The Wounded Heart

by K. D. Worth

  “You just made that up,” I accused, my heart hurting because her words terrified me. I’d all but raised the same issue with Kody a few hours ago. Would one day Kody and I turn into Meegan and Dan, sneering at each other at every chance? Worse, would I become Dan, pining after a lost love who didn’t want me anymore? What if our relationship was a sham, simply borne of circumstances and with no lasting affection? I mean, he was the first boy I ever talked to about being gay. The first one I kissed and the first one that I made love with….

  Suddenly my stomach began to hurt and I really wanted to cry.

  “Max,” Meegan’s soothing voice echoed in my mind.

  Drawn to the power of her voice, I looked up. A strange sensation settled over me, like the way Slade had a calming effect on all of us. The moment my eyes met hers, serenity filled me and the tears burning in my eyes lost their will. I blinked a few times, composing myself.

  “Listen to me, Max,” she said very seriously, not sounding like a seventeen-year-old. “You and Kody are different. Never doubt that for a second. The love that radiates between you and Kody is, like, real. I can feel it….” She waved her hand, searching for a word. “It’s, like, happy and warm, ya know?”

  “You can feel that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The warmth. When we’re around each other our bodies heat up like when we were alive,” I told her, desperate for assurance that what we shared was special.

  “Well, there ya go. That never happened with me and Dan. We were never in love. We were bored. I know I called our relationship circumstantial, and you’re thinking that you and Kody are the same thing. But every couple in the world is brought together by unforeseen and unusual circumstances. By that definition, then, like, every relationship in the world is circumstantial, and if you change one thing, maybe they never would’ve met. But you and Kody? You’re, like, destined to be together.”

  “Do you really think so?” I asked in a tiny voice, longing to believe her wisdom.

  “I know so,” she said with a confidence that eased some of the tension in my shoulders.

  I gave her a soft, grateful smile. This relationship thing was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, at first it seemed that just overcoming Kody’s depression and keeping him safe from the unknown was going to be the difficult part. But I never expected myself to be so jealous, nervous, and worried.

  All. The. Time.

  I mean, I was jealous of Herman, for crying out loud!

  And now I was panicking, thinking our relationship was based on nothing? I don’t know why I was being so stupid and insecure.

  I smiled at Meegan. “Thank you for being my friend.”

  She rolled her eyes and suddenly, the wise matron was gone and the teenage eighties chick reappeared. “Stop being such a dweeb.”

  I laughed and reclined back in the chair, relaxed and grateful to have such a good friend, someone so much wiser and older than me that I could trust.

  Herman jumped in my lap, startling me. It was so rare that he was friendly to me that I took a risk of being scratched and gave his sleek fur a pat. His gray eyes studied me for a moment, and then, with a swish of his tail, he jumped away.

  A lightbulb lit above my head, and it dawned on me that Kody’s relationship with Slade wasn’t that different than what Meegan’s meant to me. A friend, a confidante, and someone wiser to turn to for advice. How had I not seen that before? Kody deserved to have a friend as much as I did.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to tell him and apologize for being such a brat.

  It might take me a while to let go of the jealousy, but understanding how much I relied on Meegan’s wisdom was a damn fine start.

  “Look, um,” I began hesitantly. “Don’t mention to Kody that we talked about anything, okay?”

  “Why? He already knows I made the love shack for you.”

  “Don’t call it that,” I said, laughing. “He’s just private, ya know? He wouldn’t want you to know any, um… details.”

  “It’s not like I was gonna walk up to him and say, so how’d you enjoy that blow job, kid?”

  “Meegan,” I warned, struggling to stay serious. I wasn’t sure when Kody would get here, but I sure as hell didn’t want him to walk in on the two of us talking about him. He would never forgive me if he thought I’d shared details he wanted to remain private. I didn’t think I said too much, but I didn’t want to have to justify that to my sensitive boyfriend.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Where is Kody anyway?” She surveyed the common room.

