by J. A. Dennam
Mac scowled darkly while Crystal began to squeak under the gag again. “I don’t like this side of you, Mel.”
“It’s no picnic from this end, either,” she mumbled, burying her nose in DJ’s hair and taking a long pull of his familiar, comforting scent.
Suddenly, Mac’s eyes widened. “Wait... I think I see him.”
“Where?” Danny and Melanie said in unison. Melanie tried to follow his gaze, but had yet to see what he did in the moonlight.
“Right there. Yes, he’s coming out!”
Now they saw a figure emerge from the dust cloud. The cleansing sense of relief Melanie felt was snuffed out the moment she realized... “There’s something wrong. He’s limping.”
Mac stilled beside her. “It looks like he’s with someone.”
But it looked as if the person following him was... “Oh, my God,” Danny breathed. “It’s a ghost.” And she was off.
“Danny!” Mac almost dropped Crystal. “Come back here!”
Melanie watched her friend head toward danger without a care for her own safety. Memories of a similar situation, when Brett Lockton had used her to lure Danny into his vengeful trap, assailed her brain. At the time, Melanie had cowered on the sidelines while Danny suffered.
But not this time.
She shoved DJ in Mac’s direction despite the fact his arms were already full. “Sit on Crystal, Mac.”
Crystal’s trussed-up form hit the dirt while Mac accepted his new charge in astonishment. “What the...”
Before he could stop her, she retrieved his hammer from the ground and chased after her friend to offer much-needed backup.
As she ran, Melanie adjusted the heavy tool in her grip. She knew she was acting on pure emotion, just like Danny. Within the span of a single day, they’d learned to despise anything under a black hood. It was the sign of death. Of manipulation. Of everything Rafferty. It was the sign of Derek’s doom. What he’d been wearing when he was shot and killed. A uniform he’d despised, even more since he’d grown to depend on it.
And she’d be damned if she’d let it take anything more from her. There was no room for fear in this game. Only faith and a fierce desire to protect.
There was a jumble of bodies as Austin caught Danny around the waist. The ghost stumbled, went down on one knee. Melanie raised the hammer, poised for attack, but the hooded figure moved aside just in time to avoid impact.
“Melanie, no!” Austin hissed.
But she turned around and tried again. This time, the ghost was back on his feet and caught her wrists in both hands. The shock of it knocked the hammer out of her grasp where it thudded uselessly to the lawn.
With only one thing left to do, Melanie brought her knee up and jammed it between his legs.
“Oh, shit,” Austin groaned, his own hands full while Danny struggled to rise.
The ghost stumbled back and collapsed into a ball while Melanie congratulated herself. Damn, that had been almost too easy. Of course, he was impaired to begin with. Should they run now while he writhed in pain or should she try to finish him off first?
“Not... quite... the greeting I was hoping for.”
The words, spoken in a pained wheeze, stopped her cold. Blood roared in her ears. No. It’s not possible.
But one thing she’d learned in the last twenty-four hours... nothing was impossible. With wide, incredulous eyes, she moved on top of him, shoved at the hood and uncovered the face beneath it. Her hands flattened against his features as she checked them off one-by-one. Spiky hair, high cheekbones, crooked nose, scruffy whiskers, beautiful, beautiful eyes of brown... yes, it was all there!
“What?” she breathed, her mouth curved with inexplicable joy. “Am I dreaming?”
Derek recovered beneath her. “The pain in my balls says no.”
But she didn’t get the hint. Her mind was too preoccupied with the miracle that was yet again under her very nose. It was too much. Emotion welled from deep within her soul and poured out of her in the form of a dubious laugh. Just like that, the darkness lifted and his sheer presence bathed her in hope. She plowed him with a desperate kiss and his sounds of pain turned to hesitant laughter beneath the pressure of her mouth. “That’s more like it, but you’re killing me, Mel.”
