Anselm

  Anselm

  Jasinda Wilder

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  Prologue

  The Knife in the Dark

  It’s not so easy…to be a ghost.

  And to be hunted? It is even harder.

  My name is not my own. My official birthdate? Unknown. I have no credit score. No social security number. No birth certificate, no hospital records, no bank trail.

  I do not exist.

  In the world of black ops, of spies and secret agents, assassins and fixers and cleaners, this is not so unusual. To scrub a person from official records only requires the right access and a certain set of skills. My very good friend and brother-in-arms, Lear, can do it blindfolded, one-handed, and half asleep. He doesn’t exist either.

  I am an anomaly: I have never existed.

  Even the language I speak which most assume is my native tongue…is not.

  Then who am I?

  I am Anselm See—last name pronounced Zay.

  Spy, assassin, sniper, commando, ghost.

  There are stories told of me in pubs and dive bars throughout the world, places wherever those indoctrinated into this world of shadows and lies and blood gather after an operation to unwind. Some of the stories are apocryphal, some are factual, some are fictional, and I do not often concern myself with sorting out which is which. I do not care, mostly.

  I have my brothers—Harris, Thresh, Duke, Puck, and Lear—and they are all the family I need. They are all I have, if you would like to know a piece of the truth. They have my back, and I have theirs. They do not know all the truth of me—no living person does…not even me.

  I have been the hunter.

  I have been the hunted.

  But this, right now? This man hunting me, and the hunt itself… is different this time. He knows my ways, understands my methods. And he has the guidance of Alice, a master of digital detection to guide him, making things even more complicated for me.

  I’ve stayed in the shadows my entire life. Never taken a lover for longer than a month. Never stayed in any one place longer than a week. I do not have a home—neither house nor apartment nor condo, nor long-term hotel room. I do not own a car or a motorcycle, and while I have ID and passports and credit cards and debit cards, they are all fake, as easy to discard as an old T-shirt.

  I did not want this—not for me, and certainly not for her.

  Not for either of them, in fact, but especially not for Story. She is too young, too sweet, too innocent. Too much like the sister I once had, now thirty-five years in her grave.

  Her mother, Selah Binyamin is…something else. If I am a ghost on this earth, she is the spirit that haunts me. Familiar, yet unknown. I hear her voice and I see my mother, soft and wild and beautiful and sad. I see her move, and there is my aunt Ane, who danced careless and free in the white skirling cold of a Lapland snowfall, someone who taught a serious child to smile.

  Selah, whose past is as unlikely and tragic as my own, and her adopted daughter, Story—the embodiment of childhood sweetness and light—they may not know it right now, but their lives are in my hands.

  If Selah is to live, I have to find her, and rescue her.

  If Story is to live, I must stay alive, and I have to kill my enemies—of whom there are many. One in particular—the one who seems to know my every move.

  I have to do all this with an innocent seven-year-old girl in my care.

  I have never doubted my skills—I was taught them from the time I could walk. I have never doubted my place on this earth: I have always belonged in the shadows, at the edges of the dark. I am who I am—name and history be damned, I am Anselm See, and I am the knife in the dark, which evil men fear, a bullet from afar seeking the blood of the wicked.

  Now, I must move into the light, and become the savior. It is a role I am not prepared for, yet it is mine nonetheless.

  Take my hand, Story; close your eyes and shut your ears—you do not want to see the blood spilled, nor hear the screams of my victims—the same people who would do you harm.

  Wait for me, Selah. When your captors begin to weep in fear, you will know I am close, for their death is at hand.

  I am Anselm See.

  And Cain? The man behind all of this? He has made a grave mistake.

  But it will be his last.

  Chapter One

  Stitches in the Kitchen

  “…Multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, pulse is low—”

  “—No exit wounds…”

  “—Prep O-R 3…”

  The overlapping voices and barrage of information should have been confusing, but it wasn’t. Not to me. Not with my experience. I abandoned the paperwork on the desk, snatched a pair of blue latex gloves from a nearby box, and jogged toward the ambulance entrance, meeting the incoming patient and attendant paramedics, who were updating the triage nurse.

  Lexi, our youngest, newest, and most inexperienced ER nurse, looked overwhelmed, frozen in panic. She was running alongside the stretcher, holding an IV bag, but her eyes were wide, frantic, and searching. She was the only other nurse available—it was a busy night at Abbot Northwestern, and all of our available staff, except Lexi and I, were scattered to every corner of the ER, overworked, and drowning in cases.

  “Lexi, report, please,” I said, as I reached the other side of the stretcher, taking over as the paramedic team prepared to transfer the patient to us.

  “He—” Lexi swallowed hard, blinked.

  “Lexi,” I snapped, putting steel into my voice. “Time to toughen up. Report, please.”

  She tipped her chin up. “Victim is male, eighteen, African-American. Three gunshot wounds to the chest. Sucking sounds have been observed. Pulse is low. There are no exit wounds.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Very good. Is the operating room ready?”

  “I…no. There’s…there is no operating room available, or surgeons.”

