Mercury

by Emerald Dodge

  I instantly slumped and closed my eyes. Idiots. Reuben, please, please, please figure out what I’m doing. And don’t hate me afterward.

  Light crossed my face, and I heard Reuben move. “Okay, you got me. I surrender. Put the gun down, ma’am.”

  “Is he dead?” Helen asked. Her small, ploppy footsteps came closer.

  “Injured and unconscious.”

  “Good. Beau wants to do it himself.” She was right next to us now.

  There was a little pop of air as Helen made decent eye contact with Reuben—it was the sound of air filling the vacuum where her body had been a second before. Her clothes and flashlight fell to the floor in a muffled heap. The flashlight shattered and went out, sending us into darkness once more.

  A gunshot pierced the silence.

  There was a masculine groan, and then Helen’s voice sounded again next to me with a shriek. “He shot me!”

  The second gunshot was followed by the thud of her body hitting the ground.

  I reached out and touched Reuben, healing energy flowing from my fingers into wherever I’d hit him. “My butt,” he said, answering my unasked question. “Thanks for that.”

  Terrence and Wendy screeched curses and various threats at us, but I just laughed breathily, then winced. When the pain had ebbed, I said, “Maybe the rest will be as easy. We’ll just pick them off as they come, if that’s that case.”

  I didn’t have the heart to say that my strength was failing. I’d lost a lot of blood.

  The lights slammed on one by one, the room flooding with brilliant fluorescence and electronic buzzing. After the spots in my vision cleared, I saw that Reuben was kneeling next to me in the corner, and my entire pant leg was soaked with blood. Thankfully, we were shielded from further gunfire from above by a twisted heap of shelving.

  Unfortunately, the two people in the doorway could see us just fine.

  Robbie and Ashley…yet more members of the old crowd I’d left behind. They were just a few years older than me, and I’d seen them in action.

  Yeah, this is how I’m going to die.

  Ashley didn’t look away from us as she said, “Sic ‘em.”

  Robbie fell forward and landed on his four giant paws, a German Shepherd standing where a man used to be. He sprinted towards us, mouth foaming.

  Reuben threw up a shield at the same time that the wind and rain materialized again, knocking me down onto the floor.

  Ashley began to walk towards me.

  Gunfire rang around us, missing us, hitting the shelving, hitting the walls, ricocheting everywhere. Robbie’s diabolical growling and snarling mixed with Reuben’s shouts of effort.

  I hastily grabbed my gun and tried to aim, though my hands were shaking. If Robbie could just hold still…

  Hail began to fall. First pea-sized, then golf ball-sized, it rained down on everything, creating a sharp roar of marbles on concrete and metal. A sharp rap on my forehead was quickly followed by warm blood trickling down my nose.

  Reuben was on his back now, trying to toss Robbie off with his powers—but the solid black shadows looked a lot less solid than before.

  More war drums beat wildly in the parking lot.

  Another golf ball on the forehead. I wiped the blood off my face, but still more flowed down the side of my nose.

  Ashley reached down and grasped my hand, her paralyzing touch coursing through my body and causing me to go still, unable to flinch away from the hail or anything else.

  “Got you,” she said, her lips curling. “Beau will be very happy. Thank you for being a little whelp and not fighting back.”

  I closed my eyes. Jillian, I’m coming. I’ll be with you soon.

  There was an odd sound—a whoosh, and then a metallic chuk followed by Ashley gasping…and my muscles loosening.

  I opened my eyes. A steel blade was sticking out of Ashley’s chest, directly where her heart was.

  I knew that blade. I turned my head, dizzy with a thousand emotions.

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position, eyes wide.

  Jillian was standing in the middle of the storeroom. Reid and Marco were at her side, eyes aglow and their hands up, powers at the ready.

  She unsheathed another knife from her thigh. “Who’s next?”

  Item Twenty-Seven

  Article in the Washington Post’s Style section, dated March 11, 1979.

  Janice L. Lewis Marries Henry B. Trent

  Janice L. Lewis of Middleburg, Va. and Henry B. Trent of Annapolis, Md. were married on March 9, at the historic Oatlands Plantation located in Loudoun County, Va. The Reverend Scott Larsen officiated.

