Tribe (Tribe 1)

by Audrina Cole

  “So…you never did answer my question.”

  “Which question was that? You’ve asked so many.” I laughed, trying to cover the surge of adrenaline that hit me. I knew exactly which question he was referring to.

  “Why is it that your mom wants you to be careful when you heal someone? Plus, you mentioned that I looked better than I did this morning. And that’s true—I even feel better than I did this morning. You still haven’t explained exactly how and why that is. Not in detail.”

  His questions were getting dangerous. I realized that if I let him keep going, it would never end. He would want a hundred more answers, and each one would be more difficult to answer than the last.

  I sighed. “Look, this is all really hard to explain. Why can’t you just accept the way things are, and forget about me?” I looked away, trying to hide what I was feeling. Because even though I knew I should discourage him—push him out of my life—it was the last thing I wanted to do.

  “I can’t forget about you!” He pounded his leg with a fist, then froze. I glanced over at him, and when our eyes met, his flitted away to look out over the lake. Silence followed.

  “What do you mean?” I asked softly.

  There was a long pause, then he spoke without turning back. “I can’t stop thinking about that day. I can’t stop thinking about how it felt, I can’t stop feeling like I’m on top of the world, when I’m supposed to be dying!” He turned to look at me. “But most of all, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

  “Alex…it’s completely normal for you to feel something for someone who has helped you—”

  “No. No, it’s not like that,” he looked at his hands in his lap. “It’s not some kind of hero-worship thing, or Florence Nightingale effect. It’s different. It’s deeper. Something I can’t explain. And I think…I think you feel it, too.” His eyes locked with mine.

  I wanted to deny it, but my mouth was dry as cotton. I did feel it. There was something different about him. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met, and I’d never felt so drawn to anyone before. There was a sense of having known him for a long time, and yet I knew so little about him.

  He continued staring at me, and I felt his fear. He wanted to look away, to take back what he said. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  “Do you?” he prodded.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered.

  “You’re lying.” It was a simple statement of fact.

  I looked out into the darkness. “I feel something. But I don’t understand it. I mentioned that I have heightened...senses. But you…” I turned toward him. “You don’t. So you shouldn’t be able to sense the same things I do. But you do.”

  Alex looked confused. “No I don’t.”

  “You do,” I insisted. “Not exactly like me, but you’re much more empathic than most people are. You can tell when I’m lying. Most people can’t read me at all, except my family or other Healers—”

  “Wait—your family can heal, too?” His jaw fell slack. “There are others out there like you?”

  Panic flooded through me.

  I’d just endangered the entire tribe of my people.

  13

  Holy crap.

  I hadn’t meant to give my entire family—and our tribe—away. He may have already known about me, but that didn’t mean I needed to out every Healer I knew. I felt like all my defenses were down when I was around him, even though they should be on high alert.

  “So…River, too?” He was shocked.

  “Yes.” I bit my lip.

  “He—your whole family—can heal people, and have heightened senses?” He looked at me, and I knew I didn’t even have to answer him. “So the healing, it’s something that’s inherited?”

  “It seems to be,” I sighed. “Some Healers have it stronger than others. It’s rare to have a Healer child born without any gift of healing at all. My dad is a researcher, and he’s tried to figure out what exactly causes us to be this way. He thinks it’s either a genetic mutation or the result of a virus.”

  “So you were born able to heal people? Even as a baby?”

  “No, our abilities are nearly non-existent when we’re born. They develop slowly over time, but you really can’t heal anything major until you hit puberty, or just before it.”

  “Wait.” He frowned. “You said abilities, plural. You can do other things?”

  Crap. This guy would make a great police detective someday.

  “Um…sort of. Nothing else as grandiose as healing, though.” I found myself embarrassed to tell him about the fact that I could sense the emotions of others. To some people, it would sound tantamount to mind reading. Everyone has secrets, and no one wants them broadcasted to anyone else.

  “Like?”

  I sighed. “Like I can sense the emotions of others.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “You can read my feelings? What am I feeling right now?”

  “Oohhh no. I’m not going there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not some psychic charlatan looking to perform parlor tricks. Plus, if I told you and got it wrong, you’d think I was a liar, and if I got it right, you’d feel like your space was invaded.”

  “Can you…have you been reading my emotions up until now?” His eyes widened as the idea struck him.

  “I don’t go out of my way to sense the emotions of others. I respect their privacy, and avoid trying to pick up on their signals. Of course, when a person is feeling heightened emotions, such as fear or anger,” or attraction, I thought, “I tend to pick up on them right away.”

  Alex must have been thinking the same thing—the blush creeping up his neck matched the bloom of embarrassment that radiated from him.

  “Ember, what are you?”

  “Geez, that’s a nice question. Like I’m not a real person, or something.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant…you’re not like other people. I don’t know anyone else who can do the things you do.”

  “Actually, you might. Most people never find out someone is a Healer.”

  “Yeah, but don’t you think they’d have healed me?”

