Pushed

by Corrine Jackson

  Depressed and more than a little shaken, I nodded hello, and Dorthea ushered me to a seat on the couch, shooing away a boy about my age who sat there. Handsome in a blond surfer kind of way, the boy shot me a cocky grin before getting up. I thought he might be Dorthea’s son, Alcais. These people had a thing for French names that I couldn’t keep straight.

  I sat and that seemed to be all the group needed to launch into action. One after another, they shot questions at me like my grandfather had the day before. Most of their questions centered on what I knew about the Protectors. They seemed to assume that my powers worked exactly like theirs and didn’t bother to ask questions about that. No, they wanted to know if I’d ever been discovered or attacked.

  I couldn’t say yes without talking about Asher and the Blackwells, so I lied. Varying degrees of disappointment and relief lit the faces of the people around me. I pictured myself as a soldier being questioned for intel, and I didn’t think reality was too far off. These people lived by keeping the Protectors unaware of their existence.

  “How do you know I wasn’t followed?” I asked. It had suddenly occurred to me that they should have been more concerned about that. “What if my coming here had been a trick?”

  From a huge armchair, my grandfather spoke in a serious tone. “I didn’t go to the airport on my own, Remy.”

  My pulse skipped. He gestured to Alcais and a couple of the larger men. “They followed us to ensure you arrived alone. I’m sorry, but we had to make sure.”

  What if Asher and I hadn’t separated at the gate? What if he hadn’t hung back? We’d come closer than we imagined to being discovered.

  “What would you have done if I was followed?” I asked, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice.

  “Taken care of it. Nothing for you to concern yourself about,” he said with a placating smile.

  That seemed to be a going theme. I lowered my eyes to my lap to hide my expression. I felt like I’d just been patted on the head and told not to worry my silly self. I’d been surviving out there on my own, and I didn’t need anyone patronizing me. Still, I’d come here to listen and learn, not cause friction. So I bit my tongue, and the questions continued. Some of the group faded away into other rooms when I revealed how little I knew about Protectors.

  Erin approached me, obviously prodded by her mother, and asked, “Delia, Alcais, and I thought maybe you’d want to go for a walk.”

  I jumped up, happy to get away from the curious stares, even if this hadn’t been Erin’s idea. “Sure. That would be great.”

  Outside on the sidewalk, we fell into pairs. Alcais and Delia walked slightly ahead, and I kept pace with Erin. Alcais had a swagger to his step that would put Gabe’s to shame. No lack of confidence there. Delia matched him in sarcasm, tossing her dark hair and shooting him sidelong gazes. I listened to their banter for a while, trying to figure them out. They acted like a couple, but they didn’t touch.

  “Sorry about them,” Erin said so softly the wind almost carried the words away.

  I moved closer to her, straining to hear her. Something gentle in her manner made me like her. Where the others in my grandfather’s group seemed on edge and pushy, Erin had held back her thoughts, her gaze trained on the floor more often than not.

  She gestured toward Alcais and Delia. “My brother’s always flirting with her, even though he’s not interested. It drives Delia nuts.”

  I smiled. “I get that.”

  “You seemed surprised when Franc said there only eight of us at the house.”

  She’d been paying closer attention to me than I’d thought.

  “I was,” I admitted. “Franc mentioned a community of Healers, and I guess I thought there would be more of us.”

  Alcais laughed sharply. He’d heard my comment and walked backward to taunt me. “There are more of us. You didn’t seriously think that was the whole group?”

  Delia jerked his elbow to steer him around a crack in the sidewalk, and he didn’t bother to thank her.

  He continued without pause. “There are eighty-three Healers altogether, and we’re growing more every year. Franc doesn’t like too many of us to gather in one place, though. That way we’re not all wiped out at once if the Protectors attack.”

