Someone crouched down beside him. A woman, yet he couldn’t quite make out her face, it was too blurry. He knew it was important to note she was a woman, but he was sliding to the floor right over top of Treadway, which seemed indecent, but he couldn’t stop himself, his body was no longer his own to control. He could barely find a way to breathe.
“Malichai Fortunes is my fiancé, Callendine, and I didn’t much like you having your man try to kill him. Nor do I take kindly to you and your merry associates attempting to murder innocent people. You didn’t get away with it. Not a single one of you.”
She got up and sauntered away. He tried to watch her go, but his vision was too blurred, and he was fighting for every breath, his lungs burning and his diaphragm laboring. He lay there for a few more minutes struggling, and then there was silence.
Malichai worked as fast as he could, moving through the wires, grateful whoever had built the bomb had used a much simpler method than the more sophisticated ones that he’d learned to take apart. Those took time they didn’t have. He had to block out everything around him but the bomb itself. The people running. Their screams. The sounds of crying children. The fact that Amaryllis was out there somewhere unprotected. The excruciating pain in his leg that caused every nerve ending to send shards of glass through his nervous system.
He ignored his body and concentrated on the bomb, even when Ezekiel threw himself down beside him to disconnect the second bomb Major Roseland Salsberry had attached to the main one to add an extra kick to bringing down the center on top of the innocent people.
He felt sweat trickling down his forehead and more down his chest. He wasn’t like the men in the movies who just disarmed bombs so nonchalantly and easily as if they did it daily, yet he’d always had a knack for it. He knew part of that was his psychic gift, his hands moving like the surgeons’ might in a body. It was instinctive as well as trained. He was fast because the movement was almost without thought, but yet guided by both training and instinct.
Time passed and he was at the end, cutting the last wire and turning his attention to the bomb Zeke was working on. Ezekiel had it nearly finished with the clock ticking down. Malichai looked at it for a long moment, frowning. Something wasn’t quite right. He studied it, staying his brother’s hand. Zeke looked at him over his shoulder, but didn’t insist he was on the right path, although he’d stopped this bomb once before.
Very cautiously, Malichai used the tip of his snippers to ease open a small door built into the side of the bomb. It was very small and seemingly incongruous. There was no reason for it to be there at all. So why was it there? Two blue wires trailed innocently up to the detonator along with two red ones.
Zeke looked at him. Shook his head and sank back on his heels. “I would have blown us up. How did you know?”
He hadn’t. Malichai couldn’t tell him why or how his body reacted to explosives, it just happened, and in this case, it had not only saved their lives but also saved the lives of the people not yet evacuated from the building. It wasn’t easy getting a couple thousand civilians out of a building, even for military teams working together.
Malichai followed the blue and red wires back to the detonator. All four were twisted around one another and around other wires. Major Salsberry had deliberately made this as difficult as possible. Malichai had to trust his gift—and he did. The timer had counted down far too close to the last minute. He chose a blue wire and snipped it, hearing his brother’s gasping protest as he did.
The clock stopped ticking and the two bombs simply sat there looking harmless. Malichai had one moment of euphoria and then pain engulfed him, spread through him, twisting his insides into shards of glass and spewing his guts onto the floor as darkness overtook him.
19
There was the continuous sound of machines beeping in the background. Muted noises that became louder and more persistent until Malichai had little choice but to try and pry his eyes open. For some reason, his eyelids refused to lift. Maybe he was just too damned tired. He was aware of smells. He recognized he was in a hospital, he certainly had been in them enough times. He wasn’t in pain. Had he been brought in wounded and fallen asleep? That wouldn’t be the first time either.
He tried to assess what was going on while he worked on his sticky eyelids. Memories refused to return to him no matter how hard he reached for them. The world seemed far away at first, but the machines and the persistent beeping annoyed him, refusing to allow him to return to sleep.
“Malichai.”
His name. He heard that clearly. Was there a trace of anxiety in his brother’s voice? That was Ezekiel calling out to him. When Zeke called, you always answered. Malichai redoubled his efforts to pry his eyelids open, a little ashamed to be caught sleeping on the job. He managed to open them slightly, mere slits so he could peer around the room.
He was in bed, hooked up to machines, IVs running up his arms to bags of fluids and even blood. What had happened? He forced his gaze to move around the room. Amaryllis’s face swam into view. She looked as if she’d been crying. Mordichai was close to her. Rubin and Diego taking her back. Right between them was . . . Nonny. His heart jerked hard. He heard the answering acceleration of a machine. Nonny was there. The machine didn’t stop the rapid-fire heartbeat.
Malichai’s gaze settled on Ezekiel’s face. He was close, right near Malichai’s head, ready to block him from the sight of the others. From Amaryllis. This wasn’t good. This couldn’t be good. He couldn’t lift his eyelids any farther. Now he didn’t even want to, but he looked at his older brother. Zeke was everything. Father. Brother. Commanding officer. Malichai would follow him into hell. Right now, he needed his father. Ezekiel didn’t let him down.
“I’d like to have the room, if you all don’t mind,” Ezekiel said quietly, which was his way. “Malichai is waking up and I’ll need a few minutes to talk to him alone.”
“Of course,” Mordichai said, before anyone else could say anything.
He took Amaryllis by the hand. Rubin gently put his arm around Nonny. They were careful with the woman. Gentle. Reverent even. The men escorted the two women out of the room, leaving only Ezekiel with Malichai. Now Malichai’s heart beat so hard he feared it would explode.
His brother slipped his arm around his chest. “Do you want to try to sit?”
“Just tell me.” He knew. He couldn’t feel, but he knew. Nonny was there and she wouldn’t have come all the way from her beloved swamp at her age if the news wasn’t bad—if it wasn’t the worst.
God. He felt the burn of tears welling up behind his eyes, choking him in his throat so he could barely breathe, and Ezekiel hadn’t said a word.
“They had to take the leg, Malichai. Whatever was causing the bone to disintegrate was creeping higher and higher, almost like a fungus, and there was no stopping it. When you stepped down on it getting out of the van and ran toward the center, the bone itself shattered like glass. It was impossible to repair.”
That arm was steady, the way Ezekiel was steady. Always there for Malichai and his brothers. Always would be, no matter how bad things got, and they’d gotten bad. They’d been worse, but not for Malichai. This was his personal nightmare, and then there was Amaryllis. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—ask her to share this with him.