Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (41 page)

A frantic voice broke my attention, coming from under a black grand piano in the corner of the room. “Sadie…I’m sorry,” the voice moaned. I shuffled forward as far as I could before Voss moved in my way. It was Dr. Jensen. I hardly recognized him with the swollen black eyes and bloody cuts and bruises covering his face. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he went on, sounding like each word was just as painful to say as his face looked.

“Quiet,” Voss sneered. “I’m so tired of listening to your drivel.”

“It’s true,” Ash said to me. “As you can see, the doctor put up quite a fight.” Ash looked down at the doctor condescendingly and said, “It was a good effort.”

Dr. Jensen winced as he struggled to drag his body a few inches away from the piano. “Sadie, if I knew what I was getting you into….I swear…”

I looked at the doctor’s battered face and knew he was sincere. “I know. It’s not your fault. I’m so sorry they dragged you into this.”

“Enough,” Voss said, stopping everyone cold.  “I’m so sick of the whining; all night long with the
whining
. You’re sorry, she’s sorry, everybody’s sorry. Well…I’m sorry too. Sorry that the doctor has outlived his usefulness.”

Without a moment’s warning, the heart-stopping bang ripped through the air. I shuttered as every one of my muscles seized up from shock. My mother’s voice cried out in terror as Dr. Jensen’s body jolted from the impact of Voss’s bullet then fell motionless to the floor.

I blinked. Was this really happening? Was there no limit to Voss’s cruelty? Who would be next? Me? My mother? Rayne?

“Father, was that really necessary?” Ash argued.

Voss glared at his son impatiently. “Of course it was. The doctor knew too much. He was a liability.”

“But we could have handled it differently. There are always options,” Ash said.

Voss’s eyes narrowed. “You better not be backing down on me, Ash. After all the work we’ve put into this operation.”

“No, Father, that’s not what I meant.”

“Then stop acting like a little girl. I’m counting on you today. Don’t let me down.”

Ash clenched his teeth and nodded. “I won’t.”

Suddenly, a loud crashing noise came from the other room.

A devilish smile grew on Voss’s face. “Go check the door,” he instructed Ash. “I believe our guest of honor has finally arrived.” Voss took Ash’s place, pointing his gun at Rayne while Ash stomped out to the front room.

There was only a short scuffle of noise around the corner before a man appeared across the room with his hands in the air. The man, dressed in a handsome suit and tie, carried himself with a certain level of confidence as he entered, but I could see the hidden sadness in his eyes—the purest, crystal blue eyes I had ever seen. As Ash pushed the man forward with his gun, something took hold of me from within. Despite the criminals surrounding us and the fear I felt for my mother’s life, every bit of urgency inside me seemed to suddenly freeze in time.

The man’s sad blue eyes watched me closely, as if we were the only two people in the room, as if he were already begging my forgiveness before I even knew his name. And when the man turned his remorseful stare toward my mother with the same look of sorrow and regret, I knew. I knew this man was my father.

It was him, after all this time. My father was standing right in front of me. After Rayne had told me my father was the Ambassador of their world, I started forming an image in my head of a politician with a big, fake smile, who cared more about getting elected than he did about his family and the things that mattered most. And even though he looked well-groomed and well-dressed like a politician might, this man wasn’t like that at all…this man was…humble. I’d never met him before in my life, and yet, somehow, I knew he would do anything in his power to keep both me and my mother safe.

I had imagined this moment so much differently. There were a million things I wanted to say to him, a million questions I wanted to ask. But there he was…right in front of me, and yet completely out of reach, with a gun pointed to his head.

Would I ever get the opportunity to know my father? Would I ever come to understand why he had to leave?

I felt so frustrated and helpless. I couldn’t run to him; Ash and Voss would make sure of that. I couldn’t shout out to him all the things I had ever wanted to say. I couldn’t do anything but tremble and hold back the tears because I wasn’t the one in control. And worst of all, I didn’t know if meeting my father here, for the first time, would be the last time as well.

When my gaze jumped nervously from my father to my mom, I realized she was even more bewildered than I was.

