Jessie kept hold of the frightened woman. Beauty only stood about five feet tall and her rail-thin body revealed she’d been half starved. Jessie could have carried her slight body out of the house if the woman couldn’t have walked on her own. She fought back more tears as they walked through the house slowly. The woman had been beaten recently and she hadn’t been bathed, in Jessie’s estimation, for a few days. Her hair was ratted, a little greasy and dirt clung to her legs and arms from the dusty, hidden room.
Trey remained a silent sentry at their back and she knew he’d remain there in case the female Species passed out from her weakened condition. Jessie led Beauty out the front door into the fresh night air and directly to the open back door of the SUV. She smiled at her charge.
“We are going to get inside this thing and then we’re going to do something really exciting. We’re going to fly in the sky in a bigger thing to get you some medical help and you’re going to meet up with your family. They are going to be so happy to see you.”
“You won’t leave me?” Beauty looked terrified as she clutched at Jessie.
“No, Beauty, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to hold your hand the entire time.” Jessie squeezed her hand tenderly. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you and I’m going to stay with you for as long as you want me to.”
Jessie urged her to climb onto the center seat and secured her in a lap belt. Jessie smiled again, to be reassuring. “I’ll sit right next to you and Trey here is going to drive us. He’s a nice person.” She checked the belt again, leaned over to push Beauty’s hair behind her ear and gave her a sincere look. “Everything is going to be fine, Beauty. I—”
Pain exploded in Jessie’s back. She was thrown forward and her body slumped over Beauty and the seat. The Species woman screamed.
“Sniper!” Trey yelled.
Jessie fought to push herself up despite not being able to draw breath from the pain in her back. Beauty shrieked in terror again and glass exploded from the front passenger window. Jessie found the strength to shove her chest up, shoved Beauty sideways across the seat and threw herself on top of the other woman.
“I’ve got you,” Jessie panted over the screaming female and gunfire.
Pain exploded again in Jessie’s back, sent a path of fire from between her shoulder blades to the back of her head. This time the pain was too much. She tried to gasp in air but it wouldn’t come. Everything turned dark, the pain faded and Beauty’s shrieks were the last thing she heard.
* * * * *
Justice growled as he rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock. It was four thirty in the morning. He fumbled in the dark for his cell phone and yanked it open, pressing it to his ear.
“This better be good,” he grunted.
“Justice? I’m sorry about the hour. I truly am. We have an emergency. I needed your permission for a few things.”
“What happened, Brass? Permission for what?” He sat up and reached for the light next to the bed, instantly awake.
“We need to send our helicopter from Homeland for an immediate pickup of one of our Gift Females who was retrieved less than an hour ago. We also need permission to bring her to Reservation. They have the better medical facility and this one is coming in rough. She is quite traumatized. They had to sedate her on scene because of the emotional trauma. I thought they’d be able to handle it better at Reservation. Dr. Trisha is still there.”
Justice took a deep breath. “Fine. Send the helicopter to pick up our female. Go ahead and send her here. Call Dr. Harris instead of Dr. Trisha. He is on duty and she’s on vacation. She isn’t to be called in.” He didn’t mention that she’d just had her baby since the phone lines weren’t always secure. “You know that.”
“Right. Sorry. I’m frazzled. The task force wanted to put our female on a private plane to send her to us but I told them that took too long. That’s when they requested our helicopter from Homeland. You have the Reservation one.”
Justice frowned. “Why don’t they fly her themselves? Is their helicopter down for repairs? I know they have one. I had to fight to get the funding for the thing.”
“It’s in use. One of the task force was shot during the extraction. They had to use that helicopter to airlift their injured teammate to the nearest trauma center almost sixty miles away.”
“One of them was shot? How bad is the man? Will he live?”
“It wasn’t a man. It was the human female ambassador on the team. That’s why our female is so traumatized. When the human female was shot it left our female with all men.”
Justice’s heart dropped. Jessie was the only female who worked with the task force that he knew about. “What happened?”
