Chapter Seventy-Four
AJ
Nurse Elaine pokes her head in the door. “Mr. Stone? I’m goin’ off shift soon. How’s our girl doin?”
I get to my feet, doing my best to stifle my groan. “Any chance dinner might come with some heat to it? Grace barely ate breakfast this morning. She’s got a strong aversion to bland food.”
I don’t tell the nurse that it’s PTSD. That near as we can figure, the mostly empty room with the plain wood walls she spent three goddamn years in didn’t come with salt, pepper, or any sort of flavor to whatever meals she was allowed.
“Not much I can do about that, I’m afraid. Bland is the order of the day around here. But I won’t say anythin’ if you smuggle in a bottle of hot sauce. There’s a grocery store right around the corner.” She offers me a wink, and with a quick check of the monitors, rushes off to her next patient.
I glance over at Parker, sitting cross-legged in the corner, the glow from her laptop screen tinging her cheeks.
“Go,” she says. “I’ll sit with Grace. She won’t wake up alone.”
“I can’t leave her.” Fear practically chokes me. As long as I’m at her side, I know she’s safe. Alive. Healing. It doesn’t matter how much I trust Parker. She ain’t me.
“AJ, when was the last time you even took a piss? You’re no good to her half-dead yourself.
” Parker closes the laptop with a heavy click, sets it on the window sill, and yawns as she stretches her arms over her head.
Then she points at the door. “So here’s the deal.
You go. You grab hot sauce. And while you’re at it, queso and chips too.
I’ll nuke it downstairs and she’ll actually eat. Don’t argue.”
She’s right. Dammit. She’s right. If only that made it easier to walk out the door.
I’m in the middle of the hot sauce aisle when my phone buzzes in my pocket. One glance at the screen, and I drop the bag of chips in my hand.
Perimeter Breach - Backyard Cam
Connor’s message follows in under ten seconds. “Possible movement off the deck.”
Fuck.
I’m already moving, shoving my way past a guy debating salsa brands like his life depends on it. Taking off at a run, I make it out the sliding doors, across the street, and back to the hospital in under two minutes.
The elevators in this place are too damn slow. Stairs it is. I nearly collide with Hardison as I burst out onto the neuro floor.
“They’re—” I’m still moving, almost to Grace’s room, when Nate grabs my arm.
“You’re not running point from her bedside, man. Grace doesn’t need a live action suspense movie playing out in her hospital room.” He turns me around, prodding me past the nurses’ station. “Last room on the right is empty. We can work without spooking her. Parker’s got her.”
Marvin rounds the corner before we make it to the end of the hall. That damn belt buckle shines like the sun amid his black pants and dark gray shirt.
“Somethin’ goin’ on?” he asks.
“No time,” I snap. “Post yourself outside Grace’s door and don’t fucking move until I relieve you. Got it?”
“Yeah. Sure. But if you need any help—”
Hardison glares at him. “Help is you on doorstop duty, man. Don’t improvise.”
I slide my comms device into my ear and mutter, “Talk to me.”
Grace
For the first time since my surgery, the pencil feels steady—right—in my hand. Steadier than my thoughts. Parker’s gone over the alphabet with me half a dozen times today. She’s always slow. Always patient. And when I make it from A to Z without fumbling, she smiles so wide, my own lips curve too.
But the shadows have started creeping in at the edges of my vision. Whispers I can’t understand echo against my skull. They’re ghosts. Memories I can’t touch, even now.
So while she sits in the chair next to my bed, her eyes closed, I draw.
For weeks now, I’ve tried to get this one image from my head to the page. I could see fragments of it, but whenever I tried to piece it together, all the lines and curves blended into what might as well have been a child’s first scribble.
This time, it’s clearer. Or, at least parts of it are.
The lanterns. The altar. The cult members gathered to watch me die.
I turn the page, try to find another angle.
This one is better. In front of one of the poles is a man.
Average height. A little overweight. Short hair, thinning on top. And at his waist, a large belt buckle.
I switch to drawing just the buckle. A man riding a bull. His arm raised high in the air, hat in hand. But it’s the lettering around the outside that’s always confused me. The brightness of it. The ugliness of it.
Fort Worth Rodeo
I can’t say the words. They’d come out all jumbled—nothing but an incomprehensible mess of vowels and consonants.
