Night Read online

  Hero Society

  Night

  Jessica Florence

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events, and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of those terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.

  Jessica Florence© 2018

  Editing by Librum Artis Editorial Services

  Proofreading by Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover by Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations©

  Prologue

  Esme

  2007

  “Please, Eli, let me heal you,” I begged, my eyes unable to cry the tears I wanted to shed.

  My twin brother shook his head, tubes and wires attached everywhere on his body as he lay in the hospital bed.

  “No.” His voice was low, but it still held that same annoying brother tone he always used when he was not budging on an issue.

  “I don’t care about me—I’d rather live a shorter life with you being my brother than be without you.”

  We’d had this conversation over and over since he became sick. I had the ability to heal him, so he wouldn’t die from the leukemia that was eating away at his body. We’d been through this before over the years, but this time there was no coming back.

  My fraternal twin, with the same reddish-brown hair and hazel-green eyes as me, was going to die soon. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe over the upcoming weekend. The fact was I was going to lose him, and even though I could save him, he wouldn’t let me. And if I did it without his permission, he would never forgive me.

  His weak fingers gripped my arm that rested on his, rubbing slightly over the faint gold line that ran over my vein. My lifeline.

  “You’re worth it.” I wanted to cry, I wanted to throw things, I just wanted him to not choose death.

  “You’re going to live the life I never could. You’re going to fall in love, and it’ll be the type of love that you’ve always dreamed of—the love that legends are made of. You’re going to do so many great things in your life, Esme, and if I let you heal me, I could be taking that away from you. My fate was sealed a long time ago. You still have control over your destiny.”

  I heard his words, but I still was in denial.

  “Just tell my future nieces about their uncle, Eli, and how cool he was, okay?” He laughed, and it was my turn to shake my head…this was Eli, always trying to be the light in any darkness.

  “I’m going to tell them about that one time when we were at the pool and you decided it would be funny to jump from the diving board and pull your pants down, showing everyone your junk.” We were both laughing then, even though his eyes started to glisten with emotion.

  “Be good to Mom and Dad, too,” he directed, and I nodded. Mom and Dad had been going through a divorce when leukemia decided it was going to take Eli. They’d been having a hard time before, and now they were both struggling to hold on at all.

  “You gotta find Lola and play fetch with her until I get there, all right?”

  Our family dog had died last year, and I prayed that dog heaven and people heaven met so they could be together until we were able to join him.

  He nodded, and the tears started to roll down his cheeks.

  “Hey, you’re my tough big brother. You’re not supposed to be the one to cry,” I choked out, and he snorted.

  “Two minutes older and suddenly I’m the responsible one.”

  “You’ve always been the responsible one,” I reminded him. His grip pulled me closer, and I knew what he wanted.

  We’ve always had that connection that twins do. What he felt, I felt—and right now he was scared.

  I crawled into the small space next to his body on the bed, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, the other reaching to hold my hand.

  “I’m choosing to let you live, Esme.” His voice broke, barely holding onto his emotions.

  “You’ve been with me since the beginning, brother, and you’ll be with me till the end,” I whispered to his chest, knowing by the bond between us that his thread was about to be cut.

  “Always with you, till the very end, Esme. Live hard, love strong, and when you’re feeling lost, I’ll be your light when the darkness comes.” His breath was soft, and then I felt it.

  The bond was shattered, and my brother sighed, his arm falling from my shoulder.

  To have the power to heal, only to draw nearer to death with every use: a curse, not a gift, if I couldn’t even save the ones I loved the most.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Esme

  “Happy birthday, Eli.”

  I stared at the red velvet cupcake that had a blue candle lit on top. Next to it was another lit cupcake—funfetti flavor—for me. I never cared for red velvet that much, but it was Eli’s favorite, so I endured.

  I still celebrated our birthday together.

  I blew out his candle first, wishing he was happy wherever he was in the afterlife he chose, and then blew out mine, wishing the same thing I wished for every year.

  True love, and for there to be no more pain in the world.

  Both were pretty unattainable wishes, but I still closed my eyes and told the universe that’s what I wanted.

  I inhaled my funfetti cupcake then went about getting my scrubs on and my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head. Most women my age would be going out at this hour, dressed to slay the hearts of men, and have wild, drunken sex all night.

  Me? I was heading into the night shift at the hospital. It paid more, and it made me feel like I was doing something positive, even though the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Ever since that night when the crazy pastor gave people with powers a hallucinogen, there was a civil war in the streets. A quiet one for now, but still it wouldn’t be quiet for long.

  I stood in the small bathroom of my one-bedroom apartment looking at my hot mess of a reflection.