  “No, they probably wouldn’t.” I heaved a sigh, and drew my knees up to my chest. “Healers generally don’t go around healing terminal patients all the time.”

  “What’s the point of being a Healer if you can’t heal?”

  “My point exactly. It’s not a rule I’m fond of.”

  “That sounds messed up.”

  “It is. I get it, but I don’t like it. Think about it—if I went around healing one person each week from a serious, terminal disease, don’t you think that would attract attention sooner or later?”

  “Yeah. But why hide it? Why not heal as many people as you can?”

  “It’s not that simple. I can easily heal you from a cut or bruise without feeling it. I can even heal a broken arm, and not be too bad off.” I looked up at the waning moon peeking through the clouds. “But when I heal someone who is in serious condition, it…it takes a lot out of me. I couldn’t do it all the time.”

  “Okay, I see why you aren’t doing it every day. But why not do it as often as you could?”

  “Because people would still notice. It would attract attention. At first people might dismiss it as urban legend, but sooner or later someone would start to wonder. Someone in power…who might decide that healing would be a great talent to harness for military use. They’d lock me up in an institution somewhere and treat me like a lab rat, testing me and my abilities until I either went mad, or died. Then they’d autopsy me to see how I worked. My whole family could disappear, never to be seen again.”

  “The government can’t do that.”

  “Sure they can. They do it now. They can declare anyone at any time a ‘terrorist’, and that person no longer has any rights. Their property can be taken away, their home searched without a warrant, and they can be questioned without an attorney and shipped off to Guant
anamo Bay, to that prisoner camp, without a trial by a jury their peers. The government can do what it wants, if it wants to badly enough.”

  He was silent for a minute. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  I looked over at him, my eyes boring into his. “Alex, that’s why you can’t ever tell anyone about me or my family. It would be far too dangerous. I’d never have told you if you hadn’t already figured it out.”

  “If it’s so dangerous to heal terminal patients, why did you heal me?”

  I looked away. “Because I had to. I can’t explain it any better than that. I just looked into your eyes, and I decided to just give you a little healing, some relief from the pain. But once I started I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going. I had to save you. It was like there was no other choice for me.”

  “You risked your life for me?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be that dramatic about it. As long as no one figured out what I did, I was willing to take the chance.”

  “But I figured it out.”

  “Yeah, I still don’t know why that is. Some people feel a little something, but it’s unusual to really feel the sensation of being healed. I must have done something differently…somehow.”

  “Are you sorry you did it?”

  I shifted to face him. “No! Of course not. I had to do it. And I’m glad I did.” I leaned forward and grabbed his hand. “You deserved it.”

  He smiled, and squeezed back. “But…wait…you said earlier today that healing really sick people has repercussions—and I don’t think you only meant being tracked down by me or a government entity, did you?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “Ember.” He touched the fingertips of his free hand to my chin, tilting it upward so that I was forced to meet his gaze. “You said it took a lot out of you. How much? Tell me.”

  For a moment I was speechless. His chocolate eyes appeared almost black in the dim light. My skin heated where he touched my chin, and the hand that enclosed mine squeezed tighter. My breath caught, and I couldn’t remember what he’d asked.

  “I...”

  “Please tell me it didn’t hurt you.” His eyes searched mine.

  I pulled back, leaving his hand raised in the air. The spell was broken. “It didn’t,” I whispered, my breathing shallow. “When I heal someone that is seriously ill...it just takes a lot out of me. Like I said.”

  He lowered his hand, laying it on top of the one he already held. “How much?”

  “Not much.” I avoided his gaze.

  “You’re lying. Look at me.” He leaned down in an attempt to catch my eye.

  I shifted my gaze away again. “I’m fine, you don’t need to worry about me.”

  “Is that why you left so quickly?” He looked concerned, then horror spread across his face. “Oh man, you didn’t take my sickness into you, did you?”

  “No, no it doesn’t work that way. Like I told you earlier, it’s not my energy you receive; it is life force energy, the energy all around us. I merely concentrate it into you, like a focused beam of light. Then you’re healed, and everything goes back to normal.”

  “Then why did you look so sick afterward?”

  “I was just tired and…hungry. It does take something out of me when I heal someone who is really sick, or badly injured. I get really…low energy.” I averted my gaze and hoped that the deep shadows would hide my lie. “But I get over it.”

  I pulled my hand away, my stomach clenched with tension. There was no way I could tell him about the bloodlust. He’d think I was insane. A freak. An animal. I couldn’t risk telling him, no matter how understanding and trustworthy he might have seemed. I cringed at what his reaction might be if I told him that I drank blood to replenish myself after healing. I imagined the horrified look on his face as he edged away from me, as if I were a dangerous wild animal that might devour him. The idea of it made me shiver...

  “Well…,” he hesitated, “I hope you recovered quickly. I hate to think of you feeling bad because of me.”

  I stood up, taking a few careful steps across the giant rock, facing away from Alex. I could feel his confusion...he probably was thinking he’d done something wrong. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t him...it was me.

  I was the monster.

  I sighed.

