Taken by Fire (34 page)

She had a bandage wrapped around her head and was hooked up to machines … so many damned machines and tubes breathing for her. She was pale, her once supple lips white. With a trembling hand, he held hers, the familiar coolness of her palm somehow calming him for the moment.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered in her ear. “I didn’t want it to come to that … but I kept my promise. I kept my damned promise.”

The tears started to fall and he brushed them away with his free hand impatiently. “Mel, I didn’t tell you before—should have … I love you. I really, truly love you. Always will.”

It was too much then. He dropped her hand and turned to the wall. Punched it. Put his forehead to it and felt the walls begin to shake under the will of his grief.

He was vaguely aware of Devlin calling his name, shaking his shoulder. But he didn’t respond. Devlin would save the building, he knew that. He felt the prick of the needle in his arm and he didn’t resist, let Devlin drug him into sweet oblivion.

The scene from the chapel replayed itself over and over in Creed’s mind, no matter how many times he tried to turn it off.

Annika jumping in front of Devlin. At one time, that would’ve been enough to make him jealous, make him believe that Annika could never fully love him the way she loved Dev.

Now Creed knew that Annika had enough for both men—more than enough.

Kat was chattering in his ear, clinging to him tightly, and he stared down at his hands—one blank, one covered in tattoos—and he wondered what good it was to be protected when the woman he loved was left vulnerable.

Dammit, Oz … dammit all to hell
.

You’re the one who didn’t listen to him
, he told himself. But looking at Renee, he realized there had been no way around this. If Annika hadn’t had their baby, if he’d denied her the opportunity to become a mom, he’d never have forgiven himself.

It had been mere days, but Annika had changed because of Renee. Fundamentally, she’d grown up, once and for all.

And now the love of his life, mother of his child, was in surgery. Dying.

He knew that as surely as he knew his name.

Oz’s predictions were never wrong.
Never
.

And right now, he hated his brother for that. For everything. And even though he literally felt Oz, knew he was close by to comfort him, Creed shut him out.

“I do not want to talk to him, Kat,” he said finally.

He’s trying to talk to you
, Kat insisted.

“He can fuck off,” Creed growled under his breath, paced the hallway in a futile attempt to literally get Kat off his back.

He realized he was also angry at Ani, for not believing him … for not taking Oz’s predictions seriously.

For leaving him alone like this.

As he struggled to take back that last thought, the double doors that led to the OR opened and Creed resisted the urge to slam them shut, to send the doctor back to Ani and tell him not to come out until he had the right answer. The only one Creed wanted to hear—and the one he knew he wouldn’t.

We did all we could
.

The words weren’t even out of the surgeon’s mouth yet and Creed heard Kat’s screeching in his ears. He covered them, even though he knew it wouldn’t help—it never did—and he let Kat pull him into his own pool of grief, so deep it threatened to drown him.

F
aith Kennedy knew something was wrong the moment she and Wyatt stepped inside the chapel. After getting off the plane, they’d gone straight to where the party should have been, but the hall had been empty. Wyatt figured that the christening had been delayed, so they’d headed to the chapel.

Only to find it empty, and with blood on the floor.

“Shit!” Wyatt grabbed her hand, and they were running out of the chapel and down the medical facility’s hall to the emergency
department, where everyone who had been invited to the christening was waiting. On who?

Thank God they’d called the ACRO day care as the plane landed and made sure Aimee was fine. Kira and Haley had dropped off all the kids there before the christening, so at least Faith didn’t have to freak out about that. But still …

Faith scanned the crowd, her heart pounding so hard against her ribs that it hurt.
Please don’t let it be Renee …

Relief nearly buckled Faith’s knees when she saw Haley holding Annika’s baby, but in a heartbeat, sheer, utter terror replaced the relief, because why wasn’t
Annika
holding Renee? And Jesus, Creed was … coming apart at the seams.