“Tim Oberto believes our female was the target. The sniper tried to take out our female is what I was told and the human female was shot instead. I don’t know how serious it was but it had to have been pretty bad that they felt the need to use the helicopter to airlift her out rather than get our female to us.”
“Jessie Dupree was shot?”
Brass hesitated. “I don’t know her name.”
“Give me the number to Tim Oberto right now,” Justice snarled.
“Uh, ready?”
Justice leapt from bed and ran out of the bedroom. “Hang on.” He found a pen and grabbed the first folder nearest him on the desk. “Go.” He jotted down the number.
“Brass, do what you think is best. You don’t need to ask me first. Get our female home, whatever that entails and get her taken care of.” Justice hung up and dialed Tim Oberto’s number. It rang four times.
“Tim Oberto,” a male sighed.
“This is Justice. I just heard the news. Was Jessie Dupree injured?”
“Yes.”
Justice wanted to roar from pure rage. “Is she alive?”
“They are working on her in one of the trauma rooms.” Tim took a deep breath. “I don’t know her condition.”
“She was shot?” Justice trembled.
“Yeah. She took one to the back of the head. It looked bad.” Tim’s voice broke. “A sniper tried to take out the Gift Female but Jessie was in the way. She threw herself over your female and took three hits covering her. Her vest took two of the rounds but the third hit her.”
“Where were your men?” Justice roared. “She’s an ambassador. She is supposed to go in when it is safe.”
“Don’t yell at me,” Tim yelled. “We had secured the area before we allowed Jessie to bring your woman out. It was a sniper. We were pinned down until he could be located. I love that girl like she’s my daughter. I’m the one who lifted her off your woman and held her in my arms until our helicopter could reach us. I’ve got her blood all over my clothes and I’m the one who is going to have to notify her father when they tell me she’s gone.”
Justice collapsed onto the desk hard, sat there stunned and closed his eyes. He couldn’t breathe at first, too stricken at the news that the vibrant woman who’d shared his bed had been shot. It took a lot for him to draw in a painful breath.
“You think she’s going to die?”
“She was shot in the back of the head. What do you think? She wouldn’t wake up and it was bad.”
Pain tore through Justice’s chest. Jessie was gone to him forever. Her face flashed through his mind, the memory of her lying naked under him with her arms wrapped around his neck, smiling up at him with her pretty blue eyes. Her red hair had been spread out on his bed. More pain tore through his chest.
“Where are you? I’m on my way.”
Tim hesitated. “Of course. Policy,” he ground out. “It will make a nice photo opportunity, right? You can stand outside the hospital and say some shit in front of the reporters about how brave she was to give her life in the line of duty to save your people. You didn’t know her.”
Anger tore though Justice. “I know Jessie. Don’t you ever accuse me of something that deceptive again. I don’t give a damn about getting my picture taken or about what humans think
right at this moment. I want to know where she is because I’m coming there to see her.”
Tim sighed. “I’m sorry, Justice. I didn’t mean that. I know what a good man you are but I’m just totally mind fucked right now. This is tearing me up. Do you understand that? She’s like my daughter. I was threatening to turn her over my knee and whip her ass for what she did tonight and ten minutes later I’m holding her in my arms watching her bleed. I’ve never felt so damn useless in my life and now I’m just so pissed it could happen that I’m tearing into anyone I can.”
Anguish. That was the feeling Tim expressed, Justice identified with him and it, since that emotion poured through his own body. “We’re fine, Tim. Where is she?”
“We’re in Portland, Oregon. It was the nearest trauma center we could fly her to. The takedown happened in Washington State in a remote area.” He named the hospital.
“I’m coming. You’ve got my cell number, correct? If not you should have it now since I just called you. I want you to contact me the second you know anything about her condition.”
“I will, Justice. Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that shit.”