“Oh!” She lifted up, rolled off of him and held her hands over his torso as if the healing vibes would undo what she’d just done. “I’m sorry, baby! Oh, my God!” and she laughed again. “Oh, thank God!”
But there was no time for shock and awe. Derek held out a hand. “Help me up. We have to get out of here.”
“Danny?” Austin tried once more to bring his wife around.
Both Melanie and Derek paused as they realized she had yet to fully recover.
“Danny, don’t you dare, not now,” Austin warned as she attempted to even out her breathing.
“I won’t faint this time,” she vowed with closed eyes. “I should have known. My God, why didn’t I know?”
“Because we trusted Ty,” Melanie thought out loud, helping Derek off the grass. “He lied to us.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Austin rumbled as he pulled Danny to a stand. “Now that the power is down, these grounds will be teeming with evacuees in a matter of minutes.” When Danny was up, he bent to pick up a small laptop.
“Most of the ghosts are in the courtyard on top of the sixth floor,” Derek said, pointing to the roof of the wing farthest from them. “That’s why they’ve been scarce tonight.”
“We only ran into one of them on the way out,” Austin explained as the men limped with the help of their women. “He threw a knife into my leg but Derek managed to return it with much deadlier accuracy.”
Danny’s eyes grew wide with the realization her husband was bleeding. “You were stabbed?”
Austin’s mouth thinned out with chagrin. “It didn’t hurt near as much going in as it did coming out.”
Derek looked over at him with a smirk. “Sorry, Mary, but it was the handiest weapon I could find at the time.”
“I’m not complaining. You’re the one wearing the bloody uniform.”
“I was too exposed.”
Though Melanie was still riding high, she made a face. “You took a dead man’s bloody ghost shirt?”
Derek grinned down at her, sharing her euphoric mood. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
She leaned up, kissed his mouth for the simple fact she could. “We’ll burn it as soon as we get you home.”
As they neared the tree line, Derek’s face took on a look of suspicion. “Is that DJ?”
Though Melanie couldn’t see what he saw beneath the heavy shadows, she knew what bothered him. “Yes. And a ghost named Crystal.” Would he always have this enhanced night vision? Or would it go away when the drugs were flushed from his system?
“What the hell is she doing alive?” Just ten yards away and closing in on his target, Derek reached into his waistband. When he flipped a bloody knife into his grip, it was clear he was moving in for the kill.
Mac stepped in his path with DJ nestled snuggly in his arms. “Uh-uh.”
The two men stared at each other. Derek’s gaze remained hot while Mac’s slowly cooled with recognition.
“Wait a minute...”
Even injured and weak, Derek posed a menacing presence. “You the guy trying to stand between me and my goals?”
Melanie did the honors with a stupid grin as she took their son back into her arms. “Mac, you remember Derek.”
The man began to smile beneath the mustache. “Well, I’ll be. Back from the dead again.”
Derek was in no mood. “Get the hell out of my way.”
Mac shook his head as he blocked another attempt. “Can’t do it.”
Melanie noticed DJ’s eyes were fighting to open and the baby began to squirm. Thank God! The relief almost overshadowed that of finding his father alive.
“Ty thinks she’s salvageable,” Danny said. “Mac’s agreed to handle her until he comes back with Ren
a.”
But Derek scoffed as they all began their journey through the woods. “Ty’s a rotten cocksucker who shouldn’t be trusted.
“And apparently a good liar,” Melanie concluded with a frown.
“I don’t care if he did save my life,” Derek continued, “he did it under deceptive means, like he was working a different agenda from ours long before I was shot.”
Now that it was all coming together in Melanie’s mind, she voiced her conclusions out loud as they traipsed through the woods. “He spent some time alone with Rena and her sister while you and I hid out at the storage unit. Anything is possible.”
Derek’s expression slid into one of utter shock. “Rena’s sister?”
She jerked her chin toward the ghost in Mac’s arms. “Crystal. Otherwise known as Elsa.”
