Blindside

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  Blindside

  Copyright © 2014 by Jayden Alexander

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-698-4

  Cover art by Fiona Jayde

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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  www.decadentpublishing.com

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  Blindside

  By

  Jayden Alexander

  ~DEDICATION~

  To Sensei Chris for showing me that it's about saving innocents.

  To K.W – the type of officer every cop should strive to become.

  To Kate– thanks for making want to write again.

  Chapter One

  San Michael, three years ago....

  Lana hated hospitals with their stench of antiseptic. The forced cheer of the staff, the endless touching of her wrists and elbows because everyone tried to help the helpless invalid unable to bear the smallest shard of light.

  “Another step. Here we go.” The vocal pom-poms belonged to the evening nurse. “Come on. A few steps more.”

  Fluorescent lights seeped through bandaged lids and cut into her brain.

  “Turn the lights down, please.” That voice, hollow and raw, couldn’t be hers, couldn’t be so damned helpless.

  “Doctor wrote in to leave the night lights. You may have your full vision back once the bandages come off.” Same false cheer laced with a hint of pity. “Might ease the transition if you’re used to the light filtering through.”

  Firm hands guided her forward until she bumped into the metal surface of the side guard. The slight bang startled her, but Lana forced herself not to jump, gritting her teeth against the sting of tears. With her luck, the moisture on her recently operated pupils would burn away what precious night-vision she had left.

  Faint bells from the San Michael square gave eight somber tones. The funeral had to be long over and still no visit from her parents—a sharp and painful blessing.

  “Try to rest,” the nurse murmured and drew a cool blanket over Lana’s shoulders where fire bled under her skin.

  Ever since air was forced back into her chest, this “fullness” pressed against her insides. Ever since Mac, no, Narc, San Michael’s superhero, breathed life back in her lungs, she hadn’t been the same.

  Survivor’s guilt, the shrinks had called it. Survivor’s guilt because she let her brother die. Two hours ago, the third generation Rossini cop had his ashes scattered over the harbor, while the orphan his parents had adopted, lay in bed, her body useless but alive.

  Take a damned chill pill. She focused on her breaths, the dead quiet of the room, and the creak of the nurse’s shoes. Fluorescents flickered off and blessed dark soothed away the burn under raw eyelids.

  She had a crushing feeling the surgery hadn’t been a success. The slight slap of air on her cheeks told her the evening nurse still hovered around.

  “Could you turn the TV on?”

  “Does it say bitch on my forehead?” Suppressed sadness in the tough-guy Detroit accent, but the voice made Lana smile for the first time in days.

  “Wojo.” Her cheeks tightened under the bandages. “You come to check out the digs?”

  “Enough room for a mat in here. I’ll bring one from the dojo so your throws don’t go to shit.”

  He grunted, and Lana pictured him settling into the visitor chair, the same one her mother had spent hours in after the first and second surgeries.

  “You went to the service?”

  “Yeah.”

  What to say to that? Ask how it went? If her family was all right, if her father managed to get through the day without drinking? “Thank you.”

  A cough accompanied the rustle of starched fabric—she figured Wojo had on his dress blues, the pants always an inch too short for his seven-foot frame, the jacket straining at his gut due to his love-hate affair with Thai food. His badge, no doubt shone silver bright despite his years on the job.

  “It went…ok. Cops everywhere, tons of flowers. Your brother would’ve hated it.”

  Lava flowed thick and heavy in her veins, the heat easing with relief. Despite the allegations of a drug bust gone wrong, despite the whispers of dirty cops and cover up, San Michael’s finest still came out to support her brother.

  She had to clear her throat to push past the knot of tears. She hated the damned tears.

  “Have you seen—” What to call him? Narc? San Michael’s hero? “Mac?”

  “Not since the fire. My gut says he left town like they asked.” Seconds ticked by in endless beats of silence, empty words that didn’t need to be said. No point discussing Mac, or what the harbor fire cost San Michael.

  “I got a buddy in IA. They’re still looking at Nicky for the fire.”

  Lana clenched her fists against the boiling heat. “Nobody came to verify my statement.”

  “They gotta deal with what’s there. Smells like, tastes like. Unless you got something we’re missing, everything points to Nicky. ” He had the decency not to paint with false hope, unlike the doctors who insisted she would regain her ability to stand light with more time and patience. Unlike her mother who had come here every day for the past week, probably wondering why the orphan survived while her real son was to be turned to ashes.

  Bile, bitter and furious rose up in her throat. “You know Nicky didn’t start that fire.”

  “Not going to prove that with a heart attack.” Wojo’s words held no traces of pity. Then again, the old cop knew her long enough to understand pity would be thrown back in his face.

  “You gonna tell me to do breathing exercise?”

  “Couldn’t hurt.” Same composed tone, as if Wojo was teaching class or taking a report from a screaming parent at a second grade soccer brawl.

