The Wellspring arrives next week! I can’t believe it is finally here. I’m so proud of how this season turned out. Some of my favorite DSA moments are in these six books.
Be sure to pre-order your digital copy of The Wellspring before the $0.99 sale ends on 9/15.
You can also order your paperback edition now!
To prepare for the launch next Wednesday, here is an exclusive preview chapter. Enjoy!
The Wellspring Preview Chapter
Glass shattered, scattering along the inside of the clinic. Morgan Dunleavy swiped at the remaining shards of the small window on the door to clear her path. Unfurling her hand from the inside of her sleeve, she reached inside to click the lock.
No alarms sounded as the door opened. No lights flashed at her arrival to signal local law enforcement of the break-in. Instead, silence greeted her. She scrambled back to the green compact. Desperate hands slipped from the handle on the first attempt before successfully opening the door. All breath left her at the sight of Ben Riley on the back seat.
Blood caked to his skin and seeped from open wounds. Crimson ran in thin streams along the upholstery. His chest rose with short, shallow breaths. His cheeks paled; everything about him faded to a ghostly white—like he was being erased.
“Come on, Ben,” Morgan muttered. She reached inside and pulled him to the edge of the seat before lifting him up. His arm draped over her shoulder, his feet dragged along the concrete, as she shuffled out of the rain and back into the shop.
She hadn’t been sure of his chances when she found him in the abandoned school. He’d been shot and beaten severely—hunted because of their association with the DSA. Greg Sullivan had perpetrated a coup and was cleaning up loose ends.
Morgan barely survived her own encounter. Jacob Grissom, the man who had recruited her—who’d given her a second chance at life—had betrayed them. He had been serving the enemy all along, forcing her to question every choice since.
With Ben, however, everything was crystal clear. She had resisted him early on, his constant need for conversation bordering on inane. Over time, he won her over—through his deeds and his unwavering perseverance to do the right thing.
She couldn’t lose him, not after he’d gone behind her back to protect her from harm. She wouldn’t let him go that easily. Not until she got in the last word with him, at the very least.
The Blairwood Pet Clinic was a last resort. Morgan had noticed the shop a dozen times in her travels of downtown Bethesda. Had she ever considered owning a pet, it might have been a place she would have visited. Just the thought of a pet, though, made her laugh. Like her life wasn’t complicated enough already.
The back room was little more than a supply closet. Cabinets of medications lined the right-hand wall. A double sink sat in the center of a counter to the left. Baskets hung on either side of the door, filled with combs, brushes and gloves, among other miscellaneous needs, depending on the day.
The cramped room opened to a narrow corridor. Three doors lined the left-hand wall. She stepped inside the first and saw the table within an examination room.
Carefully, Morgan lifted the dying man onto the table. Tremors shook Ben’s body with each movement. She had no choice. The timer had been ticking down the moment she’d found him, and she sensed the end approaching rapidly.
“You hang on, Ben,” she said. Her hand grazed his cheek and ran along his forehead. His fever was pronounced; heat coursed up her fingers at the merest touch. “I need you to hang on just a little longer for me. Please.”
She raced back to the supply closet. Cabinets ripped open without a care and bottles crashed to the floor to find what she needed. She grabbed at scissors and gauze, forceps, water, and alcohol. Her panicked thoughts tried to hold a mental list, but it was shunted aside with each ragged breath of the man in the examination room. Morgan filled a basket and tore it from the wall before hurrying back to her patient.
The basket clattered at her side. Snatching a pair of scissors, Morgan set about cutting loose Ben’s shirt. She peeled it back slowly to keep any pain to a minimum. There was no time for anesthetic, no time to even clean her instruments properly. Ben no longer had the luxury.
“No,” Morgan said, struggling through her own jaded perspective. Ben was a fighter and had been fighting ever since she’d met him. He made her better by standing at her side. She could do no less for him now. “You can do this, Ben. We can do this.”
The shirt pulled away to clear her view of the bullet wound along his right side. She pinched at the skin. Blood bubbled with each tweak. Lifting him for a look at his back, Morgan realized there was no exit wound.