  “Live hard and love strong, Esme. Be happy.” I pinched my cheeks to add some color to them, reminding myself that I needed to get out more, see the sun. I’d been doing nothing but working my ass off at the hospital, and had added part-time nurse duty at the Hero Society headquarters when they needed me. Phillip called to tell me that the vials of the blood samples I’d taken from each of them had been broken, so I’d need to do another set soon. I’d wanted to examine them for any anomalies, diseases, and vulnerabilities. I’d been helping other people with powers since I became a nurse, and now I would be helping the heroes that risked their lives to save others.

  Like me.

  I smiled to myself, and then walked into the living room, grabbing my coat and shoes.

  My eyes caught a shiny gold light on my arm, and I cursed. I’d almost forgotten to cover up my thread.

  I rushed back into the bathroom and sat on the toilet lid while I covered up the gold line that was now half the size of my forearm with makeup.

  My life thread: a golden shimmer in my vein that ran down the middle of my left arm and had appeared on my sixteenth birthday.

  After saving a squirrel our dog had caught, I realized I could heal the hurt.

  Eli and I discovered that every time I used my power to heal, the thin gold line would get shorter. Usually not a lot, but it was still nerve-racking, so we threw ourselves into every bit of research we could find. Nothing was making sense until we read about the Fates: three creatures of destiny and life. One sister spun the thread of someone’s life, the second sister determined how long th
ey lived, and the final sister cut the thread, deciding how they died. The gods had golden blood called ichor in their bodies, so their thread could not be cut.

  We were sold on the notion that every time I used my powers, I inched closer to death, potentially chopping years off my life with every heal. Whatever the truth was, deep down we both knew that when that golden line disappeared, things would not be good.

  Once the gold was covered and my arm appeared normal, I bundled up to face the snow that had started falling outside, grabbed the red velvet cupcake to eat on the way, and walked out the door.

  The rent was stupid for such a tiny apartment, but it was close to the hospital. I could walk to work and be there in the event of an emergency.

  If I couldn’t save everyone with my powers, then I wanted to save as many as I could the good old-fashioned way—being a nurse.

  The cupcake was gone by the time I walked the five minutes to work.

  The hospital seemed quiet tonight, but that didn’t mean anything. It was 11:00 p.m. on a Friday. Anything could happen.

  I put my coat in my locker and went to the nurses’ station in the ER. Tammy, the second-shift nurse, was just closing out her paperwork when I joined her.

  “Have fun.” The poor girl seemed tired as hell, almost sighing the words.

  “Get some sleep.” I patted her on the shoulder as she exited the station.

  I sat in the wobbly desk chair that needed to be replaced.

  Ten minutes after reading through Tammy’s notes, I felt his presence, his dark energy sending a chill through me.

  “Good evening, Dr. Dorian. Is there anything I can help you with?” My monotone voice held no happiness to see the prized doctor of the hospital.

  “You doing your job is a good start.” He spoke in the same deadpan tone as I had.

  My head tilted up to see his look of disdain before he turned his eyes toward the charts in his hands.

  I hated it when he looked at me like that, like I was a child who liked playing nurse on her parents’ living room floor.

  I’d worked hard to get where I was today, and when he gave me that face, I was tempted to throw it all away for the opportunity to smack his handsome face.

  “If you keep staring at me like that, you’re going to have a coronary over there.” Dr. Dorian turned to walk away after setting his charts down at the nurses’ station. He strutted around here like he was better than everyone, and I couldn’t wait for the day someone knocked him off his high horse.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a piece of that man. I bet he fucks like a savage in bed after being all uptight and reserved at the hospital all day.” I turned to see my coworker and friend Melissa Ann eyeing Dorian’s retreating form.

  “Are you kidding? That man would probably never stoop low enough to sleep with someone. I think he’s asexual,” I commented and began reading over my next patient to visit. But Melissa wasn’t done with this topic.

  “I’m a married woman with one toddler and a baby on the way. Let me daydream about the good doctor being a beast in the supply closet. If you were more the adventurous type, I’d tell you to hit that between shifts, and then you could go back to spitting at each other.” Melissa had just found out last month that she was pregnant, and was thrilled, despite her fantasies of Dorian.

  I’d had those dreams, too, when I first moved to Seahill in search of a fresh start, hoping to live out the rest of my short life living freely and falling in love.

  For the first week, I thought maybe he could have been the one to help this little mouse of a girl come out of her shell and experience life at its fullest. But he shot me down with a raised eyebrow and a sneer.

  I was too innocent and not worth a quick fuck in the on-call rooms.

  It stung, but I didn’t let him see that. Ever since then, we’d engaged in a cold war. He pushed my buttons, and I ignored him.

  “Never in a million years,” I told her as I spared a glance to the doctor as he stood in front of a room, looking over their history. His head snapped up, and his gaze collided with mine. His eyes narrowed, as if he knew from afar that I wanted to stick my tongue out at him. Then those eyes flared with something I couldn’t read, and he disappeared inside the patient’s room.

  “Girl, deny it all you want, but this tension you two have for each other is going to come to a head one day and I suggest you use it in the way the good Lord intended us to utilize that passion, instead of stabbing him with your chart pen.” Melissa went back to her work, but I stayed rooted, staring at the space where Dorian had been.

