Emotionally Charged

by S. A. Fenech

  I smiled at her, then pouted. “I’m trying to pay him back and he won’t take it.”

  She wiped her hands on her apron and flicked her curly hair. “Just take the cash, kid, before I consider it a tip.”

  Dean pocketed the money begrudgingly and the waitress left us to our food.

  “As long as you don’t make me call you Boss,” Dean muttered.

  “You’re no fun,” I teased back, but couldn’t crack his façade.

  Dean took a big bite from his burger and chewed it for a while. “You didn’t have to sell your pendant. Didn’t it mean something to you?”

  “Other things mean more.”

  I picked through the fries and battered fish bits. They were good, but I didn’t have a big appetite.

  Dean seemed to barely be putting up with my presence. I wasn’t surprised, considering the trouble I’d brought him, not to mention crashing his space and sleeping in his room. Each day, he seemed more and more irritated sharing close quarters with me. Or maybe it was my crazy plan and nagging to get this to work. But we had to succeed. At every moment I worried Jake would find Dean, or go to my parents to find me.

  He had to be stopped before he hurt anyone else.

  Back in the trailer after lunch, Dean and I sat in the living room and tried again to practice his blocking abilities. We attempted turning them off and on, making them stronger or weaker, but nothing worked.

  Dean’s wound bled through a second time so I rewrapped it with the new proper dressings and the result looked a lot more professional. I hoped that meant it would also heal better. I didn’t like the way it was looking one bit.

  Dean was just putting his shirt back on when his dad stumbled in the front door.

  “Just finishing up with your little whore?” His words sounded slurred.

  I winced. I had no idea how to deal with an angry drunk. I liked him better when he was passed out and snoring.

  “Dad, don’t.” Dean stood up as a buffer between the two of us.

  His dad’s gray hair was greasy and while his eyes were the same shade as Dean’s, they bulged, bloodshot, and gave him the look of a crazy man. They fixed on me over Dean’s shoulder.

  “I know you been sniffing around last few days. I see it’s going on. Don’t think you can go shacking up here. No money to be sniffing for anyway, and you can’t be having more of my drink.”

  I opened my mouth to try and defend myself but just shook my head. I looked to Dean for a cue on what I should do, worried how embarrassed he might be. I got nothing. I might as well have been a figment of his dad’s drunken imagination.

  Dean put a hand on his dad’s shoulder, leading him like a sleepwalker to the room at the opposite end of the trailer to Dean’s. “Why don’t you go lie down for a while?”

  His dad swatted the gesture away. “You two stole my vodka! Don’t try and hide it. I know what’s what and what’s gone. You get rid of that whore, Dean. Get her out before she goes leaves anyway! Just like your mom.”

  He turned the other way and left out the front door again, cursing and stumbling.

  I sat speechless on the couch.

  “Sorry.” Dean stared at the closed front door and didn’t look like he would turn around anytime soon.

  “Is that it? Is that why your dad’s like that? Because your mom left?” I blurted. I clenched my shaking fists. Dean hadn’t stood up for me. He’d just let his dad call me a whore and rant like that to my face.

  Dean remained still. “She didn’t leave. She died.”

  “Oh, crap. No, I mean, I’m—” Sorry didn’t cut it. I was such an idiot. I should have realized, from the amount of pain Dean carried inside him, that it was something more. All that pain, and I was angry at being yelled at.

  “I’m so sorry.” I said the words anyway, even though they weren’t enough.

  “He wasn’t always like that. He just couldn’t handle the way she left.” Dean leaned on the back of the door and still didn’t face me. My heart warmed and ached for how he was defending his dad. I had no way of understanding what they’d been through. I’d never lost someone close. I wanted to poke, to pry, to encourage him to keep talking, but decided keeping my mouth shut was the best option right now, in case another foot tried to squeeze in.

  The silence extended and I thought he might not have anything else to say. He stayed leaning on the door. I stayed watching anxiously from the couch.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “My mom got sick. Like, never-getting-better sick. We weren’t badly off and Dad gave everything, every saving, every dollar he’d earned on any kind of treatment he could find. Everything, and more. Dad refused to let her go, refused to give in or stop doing whatever it took.” He spoke softly, slowly, as though he were calming himself before each word. “The medical costs bankrupted us. We lost our house just to keep Mom in hospital in palliative care.”

  He shook his head, as though he could deny the past. “She didn’t want to be there. She faded, slowly, painfully, and steadily. She was ready to go and knew what the drawn-out illness was doing to our family.”

  Dean didn’t move. His words held just the smallest edge of pain.

  I mopped up flooding tears with the neckline of Dean’s T-shirt I was wearing. I kept quiet, didn’t sob, but the tears just ran.

  The sadness I’d felt in Dean when I kissed him all came back to me. How long had his mother’s illness gone on? What had their family been like before? What had Dean been like before? I’d never seen him really smile. I bet he was gorgeous if he really smiled. It would reach those gray eyes and they would sparkle in a way they never did now. The neck of my shirt was sodden.

  Dean’s next words came a long moment after the others.

  His voice broke so slightly I wondered if it was my own imagination.

  “Mom took her own life.”

