Divine Savior (6 page)

Shade sat in the jail cell alone, her heart aching for what she had witnessed and done. The police, knowing Brenda, knew that most, if not all, she was telling them was not the whole truth. And no matter what Brenda and the man, Peterson, had claimed, they knew enough about Shade to know that she couldn’t have done what they were telling them.

Shade didn’t have anyone to call, not really. She didn’t have a lawyer and wouldn’t have the money to pay one if she did. She had called the hospital as soon as she could make her one call to see if her friend nurse Diana Ridge would please make sure the kids got the care they deserved.

“
You should not worry about dem kids; I’ve seen dem in here enough to know what the poor lambs need. You needin anythin, sweetie?”

Diana didn’t know that Shade had been arrested with the kid’s mom, apparently. Shade didn’t tell her either. She thought if she knew, maybe she wouldn’t watch over the kids for her.

“
No, ma’am, I’m fine. Just please watch out for Brent and Becca. I’ll be in as soon as I can, all right?”

“
You got it, kiddo.” There was a long pause and Shade was nervous as to why. “The little one, the little girl, she’s in surgery. And they are a working on the boy. They’s in bad shape, you know? But I’ll be right here for ‘em. Just you take care you stay away from that bitch, you hear?”

Diana had been a nurse for a very long time, and would be for much longer, Shade hoped. Nurses like her were born to care for people and Shade was very glad she knew her.

“
Yeah, I’ll do that. Thank you, Mrs. Ridge. You don’t know how much…you are a very nice person.”

She hung up and leaned her head against the wall. The female officer quietly handed her a tissue and walked far enough away for Shade to have a few minutes of privacy. Shade sobbed quietly, crying into the tissue and hurting for the stupidity of it all.

They held them for nearly fourteen hours. Shade had told them what had happened from the time she had entered the apartments seven times so far. She hurt. She hadn’t realized when it was happening that the man, Bob Peterson, had hit her with his fists quite a few times before she had gotten the better of him. Her jaw and ribs were bruised, and she was sure that a couple of them were cracked. Those injuries would not heal as fast as a life threatening wound would. She would have to suffer through them along with the nightmare she had just witnessed.

Shade was told that she couldn’t leave town—like she could even if she wanted to—and that she was to appear in court the following Monday morning at eight o’clock. They had appointed her an attorney fresh out of college, an intern. Her name was Madison Harm. She seemed nice enough. The court appearance was in four days.

Shade used some of her stash and took a cab straight to the hospital. She wanted to be there as soon as the kids woke up. The need to reassure them and herself that everything would hopefully get better soon was paramount. She hoped that the authorities would have enough now to take the kids from Brenda—mother of the year, she was not.

Diana met her at the emergency room doors. As soon as Shade saw Diana, she knew that something bad had happened to one or both of the children.

“
I’m so sorry, baby. Little Becca died on the operating table of massive internal injuries late last night,” Diana told her. “She had blunt trauma to her head where someone had apparently swung her against something really hard. The doctor said she must have been screaming up a storm from what they done to her. She’d been raped repeatedly, the doc telled me. She was just too weak and too broken inside to have survived surgery, honey.”

Shade sat down hard on the floor, her knees too weak to hold her up any longer. She could feel the tears on her face, but couldn’t gather the strength needed to wipe them away. Becca was dead. Her little Becca was gone. It took her several seconds to realize Mrs. Ridge was still speaking.

“
Maybe if’n she’d of had a little more strength, she might maybe of had a fighting chance. Do you believe she had only been four years old? Brent, that little darling, ain’t much better, I’m afeared. He’s in a medical coma and they’s hoping he’ll be able to pull through, but it don’t look good. That bastard tossed him against the same wall as his baby sister, I’m abetting. Splitting that poor lamb’s head open like a melon and having the surgeon put a hundred and fifty-six stitches in his little skull.”

“
I tried,” Shade started. “I tried to save them, but I was too late. I’m so sorry. I was too late.”

