Edge of Forever
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
EDGE OF FOREVER
© 2015 Taryn Elliott
ISBN:
978-1-940346-15-1
Cover by LateNite Designs
All Rights Are Reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Rainbow Rage Publishing e-book edition: March 2015
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For Cari Quinn who knows I’m crazy and still lets me call her bestie.
The beeps. Why won’t someone shut off that fucking alarm?
God, such incessant beeping.
She tried to open her eyes, but they burned. Maybe she could shut it off if she could reach it. Why wouldn’t her arms move?
Why couldn’t she open her eyes?
She was dreaming. She had to be.
Just climb out now.
She’d had dreams like this before. Like someone was holding her down.
She just had to reach harder.
The beep got faster and she couldn’t suck in enough oxygen. Was she drowning? Could you drown on dry land? Was something sitting on her chest?
Was it the desk?
Why would she think it was the desk?
Nic?
Logan?
Why wouldn’t anyone help her?
Please, someone.
The beeping faded.
The dark and quiet lured.
She followed.
∞♦
∞
Logan King fought against the arm that pressed him into the wall. “No.” He used all the strength he had in his upper body to push back. But the kid in the scrubs wasn’t letting him budge. “Please.”
“Mr. King. They’re helping her. You have to stay back.”
He locked eyes with the young orderly. “All right.” He struggled to see her. Fucking tall bastard was blocking his view.
The emergency room was chaos. Shouts for nurses, doctors, crash carts. None of it made any sense to him. There was only Izzy on the gurney and the rapidly growing stain of red.
Blood.
Hers.
There wasn’t any room in the main area, so they’d wheeled her into this fucking closet of a room.
“Get him out of here. Jason, I need you over here.” A tiny Indian woman snarled for a nurse and blood.
Because she was losing too much.
Logan sagged against the wall, slamming his head into the wall. “Izzy.” The broken voice was his. The room wavered as he dragged in a breath. She was so still now. So many tubes and machines.
And the unmistakable scent of blood.
“Dude, back off. Let me—I got him, okay?”
“Out!”
Logan slid down the wall when there was no one to hold him. Zeke blurred in front of him. His sure, strong grip pinned Logan’s shoulder to the wall. “She can’t. I can’t—” Logan choked off. “They have to save her, man.”
“Stop.” Zeke’s bloodshot blue eyes were fierce. “You can’t do anything but fight for her right now. So man up.”
Logan nodded and seethed, dragging in a lungful of air until the spots receded. He straightened his shoulders. “I’m good.”
Zeke stepped back.
Three people were working on her. A nurse ran through the doorway and threw him into the doorjamb, her arms full of bags of blood. They hung them on metal poles, one after another. The doctor with her huge, dark eyes, was working on her side. The nurse kept squeezing the bags dry until the machines stopped screaming.
But more seemed to be dripping down onto the floor.
Like his own personal horror movie on the slowest and fastest setting at the same time. Her blood kept flowing, but everyone seemed to be moving slow.
“Jason, get the door.”
Logan snapped out of it. “No—I’ll stay back.”
The kid pushed them both out and slammed the door. Logan took a step forward and Zeke dragged him back.
“Lo, stay here. They need to work on her.”
Logan flattened his hands on the door. The skinny window didn’t show him a goddamn thing. Muffled orders from the doctor about a surgery room as the machine clanged again.
Christ.
How much blood could one person lose?
Then the door burst open. The pint-sized doctor navigated the gurney through to the hallway, shouting orders for drugs and some other doctor to be contacted. All of it happened in the space of a heartbeat.
“Pressure’s dropping.”
He followed the team of people until they got to the elevator. Jason—the big orderly—pushed him back out again. His face brooked no argument and the doors closed in Logan’s face.
“Fuck.”
Logan rushed to the desk. “What floor is surgery on?”
“Are you family?”
“Yes. I’m her fiancé.”
The nurse behind the desk gave him a raised brow.
“Do you want a fucking copy of the receipt for the ring?”
“All right. Enough.” Zeke placed a hand on his shoulder. “His fiancé was in the explosion at the festival. They just took her up to surgery.”
“What’s her name?”
“Isabella Grace.”
The woman’s face sharpened. “They just booked the room for her surgery, so I don’t know which room, but she’ll be on the eighth floor.”
Logan took off to the visitors’ elevators. He’d only been to this hospital once, but it had been for physical therapy. Not even his own. Logan had been the only one mean enough to get Jacob Stack to his appointments.
He never thought he’d be here for this.
When the doors opened, Logan got in and punched the button for eight. “She did this. You fucking know she did this.”
“Not now, buddy. Just worry about Bellamina, okay? She’s all you focus on. She’s the priority.”
“Nichole?”
Zeke averted his gaze. “They tried to get her out. The paramedics worked with the firemen, but she was gone.”
Logan dipped his head. He’d known it. Had seen the flames surrounding her and known it. But God, he’d hoped.
“Adam? Sarah?”
“Both in the ICU. Sarah’s status just got upgraded though. She’s too tough to die.”
Logan folded his arms and leaned against the railing. “Adam?”
“I don’t know, man. He hasn’t woken up yet.”
He jammed his fingers into his hair and pulled at the roots. So much carnage. How could one woman create this kind of destruction? The elevator opened and Logan tore down the hall to the surgical ward.
There was just as much activity, except that this was a controlled insanity. People worked quickly, walked quickly, and spoke in clipped tones.
“Sir? Can I help you?”
Logan turned around to see an older woman in a small windowed room. He cleared his throat. “Yes, um, my fiancée just came up for surgery.”
“Her name?”
“Isabella Grace.”
