Eternal Embrace (11 page)

Shit.
He stumbled to his feet, slipped on the paper, hit his knee on the floor, but jumped back up, already racing to his closet. He had to go. He had to find her. Grinning like a crazy man, he flattened each note, folded them neatly and tucked them into the inside pocket of his jacket.

He’d find her. Oh, man, would he find her. Fighting was over for him, at least for a while. At least until he trained her to stand by his side. He shoved his hair off his eyes and scanned the room. She belonged here, with him.

Soon, soon, baby, I’m going to find you and damn, I’m going to enjoy making this up to you.

Chapter Nine

Joey stared at Evan’s pale, almost blue face. The song by The Fray,
Never Say Never
, played on the radio, making this harder than it already was for her.

Evan had always been so full of happiness. His easy smile and laughing eyes had always been there for her when life had just been too hard. His warm personality and intelligence had aided her through some rough times. Odd that when she’d returned home to Washington, she’d not sought him out.

Maybe because this was just a pit stop. Not a full return. How could it be? She shouldn’t have come. She should have never come.

Now, Evan was dead.

Would she have missed this? This new pain? First Jaxon, then her granddad and now Evan. There was no one else. Not one person she could call or go to and know they understood her, let alone cared enough to drop whatever they were doing and be there for her.

No one ever had.

She brushed his blond hair off his forehead. He’d always done that—shoved his hair off his brow—if he’d not been wearing his cowboy hat. An image of him, smiling at her from a fence, popped into her mind. They’d been at a rodeo. She’d run barrels, he’d ridden a bull. She’d been terrified and excited for him in equal measure. He’d won first place, and she’d hugged him tight afterwards. She could even remember his warm, safe heartbeat against her. The moment somehow must have etched itself into her being. She knew why. That hug reminded her of sunshine. So warm and comforting she’d only to think on it and recall it all over again. Happiness. That was what his hug had been.

An image of Jaxon, big and strong, flooded her mind, his strong face constricted in passion as he pushed inside her body. He’d made her feel alive—so much so that she’d been unable to attend to anything but thoughts of him the whole trip back to the States. Her grandfather’s home had been dark, cool and soothing, except nothing had eased the pain of losing Jaxon. In their brief time together, he’d filled her world—now, without him it was if someone had used a scalpel to remove something essential from her body.

Was he dead? Such a thing seemed impossible to imagine, but what else would have kept him away? He’d been so clear on that—almost like he was promising her a whole lot more than his ‘
no matter what, I’ll be back—nothing, nothing will keep me away, Joey’.

“He was your friend, wasn’t he?”

She spun to see Sarah Travis standing in the doorway of the morgue, looking pretty and sweet in her pink nurse’s scrubs and little white tennis shoes. Joey settled her heartbeat and nodded. For some reason, Sarah irked her.

“Yes, he was.”

“You shouldn’t do an autopsy on a friend. I don’t think it’s allowed.” Setting down a chart, she turned and left without another word.

Well, maybe you irked her too, Joey.
Still, the woman didn’t like her to a degree that pissed Joey off. What had she done, except come home to work in the same hospital with the stupid girl?

Didn’t matter, no one was cutting Evan up but her.

Freezing, she fisted her hand, her stomach bottoming out.

Fuck, cutting Evan up?

Swallowing past a lump in her throat, she walked over and picked up the chart. The dim lights of the morgue were a sad, sad affair. The fluorescents overhead were so old she doubted they even made the correct wattage bulb any longer. Dark and dim worked for
CSI: NY
, but this wasn’t Hollywood. She had to walk back over to Evan to read his report.

Possible gunshot wound to the chest. Glancing up from the report on Evan, she tried to make sense of why anyone would kill him. No one even disliked him, let alone hated him enough to do this.

Disgusted, she set the lab report aside and pushed the blue sheet down his chest, spotting the large fist-sized burn mark on his chest. Gunshot? It looked more like a cannon ball.

She put on a pair of gloves, then lifted Evan’s shoulder and rolled him to the side. His back showed the same mark—as if he’d got too close to a fire. There wasn’t an exit wound that she could see. Gently lowering him, she sighed then began to examine his chest more closely. Pulling the overhead lamp down with one hand, she bent as soon as she could see clearly and inspected the wound. She saw no entry. No hole. No blood. Nothing to suggest a bullet had entered him.