“
Shade, honey, there weren’t nothing you could have done to save them. That poor little thing, Brent…he was raped, too, they was a saying, but not by this man, at least not this time. What could you have done, baby, without you getting killed too? They’s momma should have done it; she should have…I’d like to have five minutes with the nasty piece of horse dung—both of them. Why, if my Donny was alive, he’d of…” Shade cut her off, hearing her, but only registering about half right now.

“
Will they let me see them at least? I want to also see if I can make funeral arrangements for Becca. Do you think they’ll let me do that? I don’t suspect that their mother will do anything for her. You should have seen what that man was doing to Becca when I opened the door. And Brent...he was just lying there, all broken up too. How could...why Mrs. Ridge, why would anyone do that? Why would anyone hurt their own children?” Tears were coming down her face, but she didn’t care.

Shade wasn’t sure why she trusted this woman when she didn’t anyone else. The few times Diana had touched Shade in an offer of support, she hadn’t felt the need to immediately flinch away or to fight her.

“
I don’t know, child. I just don’t know. It’s a horrible thing when a child dies, worst if’n they die by the one person theys suppose to be able to count on. I don’t know what this old world is a’coming to, no I don’t.”

Shade knew what she meant. “How much do you suppose it’ll cost to bury Becca, Mrs. Ridge? I don’t have much, but I could make them payments if they’ll let me.” Shade would make it work if she had to stop eating all together.

“
The city will bury her; won’t cost anyone nothin’. You let the city do the burying and you go ahead and get her a nice headstone, one with a pretty angel on it. They won’t give Becca one of dem, just a little old metal disk in the ground to mark where she is. Just a row and grave number on it, nothin’ to tell people what a wonderful little girl she was. You do that for her. Don’t let her be just a number, child; don’t let her be just another number in one of dem city books hid away somewheres dark.”

“
I failed them, Diana. I failed them both,” Shade sobbed.

“
Oh my God, child, dem kids weren’t yours. You couldn’t do no more than you did for’ em. You can’t think like that. Why, thinkin’ like that will make you sick.”

Shade stood up and walked toward the elevators. She needed to breathe. She needed to get away from the smell of medicine and death, of the despair and sadness.

Shade couldn’t help but think that if she hadn’t stopped to get pizza, she would have been there on time. That Becca wouldn’t have…but it wouldn’t do her any good now to think things like that. All she could do now was hope Brent lived. And Shade hoped she never saw that bitch Brenda again or she would be very sorry she had ever crossed paths with Shade Doe. Just like her run-in with Mark the other night.

Mark had tried to arrest her, or at least he had said that was what he was doing. He had stopped her up while she was walking home after a small job that had paid her in cash. Said she was a vagrant and there was a law about her kind walking around without means to support themselves. She thought it had something to do with the kids, but he didn’t seem to know anything about that.

He had pointed his gun at her and forced her into the back of the car. But once he got her into the cruiser, he took her in the opposite direction of the station house. By the time she had figured out what his intentions were, she was locked in the back and the handles had been removed.

He drove her to a remote site and dragged her kicking and screaming from the car. He’d had to hit her a few times to get her to “cooperate” with him. Then when she kneed him in the groin, he changed tactics. His weapon had come out again so fast that she didn’t have time to react and to move out of the way. He had hit her on the side of the head so hard that she saw stars. She had actually, but they cleared quickly in her panic to survive. Thinking that he had knocked her out she supposed, he relaxed his grip enough for her to move, giving her the perfect opportunity to attack. Shade drew her knife from her boot and stabbed him in the arm, then another longer, deeper cut in the shoulder. Shade fled the scene and never looked back, not caring if she had killed the stupid bastard or not.

A few days ago, she heard on the news that Mark Sells was a hero. It seemed as though the decorated officer had gotten out of his cruiser to help someone with car trouble, something that he said he always did. Then someone, for no apparent reason, attacked him. He had told the anchor girl his “story” while lying in his hospital bed, bandaged from his ordeal. It seemed he had just been able to get to his radio and call for help before passing out from blood loss. Jerk. Lying jerk had tried to rape her and he came off looking like a fucking hero.