“Dammit.” She tossed the scissors back into the basket and retrieved the forceps. “The bullet is still in there, Ben. This… this isn’t going to be pleasant. For either of us.”
The forceps wavered in her grip. Her fingers tightened along the handle, but hesitated to act. She had left her medical career behind long ago, lost because of a choice she’d made. Three men had died to save the life of her brother. Nothing could make her want to live that moment again, to make those choices between life and death with the consequences that followed. The pressure was too much. Ben’s condition, however, took all choice out of the matter.
She splashed alcohol on the instrument. Grabbing the painkillers found in the supply room, Morgan force fed them to her patient to bring down his fever. Ben’s arms and legs kicked out in violent spasms. Morgan did her best to lock him in position. Her hand rested on his chest. The soft beat of his heart comforted her in no small degree, like he was in the room with her to guide her hand.
The forceps slipped inside the open wound. Blood clouded everything, but she did her best to navigate within. Every movement was cautious and deliberately so. Adding further damage to any vital organs would end the man’s life in an instant.
Sweat ran in thick globs down her forehead and into her eyes. Her teeth dug into her lip, and her hand around the forceps tightened up instead of staying loose. Her body resisted her wishes with each rising doubt. This wasn’t who she was anymore. She had failed in that endeavor like she would Ben and everyone else.
Then she felt metal. Eyes widened in surprise, and all doubt vanished in an instant. Digging deep, maneuvering through the thick blood streaming from the open wound, Morgan snatched the bullet with the forceps and pulled it free.
It clattered to the ground.
“I did it,” she whispered, a smile on her lips. She dropped the tool in her grasp and reached for some hydrogen peroxide to disinfect the wound. “I did it, Ben. The bullet is out. I’m going to clean you up now. You have to do the rest, though. Come back to me, Ben.”
Her deed, however, wasn’t by any means a solution. Ben required more drugs to break the fever, as well as a transfusion from the blood loss. Both were out of her hands. All she could do was sew up the wound and cover it with gauze.
Finished, she wiped his brow with a towel. A sad smile grew upon her lips as she pictured Ben’s reaction to everything she had done. He was always quick with a joke. Morgan imagined it would be about her ratty hair or the bags under her eyes. Something meant to be complimentary, yet at the same time completely inappropriate. She needed to hear that from him now.
Settling at his side, she continued to run her hand through his hair. “I… I don’t have anything else to offer you but some damn prayers, and they’ve never been real good ones at that. Never worked for me. Not with my brother, my career, nothing. But you have them, partner, so you come back and stop being an ass about it.”
“Morgan.”
She fell back a step at the sound of her name. Optimism filled her at the prospect of where it came from, but quickly dissipated. Ben remained unconscious, dying before her. No, the name came from behind her from a shadow standing in the doorway.
Susan Metcalf waited with arms across her chest. She appeared soaked and exhausted. That happened when you spent hours burying the dead.
“How did you find us?” Morgan asked. The words were sharp with anger, something that always sparked with the woman who had been her boss.
“I followed you. I—” Metcalf stopped at the sight of Ben on the table. Her approach was hesitant, her hands falling to his side. “Is he—”
“I got the bullet out,” Morgan said. “Stemmed the bleeding, but his fever is still spiking. He’s dying.”
Metcalf’s hand fell on Morgan’s. “There’s nothing you can do for him now.”
Morgan pulled away. Her eyes thinned. “I have to try. I have to do something.” Morgan paced the length of the room, unable to look at the man who had wanted nothing more than her friendship—who wanted nothing more than to help people.
“You can,” Metcalf said. “Morgan, I need you to do something for me.”
Morgan stopped at the door. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“There’s a reason why everything has happened today.” Metcalf caught her thin gaze. “She’s called The Wellspring, and I need you to find her.”
This is my first time visiting lovely Erie, which is an absolute crime considering how close I live to the area. I’ve heard some fantastic things about this show, and from what I’ve been seeing on their site with the list of artists and authors, I really think this is going to be a fun weekend.
