Heather sagged against the wall, her eyes heavy.
‘Heather?’ That was Luke’s anxious voice. ‘Stay with me! Shit.’
The world faded into blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
KADE
Kade sat in the back seat of a black limo, fuming, wrists still tied. Facing him were two of Carleton’s goons. Guns resting on their laps, muzzles square on his stomach, fingers light alongside the triggers. They wore dark glasses, but their easy, relaxed postures revealed their level of skill and experience. He was dealing with professionals.
To make matters worse, his hands were numb and his wrists cramped. Even if he could get free of the ziptie, he wouldn’t be able to use his hands effectively.
The car took a sharp left and he tipped over on the seat, cracking his head on the door handle. Swearing, he struggled upright. The two guards watched, the shorter, blond one giving a small smirk. The taller, with buzzcut dark hair, with disinterest. Kade clenched his teeth.
Up front, the smoked-glass divider opened and the driver called, ‘We’re almost there. Private hospital. Ambulance is going to the emergency vehicle entrance.’
The car took another turn. This time Kade managed to stay upright. He caught a glimpse out the front windscreen. Enough to see they were angling into a narrow side street while the ambulance kept going straight.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
Buzzcut shrugged. ‘You heard. Private hospital. Once the boss is stable he’ll decide what to do with you. Until then, you’ll stay here under guard.’ He pointed at the floor with the gun.
Kade considered his options. He now knew what Torin’s game was. The brief view out the window told him. No private hospital existed in this area. Which meant Tor’d hired a building and thrown money at superficially creating a clinic. Which also meant that all the staff would be O’Connor Inc people ready to help.
So all he had to do was get inside the building.
‘Gotta use the men’s room,’ he said, diffidently. ‘I mean, I’d piss here, but I’m not sure Carleton would be impressed when he gets out.’
Buzzcut swore.
The limo glided to a halt and the window slid down again.
‘Entrance is there,’ the driver said. ‘Two other teams are securing the exits and covering the emergency vehicle entrance. The ambulance has arrived.’
Kade toed Buzzcut’s leg. ‘Really gotta go, dude.’ If he was right about what was happening in that ambulance, the two men who’d gone with Carleton were now either dead or unconscious. He wanted to be out of this killbox and in the building before the driver heard that tidbit.
‘Fine!’ Buzz threw open the door and got out. ‘Hurry it.’ He half-hauled Kade out of the limo and shoved him across the road.
Kade staggered, regained his feet, and dodged a taxi that blared its horn and swerved to miss him. The coat that covered his bound wrists and bloodied shirt slipped off and fell to the street. He didn’t bother stopping and nor did his escort. Buzzcut grunted and elbowed him again. Blondie joined them, buttoning the front of his black jacket.
The clinic entrance glass door opened to reveal a room that appeared suspiciously like an office reception, rather than a nurse’s station. Dark grey desks. Potted plants. A few chairs plushly upholstered in grey leather. Expensive abstract art on the walls.
Behind the desk waited a smoothly-coiffured middle-aged woman in a pale grey uniform-type dress. She arched sculpted brows. Kade kept a poker-face with difficulty.
‘May I help you?’ She rose, all polite efficiency. ‘You’re injured!’ She tapped a button and spoke. ‘I need a team to reception, stat! We have a bleeder. Doctor Blake, please attend.’
‘No, lady,’ Buzzcut said. He had tucked his gun into the holster beneath his arm. ‘He’s fine. It’s not his blood. He’s not hurt. Just needs the bathroom.’
Cathy, Torin’s secretary, raked Buzzcut with a cool look, reminding Kade forcibly of his most terrifying elementary school teacher. ‘I think we should let the doctor judge that.’ She gestured to Kade and emerged from behind the desk. ‘Come here and we’ll put you in the examination room, sir.’
Buzzcut produced his gun and aimed it at Cathy’s chest. ‘Shut it, bitch, and get behind your desk. Tell me where the damned men’s room is.’
