Trusting Zane

by Casey Hagen

  A sliver of panic slipped through him, the unnatural manmade landscape setting him on edge. He closed his eyes and pictured the blueprints in his mind to solidify his bearings.

  Beam after beam covered with barnacles, he advanced on the property, every foot getting him one step closer to his sister. Thick ropes, chains, and chunks of concrete littered the area around him.

  Fish glided through the water but darted away as he passed by.

  He let his training take over and before he knew it, he reached thirty-eight.

  He worked his way to the topside, careful to break the surface an inch at a time. Shedding his suit a piece by piece, he slid on the water shoes he’d hooked to his gear and let the rest sink to the ocean floor as he grasped a rusted ladder that may or may not be capable of holding his weight and looked to be about a decade past the point of needing replacing.

  Water sluiced from his body, the sound loud to his ears. Not a soul stirred on this end of the property, giving him room to breathe.

  For the moment. The minute he breached that fence, he was on borrowed time.

  Checking both ways, he crossed the asphalt to the fence and popped the lock with a pair of cutters. The gate slid open, and the alarm blared into the night.

  Throwing the cutters into the ocean so as not to leave a trail announcing his arrival, he made a break for the door. With a hard yank, the metal scraped and broke free, the door grating along the track.

  A lone bulb hung from a hook on the ceiling over his sister’s slouched form. Two guys stood on either side of her. One with a needle in her vein, the other with his hand reaching into her shirt.

  Rage, cold, deadly, and familiar filled every last cell of his body.

  Their gazes snapped to his, and the guy holding the syringe shot the plunger home. Chloe gasped and slumped.

  In the time he’d focused on his sister, the other guy, the one molesting her, rushed him, his closed fist making solid contact with Zane’s face.

  The skin split. Blood ran, warm and sticky over his cheek.

  The hand snaked out again, but this time Zane blocked it. Shifting, he brought his heel up and planted it right in the guy’s knee from the side, the echo of bone grinding and snapping giving him a small measure of satisfaction.

  The thug dropped like a stone to the floor at his feet, a cry of pain tearing from this throat.

  When he reached for his gun, Zane grabbed his hand, curling it back until his wrist snapped. Snagging the 9mm for himself, he cracked the handle against his temple.

  The scent of human waste burned his nose with every gasping breath. Sweat rolled into his eyes as he shot to his feet, the gun aimed and ready, his gaze darting from corner to corner, searching the shadows for the enemy.

  “Drop it,” the guy said, his gaze darting about as he rushed from the shadows and pressed a knife to Chloe’s neck.

  “You can’t win this. I only want the girl. Then I’ll go,” Zane said, keeping the gun trained on the spot right between the guy’s eyes. He took a step, then another, never looking away.

  The blade dug into her skin, and blood trickled down her neck, disappearing in her shirt.

  How long had it been? Thirty seconds, minutes? He listened for the sound of footsteps, but heard nothing but the peel of the alarm and their labored breaths.

  “And I’ll be dead.”

  “She’s coming with me. Whether you give her to me or I take her, she’s coming with me.”

  “Then she’s going as a corpse.”

  A shot rang out, and the guy dropped where he stood, a small red hole in his temple, but on the other side, skull fragments, blood, and flesh splattered along the floor.

  He snapped the barrel of his gun in the direction of the shooter.

  Cool eyes met Zane’s, but he didn’t raise his weapon. “I hated that guy,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Zane said, refusing to drop his gun.

  “There’s no time for that, Fish. They’ll be here soon. Come on.” He stood Chloe up and waved Zane over.

  Zane secured the gun and tossed Chloe over his shoulder. “You know me.”

  “Yeah, but that’s a story for another day,” he said.

  Cool blue eyes pierced him, familiar, but a memory tucked behind a veil that he couldn’t quite peel back.

  “You owe me a beer. Now go!” he said, giving Zane a hard shove toward the door.