  I studied her, wondering if she had heard my thoughts. She did have some serious magic. I shrugged nonchalantly and answered, “He had some stuff to do. Said he needed a little time alone.”

  Meegan sat up straight, eyes wide. “You left him alone? Like, alone alone?

  My heart skipped at her concern. “Yeah, why?”

  Her eyes closed for a moment, like she was feeling something in the air. “He’s not here. Dammit, Max!” she growled and I flinched. “Slade told you guys not to go anywhere without telling him.”

  “H-how did,” I stumbled over my words, flustered. “How did you know that? Did Slade tell you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You need to find him. Right now!”

  I jumped to my feet, startled by the barked order. “Okay, okay.”

  “I’m not kidding. Now!”

  The panic in her eyes scared me to death.

  I reached out into the universe, finding his presence easily and teleporting myself without another word. I’d wanted to respect his wishes, let him have time alone with his thoughts like he’d asked me, but Meegan’s fear left me seriously questioning the wisdom of that.

  “Kody?” I called out telepathically as I left the dorms and reappeared in an unfamiliar apartment.

  Then I saw him, kneeling on the floor—in human form—holding his sister’s unconscious body.

  “Max,” he cried, his face anguished and tear-stained. “I think she’s dead!”

  KODY—Chapter 16

  MAX’S EYES were wide with shock as he took in the scene.

  I’d found Britany on the floor and now her body was limp in my arms. Her drug dealer boyfriend was sprawled out on the couch, unconscious, with a needle in his arm.

  “Help me,” I begged. “She’s dead!”

  Materializing, Max knelt beside me and placed two fingers across her neck. “No,” he said after a moment. “She’s not dead, just passed out. If she were dead, we’d see her spirit, remember?”

  A sob of unfathomable relief tore out of me. “What are we going to do? They were shooting heroin.” I gestured to the drug paraphernalia I’d only seen in the movies. “That’s heroin, right?”

  Max studied the needles, a burnt spoon lying beside a small white bag, and a lighter. Expression stern, he nodded. “Yeah, I think it is.” Though he sounded calm, his brown eyes betrayed the controlled facade.

  Words couldn’t express my relief that Max had come. I hadn’t called him, but just like the day we first met, Max arrived in my greatest hour of need—I loved him so much.

  Though he probably had no idea what to do any more than me, he took charge. “C’mon, let’s get her off the floor,” he suggested, gripping her under one shoulder while I took the other. We didn’t need our superhuman strength to move her frail, skinny body.

  After we situated her, I wanted to cry. Britany looked so pale and gaunt I could hardly believe she was alive. Dark circles stained the skin beneath her eyes, and her lips had a bluish hue. A fresh needle hole trickled blood over the older marks littering her pale forearm. Her dark hair was a mess, unwashed and pulled into a messy bun. Though Max assured me she was still alive, chills thundered down my back.

  “Do you think she’s gonna die?” I whispered, voice cracking. It didn’t take much of a stretch to imagine her lying on a steel table, waiting to be slid into a locker at the morgue.

  “No.” Max took a
firm hold of my arm and looked me in the eye, making it somewhat easier to breathe. “If she was dead or going to die there would be a reaper here, right?”

  Slowly I nodded.

  “Right?” he reiterated, shaking me until I answered.

  “Yes, yes,” I said, wiping my face with my arm. “There would be a reaper.”

  When Max and I left our beautiful Alaskan oasis, I’d gone looking for my sister. Not to talk to her or pretend to visit her in a dream—I’d meant my promise that we’d make a plan first—but I had wanted to check on her. A gut feeling told me she was in trouble, but it’d been difficult to locate her. Fearing the worst, I’d teleported to her immediately, only to find her lying on the floor of this unfamiliar apartment—probably the guy’s house. If Max hadn’t shown up when he did….

  I don’t know what I would’ve done.

  Feeling sick, I clutched Max’s hand, his ever-present warmth and soothing touch calming my racing heart. “Thank you for coming.”