What the hell did that mean?

“Excuse me?”

She jumped two feet and landed facing a young-looking woman with bright purple bangs and a white shaggy haircut. She was dressed in low-slung black cargo pants, a white short tank and a big clunky studded leather belt. Heavy eye makeup made her eyes look glamorous and her face bright, cheerful even.

Popping her pink gum, the woman nodded to Evan. “Can we have a peek?”

Peek?

Joey sucked in a breath at the man standing behind her. Tall, lean, with an evil scar running from his left eye to his temple and past his strong jaw, he stared at her with the steadiness of a hunter spotting prey. He reminded her of the Terminator, only one heck of lot more deadly. She had the impression if she so much as moved too quickly, he’d have her pinned to the wall, tagged and bagged.

“Yeah, so, we need to take a peek, it won’t take long, pinkie promise.”

Joey swung her gaze back to the less frightening of the two.

“No.” Uh, damn. Did she just say that? ’Cause, shit. This was serious.

There was no way the guy was human, and the girl? Not so much. Joey scented something wild, almost like the mountains after a huge thunderstorm.
Immortals.
What had Jax told her? She’d know when another immortal was near. She’d been confused then, but now, standing in a room with these two, she sensed it, a difference she’d never experienced with anyone else. Not even Jaxon. But immortals, here, in her small town?

Cocking a delicate eyebrow, the woman grinned, her pink lip-gloss shining in the low lights. “Huh, is that so?”

“Absolutely. No one is allowed back here.”

“Look, you got backbone,
chica
. I have no idea what your game is, working in a morgue, but hell, whatever gets your rocks off. We”—pointing a thumb at her chest, then behind her to the silent warrior in jeans and a long trench coat—“gotta see the dude.”

Standoff. Or not. ’Cause well, A, they were trained to do things Jax hadn’t got around to showing her, and B, Joey wasn’t. And oh, yeah, C, there were two of them.

Still, Jax had taught her one thing. She got nothing from backing down. “This is
my
morgue. That’s
my
friend,” she said clearly, and stepped between them and Evan’s body. “And you’re not touching him.”

Terminator raised his eyebrows, and his face split with his grin. “She does have spirit. Sure she’s new to the fangs?” he said with some kind of accent—maybe Russian or Eastern European.

“Yeah, less than a year, I’d guess. Turned, I think, but”—the woman tipped her head to the side and frowned—“it’s not clear, though. Shit, I have no idea what she’s thinking though. Maybe blood withdrawal.”

“Hey! I’m standing right here!” Joey reminded them.

They both turned to give her the ‘duh’ look.

“All right. I’m Hunter, this is Viktor. We don’t want to have to press the issue, you know? Sorta rude, but here’s the deal—”

“I already heard you. I’m Joey and no, I’m not going through blood withdrawal. It’s none of your business how old I am, and you don’t need to worry about what I’m thinking. Did I miss anything?”

“Holy panties in a bind, girl, calm down,” Hunter said, holding her hands up as if she surrendered.

Not likely. Joey firmed her stance and gave them her ‘
you ordered the double mocha, and now you say you don’t like chocolate’
glare. “You’re in my morgue and no one is touching anything or anybody.”

“Lookit, that’s cool and all but—”

“Wasn’t there a sign out front saying employees only? Because I could go get it. I’m trying to do an examination here,” she explained to Hunter. What kind of cool name was that?
Hunter.
It sounded made up, like Apple, or something.

“Uh,
chica
, that is so not happening. We kinda need the dude.” Hunter grinned and popped a pink bubble again with her gum.

Viktor crossed his big arms over his chest, appearing to enjoy the show.

Joey wasn’t, but at least the two of them seemed to take her seriously—they’d not attacked her or anything at least.

“We just need to examine him, possibly remove him, but hey, let’s start with the exam, shall we?”

“What? No way. No fucking way.” Picking up her scalpel made Joey feel marginally better.

“Enough, let’s take him and go,” Viktor muttered.

