Of Eternal Life (3 page)

The moment the liquid hit the back of Eli’s mouth he gagged anew, this time at the taste. It was
bitter
. Metallic. If death could have a taste, this would be it.

The orderly covered Eli’s nose again, and he knew he was screwed. He would swallow it; his body would demand its own doom in a quest for life-giving air.

Even knowing this, Eli struggled until his throat gulped convulsively. The poison burned all the way into his gut, and his hacking coughs rang out over the snick of the recorder being turned on.

“1208, toxin administered successfully.” The Tormentor settled on a utilitarian stool at Eli’s shoulder and eyed him expectantly as the orderly removed the splint and tubing. “Now,” he sighed, “we wait.”

Eli’s back bowed off of the stretcher, the entire weight of his jerking body resting on his shoulders and heels. His facial muscles tightened in a soundless scream as his toes curled under his feet.

The convulsions had begun just five minutes after he’d swallowed the poison, starting in his neck and face. Over the last two hours they’d increased in intensity and frequency until he was suffering episodes like this. Excruciating stretches of agony that caused him to wish for death as soon as they ended.

This one was lasting longer than he thought he could survive.
Oh, God, let it end. Let this be it
. He was finally able to wrench his mouth open, and his scream rent the air, increasing in volume as the convulsion grew more intense.

And in that second, it happened.

His brain was so nearly mush that he almost missed it, but at the height of his body’s arc, as his arms thrashed, he felt the restraints give.

Time seemed to stop.

That can’t have happened. You must have imagined it
.

He felt the restraints give a second time. His mind scrambled to make sense of it. They must not have anticipated the increased strength his body’s convulsions would generate.

Time resumed and then sped up as he realized what this meant.
This is your chance!
His pain spurred him on, giving him inhuman strength, and he gathered it into the core of his being. Bellowing with all of his might he flexed his biceps and
pulled
. The groan of straining metal brought the Tormentor’s head up from his clipboard.

“Good God,” screeched the Tormentor, vaulting to his feet. “Put him out, man!” he yelled at the orderly. “Put him out!” The orderly scrambled toward the tray, trying to fill a syringe with sedative while the Tormentor whirled to the door. “Guards! Get in here!” They both snapped to order. One hastily keyed the code into the door, and the other removed the gun from his holster.

The Tormentor swung back around just as Eli overpowered the restraints with a primal yell. He held the Tormentor’s alarmed gaze as the orderly approached from behind with the sedative. Without looking, Eli grabbed the orderly by his throat and wrenched him around to hold against his chest. Eli tore the syringe from the orderly’s grasp and stabbed it into the man’s jugular. As Eli growled low in his chest, never breaking eye contact with the Tormentor, his thumb depressed the plunger. The orderly sank to the floor.

With one hand he reached for the restraints at his ankles, keeping an eye on the guards at the door. The door hissed, and the guard with the gun rushed into the room, aiming at Eli’s chest. With only one leg free, Eli grabbed the Tormentor to use as a human shield just as the guard pulled the trigger. The Tormentor’s body jerked in his hands, and he heard the guard swear and fumble to reload his gun as the other guard pulled his own weapon.

Reload?

Tranq gun. They were shooting tranquilizers. Eli dropped the Tormentor and gazed in wonder at the bright floral marker of a tranquilizing dart protruding from his shield’s chest.

Jesus, I might actually make it out of here!

Eli reached for his other ankle restraint as the guard who had already fired yelled, “Don’t waste your shot! Make sure you can hit him or we’re fucked!”

“You already are,” Eli informed them as he moved to a crouch on the stretcher and waited for one of the idiots to take a shot. He knew he was due for another convulsion any moment, and it could be his last. He had to get far away from here so he could find someplace safe to die.

It took only a second before the guard to the left decided to take a shot, and Eli leapt to the side as the tranquilizing dart sailed past. Eli reached him in three strides and wrapped his arm around the guard’s head. A quick twist and the satisfying crack seemed to freeze the remaining guard in horror.

