with impact on the linoleum. Annabella darted forward to catch her before she fell onto her swollen belly.
“Oh God. Are you okay?” Annabella put her arms around her, thinking to get her to the bed, but Talia groaned. The floor would have to do until help came.
“Con”—Talia choked on air—“traction.”
Not good. Not with two months still to go. “Help!” Annabella yelled down the hallway. To Talia she said, “It’s going to be okay.”
Talia brought a hand up, fingertips scarlet with blood. Her gaze turned to Annabella, fear in her soul-filled eyes.
“Deep breaths,” Annabella said with an exaggerated inhalation and exhalation in case Talia had forgotten how. “You’re going to be fine.”
“My babies.”
“They’re going to be fine, too. You’re already in the infirmary.” Annabella eased her to sitting on the floor. “You’re probably just in for a nice long rest. And a whole lot of bossing from your husband.”
Talia smiled weakly. Her eyes darted down the hallway. “You said he was a wolf.”
“I thought he was.”
“Talia!” A man’s voice.
Annabella looked up to see Adam pelting down the hall. He was on his knees at Talia’s back before Annabella could blink.
“The wolf’s in Segue,” Talia gasped. “Gone for the moment.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“The wolf didn’t touch her,” Annabella said. “I think it’s shock.”
Talia shook her head, tearing. “I used Shadow, but I’m not as strong pregnant. I couldn’t completely banish him.”
Shadow again. Annabella had thought Shadow was a place, but now it seemed like more. Something that could be used, manipulated. It was a crazy conclusion, of course, but she’d seen it with her own two eyes: Talia had darkened the room, filled it with churning shadows that obeyed her, and then drew on a strange power when she had yelled at the wolf.
“Shhhh.” Adam put his mouth to her hair, obviously struggling for control. “Love, you’re going to be fine. The babies are going to be fine.” He shifted her in his arms and stood. Annabella backed away so he could carry Talia to the bed.
Beyond the room, Annabella could hear the shouts of people, a rising commotion in the entrance to the infirmary.
A doctor. Talia needed a doctor.
Annabella tore down the hall, grabbed the first person in a white coat. “We need a doctor for Talia.”
“I’m in research.” The man craned his head around. “Where’s Powell?”
“I’m here,” a female voice answered. A middle-aged woman dressed in slacks and a bright satiny-pink blouse stood abruptly from the behind the nurse’s counter. Annabella looked over to find Rudy collapsed on the floor, eyes open but fixed, sightless. Dead.
Chapter Six
CUSTO paced his cell, his hands gripped behind his neck as he strained for control. Shouting wouldn’t help. Kicking at the steel and concrete door would accomplish nothing. Reasoning with the guards he detected outside his cell was useless. Their minds were fixed. Each one had resolved to follow orders. He expected no less; Adam only picked the best.
Custo groaned and leaned into a standing push-up on the door to expend some of his energy. If a wraith couldn’t break out, he sure as hell couldn’t. Heaven was a lot easier in that regard. With his mind he traced Adam and Annabella, caught them for a shred of a moment, but then lost them again in the maelstrom of humanity. Maddening.
Mind reading was a handy trick. It had helped him avoid all sorts of uncomfortable encounters in Heaven, and in theory, it should have made him all but invincible on Earth. The problem was twofold: Locating an isolated individual was difficult to begin with, but then, as soon as a shard of clear thinking cut through someone’s consciousness, it was swept away, flotsam in a tidal wave of other thoughts. Custo had barely caught someone’s inkling in his mind’s grasp before it was no longer relevant.
Of this he was certain: Something was happening. He caught two sustained, desperate resolutions in the sudden thought frenzy in the building. Annabella intended to defend herself, and Adam was determined to save Talia’s life. Both objectives were clear, edged with absolute purpose. Neither boded well, but taken together, something disastrous must have happened. Wraith attack? Wolf?
He dipped into another push-up, then thrust away from the wall.
“Let me out!” He could do nothing locked in this prison. “I can help!”
Time passed, serene, while painful tension gripped him.
He was sitting in a corner, head in his hands, when the door thudded and screeched, retracting. He leaped to his feet before the edge parted with the wall.
Adam stood beyond, a smudge of blood on the waist of his shirt.
“What’s happened? Are Talia and Annabella all right?” It took all of Custo’s will not to approach Adam, not to push him out of the way and find the women for himself.
“You’re an angel?” Adam’s voice was absent, hoarse. Desperation spoke.
Cold dread seeped into Custo. “I think so.”
“You were sure before,” Adam said, each word sharp and cutting.
“I was an angel in Heaven, but I left. I don’t know what that makes me now. Not really.”
“Damn it.” Adam put his hands on his head, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor as if it might hold answers. Custo touched his mind and found only a cyclone of confusion. Adam had no idea what to do.
“Let me try,” Custo said. Talia had to be in great danger for Adam to be so shattered. Custo remembered the babies, twins. What if he couldn’t help? What if he couldn’t save her? He wasn’t going to think about that, not with blood staining Adam’s shirt.
“And if you’re a wraith sent to kill her?”
“I’m not.”
“But what if you are?” Adam glanced at Custo’s now-healed forearm.
Custo let him look. “I’m not.”
“How can I know for sure?” Intensity lined Adam’s face. “Can you prove it? Please?”
“Is it so hard to trust me?”
“This is my wife were talking about.” The anguish in Adam’s voice brought Custo back to the night Adam’s parents had died, murdered by Jacob. If Adam lost another family, he’d lose himself, of that Custo had no doubt.
Gently, then. “I’m not asking you to choose between us.”
Adam’s mottled face blanched with feeling. “If you hurt her…”
“…then lock me away forever.”
Adam grimaced, aging with the necessity of a decision, but Custo knew he’d made up his mind. Felt the harrowing leap of faith.
“Come on. And fast.” Adam turned and darted out the door, around the corner. Custo sprinted forward to catch up. He asked no questions while Adam cursed at a slow-moving security door. A small army green vehicle was waiting, bigger than a golf cart, but smaller than a commercial car, and before Custo was seated, Adam had it accelerating through a concrete tunnel. They drove onto a lift, and while the mechanism slowly elevated them, Custo caught sight of Adam’s white knuckles.
Custo tried to read the events from Adam’s mind, but it was moving too fast to discern particulars. He could feel Annabella drawing closer, which was some measure of comfort. “What happened?”
“Wolf.”
