Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
SLOAN
“It’s obvious he’s not going to recover. All we can do now is make his last few moments as comfortable as possible.”
“And what about her and that huge wolf thing outside?”
“Sloan’s vitals are stable; she was just knocked unconscious. Aareth is another matter. We’ll have to do tests to see if he can change back to his human form at all.”
Sloan blinked her eyes open. She was in a room with a wooden ceiling and brick walls. She was lying on her back on some kind of table. Sitting up brought another wave of soreness that washed over her body.
“You should really get some more rest.” Edison rushed to her side, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Your body has been through a tremendous amount of trauma in a very short amount of time.”
“Who? You said somebody wasn’t going to make it.” Sloan pushed off Edison’s hand. “What happened to me?”
“You took a bullet in the skull, and all it did was knock you out,” Kimberly said, moving to stand next to Edison.
The mayor of Term’s face was still bruised and bloodied. If the gargoyle harbored any ill-will toward her or Edison, she didn’t show it.
“You’ve only been out for a few minutes.” Edison cleared his throat, preparing himself to say whatever was coming next.
“Aareth?” Sloan half-ran, half-stumbled to the window. She was on the second story. When she looked outside, she confirmed as much. Her view gave her the perfect line of sight to a rising sun and the black wolf creature in the backyard.
“He’s fine. It’s Doctor Livingston.” Edison motioned to a door that led into an adjacent room. “He took a bullet to the chest during the fight. He’s—he’s not going to make it.”
Sloan gave Edison a look of hate he didn’t deserve. She rushed into the next room as fast as her wobbling legs would take her. It was a study, with bookshelves lining the walls and a fireplace in the corner. Chairs had been moved to the side for a bed to be brought in.
Oliver lay in the bed, pasty white, with beads of sweat trickling down his forehead. His glasses were gone, lost somewhere in the rush to bring him upstairs, no doubt. He opened his eyes when he heard Sloan approach.
“A bullet to the head?” His breathing came in short and shallow gasps. “I would never have thought you were going to become what you are now. You are amazing, Charlotte Sloan, and what this world needs now more than ever.”
Sloan could feel the sting of fresh tears force themselves to the front of her eyes. She was too strong to blubber, but she couldn’t help the hot drops of salty sadness slide down her cheeks.
“There has to be a way.” Sloan looked back into the room where Edison and Kimberly stood. “Edison, do to him what you did to me. Give him some of the vampire elixir and the Phoenix Serum. We can still save him.”
Edison walked into the room, his expression already telling Sloan he didn’t have good news. “We don’t have any, and neither do we have the ingredients. Even if we did, it would take hours to create.”
“No, no there has to be a way!” Sloan grabbed Edison around the collar of his shirt so hard, the action pulled the scientist in close to her.
“Find a way. We’ve lost too much already.
Marcus is dead, the Ahab girls are growing up without a father, Aareth is a monster, and I’m …
I don’t know what I am, but we can’t lose Oliver, too. ”
Edison didn’t try to free himself from her grip. Tears also pooled in his own eyes. He shook his head.
Kimberly placed a massive grey hand on Sloan’s clutch around Edison’s collar. The gargoyle’s grasp was firm but not forceful.
“Easy. We’ve all done everything we can.
Though I don’t know the human well, and neither do I necessarily like him, the one you call Edison has tried his best. All we can do now is to be with your friend while he passes to the world beyond.
Let his last moments be around friends and laughter, not strife.
” Kimberly released her hold on Sloan’s hands.
“If not for your own sake, then do it for the one who waits on death’s door. ”
A lump the size of Elwood had worked its way to Sloan’s throat. She released her shaky grip on Edison’s clothing.
“I’ve instructed my men to release the one you call Ashley and bring her here,” Kimberly said as she left the room. “This time should be among the friends he knows.”
Somewhere in the back of Sloan’s mind, she knew she should thank the gargoyle, but all she felt at that moment was a numbness that came with shock and loss.
“You never would go out with me.” The doctor coughed. “Why would you never go out with me?”
Sloan sat on the edge of the doctor’s bed. A smile, not from joy but of pure surprise, crossed her lips. She took his hand in her own.
“I thought you were shady.” Sloan wiped a tear from her cheek. “And I don’t mix business with my personal life. Not that I have much of one of those anyway.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I was kind of shady.” The doctor inhaled a short, painful breath. “I was leading a secret organization known as The Order against the queen you served.”
Sloan sensed someone behind her. She turned to see Ashley and Elwood had joined Edison in the doorway.
Ashley’s shoulder-length brown hair bobbed in the wake of her movement. No tears pushed forth from her eyes, but the deepest look of sadness Sloan had ever seen had rested on her face.
The undead woman, raised from one of the very first experiments Leah Noble had ever started, walked around the bed and sat opposite Sloan, next to the dying doctor’s side. He took her hand in his own.
“You keep on fighting for what you know is right,” the doctor said through labored breathing. “All of you fight for a world free from the rule of dictators.”
Edison picked up Elwood, and the two took a spot at the foot of the bed. Fat tears were running freely down Edison’s cheeks; Elwood was sniffling and nodding along with the doctor’s words.
“If I had known who you really were…” Sloan gently squeezed Oliver’s cold hand. “If I had known the man you were, I would have said yes.”
There were no more words from the doctor. His chest stopped moving, but a smile touched his lips as he entered the world beyond.
A howl ripped through the air, this time not one filled with fury, but with sadness.