by Leia Stone
I’d only healed very minor things, like an infection from an ingrown toenail, Mrs. Greely’s headache, Shea’s menstrual cramps. I was more of an assistant, really good at grabbing gauze and bandages.
He gripped my arm. “Demon injuries are very common in the war zones, and if you’re given a healer position in the Fallen Army, you’ll need to know how to heal a Snakeroot acid burn.”
My eyes widened as he dragged me across the quad. “She’s my best friend. If I mess it up, I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
He looked back at me with smoldering eyes and tousled hair. “I care about her too, ya know.”
I thought they were just make-out buddies. “You do?” I questioned. Now was as good a time as any to probe him for info.
He smirked. “She’s a bitch to me, keeps me in my place. I like that about her. She’s… one of a kind.”
Did he just call my best friend a bitch? But in a weird, cute way? I was choosing to focus on the “one of a kind” comment instead, because that was super sweet.
“She thinks you’re a manwhore,” I told him honestly.
His grin widened. “I know. That’s her pet name for me.”
They had a weird-ass relationship, I’d give them that.
“Come on. Let’s go help her,” he urged.
When we stepped into her room, her fiery gaze pinned Noah to the wall. “Feel free to take your time. It’s not like I’m dying in here or anything.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’ll be fine. Brielle’s here to heal you.”
Shea’s eyes bugged out, sweat beading her brow. “What? Has she ever done this before?”
I winced. “Not really, but—”
“But I’m here, and I’m the best healer this school has. And a wonderful teacher.” Noah winked at Shea.
Shea scoffed. “I’m glad your ego is still alive and thriving. Just hurry. It feels like it’s going to fall off.”
Oh God. The walls are closing in. I’m going to faint. I can’t do this.
“Ready?” Noah asked.
I gulped. “Of course.”
Rule number 1 of healing: Act confident even if you’re scared shitless. A scared patient is a bad situation.
Noah positioned himself over my right shoulder with his hand on my lower back, pushing me closer to Shea. I sat next to her in the healer’s chair, where Noah, or one of the other healers usually sat.
She gave me that look that said “if you mangle my arm, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Bitch, I’ve got this,” I told her confidently.
That made her lips curl. “You better, or you owe me a box of Cloud Nine Donuts.”
Ha! That would be my entire two-week paycheck. “Deal.”
Noah dropped a bucket at my feet.
Frowning, I looked up at my teacher. “What’s that for?”
“You’ll see. Activate your healing centers, and I’ll guide you through the rest,” Noah instructed.
Activate my healing centers. No big deal.
I stared at my palms, and then to the Raphael tattoo on my forearm. Wake up. I pushed the thought to my hands. I’d done it a whopping three times in my life, so I was hoping it still worked.
“Relax. Your power will automatically reveal itself in the presence of someone injured,” Noah assured me.
I knew that.
I let my hand hover over Shea’s bubbled and angry red arm; the skin stretched so taut it looked like it might burst. Sure enough, my palm started to heat up, emitting a faint orange glow.
“It’s working!” I tried not to sound too rookie, but I was pretty excited.
“Of course it is.” Cool, calm and collected. That was Noah.
The orange healing light was different from the Celestial light we learned about in class with Fred. The Celestial light could be used as a weapon, this was always a healing tool.
“Now, assess her injury with your power, and take it into you. Not too much, and not too fast—like Lincoln did with your tattoos. Just go easy, or you’ll be in worse shape than her.”
Yeah, he’d lovingly drilled that into my head every day for the past four months. Low and slow was the healer motto. Healers couldn’t heal without taking on the malady themselves; it was a Catch-22. The stronger the healer, the more serious the injury they could take on. If a beginner healer tried to heal a person dying of a knife wound, that healer could die. Noah was the strongest among all of the healers apparently, which made him the master teacher.
I started my breathing techniques, in and out. When I went in, I sucked a little of Shea’s burn into me, through my hands. I knew it was working the second the stinging sensation lit up the veins in my arm.
