Death had a stench that was all too familiar to Xavier Hartmann. It was pungent and meaty and carried with it the memories of acrid smoke, the screams of dying men, and an out-of-body experience Xavier couldn’t forget.
He fought hard to free himself from the dreams, becoming aware through a hail of pain stabbing at his head. He squinted at a hazy, almost ethereal vision of something slender and yet full hovering above him. The cacophony of battle noise faded, replaced by a soft swish and a rustling. Slowly, he inhaled, catching an earthy scent along with the cloying odor of death. Pushing past the poking needles, he opened his eyes, and his vision cleared. He was lying on the ground. A hot breeze buffeted his body, making the leaves flutter above him.
With a groan, he rolled up onto his left elbow and good hip. The movement aggravated his head, and he feared he had another concussion. The first one had been horrible enough it gave him a traumatic brain injury. If he had another concussion, it begged the question, how the hell did he get it? He managed to push himself into a sitting position, only to discover the lower half of his right pant leg was lying flat. Xavier pawed at his jeans, rolling up the empty fabric and gaping at the blank space.
His prosthetic was gone. Terror clawed at him; same as it had when he’d been wounded and glimpsed his mangled and bloodied right leg. Frantic, he scanned the area. The damn things were expensive as hell, and he couldn’t lose it. Then the fact of where he was slammed home: sitting in the middle of a park-like area. It seemed familiar, like he’d been here many times before, but his hurting brain couldn’t wrap around the actual place.
Xavier scooted up into a crawling posture, then carefully picked his way to the closest tree, examining the ground along the way, pushing aside dead leaves from last year. Where was the prosthetic? On reaching the tree, he used the trunk to aid him onto his good leg. The change in position turned his headache into a raging, white-spots-in-his-vision migraine. He slumped back to the earth, breathing through the nausea overwhelming him until it subsided.
This was not good.
The coppery, rancid stench was powerful here by the tree, making it difficult not to vomit. With a hand cupping his mouth and nose, he inched around the trunk and finally came across the source of the smell.
A man lay on the ground, his neck bent at a sharp angle; blackened blood coated his tattered T-shirt. Xavier gaped. The mangled corpses of uniformed men danced like skeletal marionettes through his mind, their bloodied and broken limbs flopping, heads twisted at odd angles with zombie sneers. He heaved, losing control, and retched. Drenched in sweat and trembling, he collapsed behind the tree. Xavier stared at his legs until his brain registered the dark splotches on his jeans. Lifting his tremoring hands to look at the palms, he sucked in a breath.
Dried blood blotted his skin. Had he blacked out? Had he reverted to his training? Had he killed this man? The questions and the lack of answers swirled around in his head, making the headache worse. He had to stop, or the damage inflicted on his vulnerable brain would create more invisible scars from which he’d never recover.
One baby step at a time. First, he had to locate his prosthetic. Gathering his flagging courage, Xavier flipped into a crawling position and carefully approached the corpse. Every cell in his body screamed to stay away, but his instinct overruled, convinced the worst was true—that he’d lost his prosthetic next to the dead man. Lady Luck had been a cruel mistress to Xavier from birth.
He closed in on the corpse and stalled. His arms shook, straining under the effort to keep him upright as his empty stomach seized. He wanted to run—oh God, how he wanted to get up on two good legs and sprint away from here. But there would be no relief. There, clutched in the man’s dying grip, was the leg. Brown streaked the sleek calf where bloodied fingers grasped it.
He had visions of gore-covered hands reaching for him, with pleading eyes, gaping mouths. Damn these terrifying images of a zombie squad crawling after him. Xavier eased around the body, pried his prosthetic loose, then froze. Squinting at the dead man, he tried to sort through his memory. He knew this bloke, somehow.
Tucking away his fear in its lockbox once more, Xavier gently grasped the corpse’s chin and tilted his head out of the awkward angle. Why was this guy familiar? Releasing the chin, he trailed his hand down the body to the Levi’s, patting the pockets but finding nothing.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
The man had been stabbed, and as a finale, his neck broken—assassination style. Xavier swallowed hard. Something he’d been taught as a marine.
Oh, bugger.
Placing the prosthetic leg in his lap, he tensed, ready to scoot back, when a sharp intake of breath made him stiffen. Slowly, he turned his head to the left, raising his arms. God, don’t shoot.
Newly minted Deputy Jolie Murdoch gaped at him, her already pale features whiter than a ghost now. “Xavier Hartmann, what have you done?”