  Janice, 24, is the daughter of the Dr. and Mrs. John Lewis, also of Middleburg. She is a graduate of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where she studied Journalism. She is the granddaughter of Mr. Benjamin Lewis, noted D.C. businessman and founder of the Lewis Foundation, and his wife, Leah. She is also the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Stanhope, of Manassas, Va.

  Henry, 28, is the son of the late Mr. Franklin Trent and Mrs. Eleanor Trent, also of Annapolis. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where he studied business. Henry is employed in his family’s business, Trent Consultants.

  Clara Lewis, sister of the bride, served as maid of honor. Bridesmaids were Erin Lewis, sister of the bride, Alexandra Edge, Ashlynn Peery, Danielle Snider, and Amber-Jean Hensey. Flower girl was Katherine Lewis, cousin of the bride. Michael Lewis, brother of the bride, and Franklin Trent III, twin brother of the groom, were best men. Ring bearer was Adam Rowe, a friend of both families.

  Janice wore a custom-designed wedding gown by Chanel, and carried a bouquet of cream and red roses.

  The rehearsal dinner and reception, hosted by the groom’s parents, was held at their home.

  The couple will honeymoon in the UK, France, Switzerland, and Croatia, then reside in Annapolis.

  27

  A huge tiger streaked past Jillian and the others, bounding up the stairs without slowing.

  “No!” Wendy shrieked. She threw herself in front of Terrence. “Stay back!”

  Wendy didn’t stand a chance. The tiger barreled into her with a deafening roar, slashing at her arms and chest with six-inch claws. More gunshots rang out, but it merely grabbed the gun in its huge jaws and tossed it aside.

  In just a few seconds, all that was left of Wendy was the blood that dripped off the walkway, falling from the edges and through the small holes in the metal.

  “I surrender! I surrender!” Terrence scrambled backwards across the walkway, making it bounce a little. “Don’t kill me, please!” His voice wavered, and then he started sobbing. He fell into a kowtow position, his hands over his head.

  The tiger simply sat on him, eliciting a squeaky, muffled sob from Terrence.

  Robbie had jumped off of Reuben and backed into the wall, the hair on his back spiky with fear. He growled, tremors coursing through his canine body as he stared back and forth between Jillian and the tiger on the walkway.

  Jillian tossed her hair, then looked over her shoulder. “Abby, if you would.”

  A smaller tiger sprinted from the parking lot through the bay doors. Robbie’s growls evaporated into whines, and he leapt over Reuben to escape down the hall. A streak of orange and black collided with him before he could get there.

  I closed my eyes, but couldn’t stop the sound of Robbie being ripped apart. Thus always to enemies of Abby.

  Jillian was at my side in an instant, her hands shaking as she moved me into a sitting position against the wall. She didn’t bother to hide her tears. “Oh god, you’re bleeding really badly. Hold still, please don’t move more than you have to. I stopped carrying a tourniquet last year.” She laughed without humor. “Why would I need a tourniquet when I had you, right?”

  Her fragrant hair, held in place by a ponytail, tumbled down in front of my face, bringing me closer to lucidity. Reuben and Reid were speaking with Marco on the other side of the room, paying us no mind. None of t
hem looked surprised that Jillian was alive.

  She ripped off her gloves and stroked my cheeks and eyelids. “We came as soon as we could,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. I couldn’t figure out where you were when the bombs started going off, and then the battle began and things got so crazy…” She wiped at her eyes. “When I realized you’d been kidnapped again, I…”

  I wiped the tears off her chin, but still more came. “You’re alive,” I said, the words feeling like a prayer of thanks. “How?”

  Someone up there liked me. That was how. That was the only explanation. A resurrection.

  She kissed my hand. “Bombs don’t stop Battlecry. Pneumonia might, but not bombs.” She giggled, though a little hysterically.

  “But you were dead.”

  Jillian paused and stared at me for a second, then looked over her shoulder and shouted, “Marco! I need you! He’s lost a lot of blood!”

