Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (9 page)

“Don’t you understand?” he said, a small laugh escaping his lips. “If I let you go without going with you, my life will be nothing short of hell. Either way, I’m condemned to damnation, but it would be a far more bearable fate if I could face it with you.”

“Well, when you put it like that—”

“I just don’t understand why you don’t see that.” He squatted down so that we were face to face, our masks raised, hiding nothing. My heart beat erratically from the combination of adrenaline and feelings my brain didn’t want to process quite yet. “We’re partners, Celaine. And even though I appreciate you looking out for me, I want to at least have a right to make my own choices.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding. “Ian, I’m leaving. Do you want to come with me?”

“Oh, wow, that’s—that’s quite a decision,” he said, standing up. “Can I have a little bit of time to think about it?”

“We’ve been partners for far too long, I think I’m starting to rub off on you.”

“There’s no such thing as too long with you.” He smiled, pulling his mask down over his face as he strode to the motorcycle next to where mine had been. “By the way,” he called back to me, “if I die, I’m totally holding you accountable.”

“That’s crossing the line there, partner,” I said, trying not to laugh. Ian pulled the bike—a black one that appeared iridescent in nature, turning almost blue in certain angles—out of the line and walked with it until he was positioned next to me. “So what am I supposed to do? Ride with you? Hitch hike?”

“Try keying in your passcode now.”

I glanced up at him inquisitively and noticed the unmistakable smirk his lips had formed. Annoyed, I followed his instructions and keyed in my code. This time, the motorcycle roared to life.

“Kara temporarily disabled your code to give me time to catch up to you,” he said.

“What? That sneaky, conniving—”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Point taken. We need to get going. I want to put some distance between us and here before Victor finds out we’re gone.”

“Agreed.” Ian typed in his code, prompting his motorcycle to spring to life. “What’s the plan?”

“We’ll make it up as we go.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to get us killed.”

“Remember, it was your decision.” I sped off on the bike, with Ian taking off right behind me.

We rounded the corner, passing the rows of Epicenter cars, heading toward the tunnel to make our escape. But as we got closer, a figure stepped out in front of us, forcing us both to brake and the motorcycles to skid to a stop just feet from the tunnel.

In front of us stood Cameron, sweat beading on his forehead, a gun held firmly in his hand, aimed directly at us.

Chase glanced up at the clock in the cafeteria of Hope Memorial Hospital. Eight o’clock; only three hours remained before his shift was scheduled to end. Outside the various food stations, vendors lowered the barred doors to their establishments, locking them for the night.

Nearly all of the tables around where he sat by himself, picking at the remnants of a turkey sandwich, had emptied as visitors left for the day and hospital staff went back to their posts. Minutes later, only he and a lone straggler remained seated in silence.

On the outside, he seemed to have it all together, but on the inside, his mind was racing. In a few weeks, he would no longer be able to check ‘single’ on his tax forms; in a few weeks, his last name would be given to someone else; in a few weeks, everything he always told himself he ever wanted would come to fruition.
Then why am I not happy
? he thought, pushing away the sandwich he’d managed to absentmindedly mangle between his fingers.

She left me
, his mind told him again.
She left me, and I moved on
.
I have moved on, haven’t I
?
It’s jitters. I’m having last-minute jitters. That’s all it is. I would have had the same feelings if I had married her. I would have had the same feelings—

Would I have had the same feelings?

Chase closed his eyes, took in a deep breath, and held it for a moment before he let it back out.
This is right. This is right. I know this is right. I love her, and she loves me.

I love her?

“Ah,” he moaned.

“Everything okay, doctor?”

Chase opened his eyes and turned his head in the direction of the man’s voice. Next to him, a man—middle aged, possibly older—had taken up residence one table over. “Yeah,” he answered him, embarrassed. “Just a migraine.”

“Dreadful, those things are,” the man answered him. “I get them from time to time myself.” He was unusually well-dressed for a hospital visitor, leading Chase to surmise that the man had probably stopped in to visit his loved one after a day at the office. As if noticing Chase’s assessment, the man removed his hat and placed it on the table near the seat next to him. “I was actually going to grab a bite to eat,” he said, “but it appears as though I’m a few minutes too late.”