  He nodded, eyes locked on Britany and her drug dealer. At first glance they appeared to be two kids taking a nap on the couch.

  “What are we going to do?” I prayed he had a plan.

  “First,” Max said, putting his other hand on my shoulder, “you’re going to tell me everything.”

  Briefly I laid out what it happened, and he nodded, taking it all in.

  “Did she see you?” he demanded.

  “No!” I insisted, widening my eyes. “They were totally unconscious when I got here. That was why it was so hard for me to find her.”

  “Okay, okay, I believe you,” he said. “That’s good. That’s good.”

  The fact he kept repeating everything made me nervous.

  Everything was not okay.

  Max took a deep breath. “We need to call 911.”

  I reached for my phone but he stayed my hand.

  “I will call 911,” he said. “I’m the only one who has any reason to be seen or have my voice recorded. I’ll say I stopped by a friend’s and found her like this and got scared.”

  I nodded. “Good thinking.”

  “Then we’re leaving.”

  “We can’t just leave her! We have to make sure she gets help.”

  “Kody,” he began in a level tone. “When they get here, they’ll see the drugs. The police will get involved and there’ll probably be legal charges or your sister will be forced into some sorta rehab. Your parents will learn what’s going on, and she’ll get the help she needs. You and I can’t do anything about this. Do you understand me?”

  “But—”

  “Do you understand me, Kody?” His firm tone made me jump.

  I felt like a frightened child as I said, “Yes, I understand.”

  “Now, we’ll call from one of their phones.” He located Britany’s purse and rummaged around inside it. “I’ll make it quick and leave the line open so 911 will know where they are. Then we get the hell outta here. We’ll be in so much shit if Slade finds out.”

  “God already knows what happened,” I whispered guiltily.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Max found her phone and unlocked it with one swipe and a relieved, “Thank God she doesn’t use a password.”

  While he opened the call screen, I studied my sister. How had it come to this? How did everything fall apart so fast and so hard? I knew she grieved my death, but drugs? I brushed angrily at my tears, shivering in the sudden cold….

  “Max?”

  His head popped up as the chill on the air registered with him too.

  Cursing under his breath, he raced toward the window.

  Feet on autopilot, I followed.

  We were on the third floor of an apartment building, and below us figures shifted across the lawn, several slowly emerging, only to flit back into nearby shadows. It was the middle of the afternoon, but apparently that didn’t matter.

  There was no mistaking what they were.

  “Shades,” Max whispered.

  They found me.

  I’d been here less than ten minutes before Max arrived. I rubbed my bracelet and the stone was warm. That meant it was working, right? I was being shielded from evil. Then how had they located me so quickly? Stomach knotting, I stared at the ghostly spirits, traveling from shadow to shadow, lingering but not coming toward the building. They didn’t look like any other spirits I’d seen before, more like distorted, faceless versions of the souls I had helped cross over. They seemed inhuman as they hovered there, waiting.

  What were they waiting for?

  “Shit,” Max growled. “They found you because you went somewhere Slade didn’t know about. He isn’t shielding us!”

  “I’m sorry!” I cried, throwing out my hands. “But I had to help Britany! And I figured after last night, it was still safe to be in the human realm. That maybe—”

  A sudden whir of thoughts slammed into my brain. I cried out in shock, my knees buckling.

  “Kody?” Max demanded. “What’s wrong?”

  Clutching the windowsill so I didn’t collapse, I couldn’t answer as icy knives of desperation stabbed me repeatedly in the head.

  Help me, help me, help me, the shades cried.

  I plugged my ears, trying to block them out.

  I could hear their thoughts, feel them as if they were right next to me, inside me….

  “Max,” I croaked, reaching for him.

  “I gotta get you outta here!” He grabbed my shoulders.

  Though my brain throbbed in agony from the desperate wails, I managed to spit out, “No, we need to call 911 before—”

  “What the fuck are you guys doing here?”