  “If we do not help him now, he will die.” I looked around, saw an empty stretch of hallway. “There. Help me scrub in.”

  “I—what?” Lexi wasn’t following.

  I didn’t wait for her to catch up—I found an OR prep room and started scrubbing. “He needs help now. The paramedics did everything they could do on scene, but it will not keep him alive for very long. He needs surgery. There is none available, and I have treated such cases in the past, so I will provide the necessary treatment.”

  Lexi was following my lead, but arguing. “But—but…Selah, I don’t think you’re supposed to—”

  I gave her a harsh glare. “I will not let him die because of silly rules.”

  “They’re not silly rules, Selah!” Lexi protested, even as she helped me into sterile gloves. “If you fuck it up and he dies, his family could sue the hospital. You could be legally and financially liable. At least, when Dr. Matterly finds out, you’ll be reprimanded and suspended without pay, if not fired.”

  “That is a risk I am willing to take. What I am not willing to do is let this man suffer and die.” I brushed past her, collecting the materials I would need. “So help, or not. If you are concerned for the consequences, I will understand. I am doing this, with or without you. I will not let him suffer any longer.”

  She hesitated, and then scrubbed in with me.

  Partway through the
procedure, Dr. Matterly, head of the ER, discovered us. Immediately, he scrubbed in and began helping. He didn’t say a word, but I felt the reprimand coming.

  Once the patient was stabilized and in a recovery room, I was paged to Dr. Matterly’s office. I reported, and sat down in the hard plastic chair in front of his desk.

  Older, thin and lean and hard-eyed, with graying hair shorn close to the scalp, silver stubble on his jaw, he reminded me in appearance and manner of a superior officer I’d had in the Israeli Defense Force. It was as comforting as it was disconcerting.

  He stared at me for a long moment, silent and conflicted.

  I huffed. “Dr. Matterly, we are short-staffed and every room is full. If you have a reprimand to say to me, please say it, or allow me to return to work.”

  His smile was faint. “Selah, you are an excellent nurse. One of the best emergency nurses I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “I give you a lot of leeway, because of your skill and talent, and because you’re relatively new to our country and how we do things.” He rubbed his jaw with his middle knuckles, sighing. “But I can’t overlook you performing surgery—which you’re not qualified to perform—in the hallway.”

  I frowned. “I was supposed to just let him die? Let him continue to suffer? He could not breathe. There were no operating rooms, and no surgeons.”

  He hissed. “I know—I know.”

  “Then what would you have had me do?” I tugged my long thick black hair out of the ponytail, fluffed it, pulled it back, and retied it with the elastic band. “I know you have rules and regulations, meant mostly to prevent lawsuits and lih-bility.”

  He smirked. “Liability, you mean,” he corrected.

  I waved a hand. “Yes, whatever. In an emergency like this one, I cannot be concerned with lawsuits and liability, Dr. Matterly. I have taken lives. I have seen death and suffering even you cannot imagine, sir. When I transferred to the medical unit in the IDF, I swore to save lives. To prevent suffering and death, no matter the cost to me.”

  He wiped his face with both hands. “I understand, Selah. I do.” He blinked at me. “More than you know, I understand.” Another pause. “I was a medic in Vietnam. So, I do understand what you’ve seen, to a degree at least.”

  I nodded. “Perhaps you do. Unless you have seen true war, you cannot fully understand.”

  He jutted his chin to indicate the walls beyond his office. “Most of them don’t get it. The brass who run this hospital don’t get it. To them, this is a business. Unfortunately, my job is creating the balance between the business of running a hospital, and the day-to-day reality of being responsible for human lives.”

  “I understand.”

  “Your impromptu surgery was successful. The patient will live, thanks to you. But I can’t let you do that. You have to understand this, Selah. You have to follow the rules, or I cannot keep you on board, no matter how good you are at this job.”

  I nodded. “Very well.”

  He picked up a pen and flipped it around his index finger. “I hate this part of the job.”

  “You are firm, but fair. It is a good way to be, for a man in your place.”

  He smiled, nodded. “Thank you, Selah. I try.” He waved, a go-away gesture. “Finish your shift. No more unauthorized surgeries. Find me, if you’re faced with that situation again. I can make things happen that you can’t. Okay?”

  I stood and moved for the exit. “Okay. Thank you, Dr. Matterly.”

  The rest of the shift was no less chaotic—a four-car pileup with multiple closed pneumothorax injuries and open skull fractures, a man who accidentally chopped off three fingers, a child with life-threatening pneumonia, an attempted suicide via a bottle of Vicodin and a bottle of vodka, a double homicide with the shooter taken down by the police, resulting in multiple gunshot wounds to the perpetrator, and a whole host of minor cases such as accidental domestic knife wounds, and broken limbs.

  By the time my shift was over I was exhausted emotionally, and I knew I should be falling over asleep, but I was wired physically.

  I got home at a little after midnight, having started my shift at noon.

