Run To Me (Lazarus Rising #4)(5)

Her head sagged limply against him.

Swallowing, he wrapped his arms around her. Willow’s black dress hid most of the blood.

“Sir?” Now the driver sounded worried.

He should be worried.

Jay pressed a kiss to Willow’s head. He swallowed once more to clear the lump in his throat. “The wound wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared.” He glanced at the driver. The man gaped at him. Jay gave a brisk nod. “She’s just resting now. Willow has requested that we go home, and that my personal physician, Dr. Elizabeth Parker, attend to her.”

The driver didn’t move. “She…she isn’t moving, sir.”

No, she wasn’t. He held her tighter. “She’s resting. Now, hurry, get us home.”

The driver still hesitated.

“Home,” Jay snapped. “Cops and reporters are going to chase me down, and I want Willow safe and taken care of before I have to face them.” He jerked his head. “The hospital is the first place they’ll look. I won’t have Willow subjected to that hell, not after—not after some bastard shot at her.” He could still hear the thunder of gunfire in his head. “Get us home. She’ll be safe there, and I can take care of her at our house.”

The driver slammed the door shut. Either the fellow had decided to listen to his boss—or he’d just decided that Jay was insane and that his employer was cradling a dead woman. Either way, didn’t really matter. What mattered was that the limo was soon moving again.

Jay’s eyes squeezed closed as he held Willow. “You’ll come back to me.” His body began to rock just a bit as he held her. “That’s what you do. The Lazarus subjects always come back.” The subjects were supposed to be able to survive anything, except a bullet to the brain. They died, but they came back. Just like the original Lazarus. They were the dead, rising.

She just had to rise.

“You’ll come back,” Jay said again. He pressed another kiss to her temple. “You’d fucking better.”





Chapter Two


She was sleeping beauty. An honest to God fairytale. Only as he stared at Willow’s still form, Jay felt as if he were trapped in a nightmare, not a dream.

Jay sat in the chair in the corner of his bedroom. He leaned forward, his hands clasped between his legs, his eyes on the figure of the woman who lay in his bed.

He’d stripped her. He hadn’t wanted her to stay in that blood-stained dress. He’d cleaned the blood from her body. He’d tried to not freak the hell out. He’d failed.

“The bullet is out,” Dr. Elizabeth Parker said as she straightened, eyeing her patient. “It’s just a matter of time. She’s going to come back.” She glanced over at Jay. “I can stay with her. You should go get cleaned up.” She motioned toward him. “You’ve got blood on your tux.”

And on his hands. Willow’s blood.

“She’s healing already,” Elizabeth added, voice reassuring. “She’ll wake up soon.”

He swallowed. “I don’t like this shit.”

Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “No, I don’t either.” Her lips pressed together. She was a beautiful woman, smart, kind…and his former lover. They’d stayed friends after their break-up, and now they were both entwined in the madness that was Lazarus.

“Do you wish you’d never created the formula?” Jay asked her.

Because it had been Elizabeth’s brilliant brain that came up with the serum. The secret formula that could bring back the dead. She’d created the preservation process for the bodies, she’d worked for years to get her formula just perfect. And then Wyman Wright—asshole and sonofabitch extraordinaire—had stolen her serum. He’d used it on people without their permission. He’d tried to create his own freaking army.

Elizabeth’s dark gaze turned pensive, but instead of answering him, she asked, “Do you wish you’d never funded the project?”

Because he’d been the one to pump money into Lazarus. He’d been Wyman’s biggest backer. Jay worked plenty of covert deals with the U.S. government, but Lazarus had been different. He’d understood why Elizabeth wanted the formula to work. My God, if death could be stopped…

But Jay hadn’t realized the full costs.

His gaze slid back to the woman on the bed. Willow. His heart ached. “I can’t find her past. She doesn’t have any memories. No flashes of anything at all. I’ve looked and looked, and it’s as if she never existed before she woke up in that North Carolina lab.” Now he rose and stalked toward the bed, as if he were pulled to Willow. His gaze lingered on her face. Her eyes were closed, and he wanted her to wake up. To come back. To open her incredible blue eyes. “What if she has a lover out there, someone searching for her?” A bastard who was going insane because he’d lost her. Jay wanted to reach out and touch Willow. Because he wanted it so badly, his hands clenched into fists.

“Someone obviously knows who she is,” Elizabeth murmured.

His gaze immediately snapped to her.

“The shooter,” she said bluntly as she tucked a thick lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Whoever tried to take her out tonight—that guy knows exactly who Willow is.”

His spine straightened. “West is still at the scene.”