Justice Read online

  Jessie kept hold of the frightened woman. Beauty only stood about five feet tall and her rail-thin body revealed she’d been half starved. Jessie could have carried her slight body out of the house if the woman couldn’t have walked on her own. She fought back more tears as they walked through the house slowly. The woman had been beaten recently and she hadn’t been bathed, in Jessie’s estimation, for a few days. Her hair was ratted, a little greasy and dirt clung to her legs and arms from the dusty, hidden room.

  Trey remained a silent sentry at their back and she knew he’d remain there in case the female Species passed out from her weakened condition. Jessie led Beauty out the front door into the fresh night air and directly to the open back door of the SUV. She smiled at her charge.

  “We are going to get inside this thing and then we’re going to do something really exciting. We’re going to fly in the sky in a bigger thing to get you some medical help and you’re going to meet up with your family. They are going to be so happy to see you.”

  “You won’t leave me?” Beauty looked terrified as she clutched at Jessie.

  “No, Beauty, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to hold your hand the entire time.” Jessie squeezed her hand tenderly. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you and I’m going to stay with you for as long as you want me to.”

  Jessie urged her to climb onto the center seat and secured her in a lap belt. Jessie smiled again, to be reassuring. “I’ll sit right next to you and Trey here is going to drive us. He’s a nice person.” She checked the belt again, leaned over to push Beauty’s hair behind her ear and gave her a sincere look. “Everything is going to be fine, Beauty. I—”

  Pain exploded in Jessie’s back. She was thrown forward and her body slumped over Beauty and the seat. The Species woman screamed.

  “Sniper!” Trey yelled.

  Jessie fought to push herself up despite not being able to draw breath from the pain in her back. Beauty shrieked in terror again and glass exploded from the front passenger window. Jessie found the strength to shove her chest up, shoved Beauty sideways across the seat and threw herself on top of the other woman.

  “I’ve got you,” Jessie panted over the screaming female and gunfire.

  Pain exploded again in Jessie’s back, sent a path of fire from between her shoulder blades to the back of her head. This time the pain was too much. She tried to gasp in air but it wouldn’t come. Everything turned dark, the pain faded and Beauty’s shrieks were the last thing she heard.

  * * * * *

  Justice growled as he rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock. It was four thirty in the morning. He fumbled in the dark for his cell phone and yanked it open, pressing it to his ear.

  “This better be good,” he grunted.

  “Justice? I’m sorry about the hour. I truly am. We have an emergency. I needed your permission for a few things.”

  “What happened, Brass? Permission for what?” He sat up and reached for the light next to the bed, instantly awake.

  “We need to send our helicopter from Homeland for an immediate pickup of one of our Gift Females who was retrieved less than an hour ago. We also need permission to bring her to Reservation. They have the better medical facility and this one is coming in rough. She is quite traumatized. They had to sedate her on scene because of the emotional trauma. I thought they’d be able to handle it better at Reservation. Dr. Trisha is still there.”

  Justice took a deep breath. “Fine. Send the helicopter to pick up our female. Go ahead and send her here. Call Dr. Harris instead of Dr. Trisha. He is on duty and she’s on vacation. She isn’t to be called in.” He didn’t mention that she’d just had her baby since the phone lines weren’t always secure. “You know that.”

  “Right. Sorry. I’m frazzled. The task force wanted to put our female on a private plane to send her to us but I told them that took too long. That’s when they requested our helicopter from Homeland. You have the Reservation one.”

  Justice frowned. “Why don’t they fly her themselves? Is their helicopter down for repairs? I know they have one. I had to fight to get the funding for the thing.”

  “It’s in use. One of the task force was shot during the extraction. They had to use that helicopter to airlift their injured teammate to the nearest trauma center almost sixty miles away.”

  “One of them was shot? How bad is the man? Will he live?”

  “It wasn’t a man. It was the human female ambassador on the team. That’s why our female is so traumatized. When the human female was shot it left our female with all men.”

  Justice’s heart dropped. Jessie was the only female who worked with the task force that he knew about. “What happened?”

  “Tim Oberto believes our female was the target. The sniper tried to take out our female is what I was told and the human female was shot instead. I don’t know how serious it was but it had to have been pretty bad that they felt the need to use the helicopter to airlift her out rather than get our female to us.”

  “Jessie Dupree was shot?”

  Brass hesitated. “I don’t know her name.”

  “Give me the number to Tim Oberto right now,” Justice snarled.

  “Uh, ready?”

  Justice leapt from bed and ran out of the bedroom. “Hang on.” He found a pen and grabbed the first folder nearest him on the desk. “Go.” He jotted down the number.

  “Brass, do what you think is best. You don’t need to ask me first. Get our female home, whatever that entails and get her taken care of.” Justice hung up and dialed Tim Oberto’s number. It rang four times.

  “Tim Oberto,” a male sighed.

  “This is Justice. I just heard the news. Was Jessie Dupree injured?”

  “Yes.”

  Justice wanted to roar from pure rage. “Is she alive?”

  “They are working on her in one of the trauma rooms.” Tim took a deep breath. “I don’t know her condition.”

  “She was shot?” Justice trembled.

  “Yeah. She took one to the back of the head. It looked bad.” Tim’s voice broke. “A sniper tried to take out the Gift Female but Jessie was in the way. She threw herself over your female and took three hits covering her. Her vest took two of the rounds but the third hit her.”

  “Where were your men?” Justice roared. “She’s an ambassador. She is supposed to go in when it is safe.”

  “Don’t yell at me,” Tim yelled. “We had secured the area before we allowed Jessie to bring your woman out. It was a sniper. We were pinned down until he could be located. I love that girl like she’s my daughter. I’m the one who lifted her off your woman and held her in my arms until our helicopter could reach us. I’ve got her blood all over my clothes and I’m the one who is going to have to notify her father when they tell me she’s gone.”

  Justice collapsed onto the desk hard, sat there stunned and closed his eyes. He couldn’t breathe at first, too stricken at the news that the vibrant woman who’d shared his bed had been shot. It took a lot for him to draw in a painful breath.

  “You think she’s going to die?”

  “She was shot in the back of the head. What do you think? She wouldn’t wake up and it was bad.”

  Pain tore through Justice’s chest. Jessie was gone to him forever. Her face flashed through his mind, the memory of her lying naked under him with her arms wrapped around his neck, smiling up at him with her pretty blue eyes. Her red hair had been spread out on his bed. More pain tore through his chest.

  “Where are you? I’m on my way.”

  Tim hesitated. “Of course. Policy,” he ground out. “It will make a nice photo opportunity, right? You can stand outside the hospital and say some shit in front of the reporters about how brave she was to give her life in the line of duty to save your people. You didn’t know her.”

  Anger tore though Justice. “I know Jessie. Don’t you ever accuse me of something that deceptive again. I don’t give a damn about getting my picture taken or about what humans think