“Don’t give it a second thought.” He hung up and dialed the control center of Reservation. He arranged for the helicopter to be fueled, the pilots to be woken and a security detail to meet him in five minutes. He remembered Tiger in the guestroom, woke him too and rushed to his room to dress.
He froze, unmoving, when he sat on the bed to jerk on shoes. Jessie’s image fixed in his mind caused him to bite back another roar of pain. He’d never get the chance to kiss her again or see her smile. At best he might be able to reach her before she died and get to hold her little pale hand.
Life wasn’t fair, he knew that, he’d had a lifetime of shit handed to him but the loss of her would leave emotional scars too. They’d had so few moments together but they were ones he’d never forget. It hurt.
Chapter Seven
Justice grimly adjusted his tie for the hundredth time as he glanced at his security team. Humans stared at them as they entered the hospital lobby but it wasn’t unusual. Six large Species males, all dressed in black uniforms but one who wore a nice business suit, was bound to draw a lot of attention. Justice ran his nervous hands down his dark gray jacket as he paused in front of the nurses’ station. The female lifted her chin and her mouth dropped open, nearly competing with her wide-eyed gaze.
He tried not to intimidate the woman by speaking in a soft tone. “We are here to see Jessie Dupree. She was brought in as a shooting victim.”
The woman snapped her mouth closed and swallowed hard. “You’re New Species, aren’t you?”
Justice refrained from growling and flashing fangs. He didn’t want to carry on a conversation with the nurse. He didn’t want to play twenty questions either. Jessie was still alive as far as he knew and he wanted to reach her side before it was too late. Tiger tensed at his side and reached out to place his hand on the counter.
“This is urgent business,” Tiger softly growled. “Answer Mr. North please and remember to be a professional.”
Justice normally would have flinched but tonight he didn’t mind one of his men being blunt. He wanted the woman’s cooperation regardless of how he got it. “Yes. As I said, we’re here to see Jessie Dupree.”
The nurse glanced at her computer, typed in information and gave them directions down the hall to a waiting room. They didn’t make it ten feet from the desk before they heard the woman on the phone telling someone that a group of scary-looking New Species were at the hospital.
“Do you think she’s calling the local news stations?” Tiger groaned. “I hate those bastards.”
Justice shrugged. “We’ll avoid them on the way out.”
He didn’t really give a damn about the press. Is Jessie still alive? Will I get to see her before she dies? This is killing me. He just needed to see her. He wanted to inhale her scent and touch her at least one last time. His chest hurt badly knowing there wouldn’t be any hope in his future to spend a night with her.
Tiger walked into the waiting room first, kept his body in front of Justice and made sure there wasn’t any form of threat inside the room. Justice immediately spotted Senator Jacob Hills sitting in a chair with his hands covering his face, bent over and softly crying. Justice froze inside at the grief-stricken sound.
He felt his emotions shutting down from the pain of knowing Jessie had already died. His fingers curled into fists though, rage flashed and he swore vengeance. He was going to find out where they held the sniper who’d killed her, if the man was still alive he was going to kill him with his bare hands. He’d tear the son of a bitch apart for killing Jessie, make him scream and suffer greatly before he died. Pure rage and pain battled until he regained control enough to speak.
Tim Oberto shared the room with four other men still dressed in their task-force uniforms. Justice had to keep taking deep breaths to stop himself from losing the shaky control he had found. The animal urges inside him pushed forward strongly, he wanted to tear the room apart and go insane from the knowledge that Jessie was gone.
Senator Hills glanced up, his hands dropped and his tear-filled gaze discovered Justice. He looked surprised to see the Species and stood on unsteady feet. “Justice, what are you doing here?”
Justice swallowed hard. “I heard about Jessie and flew here right away.”
The senator blinked back more tears and approached. He wiped his hand on his slacks and held it out. “Thank you. I never expected any of you to come here but it means the world to me.”
They shook hands. “The doctor was just in here.” The senator smiled. “I’m sorry for the show of tears but I thought my daughter was dying.” More tears flooded his eyes. “She’s going to be fine though.”