  To hear military-like strategy tossed out by another teen sent a chill down my back. I’d grown up knowing Dean could kill me on any given day. I should be used to talk of death, but somehow, knowing Asher’s people were the ones doing the killing changed things. I hated this. All of it. I wanted a world where my only concerns were college and parties and kissing my boyfriend. Fat chance.

  We reached the retainer wall separating the bike path from the sand ten feet below. Alcais jumped up on the cement barrier and began to walk along the edge.

  Delia scowled at him. “I’m not going to heal you again if you fall, Al.”

  He grinned down at her and gave me a sly glance. “Maybe Remy will do it this time.”

  She shot a pissed-off look at me, and I held up both hands, unwilling to be drawn into their reindeer games. “Hey, I don’t heal people who come to harm through sheer stupidity. You’re on your own.”

  Erin smothered a laugh behind me, and I guessed most of the girls around here sucked up to Alcais and his pretty boy looks. They could have him. I had Asher waiting for me.

  I hitched myself up so I could sit on the wall, turning so I could dangle my legs over the other side, facing the ocean. The waves formed in rows of tight curls and rolled in. A mother chased her little boy at the water’s edge, and his giggle drifted in the air. A cool breeze touched my face, whipping my hair back, and I closed my eyes. I heard Erin sit beside me, and I tried to tune out Alcais and Delia when they began sniping at each other again.

  Finally, I turned to Erin. “Do they ever stop?”

  She grinned. “Only when they sleep.”

  “Do you have a sleeping potion? Maybe a pill?”

  “I heard that,” Alcais called out cheerfully.

  I ignored him and attempted to draw Erin out. She told me about how my grandfather had helped to establish the group of Healers here. He’d helped the first ones find homes, and then he’d put protocols in place to ensure the Protectors couldn’t find them. They did this by going on the offense. The men in the group scouted and made sure they knew where the Protectors were at all times.

  “They don’t exactly hide,” Delia cut in when I questioned how that was possible. “Why would they?”

  “The hunter doesn’t really need to hide from his prey, does he? Not when he has all the power,” Alcais added, his face tightening in a harsh expression as he dropped down on my other side. “Protectors take what they want whenever they’re hungry.”

  A shrill scream pierced the air, interrupting my next question.

  We turned toward the sound. A wave had swept to shore and caught the boy I’d noticed playing with his mother earlier. I jumped into action, and I wasn’t alone. Alcais, Delia, and Erin launched off the wall and took the steps to the beach alongside me, and I had to remind myself to move at a normal non-Protector pace. Other Healers couldn’t move like me.

  By the time we reached them, the mother had pulled the boy from the water. He wasn’t breathing.

  I almost touched his hand, but something stopped me. Just a pause while I considered what would happen if I revealed how different my abilities were, and these people saw me “drowning.” The moment passed when I saw the boy’s face. He was four or five, and his lips had turned blue. The mother had started CPR, but she was doing it all wrong. If she kept at it, she would break his ribs. I started forward again, but Delia beat me to them, kneeling at the boy’s side with her hand hovering over him.

  She shared a quick glance with Alcais and Erin, and those two moved in unison. Alcais told the crying mother that Delia had trained as a lifeguard and knew CPR. He and Erin somehow managed to wrench the woman away from her son and placed themselves as a shield between prying eyes and Delia.

  She placed b
oth hands on the boy’s chest and closed her eyes. As if she really was attempting to do CPR, she pressed into his chest, but I could see it was all for show. The ruse would work for those approaching in the distance, but from where I stood, I saw how light her touch was.

  I’d never seen another Healer in action. I guess I had imagined it as something remarkable, but in reality not much happened. No humming buzzed through the air like when I healed someone. Nothing that I could sense, anyway.

  Not more than ten seconds had passed, though, and I saw why Alcais and Erin had bothered to remove the mother. Hot pink sparks lit where Delia’s hands rested on the boy’s chest. A moment later, he gasped and began choking and spitting out the gallon of water he’d inhaled while in the ocean.