  Zane took off at a run, his feet jolting every time they pounded the pavement. He caught a rock in the arch and stumbled, biting back a growl. Chloe slipped onto his biceps, and he hitched her back up again.

  He found the panel that led to the tunnel. Crouching, Chloe’s added weight pushed his back to the brink as he balanced her and threw the door open, then climbed down the ladder with her still slumped over his shoulder. He reached for the handle to close it behind him, but couldn’t get a grasp and keep shouldering his sister.

  Easing her to the floor where she crumpled into a heap, he closed the door overhead, then scooped her up. Tucking his Maglite between his teeth, he set off at a run.

  Cobwebs clung to his skin, and a bat dove toward the top of his head. He arrived at the iron door. With a hard shove, the metal scraped but broke free.

  And Chloe became dead weight in his arms.

  The kind of dead weight that had a ball of dread knotting his stomach.

  His lungs heaved, and his pounding footsteps echoed as he counted the seconds. Bursting through the end of the tunnel, he dodged left in the drainage pipe, ducked at the end, and broke into the cool California night.

  Tex circled around the back of the truck and eased Chloe from Zane’s shoulder. “She’s not breathing,” Zane said, Tyler and Brielle’s solemn faces flashing in his mind.

  “You’re sure?” Tex said, rushing her to the truck.

  “Yes. The fuckers shot her up the minute I got in there. Get her in the back.”

  Tex tossed her on the bench seat and hopped in the driver’s seat. “Narcan,” he barked, tossing back a med kit to where Zane had climbed in next to Chloe.

  Zane grabbed the injector and bit off the cap. With a firm snap, he dug the pen into her thigh and waited for the needle to retract. The engine roared to life, and the tires spun on the gravel just as Zane closed the door. Crouched on the floor, he tipped Chloe’s head back, lifted her chin, checked her throat, pinched her nose, and breathed into her mouth. Sucking in a deep breath, he did it again.

  Her still body jostled on the seat as Tex tore through the city on the way to the nearest hospital.

  He started compressions, a sea of memories flooding him of her smiling face, her skin pink with life, so much different than the gray pallor of the woman before him.

  So many years they’d let slip away from them.

  More compressions, harder this time as the weight of memories propelled him. Her ribs cracked under the force, but he didn’t stop.

  He’d never stop.

  Two more breaths, more compressions, and her heart was still stubbornly silent.

  “How long?” his yelled between more breaths.

  “Five minutes,” Tex said.

  “Too long,” Zane muttered, willing her to breathe.

  “I know. Anything yet?” Tex asked, tires squealing as he careened around the corner. Sirens flared to life, and blue lights flashed behind them.

  “Come on, Chloe, breathe for me. Damn you, you are not going to die on me. You are not going to leave those kids behind. Do you hear me?” he yelled at her.

  He pressed his ear to her mouth, but no air moved.

  The minutes dragged in a cycle of breathing, compressing, and begging the powers that be to give him just one fucking hand in this.

  Police cars flanking them, Tex careened through the night, breaking an obscene amount of traffic laws.

  “Hang on, we’re about to make an entrance,” Tex said, yanking the wheel hard, the truck catching air as he hit the drainage grate on the edge of the emergency circle.

  Tires squealing

to a stop, Tex jumped out of the truck. “We need help here!”

  The door opened at Zane’s back, and hands reached for him. He stumbled onto the sidewalk, hands braced on his knees, watching as they pulled his sister from the back and laid her on a gurney. Three workers rolled her inside while a fourth straddled her and continued compressions.

  They had her.

  He swayed as he glanced up at Tex. The man’s mouth moved, but the sound of his voice never reached Zane’s ears.

  A low hum filled his head, black crept in the edges of his vision, and…nothing.

  Chapter 16

  Kinsley rushed through the double doors, her gaze sweeping through the nurses, janitorial staff, and patients in the waiting room. Babies cried; people talked quietly; the water cooler glugged in the background.

  When Tex had called her, her stomach had dropped to her toes…because it told her that Zane couldn’t.

