Connected: Book 1 Connected Series

by Kat Stiles

  He’s going to kill again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I had difficulty getting to sleep that night, and once I finally drifted off, my father haunted me again in my nightmares. But this time his face kept morphing into the doctor’s. I forced myself awake and was grossed out by my sweat-drenched pajamas. I peeled off the wet clothes and tossed my sheets to the side. Should I even try to go back to sleep?

  I remembered the creek with Tommy, how I healed myself to relax. Maybe it would work again. I positioned my hands on my heart and upper stomach. The energy flowed full-force, and the calming, peaceful heat traveled all through my body. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

  The healing worked—the nightmare didn’t come back. I awoke in such a good mood I didn’t even think about the doctor or the murders while I prepared for school. Eager to tell Roz about my experience, I made it to the bus stop early. She approached a minute later, running over and hugging me.

  “Good morning to you, too, Roz,” I said incredulously. She continued to hold onto me. I hugged her back, confused. “Is everything all right?”

  “Of course. Can’t I hug my best friend in the whole world?”

  I cocked an eyebrow, but smiled when she let me go. I remembered how I left her yesterday, how sad she was. “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” She flashed a peculiar smile, avoiding my eyes.

  I figured the death of Nydia’s mother still weighed heavy on her. But the nervous fear I sensed in her puzzled me. I half-expected the guilt from yesterday to still be there.

  She hooked her arm in mine and rested her head on my shoulder. Why is she being so affectionate? I wondered if it was some demented cry for attention, if she was trying to tell me she needed my support.

  “It’ll be all right, Roz.” I wasn’t sure, but it sounded as if she stifled a laugh.

  The bus approached and she pulled away from me, wiping away some tears. I rubbed her back to console her, but that only made the tears worse. She hastily wiped her cheeks before we boarded. After we settled into our row, she took my hand into hers and held it for the entire ride. I asked several times what was wrong, but she never gave me an answer.

  “You want me to heal you?” I whispered.

  “That would be great. Can you come over after school?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Excellent. Maybe you can sleep over, too.” She grinned, and for a second there, I felt real happiness from her. How could I refuse?

  Roz was detained by one of her minions, and before I could make it to my locker, Scott intercepted me. He touched a hand to my arm, not in an aggressive way, but it startled me anyway. My hands heated in an instant. It was like the energy turned itself on. I frantically scanned the hall for Tommy, but didn’t see him.

  “Please, Em. I need your help.” Though I was nervous, I wasn’t afraid. His voice pleaded, not threatened.

  “After everything you did, you want my help?” I said. “Leave me alone.”

  Roz caught up to me and glared at Scott. “What do you want, scumbag?”

  “Look, I’m sorry about everything that happened,” he said. “If you’ll only let me explain…”

  Tommy appeared from out of nowhere and shoved Scott away from me. “Got a problem?”

  Scott stumbled back, but didn’t fall. “Yes,” he answered, his eyes glassy. “I do.”

  Tommy was about to swing at him when I stopped him. “It’s okay. He wasn’t going to hurt me.”

  “Damn right,” Tommy mumbled.

  Roz stood with her arms folded. “We’re done here. Em, let’s go.”

  “No, wait,” I said. “What do you want?”

  “Why are you even talking to this creep?” Tommy said.

  “Can’t you see there’s something wrong with him?” I said.

  “Yeah, and I really don’t care,” Roz said. She grabbed my arm and was about to drag me off. But then Scott spoke.

  “I… I can’t feel anymore.”

  “You can’t feel what?” I asked.

  “Anything.” He looked down. “It’s why I did what I did. I thought if I was with a beautiful girl or in a fight, I would feel something.”

  What a terrible power—I couldn’t imagine not being able to feel. My hands grew even hotter, as if they were ready to heal him.

  “The only time I’ve felt anything since...for a while now, is when I touch you,” he said. “Heat, and then pain after you scratched me.”

  It all made sense. Why he was unaffected by Tommy’s punches until the end of the fight, after I got there. And why he kept trying to talk to me afterwards.

  “You can heal,” he whispered. “You healed Tommy after the fight. Will you heal me now?”

  Roz snickered. “You want our help?”

  The one-minute warning bell rang.

  “I know I don’t deserve it,” Scott said quietly.

  I sighed. Even with what he did, I had to help him.

  Tommy looked at me like I was crazy. “You’re not seriously considering this, are you?”

  “I’ll do it on one condition,” I said to Scott. “You apologize to both Tommy and Roz.”

  Scott looked genuinely remorseful. “Roz, Tommy, I know I was a total jerk to both of you.” His eyes met theirs. “Please believe me when I say I’m truly sorry.”

  “You should be,” Roz said to him, before turning to me. She appeared as if she were calculating something, which I imagined was the twenty reasons why I shouldn’t heal Scott. She pulled me over to the side, and Tommy followed.

  “You don’t have to do this, Em,” Roz said.

  “Yes, I do. It’s why I was given this ability. I have to help him.”

  “I don’t trust him. Let us come with you,” Tommy said. Roz nodded.

  I agreed and the four of us went to Judy’s office. I explained the situation to her, and she let us use a bed.

