Are you an angel?
Something like that. I’m Eli.
Chapter Sixty
Monday, July 22
Noon
Zach stood in the doorway of the hospital room. Sunlight tumbled through the window, bathing Mick in light. It softened her features making her look more like an angel than the ass-kicking cop she was.
She sat up in the bed, gaze fixed on the TV and the News at Noon.
“In a daring rescue early this morning, NOPD Detective Zachary Harris—”
As if sensing his presence, she looked his way.
He smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey to you too.”
He crossed to the bed. “We did it.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “You sure did. You’re a bona fide hero.”
He pulled over the chair and sat. “Can’t believe everything you see on TV.”
As if on cue, they both turned to the screen.
“—the other detective involved was shot during the operation and is hospitalized but expected to recover.”
Zach blinked. In that fraction of a second, the events of that night played through his mind: the sound of shots, Mick’s body jerking at the impact, holding her while her blood drained out, helpless to stop it.
He looked at her, smile gone. “Thought I’d lost you, Mick.”
For a long moment, she was silent. When she spoke, her tone was low but fierce. “I was dying, Zach. In fact . . . I died.”
He shifted his gaze slightly. She couldn’t know the whole truth. Maybe ever. “I’m sure it felt that way, but—”
“No.” She shook her head. “I felt my blood run out, my heart slow to a stop.”
“You lost a lot of blood, Mick. Lost consciousness.”
“The doctors can’t believe how I’ve healed. Where the bullet entered, its trajectory . . . I shouldn’t be here, let alone be sitting up talking. A miracle, they said.”
Her voice thickened and he reached across and caught her hand, recalling those moments. Eli, drawing her limp body to his; wrapping himself around her, cocooning her in the most beautiful light he had ever seen.
Mick squeezed his hand tighter. “I don’t think . . . I didn’t deserve a miracle.”
A lump formed in his throat. “You did, Mick. And you’d deserve a dozen more.”
Her eyes grew bright and she looked quickly away. “A dozen?” she quipped. “If you hang around, I’m going to need a hell of a lot more than that.”
“It’s okay to cry, Mick.”
“I’m not crying.” She looked at him with manufactured bravado. “Mad Dog doesn’t cry. Mad Dog crushes skulls.”
He tightened his fingers around hers. “Sorry I got you shot.”
“There’s not a YouTube video, is there?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Lucky me,” she said, her attempted sarcasm coming across tremulous.
“Kenny’s dead. You know that, right? He shot you, then turned the gun on himself.”
She shook her head, turning her gaze to the window, the sun shining through. “Why’d he do that, Hollywood?”
“Who knows? Maybe he realized there was no way out?”
She looked back at him. “I think he wanted to do the right thing. He still had good in him.”
“Listen to cynical, badass Michaela Dare, seeing the best in someone.”
“When I was dying, I had this vision. An angel. He wrapped me in his wings.”
Zach held his breath. She wasn’t supposed to remember Eli’s presence, nor that of the other Light Keepers or Dark Bearer. Just as Miller and Putnam didn’t. They remembered Kenny, being abducted and tortured, their fear, the chaos. Passing in and out of consciousness. And finally, being saved.
Angel, on the other hand, was special. In the circle.
“It was . . . beautiful,” she went on. “The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. That’s all I remember.” She searched his gaze. “What did I miss?”
For a moment, his memory flooded with the image of Angel in the grip of the Dark Bearer. He felt its terrible, suffocating presence. Remembered his fear as it turned on him when he tried to free her.
“Zach?”
He blinked, shooting her his trademark shit-eating grin, hating himself for what he was about to say. “Just me saving the day. Freed Miller, Putnam, and Angel. Called for backup and medical assistance.”
She lowered her voice. “And the Dark Bearer?”
“Took off.” That much was true. Lester and his assembled army had driven it off with their lightforce. He recalled Truebell’s words after: “Darkness, Zach, cannot exist in the light.”
But it would be back, as strong as ever. Until then, they waited. And trained.
She was looking at him strangely, eyebrows drawn together in thought. He smiled. “I guess he knew he was licked. I’m pretty damn scary.”
She shook her head. “It was there. I felt it and . . . it took over Kenny’s body. And—”
She bit the last back and massaged the bridge of her nose.
“What, Mick?”
“It knew things. About me. My past.” She paused. “How could that be?”
“Don’t know, Mick.”