My eyelids snapped open. “It burns.”
“I feel a bit better,” Shea confessed.
Maybe I wasn’t going to screw this up.
Noah rested a hand on my back. “Good, now breathe through it. Your body was made for this. The blood of the Archangel of Healing runs through your veins. With training and focus, there’s no sickness you can’t expunge.”
I was supposed to concentrate, but at his words, my father popped into my mind. “Can you heal cancer?” I asked randomly.
Shea squirmed in her seat, and Noah looked uncomfortable. “Cancer is… difficult to explain. We can talk about this in detail another time, okay?”
He knew. He must’ve read my file too, because he was giving me that pity look. I just nodded.
Focus, you idiot. Shea needs you.
Closing my eyes, I placed my other hand over Shea’s arm. Taking in a deep breath, I sucked more of the injury in through my palm.
If someone had given me the ability to choose any superpower, it wouldn’t be flying, although that was pretty great. It wouldn’t be manifesting a million dollars, although that would be great too. It would be to end human suffering from illness. Watching my father, the strongest member of my family, be reduced to skin and bones, to lose his dignity, to cry out in pain, it was life-altering. If I could learn to take that from people, I would.
If practicing and becoming stronger could afford me the ability to be a great healer like Noah, then that’s the path I wanted to take after school. I didn’t want to be some raging soldier, with a high demon-kill record like Lincoln. I wanted to heal people. And not just people who were deemed ‘worthy’—I wanted to heal anyone. Whoever was hurt or suffering deserved an end to that. I didn’t realize until right then just how passionate I was about it.
“Slow down there, killer,” Noah said, tapping my arm.
My eyes snapped open, and suddenly the pain of a thousand burning suns ripped through my body. Nausea rolled into me and I whimpered. Looking down, I saw Shea’s entire arm glowing with a powerful orange light. My healing light.
Her injury was completely gone. I did that.
Noah sighed. “You overdid it, as I thought you would.”
I grabbed my stomach, groaning again. My mouth watered with the nausea. I was going to be sick.
Noah grabbed the back of my neck, and lightly pushed my head down over the bucket between my legs. “Out with it, before it starts doing damage.”
“Wh—” Then I vomited, burning-hot, green acid into the bucket. Twice.
When I was done, I wiped my mouth, and looked up at Noah. “Holy shit. How is that possible?”
So many questions. For starters, how did the acid go through my veins, into my stomach, and out my throat without damaging me?
He chuckled. “I told you, your body was made to heal, and you have a natural talent for it. I hope you’ll think about majoring in healing studies next year.”
I just nodded, then looked at Shea. “Does this mean you owe me Cloud Nine Donuts?”
“That was not the deal.” She answered with a smirk.
Noah leaned over the bed, and kissed Shea’s lips, pulling back only a few inches. “Cloud Nine Donuts are on me, beautiful. I gotta see if Lincoln needs help.” He stood and left the room.
Shea’s gaze followed him through
the door with confusion, lips puckered, eyes squinted.
“He likes you. Like likes you, likes you,” I teased.
She frowned. “He’s never kissed me outside of his car. That was weird.”
I tried to breathe through the last of my lingering nausea. “He said you were a bitch to him, and he liked that you always called him out.” Did I translate that right?
Shea’s mouth popped open. “He called me a bitch?”
“No, not like that. It was like a compliment. I think. He likes that you don’t bend over backward for him or something. Said you were one of a kind.” I was awful at that kind of stuff.
Shea crossed her arms. “Whatever, he’s probably dating five other girls at the same time.”
“Well, why don’t you ask him?”
She laid back in her bed and stared at the ceiling. “Because I don’t want to know the answer.”
Denial. It was a nice place to live.
It was probably a horrible time to tell her that Lincoln had called me his girlfriend, so I decided to stuff that away for a later date.