  She had moved about the house in a haze of dread, every worst-case scenario playing out in gruesome detail. How she’d managed to get ready and out the door without waking up the kids she would never know. And Grace, bless her, had scooted right over to the house, no questions asked, and shuffled Kinsley out the door.

  Spotting a break in the people hovering near the front desk, she slapped her palms down on the counter. “I’m looking for Zane Crew.”

  “You must be Kinsley,” the receptionist said, pushing out of her chair.

  “Oh, God. You know me by name?” she asked, her voice breaking on a squeak. “Just tell me.”

  The lady gave her a reassuring smile. “It’s okay. I’m just going to walk you back.”

  “What about his sister, Chloe? Is she here?” Kinsley asked, not daring to hope, but God, she wanted to give those kids some good news. They’d just started opening up and finding some semblance of comfort and security. The last thing she wanted to do was pull the rug out from beneath them…again.

  The nurse hesitated, her smile slipping a fraction. “She is, but that’s all I can say unless you’re family.”

  Which meant it was bad.

  Kinsley fell in step behind the nurse, waves of trepidation clawing at her. With a wave of the badge from around the nurse’s neck, the double doors opened into a back corridor leading into the main section of the hospital, away from the ER.

  Her heart hammered, the pounding against her ribs accelerating with every turn of a corner.

  A door at the end of the hall flew open. “Where is she?” Zane stomped out of the room, the belligerence she remembered so well from the day she first approached him in the set of his shoulders.

  She smiled, the tension in her body sliding away in a rush that made her hands tremble. “You were supposed to come back to me, remember?” she called out to him.

  His gaze swung in her direction, and his feet ate up the floor as he headed for her. His wet suit hugged his every contour, making him look like a modern-day aquatic superhero.

  The side of his face and eye, bruised and swollen, with a long gash across his cheek held closed with butterfly tape, stood out in stark contrast against his skin.

  He scooped her up, lifting her clean off the floor. He inhaled her, his face buried against her neck, and shuddered as he squeezed her tight. “God, you feel good.”

  She stroked his hair and pressed a gentle kiss to the shell of his ear.

  “Good, maybe you can talk some sense into him,” Tex said from behind him. “He needs stitches, and they need to set that finger.”

  Neither man mentioned Chloe or her condition, setting off warning bells in her head.

  “We’ll get to that,” Zane said.

  “What about Chloe?” she asked, glancing between the men.

  Tex’s mouth flattened into a thin line.

  Zane clenched his teeth.

  Kinsley pulled back and cupped his cheek. “What is it? She’s okay, right?”

  The audible sound of his swallow was his only answer as he pressed his forehead to hers.

  “They got her back,” Tex said quietly. “As for okay, we won’t know for a while yet which is why we’re in there and not in the ER where we belong,” Tex said.

  Zane bit down on his lip, dragging the flesh against his teeth. “She stopped breathing on the way out.”

  The heavy weight of dread crushed her chest, and a sour taste filled her throat. What if they had to tell the kids that she didn’t make it? She blinked back a wave of dizziness and squeezed him tighter. “She has to be okay. If we have to tell those kids—”

  “Shhh,” he murmured as he rocked her.

  A doctor stepped out into the hall and cleared his throat. “She’s stable. We’ll monitor her for the next few hours, and if she stays that way, we’ll do scans and run a few tests to see what we’re working with.”

  “What we’re working with? What does that mean?” Kinsley asked, wiggling free of Zane’s embrace to stand on the floor.

  The doctor slid his pen into his coat pocket. “We need to make sure she didn’t suffer permanent damage from a lack of oxygen between the time she stopped breathing and when CPR started.” He scanned his notes. “From the timeline we’ve been given, it doesn’t look like she’d gone more than a minute, but we can’t know for sure. Luckily, Mr. Crew administered Narcan right away and was able to keep CPR going en route to the hospital until our staff could take over. The next few hours will be crucial.”