  Max and I let out a yelp of surprise and turned.

  Heather.

  “And what the double fuck are you doing in human form?” she demanded. Blonde and cute, she usually looked vapid and lovesick staring at Tristen, but she wasn’t lovesick now.

  She was pissed.

  Squinting through the pain, I used all my willpower to push the shades’ thoughts away so I could think. If a reaper had come here, it only meant one thing….

  “Heather, why are you here?” Max asked in a slow, serious tone.

  I held my breath, waiting for the answer I’d feared for weeks.

  “Duh?” She swept the room with a disgusted arm. “To take some druggie to heaven.”

  KODY—Chapter 17

  “NO,” I wailed, throat tightening as tears sprang to my eyes. The world seemed to fall out from underneath me. “This can’t be happening!”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Heather said with no real sympathy as she walked up to Britany’s drug dealer and placed her hand on his shoulder. Her opal ring heated with the power of holy spirit and when she delivered the Touch the shimmer of its power went through me too. “But Zachary Burkett is going to heaven to face the wrath of his Grandma Grace. He’s supposed to be dead right about,” she glanced at her cell phone and started counting down, “five, four, three, two….”

  “What’s going on?”

  Whirling at the new voice, I stared at the startled spirit of the dead guy on the couch.

  “One,” Heather finished with a triumphant smirk.

  Almost passing out in relief, I grabbed Max’s hand. Thank God she wasn’t here for Britany!

  “Hey, Zack,” Heather said, all smiles and cute. “You just OD’d on heroin. You’re dead.”

  The spirit stared at his own body and Britany—one already gone, the other hanging on for dear life. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I can’t be dead. We were just having a little fun….”

  “Fun?” she repeated, hand on her hip. “Heroin isn’t fun. It’s stupid. It’s serious shit and you killed yourself. Now you’re going to heaven. I wouldn’t be worried so much about God as I would be about facing your Grandma Grace.”

  The guy’s eyes widened in panic. “My grandma?”

  “Yup. And believe me, she is not amused with your behavior lately, young man.”

&n
bsp; Outside the shades had grown antsy, and though I could tell they were still staying back, I didn’t know for how long. With every beat of my pulse, I heard their desperate thoughts… fear, loneliness, cold…. Closing my eyes, I shook my head, trying to push the sounds of their whispers out of my mind: help me… it’s so cold… help….

  I stopped my ears with the heels of my hands, but it didn’t prevent the wails from getting in. The sounds were coming from inside me, not outside. I could feel their pain as if it were my own. The wailing, the pain. This must be what Dante’s hell sounded like….

  “Babe?” Max whispered. “You okay?”

  Cracking my eyes open, I studied the other two reapers, my vision burning and head throbbing with unfathomable anguish. “Can’t you guys hear them? They’re so”—my voice cracked—“so loud. So scared….”

  What are they afraid of?

  “Hear who?” Heather wanted to know.

  Another sharp stab of pain pierced my skull, and I fell to my knees with a cry. The pleas and thoughts of the shades pounded into me, begging to get in, desperate to be heard.

  “Kody!” Max knelt beside me, the heat of his touch filling me, quieting the pain the shades were forcing into me. “What’s happening?”

  I managed to bring Max into focus and pressed my fingers to my throbbing temples. Voice weak, I said, “I don’t know. I can hear them….”

  “Hear who?” Heather demanded again, and then she waved her hand. “Never mind, I don’t care. Why are you guys horning in on my case?”

  “Can’t you see he’s in pain?” Max growled at her.

  “Actually,” I managed, his touch strengthening me and making it easier to tune them out. “It’s getting better. It’s okay.”

  “You sure?” he asked.

  I nodded, but when he made a move like he might stop touching me, I grabbed his hand in earnest. “Don’t let go of me.”

  He caressed my back and the fear in his brown eyes terrified me. “I won’t, I promise. Can you stand?”