Undertow (31 page)

He wrapped his arms around me and fit my body against his, while his kisses traveled from my lips, to my face, to my cheek. He pulled me tighter to him still, wrapping his arms completely around my back, one hand bracing my shoulder blade.

His lips made my body glow and I let his love flow over me, wrapping me in warmth that held the fear at bay. I let myself feel his strong arms and his soft lips as they traveled to the edge of my face and slowly, gently down my neck.

He kept his face tucked into the side of my neck and I whispered one last time in his ear, “I love you.”

I felt him take a ragged, painful breath and he brought his face back to mine. I touched his cheek with my hand as his eyes locked with mine. And then I felt it – an icy, brutal stab to my chest as he forced a virtual opening in my soul.

The pain was instantaneous and excruciating.

I gasped and staggered, but he held me fast, refusing to let me fall, his arms like stone. My body immediately reacted to his supernatural invasion, and my heart began to race, causing my head to spin. But then I felt something else as well – a pull, as if he was drawing on my own essence.

It was only then that I realized I had made a terrible error; that while he most likely had immunity from my lethal talent, my own essence may still be deadly – and he knew it.

“Raef,” I gasped, hoping to stop him from drawing on me, but he continued mixing his stolen souls with my poisonous one. He knew I was going to die and he was going to go with me.

He rested his forehead to mine as he continued to bind our essence as his markings strobed, as if my life force was pumping through him.

Weakening, the icy burn began to bloom in my chest as my peripheral vision began to become blindingly bright. Even the pain was now becoming distant as I began to lose feeling in my body.

I tried to hold onto his shoulders, but I seemed to have lost all strength as my arms slowly slid down his back, now useless. My legs became leaden and buckled, but Raef, still strong, shifted his arms carefully to keep me from dropping to the floor. The arctic fire in my chest seemed to expand, spreading outward and my sight failed completely, turning to white.

And then I heard it.

The beginning of the Core’s collapse, targeting me. It was a high-pitched whine, like a jet spooling its engine.

Grant began shouting, suddenly alarmed, but he was too late. The fire within raced through my body, as if a dam let go, and I heard the clansmen scream.

My heart shuddered to a stop as death draped over me, shrouding the world in a beautiful, endless silence.

24

It was my worst fear come true
.
I was stuck between the world of the living and the afterlife, I was sure. 

I couldn’t see a damn thing or even move, since gravity apparently had increased ten-fold. My skin felt cold, as if I had been chilled by the weather and Novocaine numb.

Death sucks.

I could even hear my ancestors, calling my name. Loudly. Repeatedly. Actually, it was getting a tad irritating. One was even saying that I was coming around and that something was wearing off. 

Wait . . .
Wearing off?

I refocused my mind and attempted to see through the blackness and suddenly there was a bright flash of light.

“She’s trying to open her eyes! Eila! Can you hear me?” said the nagging male voice, almost breathless, as if he had run a marathon. I couldn’t respond, but the voice sounded like . . . MJ?  Oh god, did I somehow kill him too? I wanted to call to him, but all that came out was a low, ragged moan.

“She’s coming around quickly,” said a brisk, female voice followed by others jumbled together.  I was starting to get feeling back in the tips of my fingers and toes. I tried to see again and I got another flash of light.

“Doctor, do you want me to give her some Versed?” asked the brisk voice.

Doctor? What doctor? What the…?

“No, let’s just extubate her quickly before she starts fighting it,” said an older male voice. “Eila, if you can hear me, this is Doctor Wainright. We are going to take the tube that has been helping you breathe out of your throat, since you are doing well on your own.”

My first foggy thought was that I was thrilled to be alive, but that was quickly followed by panic about a tube down my throat, which I couldn’t seem to feel.

I heard MJ’s tense voice, “Her heart rate is up. She’s not in pain is she?” 

No one responded, but I did, in fact, start to feel a general ache through a large portion of my body. I suddenly had the urge to cough and in doing so my head started to pound.

Uh, yeah,
she
was definitely in pain. I felt like I had smacked into a brick wall doing 40.

“All done,” said the male voice. “Let’s get some oxygen on her.” 

I could hear sounds around me more clearly, including a rhythmic beeping and hissing. Someone had placed something over my nose and mouth and it caused cool air to flow over my face.

“Eila. Can you try and open your eyes?” asked the woman.

Though my body responded sluggishly to my requests, I managed to move my fingers and was rewarded with someone squeezing my hand. Another hand, which I realized, had been holding mine. “Eila? Eila – it’s MJ. Can you open your eyes for me? Can you squeeze my hand again?” 