“I know a few of the vendors,” Chase said, sliding his chair away from the table. “Maybe I can pull a few strings and see if I can get one of them to open up their doors so you can grab something real quick.”

“Oh, no, no,” the man said. “Really, that is very kind of you, but I couldn’t ask for such a favor. Besides, I’m really not that hungry; nothing that a vending machine won’t cover, anyway. I was just here visiting my dear mother. She suffered a heart attack yesterday, but seems to be recovering quite well, and I just lost track of the time.”

“Are you sure?” Chase asked, pulling his chair back up to the table. “Really, it’s not a problem at all.”

“Certainly, but I do appreciate your asking. My, my,” the man said, looking around, “they’ve really done an impressive job rebuilding the hospital since the explosion last year.”

“Yeah, it’s remarkable how quickly they were able to pull it off, but Hope Memorial is a very well-respected hospital, so everyone banded together to bring it back better than ever.”

“Yes, it would have been a shame to see this place turn to ash,” the man muttered. “So tell me, young doctor, what’s on your mind?”

“What?” Chase asked, the man’s question having caught him off guard.

“I’m sorry to pry. You just looked so intense sitting there by yourself.”

“Oh, you know, the usual.”

“Women? Someone in particular, perhaps?” The man pressed on. Chase remained silent, his head bowed as though contemplating a response. “I’m sorry,” the man spoke again. “It appears as though I’ve overstepped my bounds. I was just trying to see if I could be of any help. I’m a doctor myself, actually.”

Chase looked up at the man, his expression softening. “That’s okay,” he said. “Yes, you could say it involves a woman. I’m getting married in a few weeks.”

“Oh?” The stranger seemed unusually shocked by his answer. “Have you been with your fiancé long?”

“No, that’s just it, I haven’t. You know, it’s funny because only a year ago I was planning on marrying someone else, but that—that didn’t work out.”

“She broke it off?”

“You could say that,” he answered. “She more or less disappeared off the face of this planet.”

“Really? How so?”

“I don’t know. One day everything’s fine; the next day, she’s telling me she’s been offered a job across the country and she’s leaving me.”

“Well, that is certainly suspicious.”

“I don’t know about suspicious. You just have to know her. She’s impulsive, but she knows who she is and what she wants. I just wasn’t it.”

“She sounds like a real character,” the man muttered. “So, this marriage is something you want?”

“I want marriage. I just—”

“Wanted it with her?”

“Yeah,” Chase admitted after some hesitation. “That’s exactly what the problem is.”

“Interesting.” The man smiled. “And when is the wedding to take place?”

“In June. June seventh.”

“Here in town?”

“Yeah, at The Woodland Lodge a few blocks down.”

“Well, that is a conundrum. But who knows, maybe it will all work out in the end, and your ex-girlfriend will return to you somehow.”

“No. She’s gone. I’m sure I’ll never see her again.”

“I wouldn’t say that just yet,” the man said, standing up. “If I may ask, what is your name, doctor?” he asked, extending his arm out toward Chase. “We’ve been chatting for long enough now that I feel we should be properly introduced.”

“Chase,” he answered. “Chase Matthews.” He took the man’s hand and shook it. “I’m sorry, what’s your name, sir?”

“Victor,” he answered. “You can just call me Victor.”

“Victor, I appreciate the chat, and I wish your mother a full recovery.”

“Thank you, Dr. Matthews, that’s very kind of you,” he said. “I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.”

“Well, let’s hope not,” Chase replied, laughing.

“Indeed.” Victor smiled sardonically as he turned around to walk out of the cafeteria.

“Nice man,” Chase said to himself. He pushed his chair in as he turned around to pick up the dismembered sandwich, noticing an object out of the corner of his eye. The man had forgotten to take his hat with him before he left. Swiftly, Chase grabbed it off the table and ran in the direction the man had gone. But when he reached the hallway, there was no sign of him, even though he’d only left seconds before. “Wow, he’s fast.”

