The double doors opened at the lobby, and after the pair filed out, Vin dropped his head and walked as fast as he could for the exit. He was making good time, running from the side of himself he’d never understood and didn’t want anything to do with, when he slammed into a white coat who was carrying an armful of files. As paperwork and manila folders took flight like startled birds, Vin helped steady the woman and then dropped down to help her clean the mess up.

The balding man who’d stood ahead of him in the elevator did the same.

Vin’s eyes locked on the guy and refused to budge. The smoke was emanating from the left side of the man’s chest…boiling up into the air from a specific spot.

“Go see a doctor,” Vin heard himself say. “Go see one right away. It’s in your lungs.”

Before anyone could ask him what the hell he was talking about, Vin scrambled to his feet and tore out of the building, heart in his throat, breath coming in short blasts.

His hands were shaking by the time he got to his car, so it was a good thing BMWs let you get inside and start the engine without plugging the key into anything.

Gripping his steering wheel, he shook his head back and forth.

He’d thought he’d left all that freaky bullshit behind. He thought that second-sight crap was solidly in his past. He’d done what he’d been told to do, and even though he hadn’t believed in the actions he’d taken, they had appeared to work for almost twenty years.

Ah, shit…he couldn’t go back to the way it had been before.

Just couldn’t.

CHAPTER
7

When Jim came out of the bathroom, diPietro was gone and a nurse with a lot to say had taken his place. While she went on about…shit, whatever the hell it was…Jim focused over her shoulder in hopes of cutting short the tirade.

“Are you done?” he asked when she took more than a single breath.

Crossing her arms over her large bosom, she looked at him like she was hoping she’d be the one to put his catheter back in. “I’m going to call the doctor.”

“Well, good for you, but it’s not going to change my mind.” He glanced around, figuring the private room he’d gotten was diPietro’s influence. “What happened to my things?”

“Sir, you were nonresponsive up until about fifteen minutes ago, and you were dead when they brought you in. So before you take off like you had the common cold, you should—”

“Clothes. That’s really all I’m interested in.”

The nurse stared at him with a kind of hatred, like she was so done with patients giving her lip. “Do you think you’re immortal?”