Linda Johnston - Back to Life

That didn’t make up for helping the other officer to die, but it lessened her pain, a little.

Although utterly exhausted, she managed to smile down at Owens, soothingly and encouragingly.

And when he gazed faintly back at her while lying there with blood covering his badly injured body, a sensation she could not identify rolled through Skye. Recognition? Pleasure? Satisfaction? Anticipation?

All of them?

Time to get out of there. Bella and she had work to do, and it didn’t involve daydreaming.

And yet, she couldn’t help watching as Owens’s eyes closed again. Slowly. Peacefully.

He was going to live.

Skye hoped that whatever she’d sensed he’d needed to do was worth it and that he would in fact accomplish it.

She nearly stumbled over her own shuffling feet as she took Bella’s collar and made her way out of the warehouse.

In the chaos outside, she was handed a shirt by another officer. “Suspect’s still at large. Got this from his automobile—ran his plate. See if Bella can find this bastard.”

Skye led Bella back inside to where officers who’d witnessed the shooting said the suspect had stood to shoot the two downed men. She held the shirt out, and Bella sniffed it.

She immediately picked up the scent. Skye followed—until Bella lost track of it in the parking lot outside. She couldn’t pick it up again.

The suspect must have stolen a different vehicle.

He was gone.

“That’s why you feel so tired,” said Hayley Sigurd. The willowy ice-blonde who’d been Skye’s friend since childhood smiled sympathetically. Although she’d kept her voice low, it was unnecessary. Bernardo’s at the Beach wasn’t only the favorite dinner hangout of Skye’s group of transplanted Minnesotans, it was also Angeles Beach’s most popular restaurant, and the boisterous crowd around their table of four was noisy enough that no one could be eavesdropping.

“Yeah,” agreed Kara Woods, at Skye’s left. “Helping the first guy pass over was draining all by itself. And if that second guy was as gone as you say…” Kara was the most curvaceous of them. Her straight black hair belied her mother’s Nordic ancestry, but her dad’s side of family was Native American, and her strikingly sharp features had come from him…just as her powers, like Skye’s and Hayley’s, had come from her mom’s side of the family.

“Of course he was.” Ron Gollar jutted his broad, smooth chin out belligerently as if expecting the women to contradict him…as usual. Like the others, Skye sometimes enjoyed giving Ron a hard time for fun, but not today, when she felt utterly serious and drained.

Although Ron was also twenty-seven, he was like Skye’s little brother. He’d been in the marines for a while and now was a rookie ABPD cop. He had been at the warehouse, but not close enough to the victims to see how far gone they were. At the moment, he was just being supportive of Skye, which made her want to hug him.

Skye sipped her peach margarita, feeling the sweet alcohol drink slip through her, relaxing her even more. She stared out at the golden sky. The sun was just setting over the Pacific, a beautiful, peaceful twilight that also helped to mellow her mood. As exhausted as she’d felt since her work at the crime scene that afternoon, she’d also been edgy. Worried. Had she made the right choices this time?

And what was that odd sensation she had felt about the second victim, Owens? Since she’d left his side, she’d ached to see him again—to assure herself he really would be all right, to try to understand his unassailable need to survive, and why she had felt so compelled to save his life.

“It’s the first time I ever took on two victims at the same time,” she said to her friends. “How do you two handle it?”

Kara was an emergency medical technician. She faced multiple casualties nearly every day. And Hayley, who was on her way toward becoming a trauma surgeon, did as well. As a male, Ron did not share their unique abilities and never had to engage in the life-and-death decisions that Skye shared with her female friends. Friends whose mothers, like hers, were all descended from Valkyries.

The waitress came to the table balancing delectable-looking salads containing greens with nuts and fruit, smothered in raspberry vinaigrette. “Here you are,” she said. “The rest of your food will be up shortly.”

Skye used her fork to play with a piece of arugula. The others dug in right away, though, even Ron.

“You’ll get used to it, honey,” Kara eventually said. Her piercing, hazel eyes had gone as sympathetic as Hayley’s blue ones. “It is exhausting, though. Drains our own life force. I’ve even managed to bring back a couple of guys from a motorcycle accident at the exact same time—although neither was as far gone as the officer you described.”

“Doesn’t it help when you can also use regular lifesaving medical stuff, too?” Ron took a piece of bread from a basket. He’d curved his broad shoulders beneath his white T-shirt as if waiting to be criticized. “You two have it easier than a cop like Skye, don’t you?”

“How would you know, twerp?” Hayley asked good-naturedly. Then she frowned, creating lines on her high forehead that the wispy bangs of her pale hair didn’t quite conceal. “But you’re right, Ron. Kara and I always use whatever resources we can and Skye has her Bella, who helps her find the bad guys. But we’re all stuck with making tough decisions about which people should live and which should die.”

All were silent for a moment, and Skye felt the weight of what Hayley had said.

They could have stayed in the familiar environment where their families had resided for over a century. There, in a small Minnesota town, their mothers and their mothers’ mothers, only had to use their special life-preserving powers on rare occasions when those who were young and healthy and not ready to head toward the afterlife suffered accidents or other life-threatening situations and needed to be brought back from the brink. No need for the split-second decisions that had to be made in other circumstances. Most of the time, their mothers merely held the hands of the elderly and infirm—those clearly at the crossroads between life and death—easing them to the other side.

Over the years, a few with their powers had left the area, intending to partake in a broader mission, but it hadn’t been the majority.

Until now. Skye’s generation was different. Many chose to leave so they could use their powers to reach out in secret and help people in other communities whose females did not share their powers.

Skye and her three closest friends had often talked about moving to where trauma was an everyday occurrence, to maximize the number of lives they saved and those whose ends they eased. Ron could not actively participate, but he’d made it clear he wanted to join them and help however he could.

Eventually, they’d settled on Angeles Beach. Near L.A. and growing almost as fast, it had more than its share of violence. And by the time they’d arrived, they each had decided on what path to take to achieve their goals.

Skye had already trained in law enforcement at home and was a K-9 cop. With a caring, nonhuman partner, she could achieve what she needed to with as much secrecy as possible.

She had already assisted quite a few people to the other side and had brought others back. But not fellow cops. And not anyone like Owens.

“You okay, Skye?” Hayley reached her slender hand over and patted Skye’s arm. “If you’re too tired to eat, we’ll get our dinners to go and I’ll drive you home.”

“No way!” Skye yanked her thoughts back to where they belonged. “I’m fine,” she said. “Hey, there’s our food.”