walked her home and he’d wanted to carry her, but he couldn’t because it hurt her too much, so he’d held her hand. He told her how brave she’d been, how strong, how she had to be strong again now.
“Listen to him,” Rose added, making her voice gentler. “Hear what he’s saying to you.”
Natalya looked at Colin and her face softened. She reached up a hand, touched his cheek, and disappeared.
A minute or two, that was all they’d gained. Natalya was back in her body, and fighting to hold on, fighting to stay with her physical being, but without help, she couldn’t last.
Maybe it would be enough. Rose hadn't noticed the sirens getting louder, but flashing lights were harder to ignore. Police, ambulances, unmarked cars, a fire truck—a veritable flotilla of assistance was pouring into the driveway.
As the paramedics spilled out of their vehicles and rushed to their patients, Rose stopped leaning over Natalya and stood. Clasping her hands together in front of her mouth as if saying her childhood bedtime prayers, she waited.
“Move out of the way now, sir,” a paramedic instructed Colin. “I’ve got her.”
Colin let his bloody hands drop. He backed away, standing up. Looking around at the chaos, he seemed dazed, before shaking himself into awareness of the situation.
“We’ve still got five missing kids and the potential one or more of them could be armed and dangerous,” he said to a man in a uniform similar to his own.
“Are we in an active shooter scenario, sir?” The deputy asked, eyes bright, voice eager.
Colin looked at him. “You hear any shooting going on?”
“Uh, no.” The deputy looked sheepish.
“We can take our time,” Colin said wearily. “We need to establish a perimeter around the house and assess the situation. Better to go in slowly than take any chances.”
“No!” Rose protested. “That’s a terrible idea.” She stamped her foot on the ground, wishing it would make a sound. “You need to find Kenzi. Quickly. Right away.”
A woman jogged up and handed Colin an absorbent towel. He took it but instead of wiping the blood off his hands, he stared up at the house as if strategizing a plan of approach.
Rose paused.
Blood.
Akira had once mentioned that blood made ghosts stronger. Could that have been the sizzle Rose felt when pushing energy into Natalya? The idea disgusted her, but she suppressed a shudder of revulsion and stepped into Colin, putting her hands over his. She could sense the blood now, crackling with life under her fingers, although it was dimmer, less powerful than when it flowed directly from Natalya.
Rose concentrated, thinking ferocious thoughts about how stupid Colin was being and how angry she was he couldn’t hear her and how desperate she felt about Natalya’s condition. Did he have any idea how close he was coming to losing her? He needed to think. To remember. To realize. To connect.
Colin shivered convulsively as the temperature dropped.
“Sheriff?” The woman who’d handed him the towel drew back in surprise. “You—are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he said with surprise. His breath condensed in the air in front of him, turning into a puff of vapor. His eyes widened. “What the hell?”
The woman stepped back, farther away. “That’s… that’s so weird. It’s really cold around you. You’re freezing.”
Colin looked down at his hands. Rose concentrated even harder, trying to make her thoughts vicious. Angry, vengeful ghosts created the coldest energy, she knew, but it didn’t come naturally to her. Still, she’d told him if anything bad happened to Kenzi, she’d be haunting him and this felt like it counted.
“Change of plans,” Colin said. With two abrupt swipes of the towel, he wiped most of the blood off his hands, then dropped the towel on the ground and took off, running for the house. “Gotta find the kids,” he yelled back over his shoulder.
Rose raced after him, exultant. She’d tried and tried to tell Natalya she was present earlier, but the woman had never figured it out, even when her hands were almost blue with cold. But Colin had put the pieces together. Even better, she was sure he’d deciphered her message—not only that she was with him, but that she wanted him to find Kenzi.
Colin ran for the front door. He tried the handle. It didn’t turn. He slammed into the door with his shoulder. It didn’t move. With a growl of frustration, he stepped back.
“This way,” Rose called, heading toward the right, to the side of the house with the open pool door.
Colin ignored her, charging toward the left, toward the garage.
Rose shrieked with exasperation and followed him.
“What are you doing?” called out one of the deputies.
A side door led into the garage. Colin tried it, but it was also locked. Turning, he sprinted toward the large garage doors.
“Sir, what’s going on?” shouted another deputy.
Colin pointed toward the front door. “Use the Halligan bar,” he barked. “Don’t go inside.”
“But sir!” protested another deputy. “That’s not procedure.”
The sheriff waved her off. “I’m not risking another fuck-up like we had last week. Get that door open but stay out here. Wait for my return.”
“Wha
t are you doing?” Rose protested. “That’s not how it works on television. You’re supposed to break the door down and then you all rush inside with lots of yelling.”
But Colin was moving again, grabbing the large garage doors by the handles at their bases and yanking at them. They didn’t budge. “Hell,” he swore. “Kids had to have gotten in somehow. Caller said there were lights inside the house.”
“Use the pool door, you dummy.” Rose jumped up and down, bouncing on her toes with impatience. Oh, why wasn’t Akira here? Rose knew where Kenzi had hidden but how could she tell Colin? And why wasn’t he letting everyone in to search? It would go faster with more people.
He ran, charging around the side of the house, Rose chasing after him. Ghosts didn’t get tired, but she hadn’t gained magical speed and he ran faster than she did, so he reached the open French doors before her. But he paused there, putting a hand over his holstered weapon. He was breathing faster than usual as he said, voice low, “You’re here, aren’t you, Rose? Do you know if there are any more guns in there?”
Rose stopped next to him. That’s why he was being so careful. He didn’t want to risk his deputies getting shot. Or shooting back. But drat it, he needed to hurry.
A corner of his mouth pulled into a wry smile. “Damn, if I’d been thinking ahead, we could have made up a code while we were hiking.” He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his face, looking desperately tired. A streak of blood from his not-entirely-clean hands remained on his cheek as he tilted his chin up and asked, in a stronger voice, “If you believe anyone inside this house is armed and dangerous, make the air freezing again.” Belatedly, he added, “please.”
“Oh, dear.” Rose paused, uncertain. She didn’t know the answer. She hadn’t seen any other guns and the boys didn’t seem dangerous to her, but then she hadn’t expected Travis to start shooting people, either.