Her hands flashed out. One smacked the inside of his wrist. The other twisted the gun free. She backed up, the gun safely in her hold, muzzle pointed at Buzzcut’s head. Kade lashed out with a short side-kick at Blondie’s knee. The joint cracked audibly. Blondie screamed and collapsed, grabbing at his leg. Kade kicked his temple and the bodyguard’s eyes rolled up.
Buzzcut shouted and lunged at Cathy. She lowered the gun and pulled the trigger. The shot cracked loud in the small space, even with the suppressor. Chips of tile and blood sprayed across the floor. Buzzcut yelled and grabbed at his arm. Blood oozed between his fingers. He gaped at her.
‘What the fu—’
‘On the floor.’ Cathy aimed the gun again. ‘On your face or the next one will go into your thick skull.’
Visibly shaken, Buzzcut lay down and laced his fingers behind his neck.
Kade chuckled. He wormed his arms under himself until they were out in front. Raising his arms high, he brought his wrists down across one knee. The ziptie snapped and flicked across the room to skitter over the white tiled floor. Blood and pain flooded into his hands and he groaned, flexing them.
‘You ok?’ Cathy asked, the gun still trained on the two men.
‘Will be in a minute. Nice work, Cath. Thanks.’
She threw him a casual salute. ‘Any time. Tor’s upstairs. The others are securing the two cars outside. Once we have all of his men—’
‘Two cars? Where’s the third? There must be at least two or three men unaccounted for in that vehicle. Tell Tor.’
She tapped her ear. ‘Tor—’
‘Look out!’ Kade dove and tackled her to the ground. Glass shattered. The sliding door cascaded in glittering fragments to the floor. Buzzcut scrambled to his knees and snatched at Cathy’s gun. From her position under Kade, she squeezed the trigger. Buzzcut’s leg folded. Blood blossomed dark beneath his shattered knee. Kade lashed a kick at his head and the big man joined his mate in lala land.
Rolling off Cathy, Kade hauled her behind the reception desk. Another shot from outside ricocheted off the tiles where they had lain.
‘They’re serious,’ she panted.
‘You hurt?’
‘Just my pride.’ She patted her ass. ‘You? Hard to tell with all that blood on those nice silk pyjamas.’
‘Nothing bad.’ He ignored the sting in his left arm. Something warm dripped off his fingertips. He pointed at the door behind the desk. ‘Exit?’
She agreed. Another shot zipped through the broken door. This time it pierced the melamine and timber desk above where they hid. Kade grunted.
‘High-powered. Must be the guys with the sniper rifles. Let’s go. We need more walls between us and them. Get me to the ambulance.’
Cathy began crawling. ‘If you want to get to Heather, then we need to go up. Luke has her. Along with Carleton and his two goons. Upstairs with Tor.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘But Heather’s unconscious and they can’t wake her up. And Carleton’s still bleeding internally. Luke’s trying his best but he’s an army medic, not a doctor.’
Grimly, Kade swore shoved the door open. He threw himself through and rolled to one side. Two more shots hit the wall nearby. Cathy lunged through and closed the door. Together, they ran for the next exit.
In the reception, footsteps crunched on broken glass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KADE
Kade followed Cathy to a corner office on the third floor. He checked behind then shut and locked the door. Unusually for a corner room, only one wall was windowed. The adjoining appeared to be solid concrete, with some whitewash and a couple of uninspired abstracts. The other two walls were drywall—no stopping p
ower against high-cal bullets. And the room, itself, held only the usual office furniture. A decent oak desk, a few chairs, a couch in a revolting shade of yellow.
‘Where’re Tor and the others?’ He gripped Cath’s arm. ‘Where’s Heather?’
Cath smiled and tapped on the concrete wall. It swung open and Torin stuck his head around.
‘Nice work, Cath. Get in here.’
Gaping, Kade entered a room half the size of the office outside but far more interesting. All four walls were concrete and lined with shelves. Each shelf was stocked with either food, water, or some sort of essential survival supplies. Several had been disturbed. Bundles of bandages lay tumbled on the bare floor and a cabinet of drugs hung open. Another wall held racks of weapons. Knives, assault rifles, pistols. Even a crossbow.
‘Where the hell are we?’