I had at least been given a little warning. I knew ahead of time that there was a chance my father might come. But she had no idea that the father of her child, her lost love from what probably felt like a lifetime ago in her past, even knew I existed or had any reason to show up in her life ever again. Yet here he was, right in front of both of us after all these years.

Despite my father’s obvious concern for me and my mother, he didn’t say anything, at least not with words. After only a brief moment—which was also one of the longest moments of my life at the same time—my father’s stare finally focused on Voss with steady determination.

“Surprised to see me?” Voss said to my father. “Poor Hamlin…had to leave his nice cushy office in the city to get his hands dirty with the big boys.”

“I’m unarmed,” my father said. “Whatever the problem is, I’m sure we can talk it through like men. There’s no need for the guns.”

“Oh, I think there is,” Voss said, and with one swift move of his arm, Voss reached into his jacket and had a second gun in hand. Now Voss had one gun on Rayne and a second gun pointed at my father. My eyes shifted back and forth across the room in alarm.

Ash hesitated, lowering his own gun from my father’s head and looking to Voss for an explanation. Without breaking his focus, Voss instructed him, “Cover the girl’s mother.”

My eyes went wide. “What? No!”

Ash looked confused, but he followed Voss’s instructions, moving a few feet across the room to get a clear shot in my mother’s direction. Despite the fact that I was the only person in the room who didn’t have a gun directed right at me, I felt entirely helpless. There had to be something in my power I could do. My mom was an innocent victim in all of this; I wanted so badly to protect her.

Voss’s bitterness and anger seemed to spill out uncontrollably. “You killed the only thing I ever cared about in my entire, dreadful life,” he sneered at my father. “You stole her away from me. You took the only light I had left to hold onto and you sent her to her grave, where her memory tortures me. Now
you
are going to suffer the same fate. Now
you
are going to watch as the beauty and life drains unjustly and relentlessly from the woman you love until she’s nothing more than a ghost left to haunt your nightmares.”

Ash’s voice shook. “Father, what are you doing? I thought this was about Hamlin.”

Voss was too gone to listen. Without turning his eyes from Hamlin’s face he said, “Shoot her, Ash. Shoot her now.”

The barrel of Ash’s gun dropped slightly. “Me? But I—”

My heart was beating so fast with adrenalin and desperation that I was certain it was about to burst into a million pieces. This couldn’t be happening. I had to do something.

Voss’s jaw clenched tighter. “It has to be you, Ash. You have to do this for me. I don’t want to miss a single minute of the agony on Hamlin’s face when he watches her die. I want to see the pain swallow him up until there’s nothing left but a hollow abyss of a man with nothing left to make his life worth living. Take away my pain, son. Do it now. Don’t make me regret the day you were born. Don’t smear your mother’s memory with your
cowardice
.”

My father stepped forward. “Ash, stop and think about this. You can still come back; it’s not too late for you. You don’t have to do this.”

But Voss’s words must have pierced Ash’s heart in just the wrong way. My father’s pleas weren’t heard.

Ash’s determination to prove his own father wrong bled out to the surface as a terrible scowl stabbed through his face. Ash’s arm snapped forward to aim, and I knew this was it. Ash had finally lost it. Terror plagued my eyes as I did the only thing left in my control. With the last bit of energy remaining in my already dying body, I leapt forward like a hawk protecting her nest, throwing myself forward to drape my body around my mother as a shield.

My mom cried out, “Sadie, no!” as the deafening bang of the gun exploded through the air.

The entire room was suddenly in chaos.

“
Mom
?” I said frantically as I hovered over her to see if she was okay. Then I saw the blood and I started to panic. It was all over her shirt. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t lose her. “Mom, no,” I said, too in shock to cry. But then my mom started to sit up, as if she didn’t even realize she’d been shot at all.

The next thing I knew, Rayne was on top of Ash beside me, pinning him to the floor. My father was struggling with Voss a few feet away, fighting him for his gun.

My mom’s face wrinkled in pain as tears pooled in her eyes. Her voice dwindled to almost a whisper. “Oh no…Sadie,” she whimpered. “No, not my sweet little girl.”