  Delia had healed him, but she didn’t show any signs of having absorbed his injuries. Jealousy nipped at me. What would it be like to heal someone and not have to take on whatever had injured them or made them sick? These people didn’t know how lucky they were.

  Alcais and Erin parted to let the mother at her son when Delia rose to her feet. The crying woman rolled him to his side as he coughed. Erin’s eyes widened when I glanced her way, and she gestured for us to go.

  Now, she mouthed.

  I noticed Alcais and Delia had already taken off, retreating back to the sidewalk above the beach.

  “Shouldn’t we stay?” I asked Erin in confusion when we followed them. “Won’t it look suspicious that Delia saved that boy’s life and then disappeared?”

  “It will look more suspicious when they find out that Delia was never a lifeguard,” Erin muttered.

  I blinked. “Oh.”

  Nobody paid any mind to us as we left. A few onlookers had already made their way over to the mother and her child in our wake. By the time it occurred to any of them to ask who had saved the boy, we would have disappeared from the beach.

  As we walked back to Erin’s house, raw emotion played across the faces of the others. Delia gripped Alcais’s hand, and he clasped hers tightly in return. Erin’s mouth had turned down in a grimace. Fear, I realized. They were terrified they’d be discovered. These Healers weren’t so different from me, after all. They might band together, but they still hid their abilities from the world.

  What would the world be like if we could openly use our powers? If every injury or illness wouldn’t debilitate these Healers like it could for me, we could help so many. Save so many.

  But it would never happen. Someone would always try to control us.

  “You okay?” Erin asked. And she touched my arm.

  A surge of hunger swept through me, and a dark, starving thing inside me yearned to tear at her as if she were the last bit of food on earth. Erin’s lips moved, but I couldn’t hear her words. I locked on the energy flowing under her skin where her fingers rested on my forearm, and a rushing sound drowned out all noise. My humming, I guessed. It had grown in intensity, and I swayed as the electricity vibrated inside me. Electricity that craved Erin’s energy. I wanted to take it. I could take it, and I doubted she’d be able to stop me. Mine, mine, mine whispered through me. Erin turned to speak to someone in the distance. That dark thing unwound inside me and began to reach for her.

  She dropped her hand, and I staggered. I had to lock my knees to stay standing. The electricity buzzing inside me didn’t disappear with her touch. The hair on my arms stood straight up. Caught between pushing and pulling energy, I felt like a live wire that could not be grounded. Sweat popped up over my forehead.

  “Remy?” I turned at the sound of my name. Erin had walked ahead to join Alcais and Delia. Her brow wrinkled in concern. I must have looked awful because she asked, “You okay?”

  “Yes,” I said, but it came out shaky. In a more steady voice, I said, “I’m fine. Be there in a minute, okay?”

  She paused a moment, and then walked away, shrugging when Delia asked her something. They disappeared down the driveway. Alone, I bent forward, bracing my palms on my thighs. I inhaled deep, calming breaths. To my ears, I sounded like a woman in labor.

  Two questions formed as I stood there, trying not to freak out. What the hell had just happened to me? And how could I stop it from ever happening again?

  Because some instinct told me that I could have killed Erin if she’d touched me any longer.

  CHAPTER NINE

  My grandfather and I had said very little on the way back to the city.

  I’d returned to the house in time to hear Delia and the others explaining what had happened on the beach. My grandfather had watched me the whole while, and I guessed maybe he wanted to see what my reaction had been to seeing another Healer in action. I’d kept my thoughts to myself while Delia’s mother berated her for healing the boy in the open.

  If I hadn’t been so traumatized by what had happened with Erin, I would have smiled at hearing another—even the scowling Delia—get the same lecture I’d heard time and again from Asher and Lucy. Apparently, these Healers had some of the same struggles I did. As it was, I’d kept my mouth shut and hoped no one noticed how freaked out I must have looked.

  Back at my grandfather’s house, he stopped me on the staircase when I would have headed straight to my room. I worried he might have guessed what had happened with Erin. Maybe she’d picked up on something and told him. What if—

  “What Delia did . . . you know she took a great risk, right?” he asked.