“Dude, you opened a portal to Hell.”
She winced. “Oopsie.”
Drowsiness descended on me then, the healing had totally drained me. Laying my head on Shea’s arm, I sighed. “This is why we can’t have nice things. I’m burping black magic, and you’re opening portals to Hell.”
Shea laughed, resting a hand on my head. “We’d be straight-A students at Tainted Academy.”
I chuckled. She was probably right, and that was a bit depressing.
“We can’t all be Tiffanys,” I stated.
“The world can’t handle any more Tiffanys,” she assured me.
Ain’t that the truth.
Chapter Twenty
The next month nearly killed me. There was a development in the war, and Lincoln was sent away for two weeks at a time, as was Noah. They weren’t allowed to say, but I’d overheard them talking about an increase in demon activity, and losing the eastern border of the city. Lincoln had assigned Carl in his place. Carl was a crotchety forty-year-old Celestial with Archangel Michael powers, who had no sense of reason. He worked me like a dog, and had no pity when I was hurt.
I was walking home from my shift at the clinic—limping, really—when my phone buzzed with a text.
Lincoln: I’m home. Come to the trailer?
I pivoted and started in the direction of the parking lot, nerves bristling through me. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks. I always had this random irrational fear that he’d break up with me for no reason. Now after being apart for weeks on end, with only an occasional email here or there, that was all the more likely.
I knocked, even though I had a key so I could water his one sad succulent plant while he was away.
“Come in,” he muttered.
I stepped up and opened the door, but Lincoln wasn’t in the front room.
“Hello?” I called out, closing the door behind me.
“Back here,” he yelled, his voice strained.
I set my bag down and walked back to the bedroom where we’d made out so many times, I’d lost count. The room where I was hoping he’d rock my world sometime soon. The second I saw the gauze on his abdomen, a few drops of blood coming through, I stopped breathing, all those sexy thoughts flying out of my head.
“You’re hurt!” I ran to his side, sitting at the edge of the bed.
His hand grasped the side of my jaw and neck, pulling me down so my forehead rested against his. His dark hair was tousled against his forehead, and aside from his wound, he looked sexy as all hell.
He inhaled. “I missed the way you smell.”
Then his lips landed on mine and I fell into him, careful not to touch his stomach. I held myself up, relishing the feeling of his lips on mine. God, I loved kissing him; it was electric and amazing.
“You’re hurt,” I repeated, finally pulling away.
He looked up at the ceiling. “I’ll be fine after a few days’ rest. Things are getting worse out there.”
I’d asked for more details before and he never gave them, so I didn’t bother now. “Carl is a total psycho. He’s trying to kill me,” I shared.
Lincoln laughed and then winced, clutching his side, but for the few seconds that he’d smiled, his whole face lit up. God, he was handsome. Dark unruly hair, strong jaw, intense eyes. He belonged in a romance novel, not by my side.
“He says you’re getting better at your flying sword lunges.”
“Ha! As if he would ever pay me a compliment. I nearly broke my ankle last week, and he told me to tape it up and keep going!” I huffed. Lincoln grinned, giving me a devilish look. “What?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He was my trainer. I told him to break you and put you back together again.”
My eyes widened. “Lincoln, he took you seriously!”
His eyes darkened. “Good.”
Sometimes I seriously question the mental stability of this man. I frowned. “Is this just about me passing the gauntlet?”
He was quiet for so long that I almost asked again.
“No.”
Mild terror flushed through my veins. “What else is it about?”
His lips puffed out as he sighed. “Bri, there is a very real possibility that they will one day kidnap you.”
Full-fledged terror burst through my veins, making my heart beat erratically.
Lincoln propped himself up on one elbow, wincing in pain as he did. “I would find you. I will always find you. In the meantime, I need you to be able to take care of yourself. I don’t want to think that any one of them could have their way with you until I could get to you.”