The angst was back. “Holy sssshit,” Derek ground out.
“What?”
“Rena asked me if I knew of her. Wanted an update, but I didn’t know who the fuck she was talking about.”
They moved slowly, injured as they were. But as Crystal reared up and glared her hatred, Derek answered it with a sarcastic smile. “I just found that reason not to kill you.”
Her look told him to go to hell.
Chapter 31
Derek stood at the laundry room door soaking in the familiar scents and sounds of home. In the amber light above the stove, which his mother always left on at night, the kitchen proved just as warm and inviting... only the appliances were new. Stainless steel, something Mary Bennett had always sworn she’d never want. Go figure. What else had changed in his absence? Besides Danny moving out, that is?
On the way there, he’d been brought up to speed over what he’d missed. Rafferty’s abduction, River’s capture, the failed explosion that could have killed them all, the panic of not knowing the fate of their son. Derek wished he could have been there to help. To prevent. To ease their fears. But he’d been shot and Ty had lied to them about his condition, further adding to their suffering.
Melanie came back downstairs from putting DJ to bed. Apparently, the two of them would stay in Danny’s old room on occasion, so it had been outfitted with a crib. It was weird...not that his family had added a new baby into their household, but that the baby was his.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Derek said uneasily as he let her guide him past the long dining room table and through the family room. It was dark, but the drugs in his system allowed him to see the many new pictures littering the mantle, the end tables and every inch of available wall space. The pictures were all of him.
“I must not have pissed my old man off nearly as much as I thought,” he murmured in wonder. The other photos he remembered were still there, just compacted to make room. Pictures of his eight siblings, their children, aunts, uncles, cousins. Antique framed impressions of elders from generations past.
All he wanted to do was turn on the lights, gaze closely at each and every one to reconnect with them all. Learn what his nieces and nephews looked like now. Find out what had transpired since his death. When he stopped in the middle of it all, Melanie, his human crutch, urged him on toward the stairs.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Your parents are at Bull Shoals until Tuesday. And you wanted to come here, remember?”
He took a step up, hesitated before braving the next one. “Better than the apartment you share with Mac.”
She smiled. “This is your home, Derek. You deserve the time to reconnect with it.”
“I don’t like your living arrangements,” he answered stubbornly, determined to have it out.
Melanie took her bottom lip between her teeth as they carefully ascended one painful step at a time. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she said softly. “How we’re going to manage things. Mac and I have a daycare to run on Monday.”
They reached the last step and Derek stumbled the rest of the way to his old room. The door was closed, further memorializing his memory just as the copious amounts of photographs had. It was creepy and it saddened him that his parents had suffered so much over a loss that never was.
Melanie turned the knob and ushered him in, watching him carefully. Moonlight poured through the window, so she opened the gauzy curtain to let in as much light as possible without turning on a lamp.
After she helped him out of his bloody ghost shirt, he studied the organized clutter of his surroundings. It was as if he’d just been sucked into a time warp. Back in his room with the climbing gear, trophies he’d won during competitions, the CD collection piled on the small bookshelf by the bed. Normal stuff. His stuff... almost as if the last two years had never happened.
He lowered himself to the patchwork quilt his mother had made for him when he was born. The smoky red, white and blue colors, the softness, the smell... it all evoked feelings that nearly brought tears to his eyes.
“Nothing’s changed,” he choked out in a whisper as he lay there, soaking it all in. “It’s all still here. Almost as if I can... pick up where I left off.” A tear escaped and he wiped it away. “But I know I can’t.”
Melanie lay down beside him and gently flattened a hand over his chest. He rolled his head, gazed into her wide, heather-blue eyes. “And neither can you.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I’m sorry, Mel. We have to assume you and DJ are still in danger. That’s my fault. I brought them down on you when I defected.”
“No.” Her hand moved up, smoothed over his whiskers. “That is all on Sophie and Rafferty. You did the right thing. You achieved the impossible. Everything we’ve been through and even the danger we may be facing... it’s all worth it. We have you back.”