‘Friend’s place,’ Tor replied. ‘He had it built after nine-eleven. Complete with panic room.’ He shoved aside a grey futon-couch and pointed to a square in the floor. ‘And escape hatch. Leads to a fireman’s pole to the basement. That connects to a tunnel that comes out a block away in a subway station.’
‘Paranoid, much?’
Tor laughed. He gave Kade a rough hug then inspected him. ‘Seen you look better.’
‘And worse.’
‘You ok? What’s the blood on your shirt?’
‘Carleton stabbed me and made Heather heal me to prove she could.’
Torin swore. ‘I know we can’t kill him, but there are moments when I really want to.’
‘You and me, both.’
‘What about the arm?’ Tor pointed at Kade’s left arm.
Kade checked. The white silk sleeve was scarlet. ‘Minor graze. Just bled a lot.’
‘Hold still.’ Tor wound a bandage around it, tying it off with untidy efficiency.
‘It’s not bad,’ Kade complained.
‘That’s not the problem.’ Tor pointed at the floor. A trail of blood drops led from the closed hidden door to where he stood.
‘Crap.’ Kade scrubbed at his scalp. ‘It’ll lead them right to us.’
Heather lay unconscious on the floor, her cheeks pale, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly. Next to her lay Carleton, asleep or sedated. Baker and another goon were stretched out along the far wall, also out to it. Luke watched over all of them. He kept checking Carleton’s pulse and the bag of blood hooked to a portable IV unit.
‘Is she ok?’ Kade asked, absorbing guilt. He was a fool. If she had overstretched herself trying to save Carleton…trying to save him…then it was his fault. If she died, it would be his fault. But if she really was the midwife who’d killed Amanda then her death was his own wish-fulfillment, wasn’t it?
So why did his chest ache at the thought of even causing her this much pain and fear?
Luke, kneeling beside Heather, measured her pulse again. ‘She’s asleep, I think. She took some energy from that dude.’ He pointed. ‘Used it to bring Carleton back to life. Overdid it. She should recover, soon.’
Kade took a step toward her and stopped. She had made it pretty clear that she wanted nothing more to do with him. Yes, she’d cured him of the knife injury, but she would do the same for anyone. That’s who she was: a healer.
Of course she was.
He groaned and buried his head in his hands. How had he thought, even for a second, that Amanda’s death was her fault? Hadn’t Heather saved his life twice now, when she didn’t have to? When it gave her no benefit at all? The first time saving him had almost killed her. Even apart from everything else he’d learned about her, that should have told him everything he needed to know.
She would never have let Amanda die if she could have stopped it. And, given Amanda had health insurance, if Heather couldn’t save her, she would have called for an ambulance.
Which meant Heather either hadn’t been there at all, or he didn’t know the whole story.
And he needed to know.
He needed her to tell him. To trust him, even though he didn’t deserve it.
But first he had to save her from Carleton.
‘I should go,’ he said to Torin. ‘I can clear the blood trail that leads here and run to a different part of the building. Lead them away.’
Tor shook his head. ‘I think we have another option. We’ll use our unconscious friends here as decoys.’
‘I don’t see any injuries on them. No blood trail.’
‘That can be remedied,’ Tor said, grimly. ‘But first we need to wake Heather. We can’t carry her down the pole. Space is too narrow. And she needs energy to heal Carleton. She can draw it from his men, first.’
‘What? You’re still going to heal him?’ Kade stared at him. ‘Why?’
‘We don’t kill, Kade.’ Tor’s blue eyes hardened. ‘We both had enough of that, remember. I know you’ve got a personal stake in this. Believe me, I do, too. But for Heather’s peace of mind and our own, we need Carleton alive.’
‘What’s to stop him from coming after her again?’
Tor sighed. ‘Heather had a plan. She wouldn’t tell me exactly what, but she thought she could convince him to leave her alone. Once she healed him.’
‘And I thought I was the optimist,’ Kade growled.