  Marco hurried over. He was bruised and battered, but otherwise unharmed. “Gotcha.” Kneeling next to me, he quickly patted me all over, his face an even mix of angry and concerned. “Ben, can you tell me what they did? Stabbed? Shot? Any kind of needle wounds?”

  Needle wounds? Why would he think…

  Oh.

  Ember had told them that we’d been kidnapped. He assumed I was sporting the injuries of torture.

  I swallowed down more pain and shifted my leg, wincing at the fiery flare. “I got shot in the fight, that’s all,” I said, grunting a little. “I’m bleeding too much.”

  Jillian whipped out a knife and sliced my pant leg open, then hissed when she saw the bullet wound. It was fairly shallow, and had missed major arteries, but it was still ugly.

  “Marco, you know what to do,” she said. “Sweetheart, I’m going to give you my sheath to bite on. He’s going to cauterize your wound. It won’t help the confusion, unfortunately, but since you can’t heal yourself…”

  She was swaying.

  No, I was swaying.

  Ugh, everything was swaying.

  But I didn’t need agonizing field surgery. I had enough mental fiber to remember the moron that Edward was sitting on.

  I closed my hand around Jillian’s and shook my head, then stared up at Marco. “The guy on the walkway. Power mimic.”

  “On it,” Marco said, jumping to his feet. “Hey, Ed! We need the dipstick!”

  A laugh escaped my chest, but I wasn’t particularly amused. My physical emotions were incongruent with the turbulence in my mind. Jillian was alive—but how? Where was Beau? Was anything real? Was I dying? Was this some kind of supernatural waiting room, with Jillian greeting me with her kind eyes and gentle hands? Had all of my friends, and a few of my enemies, died in the Battle of the Super Hospital?

  Jillian leaned down and placed a soft kiss on my lips, then guided my head to the floor. “Rest now.”

  Terrence shouted in protest in the distance, but was immediately cut off by a terrifying roar. Marco ordered him to keep his hands on his head while he walked down the stairwell.

  I was definitely still alive. There was no way Marco and Terrence would’ve ended up in the same afterlife. Also, the Fischers had disappeared.

  “Where’s Reid and Reuben? Everyone else?” I mumbled. “Where’s Beau?”

  “Edward is keeping a lookout up there. Berenice and Lark are cleaning up back at the hospital, working with law enforcement and all that. Abby is patrolling the perimeter. Reid and Reuben are looking for Ember. She contacted Reid from somewhere in the building. I don’t know where Beau is, but if he has two brain cells to rub together, he’s nowhere near here anymore. We’ve won, sweetie.”

  People kept saying that to me. Why didn’t they understand? Nobody had won crap until my brother was pushing up daisies.

  She stood before I could reply, towering above me while she slowly unsheathed a knife from her shoulder. “If you make any sudden moves, Helios will break your legs. Is that clear?”

  Terrence pulled a face. “I thought you guys were supposed to all nice and stuff. What’s stopping me from turning into a tiger now and eating all of you?”

  Terrence was on the ground at once, pinned down by Marco with his arms in a painful submission hold. Marco positioned Terrence’s head in such a way that a firm motion to the side would snap his spinal cord.

  “You’re not very smart, are you?” Marco hissed into his ear.

  From up above, Edward shouted, “I call dibs on his pelt if Battlecry kills him!”

  Marco visibly suppressed laughter.

  Jillian kneeled next to Terrence. “You’ve been grossly misinformed. I’m not nice. None of us are nice. A few days ago, I slaughtered Janice Trent and William Rowe in their beds. Believe me, buddy—I have no problem ordering a few broken limbs.”

  “Don’t kill me,” Terrence squeaked.

  “If you do every single thing I say without hesitation, I will let you live. Now, stick out your hand. Marco, let him.”

  Marco nudged Terrence’s right arm out of the hold, and Terrence extended it across the sopping floor.

  Jillian carefully moved my arm forward until my fingers were just out of Terrence’s reach. If I uncurled them, I would’ve been able to touch his hand. She aimed a cool expression at Terrence. “You’re going to absorb Benjamin’s healing factor, then heal him.”

