Chapter Nine

Zach stepped up to the door and knocked purposefully. He wasn't looking forward to this confrontation but it really couldn't be avoided any longer. It had been over a week since he'd last visited the safe house that he'd arranged for Julia Keefer. He knew that Aidan Devane had stopped by a couple of times to drop off provisions but other than that Julia had been left alone here.

It was perhaps cruel to leave her so isolated but he hadn't been willing to leave Kendall, and he hadn't been ready to face the reason Kendall was in that hospital bed. Zach shook his head at that though – it wasn't fair of him to blame Julia, Kendall's injury wasn't her fault, it was his. He was the one who insisted on getting involved and then didn't take any steps to protect her. Still if he'd been forced to confront Julia before Kendall regained consciousness he might not have been able to remember that, so he had left Julia alone. She was safe here, both from the Dragon's men and from her own recklessness – that was more than he had been able to give Kendall.

Waiting outside the door Zach began to wonder, and in the back of his mind to hope, that Julia might have grown so impatient with his absence that she had started out on her own again relieving him of the obligation that he no longer wanted. Helping Julia had been his idea, his penance, but he no longer cared enough to help her – whatever guilt he felt over Maria Grey had been eclipsed by the devastation of Kendall's injuries.

"Where have you been?" Julia's irate demand interrupted his reverie, and dashed his growing hopes. "I'm stuck out here in the woods all by myself and you don't even call or come by. What, you send Aidan to check on me, to see if I'm alive and you figure that's all you owe me. You promised that you'd help me, Zach. Well if you're not going to help me, then I'll help myself. I spent ten years in the witness protection . . ."

Zach let her words wash over him, pushing past her into the cabin as she continued her familiar rant unaware of the fact that he had already stopped listening. When she finally paused for breath he spoke. "You'll have to forgive me," he said not caring whether or not she mistook his words for an apology, "but I've been a little busy. I don't know if Aidan mentioned the fact that my wife was shot, that she spent most of the last week in coma, that the doctors still aren't sure that she'll ever walk again. I apologize if it appears as though I forgot you but the truth is your problems were just not at the top of my list."

While Julia stared at him in shock, his previous behavior having given her the impression that he would accept all of her threats and abuse without complaint, Zach continued, "I came to tell you that the situation is very nearly resolved. The Dragon will be taken care of by this time next week and you'll be able come out of hiding."

"No!" Julia exclaimed the manic gleam in her eyes brightened by the onset of angry tears. "No. I'm the one who's supposed to 'take care' of him. You were only supposed to give me a name. So just tell me who he is and I'll go – I'll do it right now. I don't want you to do it. He killed my Noah and I want to be the one -"

"I don't care what you want," Zach interrupted her, his voice harsh with the strength of the anger he was trying to suppress. "This stopped being about what you want the day my wife got shot. I came here as a courtesy, to tell you that it's almost over, not to listen to your complaints about how I'm handling the situation. I know who the Dragon is now and things are already in motion."

"What just like that?" Julia asked her voice shrill with accusation. "You've claimed to be searching for his identity all this time but then Kendall gets shot and all the sudden you know who he is and 'things are in motion.' Why didn't you do this before, Zach? If it was so easy to get his name why didn't you have it weeks ago?"

"Yeah, just like that," Zach agreed with a bitter laugh. "But there was nothing easy about this. As for why not before; I didn't want to do this. I would have found his name the other way, it would have taken longer but I would have gotten it eventually – and I would probably have told you and then had to go chasing after you to make sure you didn't get yourself killed." Zach shook his head, brushing off that tangent, that wasn't the way things had gone. "There are things I wouldn't have done for you," he said simply, pointedly offering no apology. "I was going to help you as much as I could, but I wouldn't have done this," he sighed trying to change the subject – Julia didn't need to know the details of his bargain with the devil. "I'll go no more," he sighed. "I am afraid to think what I have done."

"What did you do that's so awful," Julia glared at him unsympathetically. He'd promised to help her and now he was saying that he wouldn't have done whatever was necessary to help her. "What wouldn't you have done for me?"

"I asked for help from someone that I've tried very hard not to get involved with, someone who is in a position to know who the Dragon is because he's in the same business," Zach's answer didn't explain anything.

"You asked for help?" Julia repeated. "Be still my heart, the world will surely end – Zach Slater asked for help."

Zach gave her a withering look; not in the mood to appreciate her attempts at humor. "Corinthos isn't doing me any favors, you know. Help from a man like him comes at a price. And I'm not even going to know what that price is until he calls in his debt, but I'm going to have to pay it – and I will because it's necessary to keep Kendall safe and I owe her that much at least."

He waited to see if some comprehension would dawn in her eyes. When it didn't he decided to make his position clear. "I've put myself in debt to a dangerous man to get this taken care of," he said. "You will stay out of the way until it's done. Then you can have your life back; go to California, stay here, I don't care what you do. I've lost too much because of you already."

"You can't mean Kendall?" Julia laughed. "You can't really be this worked up over that selfish witch. It was a marriage of convenience, Zach. And if you ask me, it sounded pretty damn inconvenient."

"No one asked you," Zach answered coldly.

Kendall lay back in her hospital bed and stared at the ceiling. For the first time since she opened her eyes she'd been left alone for a few minutes – no doctors or nurses, and no family – it was something of a relief, but it also gave her time to think. She closed her eyes and focused on her legs, she didn't want to push herself too hard but she had to try something so she concentrated on her feet – trying to flex her toes. The doctors said it might take awhile for the swelling in her spinal cord to go down enough for her to regain sensation and control over her lower extremities, but they still hoped that it would happen. Kendall opened her eyes looking down at the outline of her feet beneath the covers and at her extended toes. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts anymore; Kendall couldn't stop the tears that welled up in her eyes.

She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back a sob as she heard the door knob turning. Bianca was back, and she had to be strong for Bianca. She couldn't let her little sister see how upset she was.

"I can't believe that you could be so selfish."

Kendall looked up in surprise at the sound of her stepsister's voice. Greenlee came over and gave Kendall a brief hug before settling down at the side of her bed to continue her rant. "I told you that staying married to that man would ruin everything. You know, you were supposed to be carrying my baby. But no, you had to stay with that man who got you shot and now all that work we went through injecting me with those fertility treatments is wasted. Now you're going to be in a wheelchair for months, if not longer; there's no way we can get you pregnant."

Kendall was instantly swamped with guilt as she realized that Greenlee wasn't going to be able to have the baby that she so desperately needed to hold back her grief over Ryan's death. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to get shot." It wasn't until she was actually saying the words that Kendall realized how ridiculous it was for her to be apologizing to Greenlee.

If Greenlee noticed the irony she didn't show it. "It's okay, Kendall," she assured her best friend with a forced smile. "I forgive you, and we'll find another way. It's my destiny to have Ryan's baby, so I'm sure that it will happen." She paused as she considered her options. "I'll ask Dr. Madden whether he thinks that you would be able to carry the baby even though you're in a wheelchair. Surely handicapped people get to have babies too?" Greenlee thought about that for a moment, not noticing the distress that this topic was causing her dear friend.