  I’m sorry. They were such useless words, so flimsy. What everyone says when they don’t know what to say.

  I thought back to my parents and the strength of their love. If what happened to Dean’s family happened to ours, under those circumstances, would they break? If I lost one of them, and then lost the other to alcohol, I doubted I’d manage half as well as Dean. I’d up and left them behind for this adventure gone wrong, but only because they were so permanent. Like no matter what I did, I could always go back to home, to comfort, and there they would be. Even when distant, my parents were a safe place in my heart. The idea of losing them seared my insides.

  If that happened to me, I would probably lock all my emotions away too. Stop myself ever having to risk loving and losing anyone again. Do anything to hide from that pain.

  Dean shifted and I wiped frantically at my face to dry it in case he turned around.

  I stuttered, hoping my words weren’t completely useless. “I’m sure that she didn’t want to leave you behind. If she thought she had any other choice, I can’t imagine—”

  “I know. I know she left so her illness, and Dad’s obsession with saving her, wouldn’t destroy us completely.”

  Our conversation from the day before came back to me.

  “What is your idea of a hero?”

  “Someone who doesn’t think about themselves, who puts others first always, even before their own life. Someone like...”

  When he clammed up, was he going to say someone like his mother?

  I couldn’t emotionally grasp what it must have been like for her, to feel like the burden of her illness did more damage than her choice to leave. It must have been an impossible decision. It seemed like Dean’s dad wasn’t going to accept her death either way. And despite Dean saying he understood, it had clearly broken him as well.

  And yet he was still so strong. Opening up to me, telling me all of this, couldn’t have been easy. My voice broke as I said, “Thank you, for sharing that with me.”

  He faced me and I shivered.

  I grew colder inside than his presence had ever made me. Anything Dean had opened up, he’d now closed
again tighter than ever before.

  He sat back next to me on the lounge and asked about what we were going to try next.

  I casually caught another tear with the flick of a finger and suggested we take a break and spend the rest of the day watching TV.

  We sat close, our shoulders just touching enough to share warmth between us, but inside, the sensation of cold only grew.

  That night, I wriggled myself into a semi-comfortable position on the beanbag again before Dean could say anything about sleeping arrangements. He came back in from his shower and stood still in the middle of the room for a moment before getting into his bed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “For being angry that night we first met. For not saying thank you for what you did.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I had obsessed over it at the time, but when everything went crazy, I’d forgotten about it again until he brought it up. It just didn’t seem to mean so much anymore. “That was you angry? I was the one yelling like a lunatic.”

  “I was angry, and I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay, really.”

  Dean paused, his jaw clenching briefly. “It’s just, I saw this mousy girl—”

  “Hey!”

  “—willing to take on two big guys, willing to risk her life to save a stranger. To do something like that, you have to be someone special. It made me so angry, the thought that someone so special could have been hurt, for someone like me.”

  “I guess I was just trying to be a hero.” I shrugged, trying to make it seem like nothing. I hadn’t done it for him, not really. I’d done it for myself, to be praised. I’d had no idea what it meant to be a hero, not then.

  “My mom taught me what a hero is. And she taught me that heroes die.”

  My gaze drifted down to the bandages on Dean’s arm. How he pushed me clear of Jake’s gun, how he preferred to be beaten to a pulp by those bullies than have me risk myself to help—he seemed determined to save me from what he thought was a hero’s fate. And at the same time, he was taking that path for himself.

  No. I wouldn’t let him. My breathing grew fast and my eyes burned hot, and tears fell before I could hide them. “Your mom did what she could with nothing to work with but tragedy. We’ve got superpowers. I’m going to make sure we both survive this.”

  Dean reached across and wiped my tears from my cheeks, then turned away.

  Neither of us said anything else.

  The next morning, I woke and saw Dean sitting on the side of his bed, watching me. His expression was intense, yet calm. Longing, yet withdrawn. Something inside felt different, a turmoil of hot and cold, and then it happened.

  Ice grew in me, crystallizing and encasing every sensation of empath power I knew. And then I felt nothing at all. Not the warmth of absorbing emotions, not the cold of Dean’s blocking. Nothing.

  I ran through the trailer park, trying to connect to any emotion outside of my own but nothing came.

  It was done. Dean had learned how to shut down an empath permanently.

  I was normal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  At night, the overgrown park across from the mall felt like a scene from a horror movie. The wooden play fortress loomed in the shadows and a slight breeze made tree branches creak against each other. Streetlights at either end of the space provided lighting, and both flickered. It was cold and my red trench coat swirled in the wind like a cape. I pulled it closed over the T-shirt I wore—Dean’s T-shirt. It smelled of him and my heart beat a little faster.

  This plan had better work.

  I kept imagining every possible way things could go wrong. The idea of Dean getting hurt following my plan made anxiety dance like a jittery sickness inside me.

  I hoped the cold would give us an advantage, so Jake and his posse wouldn’t sense Dean’s presence until too late.

  I’d called Jake earlier that day. He wasn’t happy to hear from me, and I’d begged, I’d begged shamelessly to be given another chance to be part of their team again. He hadn’t been as interested in me as he had in finding the blocker. He’d sounded obsessed.