The dead guard’s body fell to the floor with a muffled thud. Eli crooked his finger at the other guard who now knew, with absolute certainty, that he was dead.

“P-please,” the guard stuttered. “I never did anything to you!”

Eli lifted the corner of his lips in a cruel smile. “You’re right.” He stalked closer. “You’re worse.” He stopped right in front of the guard and snarled, “You. Watched.”

Eli sprang forward, punching the guard in the throat hard enough to crush his larynx. The sick voyeur would never draw breath again.

Eli didn’t stay to watch the guard drop to his knees and struggle in vain for breath. He felt the beginning twinges of another convulsion and knew he was out of time. Outside and to the right of the lab a staircase rose, ending in a solid wall.

Eli didn’t understand this, but, with no other exit, began to climb. He only made it halfway up before the convulsion was on him. His muscles spasmed, throwing him forward onto the stairs.

Don’t give up! You’ll never get this chance again!

He shrieked as the spasms threw him from his front to his back. His spine ground into the edge of the stairs, ratcheting the pain to new levels.

Move, damn it!
His mind and body were screaming, and he used all of that energy to roll himself over again.

He was able to pull himself to his hands and knees. With strength he did not know he possessed, he crept up the remaining stairs until he reached the top. His forehead bumped the wall that topped the stairs and, because he had no other choice, he stopped.

He banged his head in frustration against the only remaining barrier to his freedom and was shocked as it gave way. The entire wall began to swing away from him, revealing a room filled with medical equipment.

A false wall. Leading into a…
supply closet?
His strength was at its end, and his vision flickered and then went black. The poison had robbed him of his sight, one of the markings of the end.

It’s over.
He hadn’t made it, and he would never get free now. Well, he’d be damned if he died one more time in that fucking room.

Moving by feel alone, he dragged his body over the threshold and into the closet. His legs were useless, and the numbness was creeping up his thighs toward his torso. The absence of feeling was a relief as it meant the end to at least some of his pain.

He heard the wall swing back into place and shuddered as it clicked shut. To finally die alone, even if he would awaken shackled to a stretcher again, filled him with peace.

He drew in what he knew was to be his last breath and jolted at what his brain latched on to. Peanut butter and jelly. The warm, yeasty smell of bread and the earthy aroma of chocolate. And …
woman
?

Fresh sunlight mixed with fabric softener and another scent that he couldn’t quite place, but knew was unique to just
her
.

His body revolted, trying in vain to reject the death that was only a moment away. He had to live. He had to fight.

She was his, and she was in trouble. She needed him, but even beyond that —

I need her
.

His heart stopped beating.

• • •

Abilene stared in bemusement at the retreating taillights.

“Bye, suckah!” Olive crowed from the backseat window as the car jumped the curb in its haste to be gone. Abilene shook her head. Sometimes, they really were just a bunch of kids.

She twisted the hem of her
Princess Bride
T-shirt and pondered, one more time, the pressing feeling she had that she was
supposed
to be here right now. She turned toward the hospital entrance.

Common sense dictated she should be in that car right now, headed toward an afternoon of napping and old
Dexter
episodes. Instead, she was here “to run labs” if she believed the excuse she’d given her co-workers.

She didn’t.

Her Converses squeaked as she stomped in frustration down the hallway. There was nothing she would do today that couldn’t wait until tomorrow. They didn’t exactly have deadlines here at the hospital God forgot.

She passed the supply closet. Stopped. Turned around.

An overwhelming feeling of loss bowled her over. She looked toward the ceiling as wetness seeped into her eyes.
Homesickness
. Though, that didn’t feel quite right. This was much more intense. Much worse.

She shuffled to the door and leaned forward until her forehead was pressed against the wood. Her hand crept up to be placed at heart level. She
ached
to be on the other side of that door. Her labs could wait. She twisted the knob and pushed the door inward … it met resistance. Had something fallen from the shelves to block the door? She pushed harder, pressing her shoulder against the door. Whatever it was, it was freaking heavy. She glanced down to check if she could see the problem, only to light upon the curled fingers of a man’s hand.

