Chapter 1 Mari’s POV

"Okay, but hear me out," Tess said, waving a spoon at me. "If a guy sends you a text that just says 'hey,' you wait at least two hours to answer."

"Why two?"

"Because one hour is desperate and three is rude."

"That's the dumbest rule I've ever heard." I stole a cracker off her tray. "Besides, I don't have a guy."

"You don't have a guy because you work every night and sleep all day like a vampire. Your last date was with a vending machine."

"It gave me exactly what I asked for. That's better than most men."

Tess laughed so hard that she snorted pudding up her nose. That was the best part of my night. It was almost three in the morning at Pine Ridge General Hospital, the ER was dead quiet, and the break room smelled like burnt coffee. I was happy. For about five more minutes, I was just a tired nurse making jokes with her best friend.

Then tires screamed outside.

We both froze. A pickup truck was never a good sound at that hour. I heard the doors slam and the truck roar off, and then somebody started yelling for help.

I was already running. Tess was right behind me.

The sliding doors were stuck halfway open, and a man lay on the concrete just outside them. He was huge, all shoulders and boots, and he wore a black leather vest with a snarling wolf head stitched on the back. Blood had soaked through his shirt and made a dark puddle under him.

"Gurney!" I yelled. "Tess, get Dr. Patel!"

I dropped down beside him. His skin was burning hot, like he'd been sitting in the sun all day. I pressed my hands against his side, and he hissed through his teeth.

"No cops," he said. His voice was rough and low. "Don't call them."

"Sir, you've been shot."

"I know I've been shot." He tried to laugh but it turned into a cough. "No cops."

"I'm not the one who decides that. Stay with me. What's your name?"

He didn't answer. His eyes rolled back and then he went limp.

We got him onto the gurney and rolled him into Trauma Two. Tess cut off his shirt, and I checked the wound. There was a small hole under his ribs on the left side. That should have been the easy part. But the skin around it was gray, like old dishwater, and veins ran out from it like black cracks in ice.

"What the hell is that?" Tess whispered.

"I don't know." I pulled out my penlight. "It looks like some kind of poison."

"Maybe he got hit with something dirty."

"Maybe." I frowned. His blood on my gloves was too dark, almost brown, and it wasn't clotting at all. I'd seen a lot of gunshot wounds in six years, and none of them had looked like this.

Dr. Patel came in, rubbing his eyes. He took one look and swore in two languages. "Get me a type and cross, two large IVs, and call the OR. Mari, you're with me."

"What about the police?" Tess asked. "We have to report a gunshot."

"Report it after he's stable," Dr. Patel said. "He's not going to make it to a statement if we stand around."

So we worked. Dr. Patel barked orders, and I moved without thinking. I started the IVs, and Tess hung the blood. His pulse was jumping all over the place, and his temperature read a hundred and eight. I checked it twice, sure the machine was broken. A man with a fever like that should have been seizing.

He wasn't. He just lay there, breathing hard, with sweat running down his face.

I was cleaning around the wound when I noticed something strange. His ribs were covered in scars. Long, thick ones, four lines at a time, like something had raked claws down him. There were old bullet scars too, burn marks, and a ring of teeth marks on his shoulder. This man had been through a lot. I should have felt scared, but instead I just felt sorry for him.

"Mari," Tess said quietly. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine."

But I wasn't. My hands were shaking a little, and I hid them under the sheet. I'd been a nurse long enough to know what a normal bad day looked like. This wasn't one.

"Who are you?" I murmured. "What happened to you?"

His eyes opened.

They were a weird gray-green color, and they locked onto me like he'd been awake the whole time. I gasped and almost dropped the gauze.

"Hi," I said, a little too loud. "You're at Pine Ridge General. You were shot. We're taking care of you."

He didn't look at the room or the lights or the machines. He just looked at me. Then his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist. It was so hot it nearly burned me.

"Sir, I need you to let go."

"Don't call anyone." His grip tightened. "Please."

"I can't promise that." My heart was pounding. "But I can promise I'm going to try to keep you alive. Okay? That's the deal."

He didn't answer. He leaned closer, as much as the straps would let him, and breathed in. It was a long, slow breath, like he was smelling something. His nostrils flared. His eyes drifted down my neck, past my badge, to the gray fabric peeking out from the collar of my scrubs.

I always wore Josie's hoodie under my scrubs every night. It was old, stretched out, full of holes, and it smelled like nothing now, just laundry soap and me. But it was the only thing of hers I didn't give up on.

"Where did you get that?" he questioned slowly.

My mouth went dry. "Excuse me?"

"That sweatshirt." His eyes were not quite gray-green anymore. They'd turned a strange, bright gold, like a streetlight in the fog. "Where did you get it?"

I stood there frozen with the gauze in my hand, and everything in the room suddenly felt very quiet.

Nobody knew about Josie's hoodie. I never talked about it. I hadn't told Tess, not even once. I'd never told a single patient.

"It was my sister's," I heard myself say.

And then the biker with the gold eyes closed them and said her name. “Josie.”