No one could calm him. He was pacing, thrusting his hands through his hair. His eyes were red-rimmed, face pale, and when anyone touched him, he jerked away as though his skin hurt. And Dev … he was just as distraught, though he, at least, was allowing Gabe to hold his hand as the younger man sat next to him in total silence.

Faith and Wyatt pushed their way through the crowd to the front, just as the facility’s medical director and head surgeon, Matthew Ruch, appeared in the waiting room doorway. His scrubs were rumpled and damp with sweat, and his expression said it all.

The “We did all we could” wasn’t even fully out of his mouth when Creed slapped his hands over his ears and hit the floor in a crack of kneecaps.

Crying out, Faith rushed toward Creed, but Wyatt caught her by the arm and dragged her down the hall after the doctor. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” Wyatt said. “But maybe we can do something. Hey, Dr. Ruch!” The doctor paused, swinging around as though expecting to get beaten to a pulp. “Let us see her.”

“I don’t think that’s—”

“Now.”

Wyatt didn’t get angry often, didn’t assert himself with any
kind of aggression except once in a blue moon, but when he did, people paid attention.

Ruch inclined his head in a brief nod and led them to the operating room, where staff was unhooking Annika’s body from various machines. Wrappers, gauze, and surgical instruments littered the floor, sitting in pools of blood. Faith wanted to throw up.

“I’ve never done what you’re thinking about, Wyatt,” she whispered.

“I know. But when you were bleeding out after Cujo’s attack, I saved your life with the powers you taught me to use. We have to try.”

Faith didn’t remember anything Wyatt had done that day, when Rik’s beast had nearly ripped Faith’s throat out as she took a walk outside TAG headquarters, but Wyatt’s use of his power had saved her life when, by all rights, she should have bled to death.

Faith snapped into action. “Ruch, you’ll assist us. Get your team back.”

“I don’t understand—”

“Do it!” Faith walked around the operating table to Annika’s left side as Wyatt went to the right. “And don’t tell anyone what we’re doing. We don’t want to raise any hopes.” It was probably cruel to let Creed and everyone else mourn, but it would be even more cruel to let them believe that there was a chance this would work, because if it didn’t …

God, this was horrible.

Wyatt pulled back the sheet covering Annika’s body, and Faith forced herself not to react. Annika’s skin was gray, her chest cracked wide open.

Faith charged up her power and felt Wyatt do the same. As biokinetics, they could manipulate bodily functions and heal wounds, but neither she nor Wyatt had tried it on something as major as this.

“I’ll get her blood circulating if you do what you can to repair
her heart,” Faith said, and Wyatt went right to work. Next to her, the doctor barked out orders; within seconds, machines were switched on and fresh blood was being pumped into Annika through two central IV lines in her neck.

Summoning as much power as she could handle, Faith focused on Annika. Usually, people—and animals—were surrounded by an aura she would have to penetrate in order to access the body. But there was nothing around Annika, so Faith punched her gift straight into her organs. She did a quick probe of the damage—damn, the bullet had ripped through Annika’s heart, lungs, aorta. Shards of bone had penetrated flesh as well as organs, and holy fuck, no wonder surgery had failed.

Ruch had repaired a lot of the damage, but clearly, he couldn’t work fast enough.

Well, this was where Faith and Wyatt had an advantage. They might not have medical degrees, but their powers worked ten times faster than any surgeon could, and as the medical team watched in awe, Faith grabbed Annika’s heart with her power and squeezed it into a pumping rhythm. Blood bubbled out of wounds with alarming gushes, and Ruch’s quick application of suction, as well as an infusion of blood through the IV, helped keep Faith from a full-blown panic attack.

Carefully, she split the threads of her energy and used the other to ease bone shards out of tissue while healing the flesh behind them.

Wyatt went to work on the shredded cardiac muscle as Dr. Ruch guided both of them to the most critical places and gave them instructions on exactly how to fix the massive ruptures.