Oh, my God. It all makes sense now.
Why I couldn’t draw it before. Maybe even why I can now.
My brain took all the shapes—the man, the bull, the hat, the letters—and jumbled them all together.
My surprised gasp startles Parker, and she sits up with a jerk. “Shit. I’m tired. AJ went to get you queso. Store bought, but it’ll still be better than the food in this place.”
I grin and sign. “Love q-u-e-s-o.”
She laughs, the sound soft, almost gentle. But after a glance at her phone, her head tilts, and her muscles stiffen.
“AJ’s on with Connor. Might be a couple of minutes,” she says, too quickly.
Shit. Something’s wrong. I reach for her hand, and she squeezes my fingers.
“Hey. Don’t worry. Marvin’s right outside, and I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
My heart stutters. No. Not him. I shake my head, try to force the words out. “Marvin… Bad.” But all that escapes is a mess of broken sounds.
Frustrated, I shove the sketchbook at her, then jab the page.
Parker frowns. “Lanterns?”
Why can’t she understand? Dammit. She’s looking at the wrong image.
I lean over, almost losing my balance as the vertigo pitches the whole room sideways, but manage to flip to the drawing of the buckle.
Her eyes widen. “Wait—”
The door opens, and Marvin ambles in, all calm, an easy smile on his face. “AJ’ll be back soon. Just figured I’d come check on the two of you. See if you needed anythin’.”
My breath saws in and out of my throat, the terror hitting so hard, the edges of my vision dim.
Parker leaps out of her chair, but she’s a second too late. The butt of Marvin’s gun whips across the back of her skull, and she crumples to the floor with a strangled moan.
“Nnnnnn!” I try to haul myself out of bed, but the world tilts, and I land next to Parker in a heap.
I blink up at Marvin with tears in my eyes. He pulls open the door. “All clear.”
Two men dressed in blue scrubs rush in with a gurney. I kick at them, but they grab me, slam me down, and tighten straps over my chest, my arms, my thighs, and my ankles. One of them pulls a syringe from his pocket.
I open my mouth to scream, but the other wraps his hand around my throat and squeezes.
Hard. The needle stings my arm. I buck and thrash, my body desperate for air.
But within seconds, a dull warmth spreads through me.
My arms and legs are so heavy. I barely feel the IV ripped from the back of my hand.
“Take her too,” Marvin orders, jerking his thumb at Parker’s limp body.
No. Not Parker!
The taller of the two men grabs the wheelchair in the corner of the room, hauls Parker up by one arm, and dumps her into the chair. Zip ties tighten around her wrists before he throws a blanket over her from chest to toes.
Marvin yanks my sketchbook from the floor, and rips the last page free. “Throw this drivel away. Somewhere no one can find it.”
The ceiling swims above me, the drug turning the world soft and shimmery.
Elevator. We’re going up. Oh, God.
Cold night air crashes over me as a door slams open. The inky black sky is alight with stars. Rotors thump overhead, deafening, rattling my bones.
Parker stirs, coming awake with a feral scream. She lunges for me, but one of the men in scrubs punches her in the face, then throws her onto the deck of the helicopter.
I’m fading. Darkness closes in. The gurney jolts, the straps biting tighter each time.
“Careful with her, Brother Vincent,” one of the nurses mutters, shifting his grip.
“Why? Prophet just needs her alive for the ceremony tomorrow. It don’t matter if her brain’s hopelessly scrambled.”
Brother Vincent.
The memory hits me so hard, it steals my breath.
The night I ran away. Brother Vincent and Brother Malone chasing me. The ropes biting into my wrists. Dragging me from a horse when I could no longer run—or even stand.
Metal clanks against the helicopter’s frame as they shove me inside and lock the wheels into place. My chest heaves. The drug’s fog thickens, but adrenaline fights it back.
“Prophet is waiting,” Marvin barks. God, his voice sounds so far away. “He wants Nova purified before the ceremony tomorrow night.”
The words echo in my skull, terrifying in their finality.
The rotors scream louder, drowning out all other sounds. The floor vibrates under me. Harder. Faster. Until the world tilts, and the helicopter lifts off.
The city lights fade away—along with any hope I’ll ever see AJ again.