An idea occurred to Chase, and he did an about-face to head toward the elevators, where he rode up to the intensive care unit. When the doors opened, he strode up to the nurses’ station, hat in hand.

“Hello, Dr. Matthews,” one of the night shift nurses, Laura, greeted him. “What brings you our way?”

“I met a man in the cafeteria just now. He left and forgot to take this.” Chase plopped the hat down on the counter. “He said his mother is up here recovering from a heart attack, so I’m sure he’ll be coming back here soon to see her.”

“Excuse me, Dr. Matthews, are you sure he said that his
mother
is here recovering from a heart attack?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, it’s just that the only two people we have here for that kind of condition are both men. One is in his forties, and the other one is in his fifties.”

“So you’re saying you don’t have any elderly women here recovering from a heart attack?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Dr. Matthews.”

“Just return the motorcycles, go back to your rooms, and we’ll forget all about this,” Cameron said. His hand shook, causing the gun to quiver precariously in his fingers.

“Cameron,” Ian said, “What are you doing with that gun? You know you’re in over your head here, so I suggest you let us go and tell Victor we overpowered you. That way, no one gets hurt, and you can still say you did all you could to try to stop us.”

“Shut up, Ian,” Cameron said, his voice shaking nearly as much as his hand. “You may be able to overpower me, but don’t underestimate me. I’ll shoot you both before I let you leave here. If you haven’t noticed, those suits aren’t nearly as indestructible as you’ve been led to believe.”

“No kidding,” I muttered.

“I mean, seriously,
real
superheroes have a much longer lifespan than you’re expected to have. So the way I see it, I have just as good a shot of overpowering you as you do me,” Cameron proclaimed.

“Why, Cameron?” Ian asked calmly. “What kind of screwed-up hold does Victor have on you? Don’t you see what you’re becoming because of him? Can’t you see what kind of man you’re defending, the evil he’s ordering us all to do?”

“Victor is a good man, and you owe him your lives. He made you who you are. And, actually, you both should be thanking me, too. If it wasn’t for my editing of the footage of the address, President Brooks would have had both your heads for deliberately disobeying his orders and siding with the rebels.”

“We will never thank Victor,” I interceded, “or you, for that matter. Victor only created us to fulfill his own agenda. We owe him nothing, most certainly not our lives. If anything, he’s taken our lives away from us.”

“You’ve done nothing but complain since you arrived here,” Cameron said, aiming the gun directly at me. “I should dispose of you right now and put you out of your misery, since your life is so bad.”

“Okay, Cameron,” Ian said calmly. “Look, we’ll get off the motorcycles just as you asked us to do. There’s no need for any of us to resort to any form of extremes. You win.”

I glared at Ian, who made it a point to briefly make eye contact with me. He nodded slightly, silently telling me to trust him. With a sigh, I held one of my hands up over my head as I disembarked from the motorcycle, laid it down gently down on the ground, and slowly stood up, raising my other arm up into the air. Ian followed suit.

“That’s right,” Cameron sneered, his grasp on the gun becoming steadier. “I won. The boy nobody wanted, who nobody has ever looked at twice, has finally won something. Maybe now you’ll show some respect when you speak to me.”

“We’ve always respected you, Cameron,” Ian told him.

Don’t lay it on too thick there, Ian
. I watched as Cameron’s hardened stare softened, growing more contemplative. Instead of shifting rapidly between the two of us, his eyes now rested solely on Ian. A distraction. Ian was taking advantage of Cameron’s insecurities, hoping he would let his guard down just enough for one of us to make a move.

“Maybe you have, Ian, but your partner here has been anything but respectful since I met her. I must say, Celaine, it’s nice seeing you in a submissive position for once. You look so vulnerable. It’s very becoming.”

My face burned. Adrenaline ran rampant through my body, making it even more a miracle that I was able to keep my feet firmly planted where they were and not stomping on Cameron’s smug face like they wanted to. Ian’s hand brushed mine briefly, just long enough to take my mind off Cameron and to focus on the unspoken plan at hand.

“Okay, you two, put your hands down and pick up the bikes. I want to get some sleep yet tonight. You’re free to join me, Celaine, if you want to keep someone else besides Ian company.”