  She patted my hand, and I closed the small distance between us. My fingertips brushed his. What would my own power feel like? Probably a lot of endorphins.

  There was a small pause when nothing happened, and then—

  No wonder my family won’t let me go.

  Warm water coursed through my veins. Heavenly lightness spread its fingers into my muscles, rejuvenating and relaxing as it went, every ache and pain lessening and then petering out into nothing. My whole body seemed to inflate with life itself, making my back arch as I cried out from the shock.

  Every single time someone had reached out a bloody, shaking hand for mine…I thought I’d understood. They’d wanted healing, and I could provide it. But now I truly comprehended what my power was like, what it meant to go from brokenness to wholeness.

  “How do you f—”

  Jillian’s question was swallowed by my kiss.

  I held her tight, not caring who was watching. The emotions of the last half hour, held back by pain and encroaching hypovolemic shock, were finally free to be felt. They demanded to be acknowledged, but instead of tears, I just kissed Jillian and soaked up her body heat, and her love. I’d lived whole hours believing I’d never bask in her love again, and it had been lifetimes too long.

  Brokenness to wholeness—first in my body, and then in my heart.

  She broke for air, but I was a greedy man. I pulled her back in for another kiss, and she let me. This really was her. There was no counterfeit in the woman I was holding in my arms.

  I knew Jillian, in every sense. I knew her scent, the sunbaked aroma of the warm southern wind and Georgia mountains. I knew every curve of her perfect body as my hands rememorized them. I knew the stubborn baby curl at her temple, always just a shade lighter than the dark brown hair everywhere else. I knew the long strand of hair on the side of her face that never stayed put. I knew the little birthmark on the bridge of her nose, the one shaped like a tiny heart. I knew the faint scar on her chin from a fight with Berenice years before.

  I knew the way she melted in my embrace, completely given over to the way she said no man had ever made her feel before.

  I knew my wife.

  “Benjamin,” she whispered, pulling away from me to breathe. “What did they do to you? You’re shaking.”

  “They didn’t do anything to me,” I said, sucking in an unsteady breath. “Ember and I came here because I thought you were dead. I was coming to get the JM-104 and avenge your murder.”

  Her mouth opened in surprise. “My murder? Why did you think I was dead?”

  The tears finally came, silent and hot. I kissed her forehead, but this time so she wouldn’t be able to see my fac
e. “I saw Brock Snider shoot you outside your hospital room. I did. I saw it. I swear I’m not crazy. I did. I d… I d-did…”

  “Nurse Laura was outside your room,” Marco said evenly as he rearranged his hostage in another submission hold. He had the compassion to study his nails as he continued, “When we were looking for survivors, I saw her and thought it was Jill for a second. The red lights made it hard to make out whether she was wearing the navy scrubs that the nurses wear or the purple scrubs Jill was wearing. Since Jill was standing next to me when I saw her, I’ll admit I was pretty confused. But like I told you over dinner…dying just isn’t Jill’s style.”

  I closed my eyes in shame as I realized Brock’s deception. He’d looked so amused by some private joke when he’d left that hallway, and now I knew that it had been nothing more than a puerile illusion to make me think my wife had died. I’d fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker. I’d killed him in cold blood over it.

  Oh, God. I’d threatened to murder Ember.

  I bowed my head. “I need to find Ember and apologize for something. I’ll explain later.”

  Jillian nodded and stepped back. “Actually, we all need to find Ember and come up with a plan. This place will have law enforcement swarming around it in no time.”

  Terrence looked up from the floor. “No! I can’t go to j—”

  Marco punched him out cold.

  Jillian smiled, and she beckoned for us to follow her down the hall. “Abby, Edward, you can come in with us,” she said loudly. “We’re regrouping.”

  Edward raced down the stairwell and met Abby as she hurried into the storeroom. They bumped noses, then walked together past us and down the hall. Marco rolled his eyes and tagged along after them. They all disappeared around a corner, not once looking to see if we were following.

  Oh no, that wasn’t a sweet effort to give Jillian and me a minute in private. Nope.

  Jillian laced her fingers in mine and bumped her nose to mine, too. “I tiger-love you.”