Luke touched Carleton’s neck. ‘Cathy? Kade? Either of you A Positive blood type? Or O positive? I’ve taken blood from sleeping beauty number one—he was carrying a donor card. That Baker guy has been sedated so I can’t use his blood for Carleton. No-one else is compatible.’ His expression became grim. ‘His pulse is weak. If we don’t get him to a hospital soon, he’ll die.’
Both Cathy and Kade admitted they had the wrong blood type.
Tor swiped a hand over his face. ‘Right. We definitely need to wake up Heather, then. And fast. Cath, use a knife and put a small hole in our unknown sleeping friend there. Something that will justify the blood trail. Observe him, though.’ He pointed at Luke. ‘You drag him outside and give him a lump on the head to explain why he’s unconscious. Kade? Think you can wake up Heather?’
Kade felt his face heat, remembering what he’d done in that snowy mountain cabin. The feel of her body against his. The way she’d almost slipped away. Could he go through that again? What if he failed and she died? Or, what if he saved her, now, only to lose her later when she rejected him. Or, even worse, if she forgave him and something happened to her, further down the track in their lives.
Could he handle that?
Aware of Tor’s expectant gaze, he drew on his military training and thrust aside emotion. Right here, right now, she was just a battle-comrade who needed help to survive. That was all he had to focus on. No space for anything else.
Now, or in the future.
She deserved better. She deserved someone who could commit their heart to her.
Someone else. Not him.
He joined Tor at her side. ‘Are there any sugary drinks here?’ He lifted her, ignoring the urge to kiss her pale lips and breathe in the scent of her hair.
Tor produced a warm box of long-life orange juice. Together they managed to get a few mouthfuls into her. She swallowed, coughed and swallowed more. Her eyelids fluttered and opened, vacant.
‘Put her hand on your arm,’ Kade said to Torin, low. ‘She’ll probably find contact with you easier than me at the moment. Brace yourself, though. It feels a bit like having your soul sucked out.’
Tor offered his arm. ‘Heather? Go ahead. Take energy from me.’
‘I…can’t,’ she protested. ‘Can’t control…might kill...’
He pushed his arm inside her curled fingers. Her grip tightened convulsively.
‘I trust you, Heather,’ Tor whispered. ‘Do it.’
A long silence. Kade held his breath.
Then Tor stiffened. He slumped, half-collapsing onto the floor.
Heather’s eyes snapped open. She wrenched free, shuffling across the concrete until her back was against the wall.
CHAPTER THIRTY
HEATH
ER
Heather took in the familiar faces and released the breath she’d been holding as an exhalation instead of a scream. Torin raised his head and she covered a gasp. His skin was grey, his eyes lacklustre. His energy thrummed in her body, sharp, crackling like caged lightning.
She stretched toward him. ‘I’m sorry! Let me give some back.’
He waved her off and, instead, gulped several large mouthfuls of orange juice from a box on the floor. Wiping his mouth, he pointed at Carleton, lying nearby.
‘Use it on him, instead. Luke says he doesn’t have long.’ Torin shot her a straight look. ‘If you don’t save him, then we have to get him to a hospital and all the questions that entails. If he dies, it gets worse.’
She pressed her palms to her cold cheeks. Did she have enough energy?
Kade eased himself down next to her, not touching. ‘Don’t pressure her, Tor. She’ll do the right thing. She always does.’
Heather snuck a glance sideways. What did that mean?
Luke and Cath appeared in the doorway.
‘Sleeping beauty has been laid out for the minions to discover.’ Luke locked the heavy door. ‘Carleton’s men are searching the building. Heard their voices close by. They’ve found the blood trail.’ He chortled. ‘With any luck they’ll find sleeping beauty and think it came from him.’ He crouched beside Carleton and confirmed a pulse, but his jaunty grin faded. ‘If you’re going to help him, better be now.’
Heather crawled over. She could do this. It was like fixing anyone else. No, not quite. She frowned. To do it right, she would have to go beyond mere fixing. She would need to change his DNA on a fundamental level, as Rowan had explained. Combined with Rowan’s Gifted knowledge, Heather understood what to do. Her medical background gave her a solid grounding in genetics and she’d always tried to keep up with the latest information.
Healing Heather Page 19