Chapter fifteen

Cole’s body was vibrating it took every bit of discipline that he learned through the years when he was fighting to stay in control. The anger that burned in his eyes promised that each of them would die. The pain that shredded his heart wondered what he would do if he never saw Jessie’s smile again.

Cait took the lead having memorized the layout of the hospital. They walked silently until she came to an elevator that was marked hospital staff only. They boarded with another staff member and hit the button to the floor with the morgue on it.

“Damn elevator. One day someone most likely me is going to get stuck in it. Like I want to get stuck next to the morgue. Haven’t they ever heard of the night of the living dead?” He continued to mumble to himself until the doors opened. He got off, and they waited for the elevator to descend to the bottom floor.

Once the hallway was clear, they opened the door and slipped into the morgue. Jessie was lying on a metal table in the middle of the room. There were instruments on the side.

“They were going to cut her open.” The anger in his voice made the air around them cold.

“Jessie.” His lips on hers were soft.

“Cole.” There was a gasp in the room as both Tristan and Cait ran to her.

“I told him you would come for me.”

“Told who?”

“The doctor he was going to send me upstairs, but I woke up. He said I shouldn’t have. I told them everything…well not everything. I told them how my mother tried to kill me and told him if he didn’t believe me go tell her I was dead.”

“You still might be. There are fragments of the bullet in your heart.” Cait had a small handheld device over her chest.

“I know the doctor told me. I told him my real family was coming for me. I wanted to die with you.” Cole squeezed her hand.

“Tristan, Cait?”

“Pick her up but be careful I don’t want those fragments shifting. We’ll be right behind you, we just need to liberate some blood.”

He lifted her carefully from the table.

“Cole I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize you saw your mother die. I never had one. I would sit around when I was younger and wonder if it would be nice to have a mother or a father.”

“It’s not nice.”

“I see trasire.”

“I used to dream that one day my mother and I would talk and she would confess her secret love for me, and we would be a family. How stupid, she has no love for me.”

“It’s not stupid you have a heart big enough to love anyone, everyone. Your mother doesn’t have a heart she doesn’t know what love is. I don’t know why and as of right now I don’t care why.”

“She laughed Cole. I could hear her laughter in the darkness as I search for a way back to the light.”

“You have to let go of your dreams of your mother. She’s poison, Jessie.”

“I know. I couldn’t believe that she told them to shoot. No, I’m lying I could believe it, but I just didn’t want it to be true.”

“Why does she hate me?”

“Don’t cry trasire.”

He placed her in the back of Enzo’s car and climbed back there to hold her tight.

“I’ll get us home as soon as possible.”

He nodded and watched Jessie breath as she slept in his arms.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take Jessie home and do everything in my power to make sure she recovers. I want to be a family, Enzo. I want to walk down the street with that stupid look on my face, the one you have ever since you and Deja mated. Then I want to kill them.”

He watched Enzo nod and knew he understood. There wasn’t a male or female without blood on their hands unless you looked at Jade, Mia, and Jessie. The rest of them killed and then killed again. They came to the earth and blended in, but that didn’t stop the fact that they were killers. It was written in their enzymes, and they would pay for what they did to her.

Enzo pulled up in front of his house. “Tristan says they’re five minutes behind us.”

“The door will be open.”

“We’ll keep Mia tonight.”

“Thank you, for everything.”

He walked in taking Jessie to their bedroom. She was dressed in the clothes she was shot in, he stripped her and put the clothes in a pile to be burned later. He placed the covers over her. Cait or Tristan was going to have to operate, so there was no need to cover her from the chest up. He growled when he thought of Tristan seeing her without clothes.

Possessiveness, that was something he never felt before. He dressed her in a half shirt so they would be able to access her wound and put a pair of shorts on her. Her life was in danger, and he felt stupid for being jealous, but that didn’t stop the feeling.

“Cole, thank you for dressing her appropriately, now I need you to move back.”

He growled while he held her hand. Tristan bristled making Cait step between them.

“We need a sterile field, and it’s only going to work on so many bodies. We’re not on the ship. It comes down to hold her hand while she dies or step back.”

