Love Like Blood: (Royal Blood #5) (18 page)

I
stood
beside the totaled van as Mei was loaded into the back of an ambulance.

Glancing off into the darkness, I knew Lorelei was gone. If I moved quickly, I might be able to track her down before she went dark. When she went off the grid, there would be no hope of contacting her at all. Ever.

Approaching the ambulance, I gestured for the paramedics to wait a moment before jumping in the back.

Mei glanced up at me groggily and took a deep breath. There was a deep gash across her temple that had been patched up, ready to be stitched back together once she was admitted to the hospital.

“She’s almost as good as you,” Mei said wryly, clutching her arm against her stomach.

“You’ve had a knock to the head,” I replied. “Get back to me on that one tomorrow.”

“I misjudged,” she went on. “I don’t know what happened, but her mind wasn’t as confused as you led me to believe.”

I sighed. “I’m not surprised considering how I found her with Vaughn.”

“Moltke will be pissed, but if you find her—”

“Don’t worry about him,” I interrupted. “Knowing Lorelei, she’s long gone, but I’m going to try for Vaughn’s sake.”

Mei rolled her eyes. “I knew you were going to say that.”

There was a knock at the rear door, and I glanced over at the paramedic who was anxious to go. “We’ve got to get moving,” he said.

I held up my hand and turned back to Mei.

“This is the last time I’ve got your back, X,” she said. “I didn’t see anything.”

“I’ll be back in a few hours.” I smiled and climbed out of the ambulance. The paramedic closed the doors and jumped in the front

As they drove away, I knew things wouldn’t be the same after this. I’d gotten off on the wrong foot at Section Seven right from the beginning, and I would have to reassess if the agency was the right choice going forward. If Mercy wanted to stay, I’d find a way to deal with it, but even she was showing signs of disappointment.

Our lives were set in gray, and Section Seven weren’t quite…gray enough.

Shooting off a quick text message to Mercy, who was waiting at the hospital for news on Vaughn, I climbed into my car and began the arduous task of tracing the untraceable.

**

The sun had risen by the time I made it back to the hospital.

Mercy had texted me during the night to let me know Vaughn was out of surgery and in recovery, but he was still in a critical condition. The bullet had caused significant internal damage, and he’d lost a great deal of blood. All they could do was wait and see.

Mei, on the other hand, was fine. She had a fractured arm, a couple of broken ribs from the crash, and a nasty bump on the head. She was ordered to stay overnight for observation, and that’s where I found Mercy when I finally gave up ever finding Lorelei.

Lingering in the doorway of Mei’s room, I glanced at her sleeping form, studying the cast on her forearm before turning to Mercy.

“Hey,” I murmured, conscious of the fact that Mei needed to rest and not be a witness to our conversation.

Mercy turned at the sound of my voice and rubbed her tired eyes.

“Did you find her?” she asked, rising from the chair.

I shook my head. “I knew it was a long shot even trying. She’s long gone.”

“I don’t think she would’ve left Vaughn.”

“We don’t know what they’ve discussed. They might have a contingency plan in place.” Secretly, I hoped they did. Secretly, I hoped Vaughn would find a way to leave this place before they shipped him off to a prison someplace to live out the rest of his life. Mei said she’d have my back, but I was smart enough to know all it entailed was turning a blind eye when the time came.

Mercy sighed. “I hope so.” Glancing at Mei, who was oblivious to the world as she slept, she said, “Lorelei could’ve killed her. She could’ve killed the driver, too.”

“But she didn’t,” I mused.

“By the looks of it, she protected Mei when the van flipped.” Mercy snorted and shook her head.

“Are you okay?” I asked, wrapping my arm around her waist and tugging her against me.

“It’s been a busy week. I could do with a million hours sleep.”

“Any word on Vaughn’s condition?”

“He’s been moved to a room in the ICU. The doc said it was touch and go for a while, but he’ll be fine. He just needs to rest and let his wound heal.”

“Good.”

We stood in amicable silence for a moment.

“She’s changed,” Mercy said out of nowhere.

“Who? Lorelei?”

“Yeah. When I first met her when I was The Watchman’s prisoner, she would’ve killed Mei and that driver without hesitation. Now…”

“She will be fine, Mercy,” I said. The moment I saw her murmuring words of love to Vaughn, I knew without a doubt that she’d overcome her demons and taken control of her mind. Lorelei would be fine.

“Do you know anything about Section Seven’s plans for Vaughn?”

I had no idea what was going to happen to The Hangman, and I doubted I would be in any kind of loop associated with it. If something was going to happen, it would be very soon.

“I’ll talk to him when he wakes,” I promised. “And we should talk about Section Seven.”

Mercy let her head rest against my shoulder. “Good,” she said. “I’m suffocating, and it’s only been a couple of months.”

