Immortals And Melodies (Blood And Guitars #2)

by Heather Jensen

  “Is this really ... necessary?” Trey spoke through gritted teeth and pointed to the neck brace after the EMT deflated the cuff on his good arm.

  “Yes. At least until a doctor at the hospital says otherwise. You might have hurt your neck in the accident. You’re sure you don’t remember the other driver?”

  He inhaled deeply, breathing through the pain. “I’m sure.”

  “How about you?” she asked, turning to look at me.

  “I was asleep before the crash,” I said, not knowing what Trey had said to her.

  “That’s too bad,” she said, giving me a sympathetic smile. “I’m Karen, by the way. Judging by the looks of your car, you’re both lucky to be alive.” I had to stifle a humorless laugh. She had no freaking idea how true that was. “Memory loss is usually a sign of head trauma,” she said, turning back to Trey. “Your shoulder is dislocated. A doctor is going to have to put it back in place. I’m going to start an IV and then we’ll get going.”

  Trey sighed, closing his eyes for a few seconds. His thoughts rang out loud and clear, despite the incredible pain he was in. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have told them I couldn’t remember the other car. Now they think I have a brain injury or something.

  I reached over and ran my fingers over his hair, trying to block out the image of him slumped over the steering wheel. I hoped he really didn’t have a brain injury. What else were you supposed to say? I responded silently, projecting into his mind. I’d say it was pretty quick thinking.

  “You might feel a little pinch here,” Karen said to Trey as she slid a needle into a vein in his left wrist. The other EMT closed the back of the ambulance, and a moment later, we were en route to Morton Plant Hospital. I really wished Mark wasn’t in Miami. It would have been nice to have him waiting for us at the hospital.

  If you really do have X-ray vision, now is a good time to tell me, Trey thought. He smiled and I reached over, running my fingers along his damp hair.

  If that ever happens, you’ll be the first to know, I thought back.

  Let’s just pop my shoulder back in and get on with it, he added.

  I shook my head. How is it that you’re a rock star and you haven’t gotten used to people making a fuss over you yet?

  Whatever, he thought lightly, which was the mental equivalent of an eye roll.

  I grinned and silently added, At least this EMT is good at her job. I’m actually glad she knows who you are. She’s taking great care of you. I took a second to reach into Karen’s mind. What she wasn’t saying out loud was that Trey’s blood pressure was on the low side. She’s half-expecting you to go into shock.

  Trey rolled his eyes for real this time. I’m feeling a lot of things right now, but shocked isn’t one of them.

  Knowing that Trey would become a vampire in a few days and his body would be regenerated with the change did little to make me feel better about the fact that he was strapped to a gurney in an ambulance, and I had no way of knowing how bad he was actually hurt just yet. I felt Karen’s eyes on me, and I turned to meet her gaze.

  “Are you sure you weren’t hurt? I should at least check you over,” she said to me.

  “I’m sure,” I insisted, gesturing to the small bits of blood on my hands and clothes. “This is all his.” I was prepared to reach into her mind again if I had to, but she nodded reluctantly and turned her attention back to Trey.

  “O’Shea is going to flip,” Trey said slowly. “I hope he found Kacie.”

  “I’m sure O’Shea is fine,” I said. “Kacie would have dropped everything and come running when he asked her to.” Trey nodded, knowing I was right. “I’ll call him for you when we get to the hospital,” I added.

  Karen put her stethoscope in her ears and listened to Trey’s chest for a minute, creating a pause in the conversation.

  “Well, I think it’s sweet,” she said to Trey when she finished. “You just wrapped your car around a pole and you’re worrying about the other guys in the band.”

  Chapter 9

  Aurora

  WHEN WE PULLED INTO the ambulance bay at the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses were waiting to help unload Trey and wheel him inside. I followed, walking with them as Trey was pushed into the emergency room where they moved him to a different gurney. Karen gave her report to the head doctor as nurses placed electrodes on Trey’s chest to measure his vital signs. A line began jumping across a monitor immediately. The rhythm on the monitor synced perfectly with that of Trey’s heartbeat, which I was listening to in the back of my mind, finding comfort in the familiar sound. Following the EMT’s report, the head doctor introduced himself as Dr. Hyatt and made Trey state his name and answer a few other mundane questions, probably to assess his mental state.