  She forced herself to inhale, taking in steady controlled breaths. Despite his calm demeanor, Lana knew he’d drag a nurse in here to sedate her, as he had done that night after the fire. The night when lava blistered her veins. “Ten year narco cop wouldn’t have opened fire in a meth lab.”

  More crinkling of starch. “Evidence shows otherwise.”

  “He told me he was meeting with a snitch. If I can go through
his cases—”

  “You need eyesight for that. And that shit won’t come back until you get over yourself and focus on getting better. ” Spices of Thai and Cuban cigars broke through the antiseptic hospital stench clinging to her skin. She froze at the sharp of Smints in her nostrils—Wojo must have leaned over the bed, and she was too stupid not to use her other senses. So fucking defenseless….

  The Smints scent left the building and Lana pasted on the old I’m-dealing-with-it show of teeth. “Turn on the news. The city must be going apeshit without Narc out on the streets.” Again, her fault. As if she had a universal fuck me on her forehead.

  “You should rest, kid.”

  “I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

  The TV light flicked on without commentary—hopefully signaling Wojo was done with tonight’s pity party.

  “Details continue to emerge about the lifestyle of the man San Michael called its superhero. Amy Avalon reporting.”

  More rustling of fabric. “How about we check in on the Mets.”

  “Leave the damn thing on. Can’t get worse, if you ask me.”

  He grumbled, but let Amy Avalon chirp on.

  “We learned yesterday that Mac Gamble—also known as Narc—taught marital arts at a popular Aikido school downtown. I’ve reached out to parents whose kids were enrolled in the school, and the reactions range from shocked to outraged.” Amy’s voice filled the room, feminine and damning, with an advanced degree in Southern charm. For the past week, Lana had heard that drawl every morning. Ever since the nurses insisted she not close herself off to the world.

  “Why doesn’t she report his address, make sure we know how to get ahold of him.” His gruff tone came closer then moved away, the floor creaking under measured footsteps.

  “The dojo is affiliated with San Michael police department, and often holds defensive tactics classes for the officers.” Amy offered an irritating note of public’s right to know. “City Hall records show the ownership of the school equally divided between Mac Gamble and Lieutenant Ken Wojo, a veteran at San Mike PD. We haven’t been able to reach him for comment.”

  “God, Wojo, I’m sorry.” Rage, at herself, at the reporter, flowed thick and heavy in her veins.

  “I’ll deal,” he said, in that same stony tone he used when calling the parents of a doped-up kid despite an idiot teen’s slurred protests.

  “They’ll retire you or lay you off. You know the mayor will spin this any way he has to.” Her fault—again. Another life she’d ruined.

  Wojo’s hand gripped her shoulder, his giant palm stemming the flow of heat under her skin. “I said I’d deal with it.”

  “We’re told by Captain Williams that Narc, or rather Mr. Gamble,” Amy said that last phrase with a note of triumph, “is fully cooperating with police, and will leave the city as requested. And yet, for some San Michael citizens, the damage is already done.”

  “It’s disgusting,” some woman said in what must’ve been a quote cut over. “He’s teaching kids to fight? Some hero.”

  “Yeah, disgusting that he’d want to keep his public and private life separate.” Wojo cut through a stream of accusations. “Disgusting that he’s saved so many lives.”

  The only good thing about blindness was the inability to see the clip of Mac pumping breath in her lungs without the power shield keeping his face and identity a secret. He’d saved her life, and Lana ruined his. And she didn’t have the smarts to put his two identities together until she heard it on a newscast.

  “Did you know?”

  “No.” Wojo’s turn for a swift one-word answer. She didn’t have the guts to ask him how he felt about his business partner and best friend leading a double life.

  More opinions from the TV, this time an outraged male with a strong Brooklyn accent. “They’ll use my tax dollars to fix the harbor. The city should sue him for payment. We know his name now. Treat him like any other criminal.”

  “This is, of course, in reference to the eye witness report that Narc, or rather, Mr. Gamble,” Amy seemed only too pleased to repeat his real name, “chose to rescue a personal friend rather than stop the fire from spreading on the historic San Mike harbor. A tragic case of a superhero using his powers for personal gain.”

  The pacing stopped. “Another case of a reporter confusing facts with editorials.”

  Pounding in her veins, a roar of lava. She barely heard Wojo’s growl over the screaming in her head. Had she not been afraid of what coiled inside her, she would have let the heat explode instead of holding back the lava. Breathe, damnit. Same words Mac had screamed at her, his hands pumping her chest while the world went up in flames.

  His lips crushing her mouth, giving her air. Hands on her chest, pushing in endless, painful rhythm, commanding her to breathe. Pressure in her lungs, the heat harsher than the scorched air.