Focusing every ounce of determination I had, I managed to flex my hand again and a strong squeeze clutched my fingers. I got another flash of light and realized I was blinking. After a few more attempts, I managed to keep my eyes open, though barely.

It was then that I could see the blurred but sterile environment of a hospital room. I looked around slowly and saw a doctor in a white, long coat standing next to my bed. Behind him were two nurses.

My hand was squeezed again and managed to turn my wobbly head to see MJ, sitting beside my bed, holding my hand. He was smiling at me, but his face looked like it had gone a few rounds with a WWF fighter in a cage of thorns. He had cuts over his cheekbone, eyebrow, and lip, and black and blue blotches on his face and arms.  The cuts were held together with little white strips of tape.

“You’re hurt,” I managed to whisper in a raspy, dry voice through the oxygen mask. Speaking made my throat scream and I winced. He smiled broadly and let out a laugh that sounded almost like a sob, apparently relieved I was back with the living.

Well, sort of.  I felt like I had just returned from Hell.

“Oh, thank God you’re alright! You scared the life out of all of us,” he said leaning down and kissing my hand, then glancing toward the far wall of the room. I followed his gaze and saw Ana smiling as she held herself up with crutches, her leg in a cast. 

“Shit,” I managed to croak as I realized how beaten and battered they looked. I heard MJ give a slight laugh, both at my foul language and the release of stress. 

“Raef? Kian?” I whispered, worried.

“They’re fine. We’re all okay,” said MJ, pressing my hand to his face. It was then that I noticed two men in dark suits stepping over to my bed, but the doctor stopped them.

“You’ve got five minutes. She needs to rest. And ask her yes or no questions only because of the intubation,” said Dr. Whats-his-name. He turned to me, “Don’t talk Eila. You’ve had that tube in for a while, so your throat will be raw. Just signal yes or no, alright?”

I nodded, surprised I was able to do so. My body was coming back to me and, damn, did everything hurt. Even my toenails.

“How’s your pain?” he asked, seeing me wince. He looked over to MJ, who was once again watching me, worried. “Her I.V. is hooked to a pain pump. Press the button and it will self-administer the right dose of pain meds.”

“Is that safe?” asked MJ. 

Safe? Screw safe! My body was cranking up the torture dial!

Dr. So-and-So nodded. “It won’t allow past a certain amount in a set time frame. You can’t overdose her, but it can take a little while to take effect. I’d give her some now.”

MJ nodded and glanced down at me. He reached over and thankfully pushed the button.

“Eila, it is an absolute miracle you survived so close to the explosion and for the length of time that you lacked a pulse. The pain you have is from a lot of internal bruising and roughly 30 micro-factures to your torso and arms,” said the doctor. “If it wasn’t for the quick actions of your friends and Mr. Raines, I doubt we would have been able to resuscitate you.”

Resuscitate?? Oh man, I WAS dead
.
 

MJ reached over and stroked my head as one of the suits, a 30-something version of a Jonas Brother, cleared his throat. I looked over at him as the doctor left.

“Eila – I’ll come back to check on you later,” said Ana. I gave her a weak wave with my free hand and she hobbled out of the room. I felt terrible that she and MJ had been injured. What happened?

The suit with the tickle in his throat stepped up to my bed, followed by his “friend” who was shorter and stockier with reddish-blonde hair. He looked like he might be a few years younger than the dark haired one, perhaps mid 20s.

“Miss Walker, my name is Special Agent Anthony Sollen and this is my partner Special Agent Mark Howe. We are from the FBI.  We need to get your statement about what happened four nights ago.”

FB friggin I? This was not good. And . . . FOUR DAYS?

I glanced at MJ and pulled the mask away from my face. “Four days?” I asked, my question barely a whisper.

“It’s Wednesday, Eila,” said MJ, putting the mask back over my nose and mouth. “You’ve been out since the
boiler
exploded in The Breakers. Do you
remember
?” 

I could see that MJ was trying to convey the idea to play along through his eyes, as surreptitiously as possible. I looked at him for a moment, then realized that my plan must have worked a tad too well. And I couldn’t exactly tell the FBI that
I
was the malfunctioning boiler or I would be stored with the aliens in Area 51.

I was going to have to lie and lie well – a talent I entirely lacked. I shook my head slowly
no
as if I was having trouble with my memory.

“You do not recall being in the coal room?” asked Agent Sollen.

I gave my best, perplexed look and shook my head
no.
I was doing pretty well at my first foray into acting and my pain was starting to subside, thanks to the drugs. I found it odd, however, that the FBI was investigating a boiler mishap, which obviously wasn’t really a boiler mishap. Unless . . . they weren’t buying the boiler story that MJ and whoever else had told.

