Guardians (Seers Trilogy Book 3)

by Heather Frost

  My vision seemed to rattle, and then my eyes focused on some movement beyond his hulking shoulder. I could barely believe what I was seeing. It was too wonderful to possibly be true.

  Patrick was coming toward me at full speed, a knife gripped tightly in one fast pumping fist. He was several long yards away but closing the distance inhumanly fast.

  But I’d made the kind of dumb mistake so many damsels in distress do. By staring at him, allowing my eyes to widen revealingly, the Demon was aware that something was coming from behind. He glanced over his shoulder—surprised to see how quickly Patrick was coming—and then he was moving too. Or rather, he was moving me.

  One second I was looking at Patrick—watching his eyes as they flashed with fear—then I was being shoved aside. I didn’t really understand that he was knocking my head against the side mirror of the car until after the fact. All I felt was the horrific crack my head made as it connected forcefully with the plastic top of the mirror, and then his strangling fingers were gone and I was falling to the ground. I couldn’t see anything but black, but I could feel everything—the sting of loose pebbles grinding into my uselessly extended arms, the thump that drove the lingering air from my lungs when I slammed into the asphalt. My hip took a lot of my initial weight, and my already beaten head pounded firmly against the pavement. I rolled partially onto my stomach, my twisted limbs unresponsive for the moment. I felt broken glass from the mirror, shattered into a thousand fragments, rain down on me.

  The pain in my head exploded in a horrible throb. I knew I was bleeding. But had the impact cracked my skull? I had no way of knowing. My body shuddered for breath, my lungs uncaring about the condition of my head because suddenly they could fill with air. I gasped convulsively, but that was the only sound I could come up with.

  I was distantly aware of the Demon tensing in front of me, but I couldn’t see anything. When I tried opening my eyes there were too many shapes and shadows to see anything real. He might have taken a step away from me.

  I heard the slam of bodies coming much too harshly together. The hood of a nearby car buckled under sudden weight. I heard some gasps amid the sounds of heavy scuffling—a grunt—and then a body crumpled into a pile at the victor’s feet. The fight was fierce but rapid, and it was impossible for me to know who’d won. I couldn’t see anything.

  Shaking footsteps came toward me. I was blinking profusely, but I was literally seeing stars. Someone knelt hard in front of me. Trembling fingers slipped into my hair, touching the sorest part of my very sore body. Pieces of glass slipped out of my hair and off my shoulder, raining to the ground.

  My limbs jerked in response and a whimper escaped me at his touch.

  “Kate?” Patrick’s voice broke painfully. His weight shifted in front of me and then he gently maneuvered me onto my back—my head cradled on his shaking legs. “Kate, stay with me,” he begged, parting my hair to assess the damage.

  There was a sharp intake of breath; his thumb rubbed under my eye. “Kate, look at me. Please, I need you to look at me.”

  My eyes narrowed, trying to follow his orders, and I could almost make out his pale face with squinting. But that only caused my pounding head more pain. “Patrick?” I gasped.

  “I’m here. It’s all right. You’re going to be all right.” One hand remained on my face, smoothing my skin with motions too quick to be assuring, and the other flipped open a phone. Seconds later he was fairly barking into the speaker. “Toni, get down to the high school. Kate’s been attacked. I’m taking her to the emergency room, but I need you to take care of a body. . . . Take the van then!”

  “Wait,” I pleaded blearily. “The twins. He wasn’t alone . . .”

  Patrick just shook his head at me. “It’s okay, Kate—they’re safe.”

  I think I lost consciousness for a moment, because the next thing I knew my cheek was rubbing against his crisp shirt, his rolling footsteps rocking me gently except for the steady jolt that accented each footfall. One of his arms supported my back and the other clung around my knees. I could feel every muscle in his body straining to hold me steady; even his chin was taut upon the top of my head, striving to hold me motionless. The side of my head that felt completely dented was getting a lot of air as we walked, but it was strangely calming against the warm blood I could feel already congealing in my hair.

