by Marie Harte
“Your family will be better off without you.” The killer next to him said. “Now, are we going to have to hold you down or will you take your punishment like a man?”
Brad’s heart began to race, blood pounded in his ears. He was going die. He didn’t want to die.
The basic need for survival had Brad fighting the men the best he could, but they were too strong, too fast. He felt the pinch at the base of his hairline, before the killers released him. Their mission now complete.
Two sets of eyes stared down waiting for him to die. Both so dramatically different, yet both the same. “You’re monsters.” He mumbled.
Miles nodded. “We have to be, in order to protect the world from people like you.”
In the last seconds of his life, Right Honourable Brad Rhodes watched as the man who killed him took off his mask and he realised that the head of his own security team had killed him.
“Well that’s six months of my life I won’t get back.” Miles sighed. Standing, he snapped the cover on the end of the syringe and slid it back inside his sleeve. “This guy was a real dick. Next time we’re tasked with a job like this, you’re on point.”
Alex ‘Ace’ Hunter raised his eyebrows. “Stop whining like a bitch. We could still be in the desert roasting our asses off.”
“Yeah!” Miles snorted. “That was by far the easiest part of this job. I didn’t have to do anything.” Miles narrowed his eyes. “You still miss all that shit don’t you?”
Alex shrugged. “Not always. I have missed using my rifle though. It was nice to blow holes in things again.”
Miles laughed out loud. “Let’s set up the scene and get the hell out of here. I’d like to say goodnight to my kids tonight…” Both men turned at the sound that came from the opposite side of the room. Alex kept watch on the wood panelled wall while he drew his pistol from behind his back. Stepping quietly forward, he crossed the short distance and reached out, pushing gently on the dark wood panelling. Nothing. Then again, further along the wall, but still nothing. He moved two steps to the right and pushed again, the wall clicked and a hidden door opened. Alex moved to one side of the door as Miles moved to the other. Only black was visible through the small crack. Alex held up his hand giving the sign to stop when he saw Miles tense. Closing his eyes, he listened. He had heard someone, he was positive. He held his breath, slowed his breathing so he could pin point… There it was again, coming from inside the black room, a muffled cry.
With his eyes glued to the dark room, Alex watched for any type of unfriendly movement. When none was detected he angled his already raised hand in the direction of the sound, then gave the go. He pushed the door open with his foot as Miles entered the room. Alex followed, hitting the light as he entered. Guns raised, both men descended on the figure as it cowered in the corner of Rhodes’ private bathroom.
Alex fixed his eyes on the target as he moved closer. Then stopped, stunned by what he saw. A woman. A pregnant woman. He grabbed Miles’ shoulder. “Wait.”
“What for?” Miles asked quickly.
The woman turned her face, showing her tear-stained brown eyes. Those beautiful eyes grew wide when she saw Miles. “Rick?” The woman called Miles by his cover name. “What’s going on? Why did you…?” She couldn’t finish, tears slipped over onto her cheeks as her lips began to tremble.
Alex studied the woman. “Who is she?” And what is she doing here with Rhodes?
“Jillian Reid, Rhodes’ secretary.” Miles pulled his lips into a tight line and lowered his gun. “What are you doing here, Jillian?”
Alex watched Miles silently. Body tense, eyes flat, although, his voice did carry a slight emotional attachment. Something was off.
The woman sniffed and peeked at him between her fingers. “We were late coming out of a meeting and I had to catch up on a few things. I ended up missing my bus. Mr Rhodes said he would give me a ride home.” She sniffed again. “He said I could use his bathroom before we left, so I didn’t have to walk upstairs.” Her face crumbled a second time. “Why…why did you kill him, Rick?”
Miles raised his gun. The woman whimpered.
“Hey,” Alex warned. “You are seeing what I’m seeing, right?”
“We have the go to eliminate witnesses. She’s a witness.”
Alex’s stomach twisted. He knew Miles could be vicious, they both could, but this woman went far beyond the normal witness. “We’re not doing this.”
“She can identify me.” Miles glared at the woman on the floor. “I have more to lose than you.”
Like Alex, Miles was a trained killer and he was good at his job. But Miles had the one thing that could be used against him, a family. A wife, children, a house with a white picket fence. Christ, he even had a dog. All Alex had, was his job. He had had a family once, when he was still in his teens. But he had lost them, so he understood where Miles was coming from. Though that didn’t make killing this woman and her unborn child right, even he knew that.
“What is she going to do? Look at her.” Alex slid his pistol back behind his back as he straightened next to Miles. “Let’s take her back to the shop and give her to the CO. Let him deal with her.”
Miles turned, his face blank. “This is still my op and I’m still on point. She dies.”
Alex’s decision was made before Miles could squeeze the trigger. Alex slammed him into the wall, his fist smashing into Miles’ face. The blow knocked him down, but he was far from out.
Alex reached for the woman. “Get up.” He bent down barking, “Now!”
Grabbing her by the upper arms, he yanked her to her feet and dragged her through the office and out into the main corridor. They had made their way down the dark hall, to a set of stairs before the first shot was fired. The bullet caught Alex in the meaty part of his shoulder and he hissed when he felt it slice his skin open.