My eyes widened. Oh God. I’d never thought about that. I mean, I’d heard the stories, but…
“Okay” was all I said. All I could say in the face of such horrifying news.
I let my healing power come to the surface of my palm and stroked his arm but his hand come out and grabbed my wrist. He shook his head. “No.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
He ran his fingers from my temple to my jaw. “Because, I don’t ever want to cause you pain.”
Lincoln pushed the inside of the elbow I was leaning on, so I fell on him. I caught myself before slamming into his face, but now we were a few inches apart. He grasped the back of my neck once more, holding me close.
“You saved me from the darkest time of my life. I’m going to take care of you. No matter what.”
My throat tightened with emotion. Deep down, Lincoln was a passionate soul, a loyal friend.
He was freaking perfect.
I’m so in love with him.
The thought actually shocked me. I wasn’t sure when it had happened or how. We were slightly dysfunctional most of the time, but damn, I loved everything about him. I knew that even if we broke up, he’d always make sure I was okay. There was so much respect and love between us. We’d somehow started at each other’s throats, and became closer for it.
Lying back in bed, he pulled me down with him. “Stay with me,” he mumbled.
Shea was waiting to meet up with me so we could practice drills, and I had a paper due the next afternoon that I’d barely started, but I stayed.
Of course I stayed.
“The gauntlet is in ten days! Ten days and your future will be determined!” Lincoln barked as he swung a left hook right at my face. I honestly couldn’t believe I’d survived my first year at Fallen Academy. Well, almost survived. The gauntlet would weed out the weak from the strong.
Yes, my boyfriend was trying to beat me up. All the time. I dodged the jab, then threw a hard knee into his inner thigh.
“If I fail, it’s not the end of the world, Lincoln,” I told him. The pressure he was putting on me was getting to be enormous. I stepped into his body, pushing my pelvis into his. “And I’m pretty sure I can still get you to make good on your promise whether I pass the gauntlet or not.”
His gaze went razor-sharp as his arms lowered. “I
f you don’t pass, you no longer will be allowed to attend school here. That means you won’t live in the safety and protection of the academy. You’ll get kidnapped, I’ll have to rescue you, and it’s going to be a mess. Just. Pass.”
Geez, that got dark quickly. “Yes, sir,” I said, saluting him.
“Trust me, there are other perks to passing, but I can’t talk about them. Let’s just say your minimum-wage job at the clinic wouldn’t be needed.”
That made my eyes widen a bit. Money? If you passed the gauntlet, were you given money? “I’m listening.” Damn, the bastard knew me inside and out. Money and Cloud Nine Donuts were strong motivators for me.
Lincoln grinned. “Just be ready for anything,” he added cryptically.
I waved my fingers in front of his face in a spooky gesture. “I got this.”
He took on a serious look, then dropped his gaze to the floor. “I asked Raphael if you could be exempt from competing.”
I stepped back, mouth open in shock. “You what? Why would you do that?” How embarrassing! He thought I couldn’t pass on my own and needed special treatment?
‘I’ll show him what we’re capable of!’ Sera screamed from her place at my hip.
‘Calm down. He’s just trying to help,’ I told her.
Lincoln ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t tell you why, but… the gauntlet is dangerous. Especially for you.”
Especially for me? What the hell does that mean?
“It’s a school thing, so it can’t be that dangerous,” I said casually.
Lincoln just shook his head. “You’ll see. Just keep training, and when you’re in there, use everything you have. Including the black tie.”
We’d affectionately named my dark magic ‘the black tie,’ since it ended up strangling the person I sent it after. But I’d never wanted to use that again, and he knew that. I’d gotten my four-watt-bulb hands to a stunning twenty-watt with a ton of practice; I figured eventually I could blind someone with it or something along those lines.
“I don’t want to go dark,” I told him.
He rested his hands on my shoulders. “You’re not, but you do have dark magic, and you need to use it when necessary.”
Fine. He has a point, I guess.