  I was still voting for smacking him on his scruffy jaw over screwing him between patients.

  Chapter Two

  Esme

  “Happy birthday!”

  There was a small crowd gathered in the breakroom around a cake when I shuffled in for my “lunch” break at 3:30 a.m.

  “Thanks, guys.” I smiled and leaned over to blow out the candle.

  “Wish for something different,” Melissa whispered, and I looked up at her to see her sweet, beaming smile. She knew I always wished for the same thing. My gaze moved back to the cake in front of me, and I thought about making a new one. Just for this cake.

  I closed my eyes and blew it out.

  I wished for passion.

  True love may not be out there for me in the time I had left, but if I could find an all-consuming passion, that would be close enough for me.

  All six of the people in the room cheered then waited for their piece of cake as soon as I was done. Melissa handed me the first slice, and I sat on the small couch against the wall.

  Our breakroom was nice as far as hospitals went—it had a microwave, a fridge, sink, and three tables with four chairs each. There was a comfy couch and a decent-sized TV in the corner. Simple but nice. Seahill Hospital was one of the top facilities in the world and the doctors here were rock stars of the medical community, so in shared facilities like this, there were some perks.

  That first bite of cake was heavenly. Melissa Ann knew how to bake a great cake. I groaned in appreciation, and then he appeared as if notified by the universe that this was the right moment to mess with me.

  “Moaning like a whore in church over cake. Classy, Esme.”

  I looked at the devil sitting next to me and stared right back into his brown eyes as I brought another big piece to my mouth, making a grand show of how much I enjoyed Melissa Ann’s handiwork.

  “No wonder you can’t find a man to take the edge off. Your moaning and writhing over cake scares them away.” Dorian smirked, and I rolled my eyes.

  “No man can compare to the heavenly taste of cake.” I licked the icing off my fork and went back to the rest of my slice for more.

  He chuckled and then we were silent. He was sitting so close that I could feel his body heat.

  “Is there a reason you’re here?” I blurted out. He was ruining my happy moment in one of the only breaks I’d probably get for the rest of the night.

  “I’m quite partial to this couch,” he replied while looking at his watch. Yes, have some other place you have to be, please.

  I’m guessing my thoughts were visible on my face because he got more comfortable on his cushion, hands going behind his head for support.

  Ass.

  “Okay, well, you’re ruining my happy space, so go save the world, Dorian.” I tried to shoo him away, and he caught the hand that was doing the shooing and studied the icing-covered fork gripped in my fist.

  He wouldn’t.

  His eyes met mine as he leaned in toward my hand and wrapped his lips around my fork.

  My tummy fluttered at the sight of his mouth savoring the icing, but then my head shut down the flutter and replaced it with annoyance.

  “Thanks for the herpes,” I hissed and jerked my fork away, looking around, hoping no one noticed what was happening over here. I’d never hear the end of it. Thankfully only Melissa Ann was watching, giving me the side-eye while talking to another nurse.

>   “They all know I don’t fuck where I work. Your sweet reputation isn’t tarnished.” It’s been a while since he’s messed with me about sex stuff, so I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that he would bring that one back into rotation for a special occasion like my birthday. He usually kept with the incompetence lines.

  “You can go now.”

  I was usually an easy, down-to-earth woman, but this man dragged something nasty out of me every time. He hadn’t earned my niceness.

  “I’m curious if your new friends know how dismissive you are to your coworkers. They might change their mind if they did.” He looked like the cat who ate the canary.

  I was stunned by his words since they suggested he knew I was now working with the Hero Society, but my reaction was what he wanted.

  “I’m not dismissive to anyone but you, and you clearly aren’t broken up by it.” I gazed down at my cake, wanting to eat it, but didn’t want to use the contaminated fork or go bother Melissa Ann for a new one.

  “Awesome, you’ve officially ruined my birthday cake. Great job, Dorian.” I sighed and stood to leave, repeating to myself that I wasn’t going to let him get to me.

  I had patients I needed to go check on, anyway. After tossing my leftover cake in the trash, then hugging Melissa Ann for the surprise, I left the room to get back to work.

  The hospital was quiet as I walked down the hallway to the ER. Suddenly hands grabbed me, yanking my body into a room. The door snapped shut behind me, and I drew in a breath to scream, but whoever grabbed me pressed their lips to mine.

  My eyes were wide as I took in the dark hair and brown eyes in front of me.

  Not just anyone was pressed against me with his lips to mine.

  It was Dorian.

  His hands relaxed their grip on my body, one sliding down my arm to rest against my hip while the other cupped my jaw, trying to open me up, stroking gently.

  My lips parted in shock, my brain urging me to tell him to get the fuck off me, but then his teeth nipped my lower lip before his tongue flicked it afterwards, and my body melted, kissing him back.