The Seventh Immortal (Hearts of Amaranth #1)

The Seventh Immortal

Hearts of Amaranth #1

by J. M. Parry

Copyright 2013

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by J.M. Parry on Smashwords

This book is a work of
fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places,
events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are
productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

The woman was close. She was so close that
she could feel the cold embrace of oblivion. It was just within
reach, as if she could push a little more and put her fingertips
against the end of everything. Something pulled her back. It washed
over her and pushed her away from annihilation. She fought against
it. Struggled against it with all her might. No matter how she
tried, her strength wasn't enough.

For most people, life is like a river. It
flows in one direction, from birth to an inevitable end. Everyone
fights against the current, clinging to life. The woman's river
flowed backwards, away from death and towards some unknown purpose.
She was swimming as hard as she could to destroy herself.

As the woman fought against the forces
dragging her away from death, she realized that she didn't know why
she was struggling. Even then, in the first moments she would
remember for the rest of her unnatural life, she knew that victory
meant death. And she couldn't recall why she wanted to die. Her
memories were gone. She was a new person now. The old one, the one
who wanted to disappear, had made it to the void that she couldn't
quite reach.

The woman stopped fighting. And that is when
she opened her eyes.

Chapter One

White ceiling tiles. A plastic, pastel blue
curtain. Low, steady beeping. A dull pain in her arm. A clammy
feeling across her body. The world returned to the woman as soon as
quickly as she returned to it. She instantly became aware of her
surroundings.

She was in a hospital room. This made sense
to her, even in her confusion. She had died, or come very close to
it. This was where she made her recovery. She tried to sit up in
her bed, but found her body almost completely unresponsive. Her
arms wouldn't move. Her legs would barely twitch. Something was
wrong. Was she paralyzed? She could still feel the rough sheets
against her skin. No... She was drugged.

“Who are you?” A deep voice asked. She wasn't
alone. There was someone else in the room with her.

A man sat cross-legged in a chair across from
her hospital bed. He was lean, and wore a pressed three piece suit
that seemed perfectly cut to his frame. His hazel eyes peered at
the woman from behind wireframe spectacles.

“Who are you?” he repeated as soon as she
began to wake. The woman tried to speak but her mouth was too dry.
Once more, she pressed her arms against the bed to push herself
upwards. This time, she felt the strength beginning to return to
her limbs.

The man realized that she was moving and
quickly stood up. He walked over to the machine next to her—the one
that was beeping—and pressed a button. Before the woman could move
again, she began to feel her strength fading.

He was drugging her. He was keeping her
unconscious.

“I'm sorry,” the man said. His voice was
smooth and steady. It comforted the woman even though she knew what
he was doing to her. “We can't have you wake up just yet. We still
don't know what we are going to do with you.”

Her eyes began to droop. Everything went dark
again, though this time there was no
annihilation
to strive towards. She was not dying. She
was merely sleeping.

The woman did not know how long she was
unconscious. Time passed strangely for her, as she still had very
little concept of it. The drugs rushing through her body hardly
left her with the faculties to keep track of the minutes and hours
as they ticked by.

Once again, she felt herself pulled back into
the world. The sensation returned to her skin. Light poured into
the slit between her eyelids and she was able to peel back the
darkness. Everything was bright. Everything was loud. And, just
like before, the woman was not alone in her room.

“C'mon... C'mon, hurry up! Wake up! I don't
know how long we have.”

The woman blinked back the sleep in her eyes
and looked over, expecting to see the same man
as
before. She was relieved to find someone new—someone
who looked like he belonged in a hospital.

His hands brushed her arm, then gripped the
IV attached to her vein.

She looked up at him, still in a daze,
straining to study him through her blurred vision. Was he a friend
or foe? She had no idea. She didn’t know anything anymore. She
forced a word from her throat and out of her mouth, the only one
she could manage at first. “Please...”

“Don’t worry. I’m here to help.” His voice
was low and firm but resonant with compassion. His figure came
slowly into focus. He wore light blue scrubs over a
broad-shouldered body with rich olive skin. The collar of the
scrubs ran low enough to reveal the muscles of his chest, rippling
as he reached down to grip her, but there was a tenderness to his
touch, or perhaps hesitancy. Again, she wondered what this man
planned to do with her, and fear shot briefly through her belly.
But as soon as she stared into his bright green eyes, she knew she
could trust him. He looked back at her with a mixture of awe and
reverence, his gaze searching hers with equal intensity.

“It worked. You’re awake,” he said. Gently,
he pulled the IV needle from her arm. For a moment, the world
seemed to spin. Then his hand returned quickly to her body,
reassuring, stabilizing. She fixed her gaze on him again, like an
anchor holding her in place. His bright green eyes contrasted so
beautifully with his olive skin and dark, messy hair. As she felt
her control of her body returning to her, she found herself smiling
at him. But he seemed hesitant to smile back. “Now, can you move?
We need to get you out of here. But we probably won’t make it far
if I have to carry you.”

That was a shame, she thought. She would have
let this man carry her anywhere. But she sensed the urgency in his
tone, and as she became increasingly aware of her situation, she
felt her own fear return to her.

“Where am I?” she asked, pushing herself up.
“Who am I?”

Silence. The young man stared at her, his
face fallen. “Y-you have amnesia?” he finally asked. “Are you
joking?”

“Not joking.”

“I... I had so many questions...” His voice
trailed off. “But that's not important right now. We don't have
much time.”