Oh, he did not just say that.
The Terminator headed in her direction with a look like he meant business, but Joey gripped Evan’s arm and held on. “Back up, and no one is taking anyone.”

“We’re only going to examine him,” Hunter argued.

“Over my dead body.”

“Uh,
chica
? You are like already the walking dead, right?”

Joey ignored how funny that was and shook her head. “You’re not taking him. No way.”

Sighing heavily, Viktor said something to Hunter in a language she didn’t know and didn’t like. After only a minute of that, they both turned back to her.

“So, just to be clear. This man is your friend?” Hunter asked.

“Yes.”

“And you want to know what happened to him?” she persisted.

Viktor tried to move closer.

“Stop that! Stand still, or so help me God, I will seriously hurt you,” Joey warned.

Viktor stood taller and just stared at her.

Joey glared at the woman and finally demanded, “And you, what do you mean? Do you know what happened to him?”

Hunter shrugged and folded her arms. “I do, or I might. But I can’t find out unless you let me closer.”

Joey walked around the table, putting it between them. Viktor watched her to the exclusion of all else. She didn’t even think he blinked. Eerie, really.

Focus here, Joey!

Turning to Hunter, she tried to decide what to do.
Evan.
That should be her biggest concern.

“This human was your friend?” Viktor suddenly asked.

“He
is
my friend and I won’t sit by if someone harmed him.” If these immortals were here, they might be the reason why he was dead. She’d heard Jax talking on the phone. She’d known something was going on. Something big. Well, duh, she’d been part of that big something. The club had hid more than just her attackers. Jaxon had left to deal with something big, or he’d not have left. Was this part of what had called him away? Or was she being too naïve?

The only way to find out would be to let Hunter near him, she decided.

“All right, but no touching unless I say.”

Hunter nodded and walked over, Viktor a pace behind.

“There’s only this burn mark. Report says one gunshot wound to the chest, but that’s not it, is it?”

Hunter murmured something, and shifted the hospital sheet farther down his chest. “Yeah, poor guy. Looks like a blast of electric current maybe? Something big, and see here, the electrodes would have been here and here.” Touching his temple then his chest, Joey sucked in a breath when she, too, noticed the small round marks.
Electrodes. Electric shock?

“What does this mean? Have you seen this before?” she demanded.

Hunter looked up and Joey relaxed. She had kind eyes, under the glam and makeup. She hid a warm tenderness, Joey realised. “Yeah, I have. You two were close?”

Joey grimaced and tugged her gloves off. They snapped, and she threw them in the garbage by the table. “Yeah, we were close, but not like that. We grew up together.”

“Do you know where they found him?”

Picking up the file, Joey frowned, reading an address for an old warehouse outside town, in the foothills and way off the beaten path. Well, most everything was out here, but still, this place had been condemned and closed before she’d come to town. Her grandfather had once worked there, she thought. Some sort of factory.

“A warehouse, outside of town. It’s been closed for, I don’t know, fifty years or maybe more,” Joey said.

Hunter and Viktor shared a look, before both focused on her again.

“Is this your town?” Viktor’s voice was so deep she could almost feel it in her breastbone.

“It was. Thinking of moving on now.”

“She shouldn’t go on the hunt,” Victor grumbled.

Joey stared over at him for a few shocked seconds before she shook her head and turned back to Hunter. She was going. She’d not thought of it until he’d said she shouldn’t, but she was going.

“I want to go. I think I need a break from work anyway,” she said, trying to sound confident and strong.

Hunter smothered a laugh with a cough. “Well, you got any skills?”

“Yeah, sure, I know where the old warehouse is and I can drive fast and not even get a speeding ticket on the way.”

“It takes more than that, but those are some mad skills. Next time,” Hunter said, clearly not getting that Joey was going. She nodded to Viktor and he walked over to the double doors and swung one open for Hunter.

“Wait! I want in. I want to know what happened to him.” Joey dug up every stubborn bone she had and when they turned, she faced them both with a steady, somewhat breathless, but challenging look.

Viktor and Hunter shared another longer look, then with a sigh, the big scarred man shook his brown hair out of his eyes and gave Hunter one sharp nod.

“Okay, you’re in, but you get hurt or taken and we leave your ass there, got it?” Hunter said.