  “Mr. Decker, I want you to just relax and try not to move your head. Let us make sure you’re okay.” The doctor turned to me then and said, “Are you his girlfriend?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “We’re going to take good care of him,” he assured me.

  That wasn’t a real answer to my question, but I bit my tongue, deciding it was best to let the doctor focus on Trey. I took a step back to give them all room to do their job. A nurse was cutting Trey’s jeans off of him and another was drawing blood from his arm.

  I’m right here, I projected into Trey’s mind, knowing he couldn’t see me over the neck brace. Everything’s going to be okay.

  Of course, it is, he thought back, doing his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder. You didn’t actually think it would be that easy to get rid of me, did you? Besides, it’s just a flesh wound.

  I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my lips. Monty Python? Really?

  You know you like it.

  In the midst of all this chaos, Trey was joking around to make me feel better. I didn’t understand a lot of what the doctors and nurses were saying. I really should have paid more attention to Mark and his doc-talk the last few years. Maybe then I’d know what was going on. For the second time in twenty minutes, I wished Mark were here. I just hoped these doctors, human though they were, were capable of taking care of him. The doctor used a needle to give Trey some Novocain near his shoulder to ease some of the pain, and I could tell by Trey’s thoughts that it started to work almost instantly.

  It took every ounce of self-control I could muster to refrain from using my powers to convince the doctors that I had to go with Trey when they announced they were taking him up to radiology for X-rays and an MRI.

  “It’s likely he has a concussion, and we want to check for a brain bleed. We’ll reduce the shoulder once we’re certain there isn’t bone or ligament damage that could require surgery,” Dr. Hyatt said to me, sensing my anxiety.

  “Surgery?” I asked. “Brain bleed? That sounds serious.”

  “We’ll know more after we take him upstairs. I promise to come back down and update you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Trey said as I stepped up to the gurney, squeezing his good hand. “They’re just taking me upstairs for a bizarre photo shoot. Besides, it doesn’t really hurt now.”

  I grinned, shaking my head. Then I raised his hand to my lips and kissed it, not wanting to let go. “I’ll be waiting right here.” I watched as Trey was wheeled through a set of double-doors and out of sight, feeling my heart clench as he went. Karen was still in the ER, standing back a ways and writing on a clipboard. She saw me standing alone and approached.

  “He’ll be okay,” she said, giving me a reassuring smile. “Come on. I’ll show you the waiting room.”

  I let her lead me from the center of the ER to the waiting room before she went off to finish her paperwork. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Kacie’s number. She answered on the fifth ring, and I was just grateful it hadn’t gone to voicemail.

  “Kace, it’s me,” I said in relief.

  “Oh, hey,” she replied. “O’Shea and I are just about to have dinner,” she said in a way that let me know she was bur
sting with excitement over having dinner with O’Shea. “What’s up?”

  “I’m afraid your dinner date will have to wait,” I said. “I need you to give O’Shea a ride to Morton Plant.”

  Kacie’s voice was higher when she responded. “The hospital? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Trey and I were in a car accident. Trey’s a little banged up.”

  Her voice was full of concern and surprise when she spoke again. “Are you serious? We’re on our way.” She hung up the phone before I could say anything more and I sighed, stuffing my phone back in my pocket. There was no need to call Chase and Jonas. O’Shea would take care of that before he got here. I considered making a trip to the vending machines for a snack, but the only thing here in the hospital that could satisfy me wasn’t sold in vending machines, and I seriously doubted they’d be willing to just hand over a blood bag.

  When O’Shea and Kacie showed up twenty minutes later, my nerves were raw from waiting for news about Trey.

  “Where’s Trey?” O’Shea asked when he saw me. “I called the guys. They’re on their way.”

  “They’re doing x-rays right now,” I told him. I led them both over to some chairs and we sat down together in the waiting room.