He stepped back. Tristan deployed the shield that took up a large part of the room. They pulled out several different tools for healing. The tools had been modified to keep them from showing up on the government's radar.

He watched every move. Tristan opened her up with a laser. They took her heart out of her body at one point. He knew they were detecting the shrapnel the bullet left behind. There was a big hole in her aorta showing the path the bullet took.

He paced, he sat, then he paced again as several hours passed. Declyn came in to check on him and made him drink fluids. They didn’t do well if they weren’t nourished properly. Then he paced some more until he saw her heart go back into her chest and they began to seal it. Cait turned to the wound in her abdomen and began working on that until finally they were done.

They deconstructed the sterile field calling him to come join them.

“Now we wait. I feel like we’ve been here before. I don’t know if her heart will recover. She’s young and healthy. I gave her two transfusions while we were working on her. When she recovers, she will have to take it easy, no waitressing, no lifting anything heavier than Mia. I want this to work, but we did a mix of alien medicine and human medicine.”

“I understand. Can I lay next to her?”

“Yes, but don’t move her.”

He watched as they cleaned up and then left. He went to take a shower not wanting to take the risk that some foreign body clung to him. He came out and slid in the bed next to her. He moved over until his shoulder was touching hers. He entwined his finger with hers and fell asleep.

It was the feel of a cool cloth being gently applied to her face that made her struggle to open her eyes. What was wrong with her? She felt like there was an elephant sitting her chest. There was cool water wiped on her lips, and she wanted some. Her throat was parched, but her eyes refused to open. So, she decided to do them on at a time. She got the first one to rise a little, but the light in the room made her slam it shut.

“I turned the light off.”

Cole. The name rolled around in her brain she knew him he was special but she couldn’t put all the pieces together. She tried to open her eyes again. They came up to half mast, and she looked around the room wondering where she was.

“Thirsty.”

“No liquids until you get looked at.” He pulled out his phone and gave Tristan a call. He sat on the bed and took her hand.

“They will be here in a couple of minutes. You’re going to have to take it slow and easy until you heal, but you’re awake that’s all that’s important.”

“I was sleeping?” Her voice was still groggy. Who was she?

“You slept for eight days healing. The procedure wasn’t an easy one for your body.”

“Who am I?”

“You’re Jessie.”

There was a knock on his bedroom door.

“Come in.”

“She’s awake.”

“She doesn’t know who she is.”

“That’s to be expected,” Cait said coming in after Tristan. “She had massive blood loss and a few minutes where the brain was starved. Her memory will come back. Temporary amnesia.”

She moved closer to the bed to examine her. “Jessie, what’s your mother’s name?”

“Carol Murphy.” Her voice shook, and fear entered her eyes.

“Do you have a daughter?”

“Mia Murphy.” A smile curved her lips. “Where is she?” She tried to sit up, but Tristan pushed her back down.

“No moving until we check you out.”

“Mia is fine. I take care of her every day, but Deja keeps her at night. Both Declyn and Enzo say they made the best call ever when they hired Deja to be a bartender since I’ve not been there. Everyone says they miss you.”

“People miss me?”

“Yes, Jessie you are loved.”

“You’re Cole. I know you’re important to me, but I can’t put it all together.”

“Stop trying trasire it will come back to you.”

“You call me that all the time but I don’t know what it means.”

“It’s a special flower on one of the outer rim planets. On Earth, the closest word would be treasure.”

“Let’s try and sit you up.” Cait was on one side, and Tristan was on the other. Together they helped her up.

“Can I stand?”

“You’re barely sitting. I think we can start off with Cole carrying you wherever you want to go. Then we will reevaluate tomorrow.”

“Oh, he can’t pick me up.”

“Trust me I can pick you up.”

“Jessie, I’m going to give you a shot. We would normally use it on Kur’iks, but both Cait and I have done several tests on it and believe it will be beneficial to you.”

She nodded not sure she knew what a Kur’ik was but there was a hazy picture of something she should be terrified of but wasn’t.

“What happened to me?”

“You were shot.”

“Who hates me enough to shoot me?” Her whispered words were laced with fear.