Shit!

“We know you need your rest, but one more question: Did you know a Dalca Anescu?” asked Sollen.

Wow. Could this get any worse?

Now I didn’t know whether to lie or not. I pretended to think hard and decided to go with the truth regarding Dalca, since Cape Cod was so freaking small it would have been nuts not to know her. I nodded
yes
. Then I realized they had just referred to her in the past tense . . .

“Did you recall seeing her at The Breakers the night of the Fire and Ice event?” he asked.

Heck yeah – right before I realized she had gone over to the dark side.  But I shook my head
no
and winced accentuating my dramatics with a little moan, hoping they would get the hint and leave.

MJ got to his feet. “I think you need to leave. Eila needs her rest and obviously doesn’t remember anything. We have all told you the same thing over and over. We had decided to explore the mansion and got lost, ending up in the boiler room where we encountered Dalc
a. She seemed agitated, possibly high on something. She saw us, and started screaming about how Raines had screwed her over and then, BOOM!  I didn’t even see the actual boiler explode, but it nearly killed us all. I’m just beyond grateful my girlfriend is alright,” said MJ glancing down at me.  

Girlfriend? Umm . . .

“If you need anything else, you know where to find all of us,” said MJ, ending the interrogation.

The agents looked at each other, then gave a quick nod to me, “Feel better, Miss Walker,” said Sollen.

I gave them a weak wave and they turned to leave, closing the door behind them. As they passed by the massive window that looked over the nurses’ station, Agent Howe glanced through the glass at me and disappeared down the hall.

I turned my head to MJ. “FBI and
girlfriend
?” I barely whispered through the mask, an eyebrow raised.

“The damage was . . . extensive. And they only let me stay because I was your
boyfriend
,” said MJ, sitting back down next to me. “You need to stop talking. You’ll have no voice left.”

“Mae?” I asked, pulling the mask from my face. I worried that she had been told about me and was left to think the worst.

“Raines and Kian have flown over to Ireland to pick her up. They will have her back here by this evening at some point. It took a while to find her, since she was bouncing all over Europe on her tour.”

“Raines is okay?” I coughed, relieved.

MJ nodded. “Yeah. The dude who came to the door knocked him out with some sort of sedative. It didn’t last long though, because he found me outside and told me there were clansmen inside. That’s when we both came looking for you guys. Raines thinks they wanted him alive because they must have known about the necklace, but not where it was hidden. And before you ask, Kian and I dumped the body from your bedroom, so Mae won’t walk in on
that
fiasco.”

MJ leaned forward, encasing my hands in his. “Raines was insanely worried about you. When they finally located Mae, and told her what had happened, he volunteered his private jet. Kian
went just to make sure Raines . . . behaved.”

I couldn’t believe it. Raines really was on our side and we had doubted him but trusted Dalca. We had made some rotten choices that could have led to all our deaths. Although . . . “Were you even in the boiler room?” I asked in a ragged whisper, ignoring his demand.

“Raines and I got through the outer door of the boiler room, just as the . . . explosion happened. We got tossed back quite a ways. Everybody did, except for Raef, who managed to pull you away from the falling ceiling and shield you. You pack one hell of a punch,” he smiled. “I’ve already healed a lot. Kian and Raef, too. Your energy seems to have interfered with their healing process. Slowed it down. But we’re all ok. ”

“Are Dalca and Grant dead?” I asked, my voice sounding like a dysfunctional squeak. MJ sighed, exasperated, and shook his head.

“Stop. Talking. And yes, the clan members were incinerated. All that we found after the blast was ash. Everywhere. Dalca was under a piece of the ceiling, crushed. Ana said that Grant had already killed her though. You don’t remember that?”

I thought back and started to remember the boiler room more clearly. I remembered Grant breaking Dalca’s neck and I nodded
yes
slowly. I was about to ask another question, but he put his finger to my lips to keep me from talking.

“How about I give you the long and the short of it, and you keep your mouth shut?” I frowned, but MJ just continued. “What you did, with Raef’s help . . . well, it worked too well. The energy you emitted blew through three floors of The Breakers and instantly incinerated the Rysse guys. Kian managed to shield Ana the best he could, but her leg got hit by debris. Hopefully Dalca’s post-mortem injuries will mask her broken neck, so the FBI doesn’t get even more interested. We damaged a national treasure for crying out loud.”

MJ played with my fingertips as he continued, “When Raines and I were finally able to reach you, I could tell immediately that your heart wasn’t beating. Raef was unharmed, but beyond devastated. He wouldn’t . . . let go of your body.” MJ’s voice caught in his throat.