  “What about the body?” I whispered suddenly, the words partially slurred. “You can’t leave him for someone to find.”

  If Patrick was surprised to hear me talking, it didn’t show in his clipped words. “It doesn’t matter. He’s invisible. Toni will come for him, then meet us at the hospital when he’s done.”

  I struggled to swallow. I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. The clean scent coming off his skin helped center my thoughts. “I’m sorry,” I breathed.

  He didn’t reply. Maybe he hadn’t heard me or maybe he was too upset to speak.

  We must have reached his car because he stopped walking. He lowered my legs to the ground, careful to have at least one supporting arm around me at all times. That was a good idea, because I was still unsteady. I swayed against him at the same time one large hand tipped my head back so he could stare critically into my eyes.

  I took this opportunity to do a little inventory for myself. My vision was already almost back to normal. That had to be a good sign. My body throbbed with pain—especially my neck, hip, and shoulder—but the pain in my head was so sharp it made the rest seem like minor discomforts.

  “Pupils look good,” he finally muttered to himself. Then, to me: “Are you feeling dizzy? Nauseated?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Kate?”

  I frowned at him. “Can you give me a second to think?” I didn’t know where my sassy tone was coming from, but I hoped Patrick would read it as a good sign.

  I pulled in a slow breath, trying to center my thoughts. “I felt a little dizzy at first, but now my head just hurts. I don’t feel nauseated. That’s good, right?”

  He didn’t really reply. He just reached for the keys in his pocket and I allowed my forehead to dip and rest against his strong shoulder. “Hold on, Kate,” he whispered hoarsely, mouth at my ear. “Just stay conscious.”

  The locks disengaged with a whir and a signaling chirp. He opened the passenger door and lowered me inside, carefully sweeping my legs in because I couldn’t seem to move them myself. I leaned my head gratefully against the seat, pursing my lips together to help keep things from spinning.

  For the record, it didn’t really help.

  The glove box opened in front of me and Patrick searched inside for the first-aid kit. He practically tore the plastic lid off in an effort to get it open sooner, and he didn’t seem to care that items were spilling out to bounce against the floor around my feet. Finally he found some squares of gauze. He pressed these to the side of my head an instant later and I hissed in pain.

  “I know, I know,” he fairly groaned, his other hand reaching for mine. He settled my fingers against the gauze beside his own, instructing me to hold it as tightly as I could.

  “It hurts,” I protested thinly.

  His voice was incredibly tight. “It will help. I promise.”

  I pressed my fingers firmly against the wound until he trusted my efforts enough that he drew back. But as soon as his hand was gone and the door was closed I let up on the pressure. I felt like it was the perfect trick, because he wouldn’t be able to see my slack fingers from the driver’s seat. Brilliant.

  A distant part of me knew I was thinking pathetic thoughts, but it didn’t stop them from coming.

  The driver’s door opened seconds later. He was closing his door and shoving the key into the ignition in the same instant, tossing me a concerned look. “Keep up the pressure, Kate.”

  “I am,” I lied.

  As an afterthought he reached over and slipped my seat belt on. It took him three tries before he was able to fit the end of the belt into the receiving buckle, since his hands woul
dn’t stop shaking. That was funny to me because when he’d held me, he’d been completely steady.

  Once I was secure he shifted into reverse, not bothering with his own seat belt as the car rolled back quickly. Seconds later we were out of the parking lot and speeding toward the ER.

  “How did you know?” I asked, though I didn’t shift my head to look at him. It wasn’t worth the risk of throwing up.

  “Know what?” he asked, his voice a strange balance of distraction and concentration. Distraction because he was paying strict attention to the road, concentration because he was carefully attuned to my every shaking breath.

  “Where I was. That I needed you.” My voice couldn’t seem to inflect the words into questions.