As they descended the steps to the parking garage Alex pinned her close to the wall with his body and out of Miles’ line of sight. They moved between the parked cars, Alex’s senses in overdrive as he kept watch on the access door to the garage. He opened his back zippered pocket and took out a single key. “Take this.” He ordered, thrusting the key in her hand. “There is a grey, four-door BMW on the next level with Alberta plates.”
Alex jerked her down when he saw the door swing open. The woman inhaled sharply when the door to the parking garage slammed shut.
“Oh God, that’s him isn’t it?”
“Shut up and listen.” He hissed. “Take the car. It has secured plates so local and federal police can’t trace it.”
She placed a hand on her swollen belly and exhaled slowly. Alex studied her, “How far along are you?”
“Six months.” She exhaled slowly once again. It was obvious she was breathing to help control pain.
“Is it the baby?” What a stupid question. What else would it be! With all of his training in first aid and as a combat medic, he still had no idea how to help a pregnant woman.
“Yah! She’s kicking up a storm.”
“Can you make it to the next level?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked sarcastically, pulling her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
“No you don’t.”
She acknowledged the truth. “I know. I can ma—” Alex covered her mouth when he heard Miles walking closer. He grabbed her hand and keeping low, he led her between the cars, moving closer to the ramp that led to the next level.
He pulled her up against a concrete pillar and listened as Miles systematically checked each and every car. If Miles was anything, he was a patient bastard.
“Not much time. Listen very carefully to me. You will drive out of the city and head north on highway 18. Keep heading north until you reach the town limits of Montcalm. Drive straight through the town and take the fourth dirt road on the right. It’s overgrown so watch that you don’t miss it. Follow it to the end. It will bring you to a small lake. Follow the road around the lake to the other side.” He paused and looked
over the cars to see how close Miles was to their present location. “Shit!” He was starting on their row. Alex spoke faster.
“You’ll find a house, it’s the only one there and very isolated. Park the car in the shed. The key is hidden under a rock in the front garden. There’s lots of food and water and a generator. But don’t waste the gas. It has to last until I can come and get you. If someone comes, hide. On the off chance you need them there are guns and ammo hidden in the sidewall of the bathroom closet.”
“Can I go home first?”
“No you can’t.” Alex paused. “Is someone waiting for you? The baby’s father?”
“I thought…” She looked down, her cheeks pink. “No. I just wanted to get some clothes.”
“The BMW’s front seats flip forward. There is enough cash to get gas and whatever else you need. Don’t use your credit cards and don’t stop in one place for too long.”
“I won’t.” The woman squinted at him. “Can I at least see your face, so I know who is coming for me?”
Jillian stared as the man pulled the black mask over his head and stared back at her. So this was her saviour. She scanned his face. She saw the scar running through his left brow first. Then saw how his eyes were the same colour as the sky and that they were in direct contrast to the black-brown hue of his hair. If she had just passed him on the street and didn’t know he was a killer, she would have thought he was handsome. But all she could see was a man that was trying to save her and her baby. She would never allow herself to forget this man’s face.
“My name is Jillian Reid.”
“Alex.”
“Thank you, Alex.”
He gave her a curt nod. “Time to go. I’m going to draw his fire. I’ll cross to that row of cars and then to the other aisle. When you see me running back towards the access door I want you to run down the ramp to the car. It’s not far, parking spot two-E. Exit out the east side, don’t come back this way.” Alex moved to the edge of the thick grey pillar.
“Wait.” Jillian grabbed him.
Alex looked down at her hand gripping his arm. “What?” He glared at her over his shoulder.
“What if…you don’t come?” Her voice wavered. She couldn’t help it, she was terrified. Her baby was due in three short months. What if something happened? This baby was everything to her.
Her fear must have been very evident. “If I can’t get to you, I’ll send someone to you, you can trust.”
“Who?”
“Time to go.”
Jillian watched in horrified amazement as bullets started flying the moment Alex ran across to the opposite row of cars. He weaved by a minivan and a SUV and out into the next aisle, all the while firing back at his partner. The echo of the bullets hitting the cars was almost deafening and Jillian covered her ears as she ran as fast as her body would allow, down the ramp to the waiting car.
Looking back over her shoulder, the last thing Jillian saw was Alex running towards his partner firing his gun.
Chapter Two
Standing at the end of the hospital bed, Alex watched as the nurse switched the empty IV bag for a full one.
“What the fuck is a median?”
“From what I understand,” The little blonde leaned her hip into the rail at the end of the bed, while Alex went to stand next to the nurse and watched as she punched commands into the intravenous pump. “It’s a soul that has become separated from its living body.”
“Say again.” He ordered. He kept watch on the nurse, waited for the smallest of signs that the woman knew she wasn’t alone in the room.
“That’s your body.” He could see the petite blonde point to his body lying on the bed out the corner of his eye. “And you,”—she waved her hand up and down the length of him—“are the soul. Together you are whole. But because you are in a coma, your soul has separated from your body.”
He pulled his eyes from the nurse and focused on the blonde who had appeared at his side an hour before. “I’m separate from my body!” He blinked…once. “Do you know how crazy that sounds?”