Faith didn’t know how long they’d been working when her power began to wane. She heard one of the nurses mention something about two hours, which seemed about right. Faith had tested herself a few times, working with her power nonstop to see how long she could last.

She’d never gone over two hours and seven minutes.

Wyatt was hurting too; his skin was pale, glistening with a
fine sheen of perspiration. “Babe,” he rasped. “If we don’t get this done soon …”

“Yeah.” They were both running low. “Doc?”

Ruch swallowed audibly. “The repairs are almost finished.”

God, the room was hot. Faith’s muscles were alternating between cramping and turning to gel.
Hurry … hurry …

“Done,” Ruch said. “If you guys can keep her heart pumping, I’ll close her up, and we’ll see where we are.”

Between the two of them, they kept Annika’s blood moving through her veins. Finally, after what seemed like a century, the doctor was finished.

His gaze lifted to meet Faith’s, the dark circles behind his glasses standing out starkly in the glow of the overhead lights. “You can stop now. This either worked or it didn’t.”

Wyatt’s power cut off. Faith began to tremble. “I … can’t.” Right now there was hope. If she stopped … Annika could be dead. Truly dead.

She sensed more than saw Wyatt come around the table. He slung his arm around her shoulders. “Let go, baby. We did all we could.”

Tears stung her eyes as she cut herself off.

Annika’s heart didn’t beat.

“Paddles!”

A sob tore from Faith’s throat. Wyatt dragged her away from the table as Ruch and the others leaped into action. He put the paddles to Annika’s chest, and Faith looked away, unable to bear watching as they tried to shock Annika back to life.

Ironic really, given that Annika had used her powers to shock people
out
of life.

After the third try … nothing happened. It was over. Annika was truly gone, and—

“We have a pulse!” Suddenly, machines began to beep crazily, and the heart monitor went from flatline to jumping around to settling into a steady stream of peaks and valleys.

“We did it,” Faith rasped. “Oh, my God, we did it!”

Ruch shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t give a shit how good of agents you are in the field,” he said, “I’m asking Dev to have you assigned to my hospital.”

Wyatt wouldn’t go for that, and in truth, Dev couldn’t assign Faith to do anything. She wasn’t an ACRO agent. Technically, she was still in charge of TAG, but she’d been toying with the idea of leaving the England-based agency. The work required too many overseas trips, and now that she had a daughter and Wyatt was wanting to grow the family again soon, it was maybe time to stay closer to home.

So the idea that she could use her powers to save lives … intriguing. “We’ll talk about it,” she promised. “Now, can we celebrate?”

Ruch nodded. “We won’t know for sure how much, if any, permanent damage has been done until she wakes up, but her brain wasn’t without oxygen for long, so hopefully we won’t have to worry about that. For now, though, let’s go ahead and give Creed the good news.”

“Doctor!”

Faith and Wyatt spun around to the nurse, who was gaping at Annika. Annika, whose eyes were wide open and aware. Faith grabbed her hand, and though the other woman couldn’t speak, thanks to the intubation tube, she was able to communicate just fine through the tight squeeze of her fingers.

“I’ll get Creed,” Faith said. “Hold on.” Leaving everyone behind, Faith raced down the hall, and after being directed by a nurse, she sprinted to the chapel, where Haley and Remy were pacing with Renee.

Haley’s eyes were swollen, tortured, as she gestured to Creed, who was hunched over on a bench, his face in his hands. Dev was sitting next to him, motionless as a stone. “We can’t get him to leave. He won’t leave Annika.”

“She’s alive,” Faith said, and ignoring Haley’s gasp, she ran
to Creed and Dev, and sank to her knees in front of them. “Wyatt and I … doesn’t matter. Creed, Dev, Annika’s alive. She’s in the operating room. She’s awake.”

Slowly, Creed lifted his head, and Faith recoiled. She’d never seen such devastation in her life. “I lost her.” His voice was a gravelly rumble, as dead as he thought Annika was.