  “Alex, you’re worth a heck of a lot more than having to put up with feeling crappy for a while. You shouldn’t feel bad. Besides, Mom…fed me…and I was fine not long after that.”

  “Kind of a low blood sugar thing? That’s not so bad.”

  “Yeah.” Not so bad, since Mom saved me from eating Jenna. I searched for a way to change the subject. “So…I guess you’re going to have to get started with applying for colleges, huh?”

  “Oh yeah!” He shook his head. “There are so many things…it’s unbelievable. I put my whole life on hold—canceled it, really—because I didn’t think I’d live to see this spring. I somehow managed to finish enough of my homeschooling coursework to graduate, but I didn’t bother to even look at colleges. Mom encouraged me to apply for college, but I refused. I was just too tired to humor her any more. I couldn’t take poring over brochures filled with happy college students who had their whole lives ahead of them.” He was sad, but then he smiled at me. “Now I can be one of them.”

  “Will you have time to apply for the fall semester?”

  He shook his head. “Maybe for a community college or something like that. But I’m thinking I’ll take a year off. Mom will lose it…but I just want to experience life, I think. And I don’t want to go to ‘just any’ school that has room for me. The good schools are full, by this late in the year. I’ll wait, and apply to a good school a year late, maybe.”

  “What will you do? Aren’t all of your friends already gone off to college?”

  “What friends?” he scoffed, and I could feel the bitterness before his voice took on a hard edge. “They all ditched me back when I first got sick. One by one they stopped calling or coming around. Ryan is the only one who even tries to stay in touch, and that’s mostly by the rare text message.”

  “Ryan?” I asked. I could sense his anger, but it was overtaken by sadness.

  “Yeah, he’s—he was—my best friend. He’s a jerk, forget about him.” He held up his cell phone, swiping it to check the time. “It’s getting late. We should go.” He stood up abruptly, then held out his hand to steady me as I got up. “I know it’s not that late, but my mother’s still in crazy mode.”

  “No problem.” I brushed my skirt off, and we headed back down the trail toward the park. Now he was the one hiding things, but I let it go, rather than risk the conversation returning to questions that I’d rather not answer. He was quiet until we reached the car.

  “I never even got to ask you half the questions I planned to.” He eyed me quizzically, and I tried not to squirm.

  This guy was dangerous—he could read me far too well for my own good. The connection we had seemed to grow stronger by the minute.

  I didn’t respond.

  “Well, that could only mean one thing…”

  Oh no, he knows I’m hiding something. I caught my breath.

  “We’ll have to see each other again.” He grinned, but he was nervous at the same time.

  I exhaled, trying not to let my nerves show. I knew I should say no. I’d gotten off lucky, but if he kept asking questions, and watching me like that…

  “Sure,” I found myself saying.

  There wasn’t much point in pretending that I didn’t want to see him again. I did. And I would see him—no matter the repercussions. That should scare me, but it didn’t.

  “Good. Then it’s a date.”

  “A date?” I asked, and squelched a joyous grin.

  “Yeah…is that okay?” He was nervous again, searching my eyes for any sign of reluctance.

  “No—yeah—that’s fine. Great. A date.” Wonderful. Not only did I sound like an idiot, but my idiocy rhymed! I unlocked the car and jumped in to hide
my flushed face.

  Alex shut the door for me and went around to the passenger side and got in. I felt his gaze on me as I started the car and put it in gear. I tilted my head down a bit to hide behind my hair. When I had to look up, I glanced over at him. Yup. Still looking at me. And smiling. He really is kinda cute…

  14

  “You are such a dud to shop with,” Jenna whined. “Can’t you get excited about anything?”

  I sat up straighter in the designated “bored husband” chair just outside the fitting room, and tried to look more animated. It had been two weeks since my first date with Alex. We’d seen each other almost every day since then—I’d never been so grateful to have a mom who didn’t need to know where I was every second.

  Alex and I had grown close so fast. He seemed to occupy my every waking thought, and I couldn’t keep my mind off of him while Jenna droned on about each article of clothing she tried on.

  “I told you it looks great on you. What do you want me to do, chant a cheer and do a split?”

  Jenna grinned. “That would be a start.” She spun around. “Seriously, are they too saggy in the butt?” The jeans were practically painted onto Jenna’s lithe body.

  “If they were any tighter, I’d have to cut you out of them.” I tried not to be envious of Jenna. She was thin and beautiful, with long legs and long dark hair. She wasn’t perfect, and I fixed up pretty good, but I felt like a troll next to her. “How do you wear those? Walking around with a perpetual wedgie would drive me nuts.”

  “That’s because you have a butt and I don’t,” she sighed and walked back to the three-way mirror, checking out her butt from every angle. “Not that you ever show yours off. Would it kill you to wear a pair of jeans once in a while? Or a halter top?”

  Leaning back in my chair, I tried to peer into Jenna’s dressing room, where gargantuan piles of clothing hung precariously from the hooks inside. Darn it! There were so many items in there, I couldn’t tell how many of them Jenna had to go through. I should have brought a pillow. And a blanket. And a cot.