  The reporter’s outrageous accusations teased Lana’s shattered nerves. “While San Michael demands answers, its real heroes work to restore order. Heroes like Craig Williams, Commander of Narcotics and Vice. Commander, any updates on the situation at the harbor?”

  “We’re still investigating what exactly happened.” A second male voice, clipped and steady. “The damage from the explosion and the resulting fire led to severe loss.”

  “A loss already estimated to cost tax payers millions of dollars.”

  “She’s a fucking banker now?” Wojo’s raw, hollow words filtered through the ruby-red heat. The sheet rasped at her skin, a suffocating web of blankets tying her to the bed.

  “Let’s turn this off, so you can rest.”

  “I’m fine. Just hot in here.” A lame attempt to hide the truth. Not something she could tell a doctor.

  “Can you comment on the officer who was rescued from the fire?”

  “San Michael will call me cold hearted.” She pictured Williams on the screen, tired, flat eyes, his suit jacket carelessly tossed over his shoulder. His media presence, one that would take him to the commissioner’s tower and beyond. “ But Officer Lana Rossini should have waited for the HAZMAT team instead of running unprotected into the fire. An explosion of that kind….”

  Tears prickled Lana’s burning eyelids.

  “She’s a rookie cop. Less than a year on the job.” Another pause, as if Williams prepared the perfect sound bite. “She is alive because Narc chose to save her instead of helping to contain the fire. Yes, this is horrible to say. Some will call me a monster. I’m a cop and not a politician, and cops train to minimize the loss of life. Narc, Mr. Gamble, acted on emotion. He knew Officer Rossini, trained her in the dojo that he ran. He did what he thought was right, but in the end, he saved one person. One versus many. I don’t know what I could’ve done in his shoes, but from where I’m standing, that choice wasn’t right.”

  Wojo paced somewhere beside her. “This is fucking ridiculous.”

  “At this point, how many casualties?” Sympathy bled through the Southern charm like cream into a shot of whiskey.

  “Five confirmed deaths and over forty injured.”

  As if on cue, a group chanted, “Get out of San Mike.” Nausea churning in her belly, Lana imagined a crowd waving handmade signs.

  “Those injured,” Wojo said, “are alive because of Narc. Not that Reporter of the Year will air those interviews. Or show the clips of Mac collapsing on the docks.”

  “He what?” Her veins shriveled under yet another shock. She had blacked out after he handed her to the paramedics, when pain and lava boiled so bright she couldn’t think past her screams.

  “Smoke inhalation. Three cops barely muscled him out of the docks. He kept trying to get back and–” A pause vibrated heavy in the air. “Tomorrow’s the big day. You need to sleep.”

  As if she could. “It didn’t work. The surgery.” Lana hopped right back onto the pity train. “I’m blind.”

  “Is that a fact?” No sympathy, just hard, cold anger. “Train Al to be a guide dog.”

  Tears prickled her burning eyes, but after tha
t whip of a tone, like hell she’d cry. Instead she pictured floppy ears, that happy canine grin. Paws that Big Al still had to grow into, an orphan now that her brother was gone.

  She steeled herself. “You know what I mean.”

  “You’re not blind, and we both know it. You’re just feeling like shit.” Blunt to the point of pain, and exactly what Lana needed to hear. “When you’re ready to hop off the pity train, you’ll find plenty of ways to live your life.”

  “Like a damned vampire? Go out at night and burn in daylight?”

  “Start eating garlic, kid.” He quickly squeezed her fingers when he pushed the remote control into her hand.

  “My parents will take Al.”

  “Your business.” He didn’t need to say that her parents—no, Nick’s parents—probably wouldn’t want the dog as a reminder. Not to mention, they probably wouldn’t be able to handle a Sheppard mix the size of a small horse.

  “Thank you.” But for what? Going to her brother’s funeral? Kicking her ass when her parents, Nick’s parents, damnit, couldn’t? “Listen, I’m really—”

  “Save it. Come by the dojo when you’re better.”

  She forced a smile despite the damned bandages smothering her face.

  A crinkling of the plastic curtain was followed by a soft click of the door. Funny how she learned to live by sound, recognizing the world by things she hadn’t paid attention to before.

  With the TV still on, the dimmed monitor light poking her eyelids, she raised up the remote to turn the bastard off.

  Wrong button.

  “Captain, you spoke of Officer Rossini. Is Internal Affairs investigating her brother’s death?”

  She froze, gripping the remote with bloodless fingers, her attention, her every cell, focused on the television set. “No comment at this time.”

  “Did he open fire in a meth lab as a form of suicide?”

  Rage burst with sparks of heat, nearly drowning out another terse, “No comment.” Her pulse roared in a wild staccato beats, and Lana clapped both hands over her lips to keep from screaming. Power rushed out of her throat, shrieked out of her lungs, pumped out of every shuddering pore. White scalding jets streamed out from her fingertips and glass shattered from the direction of the now silent television set.