The woman turned and threw her legs off the
bed. She looked down at herself, realizing that she was wearing
nothing but a flimsy hospital gown. This wasn't the time for
modesty, but she still felt a warmth run to her cheeks as the man
looked at her.

He quickly realized that he was staring. “I'm
sorry,” he said, turning away. “I thought--”

“It doesn't matter,” she replied. She
wriggled her toes, confirming that her legs still worked, and slid
off the bed. Standing wasn't easy with the drugs still in her
system, but she could pull it off. “I guess you have to answer my
questions instead. What do you know? Who am I?”

“You had your driver's license on you when
you fell,” the man replied. “That's all we know. Your name is Kait.
Kait Selias.”

“Doesn't ring a bell,” Kait said. “Though I
guess that's not a surprise. And who are you?”

The young man turned around to face her
again. Kait reached behind her to close her gown, almost
reflexively. “Paul Gordon,” he told her. “I'm a resident here...
You really don't remember anything?”

Kait shook her head. “You said that I
fell?”

Paul nodded. “Right off the top of the
courthouse. Thirteen floors. Went headfirst into the pavement. When
you came in... Your whole head... I don't know how this is
possible. You shouldn't be alive, let alone standing and
talking.”

Out of everything Paul had said, this was the
one thing that made the most sense. Kait knew he was right. She
should have been dead. Carefully, she reached up to her face. She
ran her fingers along her cheek. Her skin was smooth. She ran her
hand over her hair. It was a bit tangled, but everything felt in
the right place.

“How long have I been here?” Kait asked.

“Just since this morning,” Paul replied. “You
made a full recovery in a matter of hours. That's why I was so
curious. I've never seen anything--”

“I don't have any answers,” Kait interrupted.
“I'm sorry. Is that why they were drugging me?”

Paul shrugged. “I don't know, but when I
found out what they were doing... I could lose my job for this. But
I brought you some clothes. I hope they fit.” He pointed to a pair
of slacks and a blouse on the chair across from the bed.

“Thanks.” Kait walked over to the clothes,
still holding her gown tightly behind her. She scooped the garments
up with one hand and walked towards the bathroom. “But why would
you lose your job? You're a doctor. Shouldn't you be commended for
helping me?”

“I don't know,” Paul replied. “Maybe they
wanted to send you to the government for testing or something.
After you recovered from your injuries so quickly... All I know is
that Mayor Levin was involved.”

Kait stepped into the bathroom and closed the
door behind her. She pulled on the pants—gray slacks that were a
bit too baggy but would do in a pinch. “Let me guess,” she shouted
through the door. “Thin man, pale, well dressed, hazel eyes...”

“I don't know what color his eyes are,” Paul
replied, chuckling. “But it sounds like you've got the right guy.
You know him and you don't even know yourself?”

“He woke me up, briefly,” Kait said, pulling
off the hospital gown. She slipped her arms through the sleeves of
the blouse. “I think he wanted to ask who I was, but like you
know... I couldn't give him a good answer.”

“Mayor Levin runs everything in St. Louis,”
Paul said. “When he finds out I let you go...”

“St. Louis?”

“You don't remember
anything?
”

“
This is all new for me,”
Kait said. Once she buttoned up her blouse, she looked in the
mirror and saw her own face for the first time. Her skin was pale,
but smooth like polished ivory. There wasn't a single wrinkle or
crease, even in the corners of her eyes. She had a soft,
heart-shaped face and a wide mouth with pale, pink lips. Her dark,
thin eyebrows stood out against her sallow skin and blue-gray eyes.
She had chocolate-colored hair that was mostly flattened against
her head, matted down from spending the morning in a hospital bed.
It nearly reached her shoulders, but small chunks of errant hair
still managed to stick up around her head.

An emptiness hit her gut as she thought about
Paul seeing her in such a sorry state. He looked so perfect, with a
healthy tan that seemed to glow against his navy scrubs. She felt
like she wasn't just out of his league; she was playing a different
sport. It was too late to do anything about it now. And there was
an even more embarrassing matter to take care of:

“
You didn't happen to bring
a bra, did you?” she asked.

“
I-I didn't... I don't...”
Paul stuttered outside the door. Kait smiled for just a second. At
the very least, she could make him as uncomfortable as she
felt.

She arched her back and looked in the mirror.
Her breasts were round and pert, small enough to comfortably forgo
a bra but large enough that it felt indecent. Running her hands
across her chest, she was at least glad that she didn't need any
help to flatter her figure. As long as she didn't get too cold,
maybe she could even get away with the natural look.

Kait opened the door back into the hospital
room. “Don't worry about it,” she said. “I've got more important
things to worry about.”

As soon as Kait was out of the bathroom, Paul
turned to look at her. He grinned again. This made her feel better
about the messy state of her hair and face. “Okay, now we'll get
you out of here,” he said. “If we're careful--”

“
I don't know what I'm going
to do,” Kait replied. “I don't know where I will go. I don't know
who I am.”

Paul stopped. He didn't have any answers for
her. Kait didn't know why she expected him to be able to solve all
her problems. He'd done enough. He'd risked his job to pull her out
of a chemically-induced coma. That should have been enough.

“
I'm sorry,” Kait said. “You
can't... I can't expect you to tell me what to do next. You've
helped me more than you had any reason to. Thank you.”

“
I... I had a reason,” Paul
replied. He fixed Kait with his bright green eyes and slowly
reached up towards her cheek. She felt paralyzed by his gaze. She
realized that his curiosity in her ran deeper than just her
mysterious condition.