“Oh my God!” she breathed, renewing her struggle with the door in earnest. It edged forward, but she was able to get it open enough for her to squeeze through. She froze to the spot.

“Holy… ”
naked man
. In her usual spot across from the supply shelves, sprawled on his abdomen, was
the
biggest man she’d ever seen. His face was pressed against the wall, his arm stretched forward as though reaching for something.

She was stunned as she took him in. He was flawless. Physical perfection. Muscle carved elegant lines through his body. Broad shoulders tapered down to narrow hips. His exquisite unclad backside snagged her gaze, and her lips parted in an inaudible, “Oh.”

Heat transfused her cheeks, and she jerked her gaze to the wall. Talk about unprofessional. This man lay here in medical peril, and she was ogling him like the headliner in Thunder Down Under.

“Oh my God, I’m really sorry!” she blurted, struggling to keep her eyes away from that life-changing ass.

Jeez, you are such a lech, Abilene Lynn Miller.
She straightened as she realized his body wasn’t moving with the regular rise and fall of respiration.

It spurred her into action as nothing else could. She dropped to her knees by his side.

“Sir?” She placed her hand on his head of thick, mocha-colored hair.
Please respond. Please
!

No response.

“Oh,
shit
,” she muttered. “Okay,” her brain scrambled for her next step. “Okay,
what
?!” she brought a trembling hand to her temple.
Think. Think!

One of her few strengths in her chosen field was efficiency in an emergency, but she had lost her shit at the sight of this unconscious man. There was a reason doctors weren’t allowed to treat family members, and this was it. But this man was an utter stranger to her.

No. He isn’t
.

She laid her hand on his massive shoulder and gave a tug in an attempt to roll him over. He barely budged. She used her other hand, heaved, and he turned over. It threw her off balance, and she caught herself with a hand to his chest. She pulled it back as though burned.

He had the face of an angel, his dark lashes lay in spikes against his high cheekbones.

He is yours. Save him
.

She leaned forward, all hesitancy lost. “I will fix this,” she promised.

Her fingers went to his neck in search of a pulse. Nothing.

He didn’t have a pulse, and he wasn’t breathing. She gripped his jaw and tilted his head back.

“You stay with me!” she ordered as she pried his mouth open, sweeping her finger over his tongue and the back of his throat in search of an obstruction. When she found none, she bent forward and covered his mouth with her own to puff air into his lungs.

She recoiled, spitting. The
taste
. His mouth was bitter.

“Someone
poisoned
you?!” she screeched. She had never felt so angry in her life. As though, without any compunction whatsoever, she could tear this person, who had dared to harm him, to shreds with her bare hands.

She suddenly worried that she
wouldn’t
be able to fix this. He wasn’t breathing, had no heartbeat, and had been
poisoned
. She had no idea how long he’d been without oxygen, but a little voice of doubt was already whispering a possibility she refused to believe:
He’s dead
.

“No!” There was still one more thing she could try. She snatched the crash cart toward herself. She grabbed both paddles of the defibrillator with one hand and the gel with the other. She squeezed gel onto his left side and right pectoral, set the defibrillator at 200 joules, and placed the paddles.

She shocked him, and his body jerked under the paddles. She tossed them aside and felt for a pulse. When she found none, she set the defibrillator charge to 360 joules and began CPR for the two minutes she had to wait until she could shock him again.

She went through the motions of compressions and breaths as her brain skimmed through her med school knowledge. She had to admit that she could only shock him one more time. Just once more, and then she would have to —
call it
.

She halted compressions and grasped the paddles once more, placed them, and checked to make sure the defibrillator was charged before shocking him.

His big body jerked once more, and she set aside the paddles to reach for his pulse.

Nothing.