  I lived in a two-bedroom house in a quiet suburb of Minneapolis, a twenty-minute drive from the hospital. The streets were narrow and tree-lined, summer foliage spreading to create a green tunnel that shivered and sighed in the slow breeze. The occasional streetlamp shed orange pools of light on the blacktop. I had my car windows open and the radio off, and the only sound was my car engine.

  I pulled into my driveway and spent a moment, as I did at the end of every shift, letting the tension and heartache bleed away. I exited my car and stood leaning against the ticking hood, just breathing and listening.

  Suddenly something prickled, a sense of unease, disquiet in my gut.

  It was a particular feeling and, had this been back home in Israel, I would have not dared to ignore it—it would have meant an imminent mortar attack, a bombing, something. But here, in America? I couldn’t imagine what would cause my intuition to jangle this way.

  Instead of heading to my front door, I angled across the lawn to my neighbor’s house—Mrs. Thompson was a retiree and a widow, and my babysitter. She stayed at my house with my daughter Story from when she got home from school, until after she was in bed. And then, once Story was asleep, Mrs. Thompson would go home and pop in to check on Story now and again until I got home. It was not ideal, but I didn’t have too many options since Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t accept any payment. She was getting on, and my crazy shifts could mean long days for her.

  I tapped lightly on the storm door, and after a moment Mrs. Thompson answered. Short, plump, with graying ringlets and thick glasses and the kindest soul of anyone I’d ever met, Mrs. Thompson was one of my favorite people. As I mentioned, she refused to let me pay her for watching Story; she claimed she was otherwise useless, and spending time with my daughter gave her purpose and something to look forward to each day.

  “Selah, dear. How was your shift?” She drew me in for a hug, ignoring my stiff discomfort with the affection.

  “Difficult,” I said. “It was a bad day.”

  “I’m sorry, dear.” A retired ER nurse herself, she understood what that meant. “Did you lose anyone?”

  I nodded. “There was a shoot-out with the police. We treated the shooter, but he did not make it.”

  Mrs. Thompson patted my shoulder and brought me a plate of chocolate chip cookies, freshly made. “It’s a full moon, dear. I knew what that would mean for you.”

  I took one, munching slowly. “How was Story, today? She was worried about her spelling test.”

  “She did very well. Nine out of ten, I believe. She was excited. She got into a little tiff of some kind with her friend Nina. We made grilled cheese and tomato soup, and after doing her homework, we watched Frozen.” A laugh. “Again.”

  “You would think she would tire of that movie.”

  “You’d think, but apparently not.”

  I finished the cookie. “Thank you, Mrs. Thompson.”

  She just patted my shoulder again. “Of course, my dear. I was over there just ten minutes ago, and she was asleep in the same position she fell asleep in. There’s leftover soup and a sandwich you can reheat.”

  I nodded, waving, and headed for my house. The porch light was on, the interior darkened, except for the light over the stove in the kitchen, which Mrs. Thompson always left on for me.

  I still felt the disquiet, but ignored it. I poked my head into Story’s room and spent a moment watching her sleep, her blonde mass of hair splayed across the pillow, a thin arm flung out, her adorable little mouth partially opened. My heart squeezed, watching my precious girl sleep—I cared for Mrs. Thompson, of course, but Story was the only human on this planet whom I could say I loved. My family was all dead, so there was only this child, sweet as sugar, smart as anything, sarcastic and sassy and with a bizarre fashion sense, seven years old and beautiful and my
darling—not of my body, but owner of my heart nonetheless.

  I closed her door quietly, and stepped across the hall into my own bedroom. Gratefully, I shed my scrubs and tossed them into the hamper, peeled off my sports bra and panties, shook out my hair, and put on an oversized T-shirt. I dragged a brush through my hair, and then massaged my breasts as I headed for the kitchen—sighing in relief to be free of the bra.

  Perhaps it was exhaustion, perhaps it was the sheer relief of being in my comfortable clothing, but I didn’t see him at first.

  I headed right for the cabinet over the sink, pulling down a wineglass, and then pouring myself a big glass of red wine from the bottle I’d opened yesterday.

  Taking a long sip, I rummaged in the fridge for the leftovers, stuck them into the microwave, and then turned to put my backside against the counter to wait.

  And that is when I saw him.

  Sitting at my kitchen table.

  I wish I could say that the first thing that caught my attention was the fact there was a strange man in my kitchen. Or, the blood. Or my sewing kit open on the table. Or the fact that he was calmly suturing himself with my needle and thread.

  No, what I noticed first were his eyes. Deep, dark brown. Piercing, molten, wary, cold. And then I noticed him—the weeks’ worth of stubble on his jaw, the sharp cheekbones, and the hard square craggy jaw. The messy hair, somewhere between blond and brown, a nondescript shade. His features were wolfish, lean. Sharp.

  He had no shirt on—and he was utterly male. Heavy chest muscles, thick arms. A hard slab of muscle for abs, rather than a shredded eight-pack. The kind of muscle you get from intense physical fitness and a high-calorie diet; you could break a sledgehammer on his stomach.