  “Where is he? You know, don’t you?” he’d snarled over the phone.

  “I don’t know where he is. We went separate ways after the bank. I’m sure you don’t have to worry about him anyway.”

  “Every blocker is worth worrying about. Every one needs to be put down. We are better, better than any normal human, and those blocker scum drag us down to nothing. They are the enemy.”

  “I know, and I should have listened to you before. Please, give me another chance.”

  “So you think you can manage it now, doing what we do? You want it bad enough? You got us into all kinds of trouble with your stunt at the bank.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words tasted disgusting in my mouth. I was glad he couldn’t sense my emotions over the phone. “I screwed up big time.”

  “Why would we even want you back on the team? What do you have to offer? Maybe if you could tell us where the blocker was, we’d consider it. But if you really don’t know—”

  “Fine, okay, fine.” I’d let him think he’d called my bluff, but this was just the bait I needed. “I helped him get home, so I know where he lives. I’ll tell you where you can find him. But only in person.”

  Jake had been more than eager to arrange the meet-up then.

  I shivered, and wondered what time it was, whether the team was late. I felt like I’d been here for hours. But Dean and I did get to the park much earlier than we needed, to give Dean a chance to get hidden.

  The kid-sized hiding spot looked uncomfortable, particularly with his arm still hurting him so much. He’d suggested the park while I’d tried to think of somewhere with a place Dean could hide, public but without other people around. Somewhere that wouldn’t seem more suspicious to the team than I thought this already must.

  A car pulled up beside the park. Not one of the team’s usual favorites, but it was them. My blond prince charming who had turned from beauty to beast strolled up followed by his pack. They seemed confident and I sighed in relief. It meant we’d cleared the first part of the plan that could have gone wrong. They could have sensed Dean the moment they got here, but either the cold night was masking his presence, or Dean was able to hold in his blocking power.

  He said he thought he could do that now. He seemed sure of it. I’d only realized that Jake’s team sensing his effect could be a problem after Dean had already locked me down, so we had no way to test what he could do. But Dean said he’d worked something out. He had something inside now he could use to control his abilities. Now I just had to hope he could keep holding in his general block and still individually shut each of the team down for good.

  Jake wore a dark leather jacket over a stark white designer shirt. He stared at me with disdain. I marveled at the face I’d once thought so dreamy that now spoke of nightmares. His attraction-based hypnosis powers had no chance on me anymore. Unfortunately, his general intimidation levels still worked.

  “So, uh, hi. Um.” Wow, lame start. I had to get my brain working, keep them engaged, talking, so Dean had time to do his part. But Jake and the team were so daunting, they flicked the off switch in my head.

  “Oh honey, living rough?” Emma almost sounded sympathetic as she smirked at me and my slept-in clothes. She, of course, looked ready to hit a red-carpet afterparty—minidress, stilettos, perfect blow-out and all.

  “Yeah, things have sucked on my own.” That was a direction I could take, playing to their egos. “I should never have left you guys.”

  Donny was frowning. “Jake—?”

  Jake waved him silent, his eyes remaining on me. “I’m surprised you didn’t try and go home,” Jake said coldly, and my heart whumped. Had he checked? Had he done anything to my parents?

  I tempered my emotions, trying to stay calm. I had to keep them here, keep them talking as long as possible. “Who could go back to normal life after this?” I gestured to them, as though they summed up everyth
ing normal life couldn’t give me.

  Jake nodded like I’d spoken gospel. “So you understand we have to find and stop the blocker?”

  “Totally. Who would ever want to lose these powers?” I had to turn the conversation back away from finding the blocker again, because the moment they pressed me for his location, they’d know something was up.

  Donny looked more and more uncomfortable as we spoke. He tried to get Jake’s attention again but Jake kept shushing him, too busy enjoying a good gloat at my expense. Come on, Dean.

  I scrambled for more words. “At the bank, I didn’t know what I really wanted, and it messed everything up. I thought I was doing ‘the right thing’.” I emphasized those words as sarcastically as I could. Jamie scoffed at the very idea. “But who says what’s right anyway? If we’re stronger, better, if we can easily take the things we need—why not? Isn’t that evolution? We deserve to be happy.”

  “Wow, sounds like she finally gets it.” Emma laughed.

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t deserve it. Not until she tells us where to find the blocker.” Jake strode around me in a circle, a panther waiting to snap. He must have been able to tell how uncomfortable this whole situation made me. I hoped he thought it was just nerves in his oh-so-glorious presence, the bastard.

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll tell you. But how do I know you won’t leave—”

  “No buts. Tell me!” Jake came to a stop behind my back. He groaned softly. “What is that? I feel...”

  Donny looked off-color, drained. “I’ve been trying to tell you, something’s happening. I think the blocker is here.”

  Jake grabbed me and turned me to face him, shaking me. “Is he here? Did you bring him here?”

  Last-ditch effort. I shrugged, but my shoulders shook with fear. “It’s probably just the cold you’re feeling.”

  Donny stared at his hands, his expression distraught. “I think he’s locked me down. I’ve lost it all.”