Read Resurrection (Eden Book 3) for Free Online Page A

Mickey directly.
    “He’s an angel.” Mickey’s tone was hushed. “Straight from heaven.”
    “Gary, you can hear me, right?” Evan was studying the thing named Mickey. “You understand me, right?”
    “Sure I understand you. Why wouldn’t I understand you?”
    “Your friend…He’s sick, right?”
    “Demented and sad,” Mickey confirmed. “But social.”
    “I don’t understand you, Mickey. I think you’re quoting old movies and things, but I don’t...Maybe…”
    “That’s because I speak jive, stewardess. Comprende ? What chew talkin’ bout, Willis?”
    “Okay, listen to me.” Evan knew this wasn’t going to get him anywhere. These guys were whacked. “There are some people who are coming here right now. They’re going to help you both out. All we gotta do—”
    “All we gotta do is focus— focus !” Mickey stomped his foot in place and more of him dropped off to the ground. “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!”
    “Okay, Mickey, that’s okay…” This guy is far gone , Evan thought. Just look at him . “Hang tight, all right? And we’ll—”
    “Show him the picture, Gary. Show him the picture.”
    Gary touched his bleeding leg gently. “Here—” He reached into his shirt and Evan immediately shifted the barrel of his Model 7 back on him.
    “Whoa-whoa-whoa!”
    “Don’t shoot me!” Gary looked genuinely frightened. “Why would you shoot me? I just want to show you the picture.” The wounded man looked like his feelings were hurt.
    “I take your fookin’ bullets!” Mickey cried out with a cheesy accent.
    “What picture?” Evan shifted the Model 7 slightly.
    “Don’t shoot—why’d you want to shoot? You already shot me once…”
    “I’m sorry about that. We didn’t mean it. There are some people coming to help you now, okay? What picture is Mickey talking about?”
    “It’s here, in my shirt.”
    “Okay, get it out.”
    “You won’t shoot me.”
    “I won’t shoot you.” Evan lowered the barrel of the Model 7.
    “I ain’t gonna kill ya, Frank.” Flies buzzed around Mickey’s head, and the bits of himself littering the area where he stood. “Manolo, shoot dat piece a shit!”
    “Go ahead, Gary,” encouraged Evan. “It’s okay.”
    Gary reached into his shirt and returned with a crumpled photograph.
    He put his hand out to Evan with it, but then hesitated, drawing back.
    “What’s that noise?” He scanned the sky, jerking his head around.
    “Those are helicopters.” Evan tried to assure him. “Those are my friends. They’re going to help you.”
    “This is Romeo Fox Trot.” Mickey stared at the growing specs in the sky. “Shall we dance? Cue the Valkyries.”
    “Let me see the photo.”
    “Here.” Gary held it up and Evan took it. He unfolded it and looked at the man and woman pictured.
    He didn’t recognize the woman, but the man...
    “Gary, where’d you get this?”
    “It’s his.” Gary indicated Mickey.
    “Where’d you get this?”
    “You smell that?” Mickey replied.
    “I asked you where you got this picture.”
    “And I asked you if you can smell that.” Evan looked at Mickey anew. There was something different in the man’s voice and gaze now, some lucidity that had previously been absent.
    “Smell what?”
    “That’s the smell of victory. Someday…someday this war is going to end.”
    Evan looked at the picture again. It was a man and a woman, and they were both dressed up. Evan knew about old customs and knew this was a wedding photo. The woman looked pretty, beautiful. Evan didn’t know her. The man, though…
    The helicopters descended on them, whipping up the grass and scrub.
    “Fly away, pelicans!” Mickey waved them away with the stub of a hand, the stub with the thumb still attached to it. “Fly away!”
    … the man , Evan thought, studying the picture. He knew that guy. Dammit. It was his friend, Anthony.
     
* * *
     
    “Well, just in case I don’t say this enough…” Anthony addressed