  The lump in his throat bobbed when he swallowed. “Peter spotted a Demon at the elementary school and alerted Claire and Maddy. Claire went in pursuit, and Maddy called me because they thought I should know. I came to find you immediately. Aaron said you were with Trent, but once I was in the hall my feet took me outside instead. I don’t know why. And then I heard the car alarm and I guessed . . .” He switched lanes briskly, but I think he was using the light traffic as an excuse to stop talking. The emotion was thick in his voice, and he was obviously trying to stay strong for me.

  “You can slow down,” I said after a tense moment. “I’m feeling better now.”

  It was actually the truth. I was feeling less out of it, more in control. I was still in pain, but I wasn’t fighting the impulse to laugh anymore. That had to be good.

  But he didn’t react to my words. Not even a weak protest or a simple grunt. If anything, he more firmly planted his foot on the accelerator.

  I sighed and delicately peeled the gauze away from my head so I could look at the blood. There was less than I thought there would be, which gave me hope that I might not need too many stitches.

  “Keep it on, please,” he mumbled distractedly, his eyes already sliding back to the road.

  “Patrick, you can breathe. Really, I was just dazed before. I’m okay now.”

  “I’m going to let a doctor decide that.”

  I sighed, but I put the gauze back to cover the gash. “What am I supposed to tell them?” I murmured, able to form a real question this time. “That I was attacked by a Demon?”

  “No. Just . . . Pretend you don’t remember. I’ll take care of the rest.” His voice was heavy enough that I decided to stop talking to him. My words only seemed to be increasing his distress.

  I wouldn’t let him carry me into the emergency room, but I was grateful for his steadying arms as he helped guide me inside. He led me up to the nurses’ window where a middle-aged woman calmly asked me what had happened. Where I hesitated to speak, Patrick quickly filled in the blanks. In less than a minute the basic story was out—he’d found me in the high school parking lot, head knocked against a side mirror. Pretty simple, and she didn’t seem to care for further details. At least not yet. She suggested I keep pressure on the wound, handed us a clipboard, and told us to fill out the paperwork while we waited.

  Patrick was still extremely tense as we took our seats in the corner, near a young girl who was hiccupping through her tears and clutching her arm while her mother bent over her clipboard. I insisted I was well enough to fill out the forms, and Patrick didn’t fight me.

  He crouched on the edge of his seat, head ducked, legs bouncing as he tapped his feet, jaw rigid, eyes slicing up whenever anyone walked past or a patient was called back.

  I tried to focus on the meticulous task of writing out my address, but his jittery movements were hard to ignore. Finally I sighed and lowered the pen.

  “Patrick.”

  His head twisted toward me, his body otherwise freezing. I rolled my eyes at him. “Calm down. Okay? The nurse wasn’t worried; I’m not worried; you shouldn’t be worried.”

  His lips parted, compressed, then thinned. He just shook his head and glanced away.

  “What?” I asked, exasperated.

  “Nothing,” he muttered.

  Though of course I didn’t believe him, I returned to my paperwork, and he returned to his nervous tics.

  When everything was filled out, I stood and Patrick practically leapt to his feet behind me, taking hold of my arm even when I told him I was perfectly steady. We returned the clipboard to the nurse and soon she buzzed us through to another room where she had me take a seat. She took my vitals, asked me to rate my pain level on a scale of one to ten—I chose four, because I really was feeling much better—and she also questioned me about my medical history. Patrick stood anxiously beside me the whole time. After she was done, the nurse led us to a curtained-off bed and asked me to lie down and wait for the doctor, leaving us with the sounds of low adult voices and the whimpering cries of children surrounding us.

  I sat on the bed, but Patrick wouldn’t sit beside me. He paced the length of the bed for the next fifteen minutes or so, refusing to meet my eye.

  And then the doctor was shaking my hand while a male nurse encouraged Patrick to take a seat as the doctor worked. The doctor examined the wound against the side of my head, cleaned it, and commented that it really wasn’t too bad—not that Patrick seemed to relax after the pronouncement. Six stitches later the doctor offered to prescribe me some heavy painkillers, but assured me that Tylenol could just as easily do the trick. I opted for the Tylenol, having had past experience with prescription painkillers after the car accident. The memories weren’t good.