  As he lay down on the bed, I remembered the accident when his car hit me. Judy mentioned that some kind of trauma activates powers… “This… ability you have to not feel anything, you got it the night you ran into me, didn’t you?”

  His eyes widened. “How did you know?”

  I half-smiled. “I figured running me down was probably a little traumatic for you, too.”

  “That’s what happened?” Scott said, scratching his head. “Some kind of karmic retribution for hitting you?”

  Roz laughed. “Sounds about right to me.”

  Tommy cracked a smile but only for a second. He was taking his bodyguard role entirely too seriously.

  “Look, I don’t know how this is going to work,” I said to Scott. “I’ve never even tried to neutralize an ability before, so no promises, okay?”

  He nodded and closed his eyes as I rested my hands on his head.

  The heat he gave off was so intense, I was amazed at how quickly his body pulled in the energy. After the healing was complete, Scott was so relaxed it was difficult to revive him.

  “I could punch him,” Tommy said. “If he feels it, you know it worked.”

  Roz stopped Tommy, who looked a little too eager to try. “Allow me.”

  She gave Scott a good pinch, and that snapped him out of it.

  “Oww.” He smiled. “Thank you.”

  * * * *

  At lunch, I shared what I found on the doctor the night before.

  “Electrocution?” Tommy said. “And he walked away from it?”

  “That’s what the article said.” I tucked a strand of rogue hair behind my ear.

  Tommy’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, maybe he has some of kind of regenerative power, like Wolverine.” He looked at me sideways. “Or you.”

  I smiled, thinking about healing automatically like that, without any effort at all. Still, it was better to be able to heal others, not just myself, I decided. And then I remembered it was my doctor we were talking about. “Can’t be,” I said, shaking my head. “Just because.”

  Tommy laughed. “It would seriously suck if he
were practically immortal.”

  Roz just looked at us as if we were speaking an unusual dialect of Mandarin Chinese.

  I took a long sip of my milk, thinking about the doctor. “Can we go to his office tonight, dig up some more information?

  “Need my assistance again, then?” Tommy asked.

  “You catch on quick,” I said. “Are you working tonight?”

  “Nope. I’m available to do your bidding,” Tommy said. “Is seven good?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Roz wrapped her arm around my shoulders. She gave me a gentle squeeze and said, “I love you, Em. You’re my best friend.”

  The bizarre look I gave her went unnoticed. “Roz, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, in a sing-song kind of way. She took her arm down and leaned her head on my shoulder instead.

  Tommy looked stunned. “I’m starting to get jealous.”

  Roz stuck her tongue out at him. “I knew her first.” Her expression changed to a playful smile. “I get to sleep with her tonight, too.”

  “Now I am jealous,” he said.

  I blushed in embarrassment. Why was she acting so crazy?

  His wicked grin resurfaced. “Do I at least get to watch?”

  “Not helping, Tommy,” I said.

  “What? She started it,” he mumbled.

  Roz had taken to playing with my hair. And what I felt from her was a weird mixture of loneliness and happiness. “You’re really starting to worry me, Roz.”

  “Em, don’t be silly. Why can’t I be affectionate with you? You’re my best friend. I love you.”

  “I…love you, too,” I said awkwardly.

  She smiled and rested her head back down on my shoulder.

  “Not so hard to say, was it?” Tommy said quietly.

  I looked at him, feeling totally guilty. The melancholic smile he wore only made me feel worse.

  “You should be able to say it with the people you love,” Roz said, still seemingly in her own little world.

  I continued to look at Tommy. “Yes. I should.”

  * * * *

  The bus ride home with Roz was strange. She asked me all kinds of crazy questions: my favorite color, movie, band, food. After a while, I couldn’t take any more.

  “You’ve been acting weird all day. You going to tell me what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. I couldn’t remember.” An eager grin appeared. “Hey, why don’t we watch Halloween tonight? Don’t you have it on DVD?”

  “Roz, you hate horror movies. Especially ones you’ve already seen.”

  “How about a comedy then?”

  I tilted my head to the side, observing her. She didn’t appear to have sustained any major injuries. I touched her forehead, but it was only mildly warm, so I ran my hands slowly around the rest of her head.

  “What are you doing?” she said.

  “I’m feeling for the bump.”

  “What bump?”

  “The one you got after you fell down and hit your head,” I said, in all seriousness.

  She laughed and playfully swatted me away. “I didn’t fall.”

  “So you say. We’re still on for the healing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll see. Maybe afterwards the real Roz will come back.”

  She frowned, looking down. “These murders… it’s made me think you should appreciate what you’ve got while you’ve got it. Because you never know when it’ll be gone.”

  I was struck by her words. The deaths were particularly hard on her, but I never thought she’d react like this.

  In a rush, her emotions flooded me. Something akin to a feeling of loss, maybe empathy for the victims’ families, for the loss of life she couldn’t prevent. But it was more than that, too. She felt an overwhelming sadness as well, and I wondered how she held up so well, carrying around such a burden. I wrapped my arms around her.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” I said, choking back tears.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie?” she whispered. “What didn’t you know?”