I smiled and placed a kiss on top of her head.

“Bureaucracy sucks,” she declared.

I grunted, knowing she’d never spoken any truer words. “I’ll fuckin’ say.”

I
’d been drifting
in and out of darkness for longer than I could remember.

Lorelei held my hand, her love the only thing that forced me to hold onto life, then she was gone, and she didn’t come back.

The pain in my stomach had subsided, and I supposed that was a good thing, but if she wasn’t here, then I didn’t care for it.

The beep that tracked my heartbeat filtered through the haze as I surfaced, shapes starting to form in my vision as I blinked. There was movement beside me and the sound of a chair scraping across linoleum.

“Lorelei…” I croaked, my throat feeling dry. It was probably raw from the tube they’d had to stick down there. The doctor had come earlier and explained my situation the best he could in my groggy state, and then I’d fallen back to sleep. The toll on my body had been too great to fight it.

“No, it’s X.”

I grimaced as his ugly face came into view.

“Where is she?”

He lowered his gaze, trying to buy himself time to explain himself. This was bad. If Lorelei wasn’t here, then she was…

“X,” I snapped, making pain ripple through my stomach. “Where the fuck is she?”

“She was taken into custody as soon as we arrived at the hospital,” he explained.

“What?” I blinked, well and truly awake now.
No, she couldn’t be…

“She escaped, and there’s been no trace of her. She’s just…gone.”

Closing my eyes, I thanked fucking God she was still free. If she was free, then I’d still have a chance of seeing her again. The long shot was having a chance to get out of this fucking hole and disappearing alongside her.

All I could see was her tear-stained face staring down at me and the words on her lips…the words I’d ached to hear again.
I love you, Vaughn
.

She’d been ripped away from me again in another cruel twist of fate. Maybe this was our destiny. To love and lose each other. I couldn’t believe that was our truth.

“Any word on Hawkes?”

X shook his head. “He’s still in the wind.”

“Good. It’s just me who’s a total fuckhead.”

“You sacrificed yourself to save the woman you love,” X said blandly. “That’s hardly something to be ashamed of.”

I snorted, feeling like a fool that I was in this position at all. I should’ve been with Lorelei in that house, and then I could’ve backed her up.

“It’s easy to know what to do in hindsight,” X said, nailing it right on the head. The man was a fucking psychic.

I stared up at the white ceiling, not wanting to see the pathetic look in his eyes. “What are they going to do with me? Is there going to be a trial, or is it straight to the hole?”

“Straight to the hole, I assume,” he replied. “So we’ve got to get you out of here before the chains come rattling.”

I frowned, glancing at him. “You’d help me?”

“You went out of your way when Royal Blood took Mercy,” he replied. “This makes us even.”

I watched him carefully, knowing that he’d put a great deal of thought into this while I lay here comatose.

“Mercy is preparing a go bag as we speak,” he went on. “Do you think you’ll be well enough to get out of here in the next few hours?”

I snorted. “I died on the table, or so I hear. I’ve got a perforated
everything
, and I lost half my body weight in blood. What do you think?”

“They’re going to station a round the clock guard on your room,” X said, ignoring my pissed off tone. “Once that’s in place, it will be impossible to get you out without being seen. While you’re in intensive care, security is lax. They don’t expect a terrorist to crawl out of here when he’s doped up on pain meds.”

“Terrorist?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “I never killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”

“The law is black and white,” X replied with a shrug. “They’ll pigeonhole you wherever it suits them.”

“Whatever it takes to justify their own doctrine, huh?”

“Something like that.” X glanced at the window as a nurse walked past. When she didn’t come into the room, he went on. “Mercy’s getting you a new alias with a passport and bank accounts. You’ll be able to go anywhere in the world, but you’ll only have a short window to do so. Hawkes is working on transferring assets as we speak.”

What the fuck did I do to deserve friends like these? And Hawkes? Well, that asshole was family.

“Can—” I grimaced as pain tore through my stomach. “Can you get a message to Hawkes?”

X frowned but nodded. “Of course.”

“Tell him he’s free of my employ. Tell him…” I hesitated, not knowing how to say that the ugly son of a bitch had been more of a father to me than my own had. “Tell him he’s free to do as he wishes, but it’s best for everyone if I disappear alone. Tell him…thank you.”

“Consider it done.”

“If he hears from Lorelei, instruct him to tell her to remember the story I told her. She’ll know the meaning.”

X nodded. “Be ready to leave as soon as I return. I’ll bring you some clothes, and then we’ll rendezvous with Mercy.”

He moved toward the door, but I hadn’t quite said everything I needed to yet.

“X?” I called out after him, already feeling tired.

He paused and glanced over his shoulder.

“Thank you.”

He shook his head and replied, “Thank me when we get you out of here.”