  “What happened?” Kacie asked.

  “Another driver changed lanes into us. Trey overcorrected, and we hit a street light.”

  “Is he okay?” O’Shea demanded. “How bad is it?”

  “He’s awake,” I said. “He blacked out after we hit the pole, but he woke up shortly after. He dislocated his shoulder and hit his head pretty hard on the steering wheel, so they want to make sure he doesn’t have a brain bleed.”

  “A brain bleed?” The look on O’Shea’s face as he spoke the words was a pretty good representation of the way I was feeling, too. “I can’t believe this. I was just with you guys ...”

  “He’s acting like himself,” I said. “He was joking around in the emergency room before they took him upstairs. Of course, they’d just given him a shot of Novocain.”

  O’Shea let out a humorless laugh and got to his feet, taking off the hat Trey had given him. He ran his fingers through his thick, black hair, pacing away from us and then back again. I stood up, wanting to comfort him but not sure how to do it. As usual, this was my fault. I’d brought this danger upon Trey and everyone he cared about. No matter what we did to avoid it, trouble was always right behind us, nipping at our heels.

  If O’Shea’s speech on Pier 60 earlier this evening had surprised me, it was nothing compared to the shock I felt when he wrapped his arms around me then, hugging me tight. I stiffened at first, not sure what to think, and then I realized this was what normal people did. They comforted their friends in times of need. O’Shea was my friend. Actually, he was more than that. Engulfed in his strong arms, I hugged him back and felt myself relax a little for the first time since the black SUV had appeared in the rearview mirror.

  “Are you okay?” O’Shea asked me without letting go.

  As if by some instinct I’d thought buried long ago, lost with my mortal days, I felt tears stream down my face. I wasn’t okay. How could I be? Trey was hurt. And the strangest part about completely losing it was that no one here expected anything different from me in that moment. I was just Aurora. Not Aurora-the-exceptionally-powerful-young-vampire-fledgling. I let myself cry for a moment, my tears soaking the shoulder of O’Shea’s shirt. He held onto me until my sobs slowed, and I managed to straighten again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what I was apologizing for. Acting human?

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there with you,” O’Shea said. “Maybe I could have-”

  “What?” I asked, sniffling. “Wound up in the hospital, too? I can barely handle having one of you in here.” Just then Kacie handed me a little package of tissues from her purse, and I thanked her, dabbing at my eyes. A familiar voice called out from behind us, and I turned to see Dr. Hyatt standing in the doorway to the ER. I rushed over to him, O’Shea and Kacie in tow behind me. “How is he?” I asked.

  Chapter 10

  Aurora

  “WE’VE GOT HIM IN a room now,” Dr. Hyatt said. “I haven’t gone over the results of the MRI yet but we managed to set his shoulder. He’s stable.”

  “Can we see him?” O’Shea asked.

  “Only family is allowed back.”

  “He’s my brother,” O’Shea said without hesitation, and I have to say I was impressed by his conviction. Coming from a walking lie detector, as Trey calls me, I didn’t distinguish the smallest physical change in O’Shea as he spoke. O’Shea and Trey were brothers by choice, which held just as much weight as the real thing in O’Shea’s mind. The doctor looked like he wanted to argue, eying O’Shea’s black hair and natural tan but thought better of it. I wondered if the band’s status was earning them special treatment. I hoped so. I had no time or patience for hospital bureaucracy. The doctor called for a nearby nurse to come over and asked her to take us to Trey’s room. Kacie followed us as far as the doorway and then stopped.

  “You two go ahead,” she said. “I’m going to stay in the waiting room so I can tell Chase and Jonas where to go when they get here.”

  “Thanks, Kace,” I said, and she nodded and headed back down the hallway.