  The doctor swept out but the male nurse lingered, looking to Patrick. “She’ll need someone to stay with her for the next twenty-four hours or so.” His eyes moved between us. “Make sure you come back right away if you lose consciousness, begin to have seizures, experience bleeding from nose or ears, or if symptoms increase in severity or persist.”

  “Can I go home and sleep?” I asked, desperately ready to take a nap.

  “Soon. The police were alerted of the assault, and they’re on their way. They just need to ask you a few questions.” He glanced back at Patrick, who was as rigid as ever. “Both of you.”

  “Of course,” Patrick cut in, speaking for the first time in over a half hour.

  I almost jumped at the abrupt sound of his voice, and the male nurse seemed to notice my reaction. He tipped his head toward Patrick. “Sir, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a few more questions I need to ask Miss Bennett before the police arrive. Privately. Would you please step out?”

  Though we weren’t touching I could feel Patrick bristling. “I need to stay with her,” he countered at once.

  I stretched out a hand and touched his stiff arm, and he glanced over at me, eyes grim. “It’s all right,” I assured him.

  His eyes narrowed, but he nodded curtly, met the eye of the nurse one last time, then slipped around the curtain.

  The male nurse began to question me for more specifics about how I’d incurred my injuries, including the bruises. I kept my answers short and admittedly hazy.

  “It definitely seems like it was a deliberate attack,” he said sympathetically, after I’d finished speaking. “Especially because of that bruising,” he added, nodding toward my neck.

  My hand lifted to finger the large bruise at my throat. I could still feel the Demon’s fist crushing around my neck, pinching out my breath, draining my life . . .

  “There’s bruising on your wrists as well. The police will want to know if you can remember seeing an attacker. Even a partial description will be helpful.”

  My gaze wavered when I saw Patrick standing behind the nurse, eyes firm on mine. I frowned at him, belatedly realizing he must be invisible because the nurse hadn’t noticed his return.

  “Miss Bennett?” the nurse prompted, drawing my attention back. “Did you know your attacker? Was it the guy who brought you in? Your boyfriend?”

  Patrick’s head fell forward, braced tightly in one hand while his shoulders curled inward.

  “What?” I choked, hand dropping to my lap, feeling sick at the very i
mplication. “No!”

  “Are you sure?” the nurse persisted. “This sort of thing happens . . .”

  “I’m sure,” I insisted.

  I don’t think he believed me entirely, but he leaned forward to more carefully examine the bruises along my neck. It was during that quiet moment that a middle-aged police officer poked his head inside. He smiled kindly at me, then focused on the nurse. “Is she ready for some questions?”

  “Sure.”

  “Great. She was brought in by someone?”

  My eyes flickered to Patrick, who met my gaze quickly.

  “Uh, yeah,” the nurse said haltingly. “He was going to wait right outside. Maybe he moved to the lobby.”

  “Maybe you could point him out to my partner? We’d like to ask him some questions too.”

  Patrick spoke lowly, though of course I was the only one who could hear him. “Remember, Kate—you didn’t see anyone. Neither did I. All right?”

  “Miss Bennett?” The officer took a step forward and the nurse moved around him, greeting the other officer who must have been on the other side of the curtain.

  I nodded, and the officer smiled. Patrick bowed out, moving fast—he needed to beat the others to the lobby.

  The officer pulled out a notepad and the polite but insistent questioning began.

  I retold the sketchy story for the officer, who scribbled notes in his palm-sized notebook. He would often ask me to clarify points, making the whole process even more repetitive. Yes, I’d gone out to the parking lot alone. Yes, I was headed to my car. No, I didn’t see anyone come up behind me . . .

  “And that’s it,” I summed up with forced concentration. “I was on the ground, and then I saw Patrick running toward me. He brought me here. Everything else is pretty blurry.”

  “Patrick’s your . . . ?”

  “Boyfriend,” I reconfirmed.