Immense relief tore through Justice, followed by a sense of need to find Jessie. “Where is she?”
“They are cleaning her up.” The senator laughed. “I always said she had a thick head. The bullet grazed her skull but it didn’t penetrate.”
Justice closed his eyes to hide his raging emotions. Jessie was going to live and a graze meant she wasn’t seriously wounded as long as there was no brain trauma caused by the impact. He opened his eyes and took calming breaths. He needed to stay in control. What he really wanted to do was tear apart the hospital until he found Jessie. He wanted to bury his face against her neck and breathe her in. He didn’t move though, afraid he wouldn’t stop there.
“She’s pissed about her hair.” The senator wiped at more tears, laughing. “Can you believe my daughter? She could have died and she’s upset that they had to shave her hair from the back of her head.”
“They shaved her head?” Justice growled. He took a deep breath. It was only her hair she’d lost instead of her life. It would grow back. The senator tensed, eyeing him, stunned.
“We’re weird about head shaving,” Tiger stated, stepping forward to include himself in the conversation. He shot Justice a worried look but forced a smile. “We’re grateful that your female will live.”
Justice nodded. “I apologize. I’m upset that Jessie was harmed.” He forced himself to go into Justice North mode, the male who represented all of New Species. “We wanted to show our support.”
The senator smiled. “I knew you were a good man, Justice. My daughter would love to meet you. Would you mind hanging around for a little while? You did fly all this way and she would be tickled pink to get to meet the man I’ve told her so much about.”
“I’ve met her,” Justice informed him. “I would like to see her.”
The senator appeared surprised. “You met Jessie?”
“Yes. She brought a group of our females to Reservation and stayed there until last night.”
“Your daughter can be quite persistent.” Tiger chuckled. “I thought she was going to shoot me if I told her she couldn’t escort our females and help them settle in at Reservation after the raid in Colorado.”
The senator laughed
. “That’s my girl. I raised her not to take no for an answer. She’s a tough little shit. She took after her mother and it scared me because she was always so small but with such a big personality. You’d think she was a seven-foot linebacker with her attitude.” He showed fatherly pride. “She can be a handful.”
“Yeah,” Tim chuckled. “She is. Last night I was going to put her over my knee and spank her ass.”
The senator gasped. “You were going to what?”
Tim sobered. “She reminds me of my daughter. We had a situation where the Gift Female was being held. Two of our men were pinned down and three assailants broke into the back of the house. Jessie was ordered to stay out of it but refused to listen. She killed three of the bastards and kept them off my guys. Then when we couldn’t find the female she went looking and damned if she didn’t find her. We would have missed the female if Jessie hadn’t been so sure there was a Species there.”
One of the task team members stepped closer. “I’m Trey Roberts, Jessie’s team leader. She saved my ass and Mike’s.” He jerked his head to the other man standing next to him. “We were pinned down and those assholes could have picked us off since we couldn’t retreat. We were under fire. Jessie shot all three of them.”
“She faked one out,” Mike chuckled. “She pretended to be shot and dying to get the son of a bitch to come finish her off. She took him down in a snap.”
The senator’s mouth hung open. “She killed three men? No one told me that.”
Tim paled. “I would have but you just arrived. I ordered her to find a hole, sir. She should have hidden until we could reach her but she refused to listen to me. That’s why I was going to put her over my knee.”
“She isn't supposed to be in danger.” The senator gasped again. “You aren’t supposed to send her in until it’s safe for her to make contact with the New Species.”
“You’re the one who gave her a gun,” Tim grunted. “She thinks she’s part of the team because you keep telling her she is. You know how stubborn she can be. I tell her what to do but she doesn’t listen. If she did then she would have waited outside but hell no. Not your daughter. She demanded to go in with the men so she could be right on the spot for the woman if we found one. She would have probably stolen a car and rammed the gates on her own if I hadn’t put her with a team.”
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