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DEATH

“Sweet was the shepherd's call, but sweeter still the midnight whispers that promised to unmake innocence.” ~ Anonymous

The doctor shoved her hands in her white coat pockets, her expression grim and tight with sadness.

“I’m so sorry, but your wife didn’t make it.”

At that moment, the devil knocked on my door and the second we stared each other down, the son of a bitch ran. Hell, hath no fury like Death scorned. I shook my head, refusing to believe what she’d said. “No.”

I moved back, my heart pounding so fucking hard my skull rattled.

“How?” Ryan stepped forward.

The doctor gave him a tight-lipped smile. “I can’t discuss the details if you’re not family.”

I growled out a response for him. “He’s her brother, now answer his question.”

“I’m so sorry. Her heart stopped. Whatever trauma she’d gone through was just too much.” She reached out to touch my arm, and I jerked away. A tsunami of grief and rage flooded my body, contorting my stomach into a twisted mass of knots. With a primal scream, I unleashed the caged beast, picked up a chair, and hurled it with all my might into the center of the room. Chaos erupted as people scattered and shrieked, but I was consumed by a grief-fueled frenzy as I continued to grab and throw chair after chair until the emergency room was torn apart in a violent show.

“Stop!” Ryan attempted to calm me, but it was too late. There was no returning from the darkness that had completely claimed every part of me. Two security guards ran toward me, and I threw them off and sent them sprawling across the floor.

Ryan stepped between me and additional chairs as everyone turned coward and hid the best they could. “Goddammit, get the fuck out of here before you’re arrested!”

I blinked at him as if he was only a figment of my imagination.

“The kids still need you. Alaric and Verity are waiting for you at home. Don’t do this, man. If they arrest you …”

He didn’t need to say anything else, somewhere inside my mind I heard Sebastian’s words. Get the fuck out now! I stilled, taken off guard with the voice. It seemed familiar, as if it were my own thoughts. A sharp pain split through my skull, and I grabbed my head, dropping to my knees. A man’s voice with an Australian accent broke through my agony. I’m here. Shit, it was back, and my sanity was teetering, barely hanging on a thread. I’d heard him before but shoved it into the corner of my mind. I hadn’t ever told anyone, but I’d thought I was losing my mind when it had appeared. Then, I’d learned to tune it out. It hadn’t happened often, so it had been easy to ignore it. But now …

“Shit. Not now. Sebastian, not fucking now,” Ryan said between gritted teeth.

“Sir, you’re under arrest for …”

I couldn’t make out the words as my breath halted in my lungs, the room in and out of focus.

Ryan stepped between us. “No. I’ve got this. You need to back up. Here’s my badge. This man is under my protection. You need to back the hell up.”

I placed my palms on the cold, white tile floor, trying to grip reality, but it all began to fade into oblivion.

A firm hand jerked me up, then rushed me out of the hospital and into the cool evening air.

“Hurry up.” Ryan refused to let go of me as we hurried into the parking lot. “I’m going to kill the motherfuckers that did this to Ella.”

“Where are we? What’s going on?” I asked, disoriented.

“Shit. Sebastian, is it you now?”

“Yeah, Ryan, what are you doing here? Where the hell am I?”

My skull filled with pain again and I stumbled forward, my voice changing and sounding foreign to my ears. “Get the fuck out of my head, Sebastian. I have to take care of some shit, and I don’t need your lame ass hanging around.”

Ryan stared at me in awe as he unlocked the car and practically shoved me into the passenger’s side. He closed the door and hurried to the other side.

“Jesus, I’ve never seen you change or … Are you Death or Bass?”