~
CHAPTER FIVE~

Colin went by the apartment a few days later. He had tried to stay away, but couldn’t seem make himself. He still didn’t know why he was checking on the woman, but he did it all the same. The place was quite. No one seemed to be around even in the playground, but that could have been because of the cold.

Colin knew something was different the moment he stood outside the building, smelling blood heavy and clotting in the air. He knew the scent of old blood and knew that it had been at least a week since it had been spilled. He flashed himself up the two flights of stairs to the apartment door—the scent coming from inside the rooms was stronger than anywhere else in the building and outside. The first thing he noticed was the yellow crime scene tape crossed across the door barring his entrance. Colin had the power to “ghost” himself into another room, as long as it wasn’t steel, going right through doors and walls. He did so now, and staggered to the floor from the fresh odors. The room was filled with the scents of blood, fear, despair, drugs and people. He felt the woman he’d been looking for in the room along with others, many of them men. And under it all, he could smell the scent of impending death and terror.

Colin couldn’t move. He sat there on the dirty, stained floor, trying to sort through what had happened by the scents, who had been injured, who was dead. Colin couldn’t separate the different emotions and scents from one another. It flooded his system as if all had come from the same person. He could smell distinct smells, such as wolf, cocaine, semen, filth and fear, but they were all over the little apartment. He knew where to go. He went back to the mansion with a heavy heart and a need for answers.

“
Where the heck have you been, big...what’s the matter, Colin? What’s happened?” Concern laced Sara’s questions. Aaron came into the kitchen as soon as Colin had entered the kitchen door.

“
She’s dead. That woman, my mate, she’s dead. I could feel her pain. Oh God, the blood...help me, Sara, please? She...she can’t be dead.” Colin sobbed.

“
Tell me what you need, Colin. I’m here for you, both Aaron and I are. Tell us what you need for us to do.” He pulled her to him, his need...his need to hold on to something, someone overrode his knowledge that one did not touch another vampire’s mate.

“
Come with me. I want you to come with me to her house. Her child, maybe I could take her for her, raise her as mine. Will you go with me, please? You could get the information for me. What I need to find her child. The little girl. What if they won’t let me…what if they won’t help me?”

Colin had never known the child’s name; he only just realized and he wished that he had. That saddened him more than anything he had ever felt before. And that little girl, he would see she would never want for anything as long as he lived.

The three of them bundled into the car and Colin led them to the building. Sara wasn’t able to go through the doors, but she could sense what had happened from just outside with her hand pressed tightly against the frame. Sara relayed all she could get from the room as she closed her eyes and moved mentally through the rooms just on the other side.

The information was not perfect because of the large number of people that had been in the room, but she could get much. Also, Sara could not disassociate one person from the other, as she had never met any of them before. She didn’t know which signature belonged to Colin’s mate.

“
There are two children, boy and a girl, they’re related, a sister and brother, I think. They were both gravely injured recently. There’s a woman who is here a lot; her signature permeates the rooms in high concentration. There is a high amount of drugs, different kinds. I don’t know...alcohol as well. There’s a man who is...he is evil. I can feel his intent and a provocation toward inflicting pain, especially to smaller people. He is a wolf, I think…no, he is one, but not an alpha. He’s really quite mad, insane. He’s been here enough that I can smell him and if I need to, I can find him again. I hadn’t realized that it would smell so much like canine,” she told Colin with a sad smile. “I can also smell the wolf, his scent, semen, semen that’s mixed with blood. Oh, Colin, those poor babies. It’s their blood, isn’t it, those babies? There’s another woman. She’s much stronger—magic. I can almost taste it it’s so strong. She’s...I can feel her love for the children. Her blood is here, too, fresh and strong. I don’t feel her...this one doesn’t spend a lot of time inside of this dwelling.”