  She glanced about, searching their faces. “Narcan? But isn’t that—”

  “They kept her subdued with heroin,” Zane said, his voice razor-sharp.

  “Which means she needs to detox as well. One problem at a time and right now, keeping her stable is key. Her heartbeat is strong. As long as the brain scans look good, I’m hopeful. We’ll know a whole lot more in a few hours,” the doctor said with a nod before walking past them, his long white coat billowing behind him.

  “If you hadn’t gone in when you did, she would have been dead,” Kinsley said quietly.

  “Not necessarily,” Zane began.

  “Likely, yes,” Tex said, giving Zane a sharp glance. “But he’s a modest sort and doesn’t like to take credit for anything. To be honest, he’s probably giving himself a mental lecture on all the things he could have done better.”

  “Tex? Shut up,” Zane said over his shoulder.

  “And that,” Tex said with a nod at Zane, “means I’m right. You got her out, and you didn’t get dead. That’s a successful mission. Now get your ass in there so they can work on that ugly mug of yours. Chloe’s not fighting back just so the first thing she sees when she wakes up is you looking like an extra on The Walking Dead.” He stomped back into the room Zane came out of.

  “I don’t need him to hold my hand,” Zane muttered. “It’s just a broken finger and a few stitches.”

  “I don’t think he plans to hold your hand, more like hold you down so they can finish taking care of you.” She cupped his chin and made him look at her. “And you’re going to let them do their job with you so there are even more hands on deck later to take care of Chloe.”

  His eyelids sank shut, and he sighed. “Putting me in my place?”

  She laughed and pressed a gentle kiss to his lips. “Get used to it.”

  “If it means you’re staying…gladly,” he kissed her then, deeper and complete, relief, happiness, and hope in every slide of his lips over hers.

  Warmth filled her. The confusion she’d held at bay over her job, her direction, her mistakes, and her past, it all still remained there, but not quite as all-consuming as it had been. For the first time in her life since she lost her mother, she wasn’t alone, and she didn’t have to have it all figured out right now. That was more than enough. “I love you,” she whispered against his mouth.

  He let out a rough laugh and nipped her bottom lip. “I was hoping you might say that.”

  Epilogue

  “Zane!” Kinsley called out, slamming the door behind her.

  “In here,” he called.

  She followed the sound of his voice and stopped short in the doorway of Brielle’s room. The little girl stood in front of the mirror, her hands on her hips, glaring. “It’s crooked.”

  “It’s not crooked,” Zane said.

  “It is. That one is back more,” she said, pointing at the pigtail next to her ear.

  “Help me out here,” Zane said with a pleading look in Kinsley’s direction.

  She joined them on the floor and studied the little girl. “I think I see the problem. You didn’t tighten this one.” She divided the hair and pulled each clump apart with a quick tug. “There, how’s that?”

  Brielle smiled at her reflection. “Better. I want to look pretty for Mommy.”

  “Well, you’ve accomplished that. Now hurry; go get your shoes on,” Zane said, pushing up on his feet and reaching out a hand to Kinsley.

  “You’re good with her,” she said, her heart all gooey. Zane had been adamant about learning how to do everything, including the now five-year-old’s unruly hair.

  “I need a nap,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

  She laughed against his chest. “It’s nine.”

  “I’m old,” he mumbled against the top of her head.

  “You’re full of it.”

  “So, what did you come in all excited about?” he asked, pressing a light kiss to her forehead.

  “Inside info from Grace. The Spanish ranch on the other side of them is going up for sale. I was thinking…what about for Chloe?”

  While there was no permanent damage, Chloe had a rough recovery. She spent two months in the hospital and another four in a rehab as she gained strength. Zane hired a team of counselors and therapists to work with her and before long, she showed positive signs of not only being one hundred percent physically, but mentally and emotionally stronger.

  She’d be ready to leave in a week, and Zane had set her up to be the first patient admitted to Endurance, the support wing of the facility, New Hope, that Fierce built and Zane secured with the implementation of his laser system.

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