  “How hard this has been on you.”

  “It’s okay. Don’t get upset,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  I didn’t understand what she meant by that, but before I got a chance to ask, the bus arrived at our stop. The impatient driver barked at us to hurry.

  “I’ll meet you in a few minutes,” I said, on my way up the stairs to my house.

  “No, I’ll come with you.”

  “I’ll only be a couple of minutes. I wanna freshen up.”

  She continued to follow me inside. “Okay, I can wait. I’ll watch TV.”

  Before I had a chance to object, she had already hopped on the couch and was channel surfing.

  It felt good to shower. The pressure and the heat of the water calmed me. In that relaxed state, my thoughts turned to the doctor and the murders. Why did he kill those people? My mind traced back to all the sessions with him. Every time he managed to make my skin crawl, and the pain…the pain was unbearable. Suddenly it became clear how the doctor killed his victims. With a little more force, his therapy could be deadly.

  I finished getting dressed and returned to the living room, to discover Roz rifling through my DVD collection. “I told you we don’t have to watch horror movies.”

  “Look what I found.” She showed me the four movies she’d set aside: three comedies, with one horror movie, my all-time favorite.

  “When are we going to have time to watch all these?” I said. “You’re in serious need of a healing, and then we’ve got the doctor’s office—”

  “Oh, well, we can watch a couple afterwards. And my whole weekend is free. Are you doing anything?”

  “I don’t have any plans.”

  “Great, we can hang out together all weekend,” she said, her gorgeous face beaming with happiness.

  “Are you forgetting you get sick of me after a day, two days, tops?”

  “I do not. Anyway, I can’t remember the last time you and I spent a whole weekend together. It’ll be great.”

  After everything she’d been through, I had no choice but to concede. “All right. But I’m pretty sure you’re going to be tired of me by tomorrow morning.”

  The healing did not go well—Roz simply wouldn’t relax. And then she argued with me, insisting she was relaxed. Like I couldn’t tell or something. The strangest thing was how burning hot she was, she really was in need of a healing. It was almost as if she held onto the tension, as if she didn’t want to let go for some reason. I figured I’d try later, right before we went to sleep. Maybe then she would stop fighting me.

  * * * *

  Tommy picked us up around the corner exactly at seven. I sat next to him in the middle, which made for an exciting ride—every time he shifted down into an even-numbered gear, his hand brushed my knee. I smiled each time, enjoying his covert touch.

  At the small office complex, Roz got out the passenger side. I was about to follow her when Tommy grabbed my hand and pulled me back next to him. He kissed me quickly, and in the time it took to blink, he was already out of the car, standing casually next to Roz.

  “Come on, Em. We’re waiting on you,” he said.

  I made my way out the passenger side. “Someone detained me.”

  “What are you talking about?” His grin grew larger the closer he moved to me. “Who would do such a thing?” He adjusted a few strands of hair blowing across my face and rested his hand on my cheek.

  I wanted nothing more than to kiss him again. But then I noticed Roz, standing with her arms crossed against her chest.

  “You two can make out later,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I could feel her anxiety, which in turn made me nervous. We walked to the back of the complex. Tommy went to work, and in a matter of seconds, we were in. The entire building was vacant and eerily quiet.

  The suite entrance lock to the doctor’s office presented no obstacle for Tommy either. Once in
side, we found the treatment room open. I suspected the real information would be in the secret room the doctor always entered from. Shining the light along the wall, we finally came upon the door. I focused the light directly on the knob.

  “Look at that.” The excitement in Tommy’s voice shone through, even in whispers.

  It looked like a regular doorknob to me. “What?”

  “I so enjoy a challenge.” He reached into his inner pocket to retrieve a new set of tools.

  From the change in his methodology, it was clear the lock differed from the others. With great skill and care, he meticulously picked it.

  “Good one,” he commented, as he put his tools away.

  “Means there’s probably something worth hiding in there,” Roz said.

  “Let’s find out,” I said.

  The room was completely closed off from any outside view, so once I shut the door, I knew it would be safe to turn the light on. I’d never seen so many certifications, awards, and framed clippings in my entire life. And all precisely aligned and evenly spaced on the wall.

  “That’s one helluva ‘love me’ wall,” Tommy said.

  One by one we read them all. Most of them had to do with the doctor’s success in treating patients, and all were dated beginning from two years ago, except his actual diploma, which he received seven years ago.

  Roz opened the top drawer of his filing cabinet and looked through his files.

  I moved to his desk, the top of which was cleared off, except for an appointment book in the lower right hand corner, placed exactly along the edge. Part of me wanted to give it a nudge, to screw with him. It would drive him crazy.

  “The Kenneys were his patients,” Roz said. She pulled out a file.

  “Really?” I said.

  “They were referred by Adam.”

  “I knew it.” I turned to Tommy. “You remember what you overheard in the restaurant?”

  “Yeah, the doctor was going on about how Adam kept giving him referrals,” he said.

  “I wonder if he was trying to set up Adam, get him out of the picture,” I said.

  “But that doesn’t explain…” Roz trailed off, and by the panic-stricken look on her face, I got the feeling she said something she didn’t mean to.