  I rolled my shoulders, forcing myself to relax. This was about the boy. Perhaps Erin or one of the others had mentioned that I’d been reaching for him. I’d been raised away from this community, away from their rules and guidelines. I could expose them if I wasn’t careful. Delia had taken a risk, and suddenly, I was grateful that she’d beat me to it. In a way, she had saved me from discovery.

  I nodded at my grandfather.

  He patted my hand where it rested on the banister. “We have to be careful, Remy. It’s not just one life at risk when a Healer uses her powers. Every life in our community is at stake.”

  After saying good night, he left me on the stairs. Guilt pinched me like a pair of too tight shoes because I had every intention of sneaking out to meet my Protector boyfriend that night.

  Sinking down on the bed, I scraped my hair away from my face. Then, I picked up my mobile phone.

  Gabe answered on the third ring with an irritated, “What?”

  I smiled despite myself. I could always count on Asher’s brother to be a jerk. “I’m sorry. Did I interrupt you with one of your Sororitoys?”

  That was the name my friends and I had given the string of college girls he dated. Gabe had broken a lot of hearts in Blackwell Falls, and elsewhere in the world, considering how long he’d been alive.

  “What do you want, Healer?” he asked, a scowl in his voice.

  I hesitated. “Never mind,” I said. “I shouldn’t have called.” Why had I called Gabe? Maybe I should have waited and talked to Asher first. Except . . . sometimes Asher didn’t tell me everything. Gabe didn’t have Asher’s instinct to protect me; he had no problem telling me the ugly truth.

  I started to hang up anyway, but Gabe’s voice stopped me. “Remy, what do you need?”

  He used my name so rarely that I spoke without thinking. “Something happened today, Gabe. I’m seriously freaking out.”

  “You don’t freak out,” he said. “It’s one of the few things I like about you.”

  I opened my mouth to answer and then snapped it closed again. A compliment from Gabe?

  “Spit it out.”

  I almost made a snide comment, but I bit it back. Too much was at stake to let Gabe get to me. “A Healer touched me today, and I had this uncontrollable urge to attack her.”

  That shut him up.

  “You’re freaking out, aren’t you?” I asked.

  He snorted, and I launched into a description of what had happened.

  “Have you heard of anything like this before?” I asked, desperate for some kind of answer.

  His sigh sounded
loud. “You’re not going to like it. Have you talked to Asher about this?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Let him explain it to you then. And tell my brother to stay safe.”

  “Damn it, Gabe. Please . . .”

  Too late. The bastard had hung up on me.

  Later, long after my grandfather had gone to his room, I put on a coat and tied my hair back into a ponytail. Then, I tiptoed down the stairs and out the back door. I’d texted Asher to meet me in the forest at the edge of the yard. I strolled toward the forest like I was taking a walk in case anyone watched the house.

  As soon as I entered the tree line, an arm snagged my waist. I didn’t have to have Asher’s heightened senses, but I would know his touch blindfolded. His hands slid up my back to my shoulder blades, and he exerted enough pressure to tip me off balance and into him. I didn’t mind. For the first time since I’d gotten off the plane yesterday, I felt safe.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  Even that whisper sounded loud in the silence. I pulled away and held a finger to my lips. I gestured for us to go deeper into the forest. He kept up with me when I began to run at a breakneck pace. I stopped in a small clearing when the pine trees crowded together too closely to run safely and the house had disappeared behind us.

  The clearing reminded me of the one in Townsend Park, except here the menthol scent of eucalyptus overpowered everything.

  “I think we’re okay now,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

  Asher had gone watchful, studying the area with sight and hearing far better than mine.

  “Do you think someone is on to us?”

  I shook my head, pacing nervously. “No, but we have to be careful. They’re more prepared than we thought. They had people watching me at the airport. They’re always on guard for Protectors.”