“It’s very crazy. But it’s also true, because here you are,”—she pointed to his body in the bed—“and there you lay.”
“How long have I been like this?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “Read your chart.”
Annoyed by her casual tone Alex glared at her, then stared over the nurse’s shoulder. As he searched the page for his admission date he noticed the nurse shiver and goose bumps appear on her arms. She finished with her notes, then signed and dated the sheet before she left the room.
“Well?” The blonde huffed.
“I was admitted on the eighteenth.” And the nurse had dated her rounds as the twenty-sixth. He had been here for eight days.
“Does this happen to everyone who’s in a coma?” Alex thought out loud. He couldn’t be the only one.
“There are others here in this hospital, that are also in a coma.” A sad undertone clung to her as she spoke. Alex looked, across his body, at her.
“But are they like us?” He watched her stiffen and his gut told him something wasn’t right. “You’re not like me, are you?”
She broke eye contact with him. “No. I’m dead.”
Alex didn’t move. He simply stared at her. This pretty little blonde with her hauntingly beautiful brown eyes was dead? She didn’t look dead. She looked like him. Then again, he wasn’t sure what he was and was undecided if he believed any of this median crap.
“How long have you been dead?”
“Two days,” she said casually. “Give or take a few hours.”
Crossing his arms, he looked down his nose at her. “For someone that hasn’t been dead for very long, you sure know a lot.”
“I know.” She caught and held his stare. “It’s a little scary.”
As Alex observed her body language, he realised she was telling him the truth. She was unnerved by her unexpected knowledge.
“When do I go back into my body?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged again. “It’s different for everyone. For some medians, it only takes hours or days for them to re-enter their bodies. Some take months or years, others never.”
Alex straightened. A sudden urgency rose and lodged in his chest. He couldn’t wait days or weeks, or years. He had to get out of here to… What? What did he have to do that was so important?
“Are you all right Alex?” The blonde suddenly appeared at his side. He could see her small hand grip at his arm, but he couldn’t feel her touch.
The sight jogged a memory of another small hand touching his arm. He looked into the woman’s brown eyes. Big brown eyes.
“Jillian Reid?” He blurted out.
The woman nodded knowingly. “Yes.”
“She’s in danger.”
The blonde waited patiently, as the reason for him being in his present state came flooding back to him.
Congressman Brad Rhodes had been selling military Intel to factions in India that had ties to the Taliban. The result, was the deaths of many soldiers. Miles was planted as Rhodes’ new head of security, to gain more information as to Rhodes’ contacts. The Congressman was either not very bright or too cocky for his own good because it took less than six months to confirm and eliminate all levels of contacts. It was just bad timing that Jillian had stayed late to help her boss. Bad timing that she had used his private bathroom and bad timing she had seen them kill Rhodes.
Without a doubt, Miles would have killed Jillian if Alex hadn’t stopped him. Even now when Alex wasn’t sure if he was dead or alive, that feeling of disgust turned his stomach. He didn’t understand how Miles, a husband and a father, could want to kill a pregnant woman. The roles should have been reversed. Between the two of them, Alex was by far the more ruthless. It should have been him that had wanted to kill Jillian—not Miles.
After years of having Miles as a partner, he should have been able to read Miles like a book. He squeezed his jaw. Thi
s was fucked. Miles was more than just a friend, he was the closest thing he had to a family. He looked down at the holes in his shirt, a permanent reminder of how not to get too comfortable. It would also serve to remind him of a friend’s betrayal. Why was protecting a life far more dangerous than taking it? Being the good guy sucked some serious ass. Yet Alex knew without question, he would do it again.
“I need to get back into my body. Jillian is still in danger. Miles has already had a week’s worth of time searching for her.”
The blonde nodded again before turning towards the door. “I have heard others talk about a woman who has helped medians re-enter their bodies, you should find her.”
“How in the hell, am I supposed to do that? I can’t just ask who she is. No one can see me, or hear me. Christ, it took me over an hour to figure that out.” And, he couldn’t afford to waste time by listening in on conversations. Miles would find Jillian eventually and when he did, Jillian and her baby would die.
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch, I know her name.” The blonde smirked.
He waited…impatiently. “Well? What is it?”
“I think you need to ask nicely.”
He lowered his head and levelled his eyes on her. “That was me asking nicely.”
She laughed. “You’re not very patient.”
“I don’t respond well to being teased. Now give me the name.”
“Well since you asked so nicely…” She smiled sweetly. “Evening Sinclair.”
Surprised, Alex ordered, “Say again.”
“Evening Sinclair.”
“Her name is Evening?”
“Yes. But she goes by Eve.”
“I’m not surprised.” Alex said dryly. “What does she do?”
“She heals soldiers.”
“She’s a doctor?”
“No. She heals the body and the soul.” The blonde’s eyes became unfocused as her voice dropped, sounding distinctly male. “When one is brought to her broken, not only does she heal the body but the soul as well. The act brings her joy, which makes her a true healer. Evening is part of a dying lineage, and one that must be cherished.” Her eyes cleared as she looked up at him. “What was I saying?”