**

I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but I was jerked awake as a bag was dumped on the bed at my feet.

X stood over me, his expression grim.

“We need to go now. We haven’t got much time.”

I swallowed and pushed myself up to a seated position, shoving the pain away. Time to compartmentalize that shit and be strong.

Dragging the curtain around the bed, X began unhooking all the cables and needles I’d been pincushioned with. The heart rate monitor began to beep wildly, and he flipped the switch, silencing the alarm that would bring the nurses and doctors running. Once I was free, he helped me to my feet and into the tiny ensuite bathroom.

I stripped out of the hospital gown and allowed him to drag on the trousers and shirt before hauling on a leather jacket over the top.

“All good?” he asked.

“I don’t know how long I will be able to stand,” I replied. “We better make this quick.”

“I’ve got you.”

He peered out of the tiny bathroom and waved me forward.

Putting my head down, we walked out of the room, down the hall, and out of the ICU without anyone calling after us. A nurse wandered past, but she didn’t even look at us, her nose well and truly stuck in a patient chart.

“How is this so easy?” I asked, expecting someone to chase after us at any moment.

“I had one last card up my sleeve,” X replied, guiding me down an empty corridor toward the fire stairs. “I played it.”

“What about you and Mercy?”

“Don’t worry about us. Our future is uncertain at Section Seven on a good day.” He peered around into an adjoining hall and gestured the all clear.

I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “You want to get out?”

X shrugged and pushed open the door to the stairs. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

Every step downward tore through my stomach, making the pain almost overwhelming, but I had to keep moving forward. If I were caught, it would all over. If I were caught, I would never see her again.

Halfway down, I paused, sweat trickling down my back, my breathing labored.

“Okay?” X asked.

“I just need a second,” I replied, my pride hurt by my weakness.

He waited patiently until I began moving again, and we emerged at the bottom in a parking garage.

Rows of cars stretched either side in the gray concrete slab lit by fluorescent lights. A few spots along, Mercy emerged, giving us an enthusiastic thumbs up. X wrapped his arm around my waist and propped me up as we approached.

“Lie down,” Mercy said, helping me into the backseat. “We’ll be out on the open road in no time.”

Lying on my back, she covered me with a blanket and closed the door before hopping in the front passenger side. X took the wheel and gunned the engine, reversing out of the parking spot. The tires squealed on the polished concrete as the car made its way through the complex.

We stopped for a moment, and X rolled down the window, putting a ticket into the machine that would raise the boom gate. A moment later, we were moving again.

“Easy as pie,” Mercy said cheerily.

“Mei gave us a hall pass,” X retorted. “Don’t get used to it. Next time, it’ll be guns blazing.”

“You need to stop playing on her heartstrings, X,” Mercy chided him. “It’s not cool.”

“She needs to work on her willpower.”

“Men never get it,” she murmured to herself.

I allowed myself to doze off as the car’s movement lulled me into sleep. Fitful visions appeared of blood…blood on Lorelei’s face. Blood everywhere. The Hangman was not afraid of blood…until now. I’d never be able to watch it flow from flesh in the same way ever again.

“Vaughn?”

I jerked awake, pain burning through my gut.

Mercy’s form loomed above me. “We’re here.”

She helped me sit up in the backseat, and I placed my feet on the ground, leaning against the rim of the door to catch my breath. We were in another parking garage.

X leaned against the boot, watching the space around us while Mercy knelt on the ground at my feet, a black duffle bag sitting between us. It looked like Lorelei’s.

“Where are we?” I asked, already knowing the answer to the question.

“Heathrow Airport,” she replied.

I nodded. Good. The sooner I was gone, the sooner I could find a safe place to recuperate and plan the rest of my life.

“We’ve got you new identity papers and a passport,” she said, ticking things off her mental list. “There are meds and extra dressings. Oh, and legit paperwork for customs to take it with you. There’s also a change of clothes and some basic toiletries.”

I pushed to my feet and held my palm over the bullet wound in my stomach. I had everything I needed to disappear and never be seen again. It was a nice little package, but it was bittersweet without the ribbon on top.

Taking the bag from Mercy, I said. “I’ll never be able to repay you, you know.”

She rose to her feet and smiled. “Of course not. Never expected it.” Leaning forward, she placed a kiss on my cheek. “Now get the fuck out of here. I never want to see your ugly face again.”

X sidled up beside her and shook my hand. “Good luck, Vaughn. See you in the next life.”

“Here’s hoping.”

Without another word, I turned on my heel, shuffled into the terminal, and got on the next flight out of the UK.

As the plane took off and the lights of London faded into the distance, all I could think about was Lorelei. My stomach hurt far less than the pain in my heart. There was no medicine known to man to fix the loss of the love of your life.

I had to have faith she was still out there, and she would come looking.

Lorelei
.

I’d love her forever.