I looked down at myself confused, following my mother’s watery eyes until I finally saw it; the hole in my shirt and the onslaught of blood spreading quickly down the front of my chest. I had been shot? How did I not realize it before? It was like I didn’t even feel it. A surge of relief poured through my heart as the fear slipped away, knowing that my mother was going to be okay. But then reality set in. The blood on my mom’s shirt wasn’t her blood—it was mine.

Out of nowhere, Voss’s wretched black eyes were right in front of me, pointing his gun at my mother, yelling at her and yanking her to her feet. I reached out to hold onto her, but Voss dragged her backward like a hostage, holding the gun to her head so no one would dare touch him. Then the door to Voss’s personal elevator slid open, allowing him to flee the scene with my mother still at his mercy.

I heard Ash’s struggling voice behind me. “Just listen to me,” he said, between being pounded by Rayne’s fist. “Come on, man, I’m sorry. I swear I didn’t mean to hit her. I wasn’t going to hit either of them.”

“You pulled the trigger,” Rayne said with wild eyes. He swung again, taking out his frustration on Ash’s face. “Where’s your Healing Water? I need it now.”

Ash didn’t try to pull free as he gasped to recover from the blow. “I don’t have any. My father took it. You know I would give it to you if I had any to give.”

 Rayne’s jaw clenched. “No, I don’t know. I don’t know
what
to believe when it comes to you anymore.”

“You saw it…” Ash tried to explain. “The bullet would have shot straight past her mother’s ear. It would have missed Leena by a couple of inches if Sadie hadn’t gotten in the way. I missed on purpose, Rayne. You have to believe me. How was I supposed to know Sadie would pull some hero move and throw herself in the line of fire?”

Pain poured through Rayne’s face. “You’re really going to try to tell me this wasn’t your fault? We are
here
…because of
you
. Sadie’s been shot because of
you
. I don’t have any Healing Water because of
you
. If she dies…it’s on
your
head.”

Ash’s eyes went blank, as if he were tired of life all together. “I was just trying to help my father. The one you tried to kill, remember? I guess this makes us even.”

“Even?” Rayne said. “If you think this makes us even, you’re completely delusional.” Then Rayne hit Ash so hard that his head crashed to the tile.

As I stared at Ash’s body knocked out cold on the floor, the room started to go dark around me, the pain finally setting in. The incessant burning spread through my shoulder and seemed to take over my every movement. My strength was beginning to fade, the life being sucked out of me in every direction. I felt my body finally give out as the world spun around my head and I collapsed to the floor.

I tried to hold on. I saw my father run toward the stairs. “I have to go after Leena,” he called to Rayne. “Sadie doesn’t have much time. I don’t care about the consequences; just get her to the Threshold
now
. Her body’s too weak. It’s the only way she’ll survive.”

Rayne nodded with determination and cradled his arms around my body, lifting me off the floor. I felt my limbs drooping beneath their own weight, swinging beyond my control as Rayne ran out to the hallway with me in his arms.

I could feel myself fading, slipping far away, but Rayne’s warmth circled around me. I heard his voice play like a dream through my head, repeating the same words over and over again, as if he were convincing himself they were true. “Just stay with me,” he whispered. “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”

But even if the last breath of life disappeared from me right in this moment, even if my fight to save my mother had all been in vain, at least there was one thing that would always be true—it was Rayne.

He was my comfort, my life, my protector. He taught me how to trust and to be strong. He showed me that even when things seemed to turn for the worse, there was always a ray of hope; you could still be true to what was right and good. Even as my world faded away, and I lost myself in his crystal green eyes for what I believed might be the very last time…I knew within my soul that our love was true. I knew our love would never die.

32. ASH LEARNS THE TRUTH

The throb in Ash’s head persisted, but he figured he deserved the pain. He was, after all, a complete and utter failure in every respect. When he picked himself up off the floor, he wondered if he should have stayed there forever. He would probably just wither away and no one would notice.

Rayne was probably long gone, blaming Ash every step of the way, just as he should. Sadie was probably gone too, but in the worst sense of the word, gone to some existence beyond, if there even was one. Now he could add them to the list of lives ruined and lost by his own stupidity. Maybe Sadie was up in the clouds with Ash’s mother right now, both of them shaking their head at what a disappointment he’d become.