  O’Shea turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, holding it for me to go first. I took a deep breath and stepped into the room. The beeping of a heart monitor sounded softly, like an accompaniment to my favorite song on repeat, but my focus was on the actual sound of Trey’s heartbeat. I cherished the sound as it thumped strong and steady while I rounded the corner. Trey was lying in the hospital bed, propped up with pillows. In some ways he looked better already, his face clean of all the blood from when I’d last seen him. The neck brace he’d been wearing was also gone. There was dark bruising around his nose and one eye but it could have been worse, considering he’d smashed into a steering wheel. A clear plastic tube carrying oxygen rested just under his nose. His eyes lit up when he saw me, his lips stretching into that lazy grin that I love so much.

  O’Shea hung back, letting me go to him first. I didn’t say anything, just wrapped my arms around him and kissed his face. When I could stand to release him, I stood up and eyed him carefully. He was dressed in a standard hospital gown, wires coming up out of the collar and running to the monitor on the wall. The IV in his good arm had a tube that ran to a bag of clear solution hanging on a metal stand at his bedside. His left arm was in a sling.

  “I told you I was fine,” he said, smiling at me.

  “This is what you call fine?” O’Shea piped in from the foot of the bed, but his voice was light, teasing. “If this is what happens when I leave you two alone for ten minutes, we might have to hire a chaperone.”

  “Hey, man,” Trey said, smiling at his best friend.

  O’Shea shook his head as he stepped forward, fist-bumping Trey’s good hand. “I’m not going to lie. You scared me.”

  “And I was sure you had more important things to worry about,” Trey teased. “Like not getting swarmed by fans at the mall.”

  O’Shea shook his head, grinning. “You know that only happens when you’re there.”

  Their familiar banter brought a sense of normalcy to the room, despite the beeping of the monitors and the sound of the cuff on Trey’s bicep that was inflating on its own.

  “What did the doctor say?” I asked.

  “My shoulder will heal up in no time,” Trey answered, looking down at the splint that immobilized his arm. “They must be convinced I didn’t break my neck, too, or they would have left that annoying brace on. Didn’t break my nose either, thankfully. Can’t go screwing up this money-maker.” He gestured to his face with a little wave of his hand, giving me a cocky grin.

  I was almost giddy with relief. He really seemed okay. I opened my mouth to say so, but I heard familiar voices in the hallway. Half a second later, Jonas and Chase burst into the room. They slid t
o a stop on the tile floor at the foot of Trey’s bed, gasping to catch their breath.

  “What ... what happened?” Chase demanded as he turned a panicked eye on Trey. “You okay, man?”

  “I’ll live,” Trey said, not bothering to hide the hint of amusement on his face at their reactions.

  “O’Shea’s date met us out front,” Jonas said, panting.

  “She’s hot, by the way,” Chase added quickly for O’Shea’s benefit. “She says you wrapped your car around a pole.”

  Trey frowned. “Yeah ... I don’t really remember that part.” I was the only one who noticed the little spike in his heart rate as he tried to explain, lying about the short-term memory loss the crash had brought on.

  “We’re just glad you’re okay,” O’Shea said, Chase and Jonas nodding in agreement.

  “You know,” Trey said, smiling. “I think that winding up in the hospital and having your friends dote on you is good for a man’s ego, if you can ignore the fact that you’re wearing a nightgown.”

  A knock sounded on the door, and Dr. Hyatt let himself in. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw that the room was full of people. “Mr. Decker,” he said, turning to Trey. “I was hoping to discuss the results of your MRI.”

  “Dr. Hyatt,” Trey said. “Meet Jonas, Chase and O’Shea, my band mates.” He pointed at them in turn and then gestured to me. “You’ve already met my girlfriend, Aurora. Anything you have to say, you can say in front of them.”

  Dr. Hyatt seemed to know that it would be useless to argue with his high-profile patient and simply shrugged instead. “Okay, then,” he said. “The good news is we didn’t find any evidence of internal bleeding or damage to your organs from the crash. You’re a lucky guy.”

  I took a second to appreciate the fact that all of this really was good news, and then I jumped ahead a step. “Is there bad news?”

  “I wouldn’t call it bad news,” the doctor said, his voice light. “We want to keep him here for twenty-four hours for observation to be certain the memory loss isn’t a symptom of a more serious head injury. It’s just a precaution.”