The woman typed on her keyboard. “Do you have her insurance information?”
Logan frowned. “No. I don’t know what she has.”
“Do you know her social?”
His chest tightened. “No. I don’t. It doesn’t matter what it costs. I’ll pay it.”
“This is your fiancée, right?”
Zeke pushed Logan aside before he could punch his way through the Plexiglas. “Sorry. She was in the festival accident. I’m sure we’ll be able to gather the insurance information soon. Could you just look up to see if she’s in surgery?”
The woman’s white eyebrows lowered. “All right, one moment.” Her hands flew over the keys. “They’ve only just gone in. It’s going to be awhile. The doctor will be out to talk to you when they’re finished.”
Logan stalked away. Waiting, more waiting. Waiting to get her in the ambulance, to get her to the hospital, to get her inside.
He couldn’t stand the waiting.
All he could see was her soot-stained face and the blood. He looked down at his hands. His cuticles were still stained with it.
With her.
He paced into the darkened corner of the waiting room. He pushed chairs out of his way just to touch something, to do something. He dug his phone out of his pocket, the crystal completely shattered.
He dropped it onto the table.
“Logan, you gotta sit down, man. Do you need to see one of the doctors?”
Logan looked at his shaking hands. “Not mine.”
Zeke grasped his shoulders, bringing him to a stop. “Let’s get you cleaned up, okay? We got time to ki—to waste. So we’re going to hit the little boy’s room, all right?”
“Stop talking to me like I’m fucking two, man.”
Zeke’s head bobbed. His extra fluffy curls singed along the ends. “Well, you look like a ten-year-old that went down a chimney with Santa. So let’s get that taken care of. Call in the troops. We have kickass assistants for a reason, right?”
Logan nodded.
Zeke took out his phone and pointed him in the direction of the men’s room, pushing him through the door and following him inside. “Hey, Charlie. Yeah, he’s fine. No, not hurt. Bella’s in surgery.”
Logan tuned out the conversation and pushed through the swinging door. He froze in the middle of the tiled room. No wonder Zeke was talking to him like he was touched in the head. He looked like he was the one that had been in the middle of the explosion. His face was streaked with soot and sweat and blood. His hair was matted with it. His eyes were bright red from smoke, worry, and exhaustion.
He’d been riding on adrenaline and nerves for what felt like days.
It had been so quiet. So blessedly quiet for so long.
He’d wanted to believe that Aimee had moved on to her next sap. That she’d finally lost interest in him. That the news reports were right. That she’d started up with some Russian hockey player.
But that had been her plan. This had Aimee Collen all over it.
She wanted him to think she’d been gone. To let him get complacent.
And it had worked. He hadn’t protected Izzy.
“I need your phone.”
Zeke stopped pacing. “Charlie. I’m going to call you back. You have the list of what I need?” Zeke held up a finger when Logan held out his hand for the phone. “Right. That’s perfect. See you in a bit.” He clicked off and tucked the phone in his pocket. “Who are you calling?”
“Roth.”
“Already did.”
“Don’t care. Give me the fucking phone, Zeke.”
Zeke backed up a step. “Marcus is on his way. They’ll be here in…well, probably almost here. For Sarah. Remember, fuckhead? Bella isn’t the only one that got hurt.”
Logan pivoted to the sink and held onto the cold porcelain. “I gotta do something.”
“Get cleaned up. The guys are on their way over.”
He scrubbed his palms over his eyes. “I don’t want them here.”
“You will. You’re just being a bitch right now.”
Logan looked at him through the mirror. “Thanks.”
Zeke shrugged. “Am I lying?”
He filled his palm with soap and turned on the water. Black soot, rusty red blood—her blood. He scrubbed until his cuticles were pink and his knuckles were burning. So much of her had been on the pavement. All the glass inside her.
The tear down her side.
The pane of her window had actually gutted her.
Because she’d been thrown like a ragdoll from the blast.
Zeke tapped him on the arm with a handful of paper towels. “You’re going to turn into a prune.” He grabbed another half dozen paper towels and ran them under the water. “I know I’m the pretty one, but you gotta at least try.”
He took the wad of wet towels and swiped at his face. Freckles and haunted eyes. That’s all he saw.
Deep breath, asshole. She needs you.
He rolled his neck and stuffed the towels into the garbage before he opened the door. The waiting room had filled up while they were in the men’s room. A television was on and images of Izzy’s store engulfed in flames filled the wide screen.
Eight casualties, two of them firemen.
Her store was gone. All that was left was a hollowed out stone husk. A store full of paper couldn’t be more perfect for an accelerant.
The place that Izzy had prided herself on.
That Adam and Nic had help her build.
Where Nichole died.
Jesus.
Zeke pushed him along, away from the television to the far corner of the waiting room.
“My phone is fucked.”
“I’ve got a new one coming.”
Logan nodded. He felt cut off. He didn’t even know who to call. The police? He dragged in a breath. “I need to call her parents. I know she’s not close to them, but they need to know. Nic will—” He hung his head. “I don’t know who would know beyond Nic. God, this is so fucked up.”
He drilled his fingers into his hair.
“Logan?”
He turned. Shock and an arrow of sorrow sliced into him. “Jacob.”
The older man came forward. Craggy and weathered, steel gray hair military short, Jacob Stack was the first person to accept him in Winchester Falls. Hell, Jacob had practically overseen the building of Logan’s house nearly fifteen years ago.
Without hesitation, he dragged Logan in for a hard slap on the back. “How’s our girls?”
Logan’s lip quivered, but he managed to swallow back a sob. He might not see Jacob much these days, but he was the closest thing to a father that he had on the planet. “We lost Nichole. Izzy’s in surgery.”