His hand covered hers. “I’m still a ghost.”
“Not forever,” she answered thickly. “You’re not alone in this anymore. We’re going to help you get your life back and Ty will find Rena. They’ll get the sample to this Frost guy, whoever he is.”
The more Derek thought about Ty’s actions, the clearer his motivations became as Derek was forced to walk through their emotional recollections of the good ole’ days... the words Ty had spoken when recalling a careless mishap that could have ended his life.
You want to know why I’m doing all this for you? That’s why. No matter how pissed I got, you wouldn’t back off until I’d taken the proper precautions. You were thinking for me when I needed you to and you really saved my bacon that day. I never forgot that.”
“He did it for me,” he murmured, gazing at the ceiling.
Melanie’s brow creased. “What?”
“That time he spent alone with Rena. She must have dragged him into some scheme to fake my death. But she thought her mother killed me before they got the chance. Now IGP thinks I’m dead.” His eyes found hers again. “It’s an advantage I didn’t have before. Ty was thinking for me when I needed him to or they would have come after me to finish the job.” He paused, a small smile curving his mouth. “I thought he betrayed me, but he knew... ghosts don’t just walk away from IGP. They die.”
Melanie nodded in understanding. “He turned the tables on them. Kind of ironic when you think about it. I still want to kill him for lying to me, though.”
Derek watched as her eyes grew heavy. “He tried to keep me from you, but it was also for your protection. If you knew I was dead, you had a reason to let me go and back away.”
“That’s where he was wrong,” she answered. “We weren’t going to back away. Never. Not until IGP was destroyed. I think he figured that out eventually.”
Derek pursed his lips. “Let’s just hope he finds Rena soon. We don’t have much time before I use up the supply you were able to get your hands on.”
“Sixty days worth. It’s enough.”
He smiled at her optimism. Melanie Parker. She was his hero, his main focus as all other surroundings faded away. What would she say when he pointed out this fact? “I may need to share with Crystal.”
She rolled her eyes and dismissed the notion with a tsk. “No
way. Crystal can suffer.”
They grinned lazily at each other, even though they both knew the woman would need coddling until Rena came back. “Mac is going to have a lot on his hands,” he said, his words beginning to slur.
“He watches fourteen preschoolers,” Melanie answered with a yawn. “He can handle a zombie apocalypse.”
Great. The other Captain America in her life. “Your babysitter just killed a man. How will he handle that?”
Melanie sighed heavily, shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t seem to mind it at the time.”
“Has he ever done it before?”
It was a question she chewed over for a while before answering. “We both went through an extensive background check to get our daycare license. I found out then he’d been in the military. Complete surprise. For both Danny and me. He doesn’t talk about his past much, but I wonder because his records were sealed.” Her tiny frown indicated she’d not worried over it until now. “Ty said the bullet hit your lung.”
Whoa, complete subject change. But Derek’s mind was too groggy to question it. “Barely missed.”
Moisture built, collected in the corners of her sleepy eyes. “I thought I’d lost you again.” Her eyelids closed and a tear streaked toward the pillow. “I couldn’t take it a second time, Derek. Things got a little scary in my head.”
He wiped at the next one before it broke loose. “You came at me like Sheena Queen of the Jungle.”
She smiled slightly, but her eyes remained closed. “Like I said. Scary.”
Now he was suddenly staring at the backs of his own eyelids. “I really want to make love to you right now.”
It came out a bare whisper. “What are you waiting for?”
* * *
Late morning sunlight brought out the deep blue hues of Derek’s bedroom. Melanie basked in the familiarity of it while he slept soundly beside her. DJ lay on the bed between them, playing with his toes and babbling noisily on this warm Sunday morning. Melanie continued to study the man she’d just spent the last few recuperative hours of sex-free sleep with. Of course, Derek’s body was healing. There would be no physical exertion for him for at least a week or two.