Laurell Hamilton - Never After

I followed him to make sure he was gone and then returned to Mitch’s side. “Honey, I have so much to tell you but I’m afraid you won’t remember it if I tell you right now. Just trust me. Please… You trust me, don’t you?” I strained, holding his uninjured hand, waiting for an answer.

Mitch’s brilliant baby blues stared up at me for a moment, questions warring in his gaze, but he finally nodded and squeezed my hand. He opened his mouth and struggled until a faint “I trust you” came out, followed by, “I love you.”

I wanted so badly to tell him what was going on, but in his condition, he needed to rest. So I kissed his lips and adjusted his covers and watched as he slid back into a drug-filledsleep.

As I lowered myself into the chair and picked up the remote control, wondering what to do with myself all day, the door opened and a tall, blond nurse bustled into the room, pushing a cart with a beautiful potted plant on it.

“Hey.” I started to stand but Delilah motioned me back into the chair. She shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips.

“Ms. Morgan, I’m just delivering this plant that one of Mitch’s friends sent. What a beautiful philodendron.” She glanced around, then motioned to the dresser that was opposite Mitch’s bed, beneath the TV mounted on the wall. “Why don’t we put it there? I think it would be just perfect.”

As I gathered my purse from off the dresser, I noticed a tiny camera nestled in the ceramic pot. It was aimed directly toward the door and from what I could tell, the view would include Mitch as well. I gazed at it for a moment, then stood back.

“You’re right; that’s the perfect spot.” I gave Delilah a quick nod to show her I’d seen it, and stepped back. “Thank you. I know Mitch will appreciate it when he wakes up.”

“If that’s all, then, I’ll be going. May I speak with you outside for a moment?” she asked. “It’s nothing important, but you need to sign a form if you’re going to stay here overnight.”

I followed her into the hall and she motioned me off to one side and pressed a small pager into my hand.

“Camille and Smoky are hanging out on the roof, and I’m going to be hiding in cat form down the hall. There’s a room nobody seems to use and I can sneak in there behind one of the old beds. Camille has a monitor linked to the webcam, and we both have pagers linked to yours. You press the alert button, we’ll come running.”

I examined the pager, then slid it into the side pocket of my top. “What about the webcam? Wireless?”

“Entirely. It’s all set up. Camille and Smoky are watching right now. You hang out here today, read, relax, maybe get in a nap in case Terrance makes his move tonight. You’ll want to be refreshed.” She glanced over her shoulder at a group of nurses who were passing by. They gave us an odd look, but left us alone.

“What if he doesn’t come tonight?” I both feared he would, and feared he wouldn’t. Either way would be a mess.

Delilah shrugged. “Then we deal with it tomorrow. But I think… I have a hunch that he’s around. I’m a cat; I can still smell that briny scent he had yesterday when we were fighting in the park. There was something about him—the smell of salt and seaweed and decay—and I can smell that now. Faint, but it’s here, in the hospital.”

“Can you track it?” If she could, maybe we’d be in luck.

But she shook her head. “No, it’s too weak. But it’s recent. Trust us on this one. Camille’s intuition’s pretty damned fine tuned, and I’ve got a nose that won’t quit.”

I nodded. “I do trust you. That’s why you’re here with me now and not Chase. As nice as the man is, he just wouldn’t understand.” I paused, then laid a hand on Delilah’s arm. “Thank you. Thank you for everything.”

She smiled. “Thank us after it’s over. Now go back in there and try not to worry.” As she turned and headed down the hall, I returned to Mitch’s room. All well and good to say, Don’t worry . Following her advice was an entirely different matter.

I opened my eyes to the sound of someone entering the room. For a moment, I wondered where the hell I was—this wasn’t my own bed—and then I remembered. Mitch. The hospital. Terrance.

I slowly took in my surroundings, keeping still to avoid warning the intruder that I was awake. And then, remembering what Delilah said, I inhaled a long, slow breath, trying to concentrate on weeding out the scents surrounding me.

I could smell the bleach they used to clean the bathroom, and the medications that Mitch had dripping through his IVs.

I could smell the attempts at sterility the hospital made, but they’d never realize just how far they fell short, for beneath the cleansers were the odors of illness and injury, of old vomit and stale urine.

Lowering myself another layer, I let the next level of scent waft over me, forcing myself to remain still as the door opened another inch.

And there it was. Brine. Seaweed. Mussels. The decay of the sea. Terrance was here.

It took every ounce of courage I had not to leap up, to scream for help. Instead, I forced myself to pretend to sleep while I stealthily reached for the pager that I’d stashed in my robe. But when I reached into the soft cotton pocket, the pager wasn’t there.

Shit! It must have fallen out while I was sleeping! What the hell was I going to do?>

I fumbled around, trying to sense whether anybody was near me, and to find out where the damned pager had gone to. I prayed that I hadn’t knocked it off the bed while I was sleeping. Of course, there was the webcam, but I didn’t trust Camille and Delilah to get here before Terrance had a chance to kill Mitch. And he would. I knew he would.

As the door swung open all the way, soft footsteps slipped into the room, followed by a second pair. If it had been a nurse, she would have come in matter-of-fact. The night nurse had already woken me up once when she came to check on Mitch. And the lights stayed off this time, so it was a pretty good bet that whoever this was, was up to no good.

And then I felt the pager. Damn it! The thing was down by my left foot. If I scrunched down to get it, Terrance would notice. If I tried to move it up to my hands using my feet—again, he’d notice. What the hell was I going to do? The minute I gave myself away, he’d go after Mitch and then after me. There was only one thing I could think of—scare the hell out of him, then take off running and pray he’d follow me and leave Mitch alone.

I dreaded the onslaught of nurses we’d face—they’d immediately call Chase. But I had no choice. The question was, would it work? Could I startle him enough to give me time to punch the button on the pager and get out the door before he caught me? There was only one way to find out.

I sprang up as fast as I could—which wasn’t as fast as I’d hoped—let out one piercing shriek, and grabbed the pager. As I punched the red button, I expected to hear a commotion outside, but instead all I heard was Terrance letting out a blast of obscenities that would have made even Camille and Menolly blush.

“You want me so bad, you come and get me,” I shouted, running for the door.

Terrance—I could see him clearly now; he was with Lon—looked at Mitch, then back at me, then at Mitch again. As I thundered out the door, he growled and motioned to Lon.

“Get her. We’ll deal with him later. We can’t have her spreading the alarm.” He headed my way and I darted into the hall, looking around frantically for something to use as a weapon.

Then I noticed: There were no nurses at the nursing station. Where the hell—

“I’m going to make you wish to hell you’d never laid eyes on me,” Terrance said as the door swung shut behind him. “Make it easy on yourself and stop right now. Obey, and I’ll kill him neat and clean. If you make me chase you, I promise you the stupid seal will feel every single cut I put into his body, and you’ll be there watching. And I’ll make sure that before he dies, he knows exactly what I did to you back in Cobh, and what I’m going to do to you now. You and that whelp in your belly. You’ll bear a child, all right. Mine .”