Cole's Redemption (Alpha Pack #5)(9)

Mac took his chin in her hand and urged him to look at her again. She waited until she had his attention before she spoke. “We’re going to find a way to get you better, all right? I promise.”

“You said better, not healed.”

“Zan . . .”

“Too big a promise?”

She hesitated, but to her credit, she told the truth. “For the time being, yes.”

“Fair enough.” Disappointment threatened to crush him, and he fought it down. “What’s next?”

“A new CAT scan, blood work, and hearing tests. Then we go from there.”

He understood why his colleagues wouldn’t give up on finding some improvement, however slight. Hell, it wasn’t like he wanted to quit. He couldn’t lie to himself, though. His brain was a ticking bomb, set to explode the second the stress of using his healing power became too much. He’d gotten lucky so far.

With a start, he realized Mac was waiting for his response. “Sure.”

“Hang in there.” After patting his arm, she turned and walked out, presumably to make sure things were ready for his tests.

A short time later, Jax sauntered in without knocking and took up residence in the chair beside his bed. “Came to babysit, since you’re such a pu**y about being poked and prodded.”

Zan rolled his eyes, which was a bad idea since it caused his head to pound harder. “It’s the CAT scan I hate. Being stuck in that tube is creepy.”

“Want me to hold your hand?” his friend joked.

“Shut up.” He managed a smile, but didn’t quite feel it.

Jax’s humor bled from his face, and he was silent for a long moment. Finally, he took a deep breath and said what they were both thinking. “You’re going to run, aren’t you?”

“No. I’m going to walk, after I say good-bye.”

“You sure that’s what you want?”

“Of course it’s not. But what choice do I have when I’ve become a liability? What am I supposed to do if I stay—sweep the floors and clean toilets?”

“What happened with Nix can be prevented. We can work on teaching you to use your other senses, to feel the changes in the atmosphere around you—”

“Why did I just get a sudden image of Obi-Wan teaching Luke to use the force?”

“It can work,” Jax insisted, ignoring the bad joke. “Isn’t it worth a try? You owe it to yourself not to leave before you’ve exhausted every possibility.”

“And in the meantime, I sit around and be useless? Or worse, get someone else hurt? I can’t do that.”

“You returned to the field too soon. Give it more time.”

Jax looked so hopeful, and what he said made sense. But Zan still saw Nix’s body covered in blood.

“I’ll think about it. That’s all I can promise for now.”

“All right,” his friend said, not trying to mask his relief. “Thanks.”

Mac and Noah came in to wheel him down for his tests, and Zan endured the seemingly endless onslaught of procedures with as much cheerfulness as he could muster. Which wasn’t a lot, but he did his best to keep the gloom from suffocating him.

Back in his room, there was more waiting. He and Jax made small talk about everything under the sun, until Mac returned. When she came through the door at last, clutching a large manila envelope, her expression was carefully neutral, and Zan’s heart sank.

“It’s bad,” he said. Not a question.

“I’d hoped for better results.” Opening the envelope, she removed a handful of images, stuck one in a clip mounted to a viewing panel on the wall, and flipped a switch to illuminate a colorful shot of his brain. “These are from the CAT scan. See these areas here?”

She pointed to three spots where there seemed to be some sort of fuzziness to the otherwise sharp image.

“I see, but I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

“These are areas of new damage to your brain,” she said grimly. “In layman’s terms, the healing you performed on Nix put too much strain on the weakened vessels, and some of them ruptured. They’re causing the horrible headache and dizziness you have now.”

“Is he in immediate danger?” Jax asked, glancing at Zan worriedly.

“Not if he rests and follows my advice.” Mac arched a brow and gazed at Zan pointedly. “If you were human, you’d be flat on your back in intensive care right now.”

“But I’m not human,” he muttered. “I’ll be fine.”

Mac shook her head. “You won’t be if you perform any more healing before you’re one hundred percent healed yourself. See these areas?” She pointed to five other spots. They didn’t look like anything to Zan, but her expression was as serious as he’d ever seen.

“These are vessels that are currently weakened so severely, the chances are high that you’ll wind up with serious brain damage if you use your healing ability again too soon. If the slow bleeding becomes outright hemorrhaging, you might not survive.”

“Jesus.” Hanging his head, he stared at his hands in his lap without really seeing them. Finally, he raised his eyes to hers and voiced his biggest concern. “If I do what you say, remain on the sidelines and refrain from using my gift, will I completely recover? Can you tell me with reasonable certainty that I’ll be back in the field eventually, able to fight and use my healing with no problems?”