Visions of Chains
Author: Regan Hastings
Awakening Novel #3
Publisher: Signet
Released: June 5, 2012
“The bullet’s still in her shoulder, Finn.” The man who’d called Deidre “bitch” spoke softly. “We’ve gotta get it out.”
“Deidre will get it out, Mike.”
“Me?” She turned her head around to look up at him. “She needs a doctor.”
“No,” Shauna muttered. “No doctors. Have to report bullet wounds. Might as well take me straight to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“Damn it, Shauna, this isn’t a game.” Deidre glared at her friend, then softened her tone because she’d already been shot. SHe didn’t need to be yelled at. “You need a transfusion and antibiotics.”
“We’ve got emergency medical equipment here,” Joe said, walking up to stand alongside Finn. “We take care of our own.”
“Just one big crazy family, how nice,” Deidre snapped.
“You can get the bullet out, Deidre,” Finn told her, going down on his haunches. He met her gaze an said, “Use your magic. Pull the metal from her shoulder. It will be less invasive than one of us using forceps to dig around in her flesh.”
“Oh, God,” Shauna moaned.
Deidre swallowed hard at that image and knew she’d have to try. She couldn’t let Shauna suffer even more pain. Not if she could help it. “Fine. Just tell me what to do.”
“You already know,” Finn said. “Just do what you did outside. Direct your power with your mind.”
“This is crazy,” Mike muttered. “Just because she can throw guns doesn’t mean she -“
Finn shot him a look that had the man shutting up fast. Deidre didn’t blame him. Even with his features calm and blank, Finn was intimidating. A look of fury from him was bound to strike fear into the heart of anybody with a brain.
“Okay, just … back off,” she said, looking at all of them in turn. “Shauna, I’m going to try to get the bullet out, okay?”
“Do it, Dee.” She closed her eyes, and bit down hard on her bottom lip.
Hands sweaty, throat dry as dust, Deidre was half afraid she would have that meltdown she’d been joking about a few minutes ago. But like Finn had pointed out, there was no time for it now. She’d do that later. Indulge in a rant or a crying fit and then she’d demand some answers from the man kneeling right beside her.
Taking a deep breath, she laid her hands over Shauna’s wound and felt the cold stickiness of congealing blood against her palms. She tried not to think about the fact that it was her friend’s blood and instead concentrated on calling up that sparkling sense of power she had felt earlier.
She thought it would be hard.
It wasn’t.
As soon as she reached for it, her magic was there. As if it had been hidden away in a locked chest for years and now was just eager to be used. To be needed. She smiled to herself as the shimmer of something wondrous spread from her heart, down her arms to her hands and then to her fingertips. Focusing on the shape and size of the bullet within her friend’s body, Deidre pulled on it with her mind.
She felt it move. Felt it sliding from tissue and muscle to edge past bone. While Shauna whimpered, Deidre concentrated, calling it forth, drawing on her magic, on the amazing thing she was doing until-
The bullet popped free and landed in Deidre’s palm. It glittered in the candlelight, a shiny, blood-streaked brass piece of metal, smashed at the tip from its contact with Shauna’s body. Astounding that something so small could do so much damage.
“Good job,” Joe said and edged her out of the way. “I’ll take over now.”
He motioned to Mike to break open the medical supplies and then spared a smile for Shauna. “I’ll have you stitched up in no time, cutie.”
“Oh, God,” Shauna moaned. “I’ve seen how you sew.”
“Everybody’s a critic…”