My voice sounded even, though. “Nothing, really, other than a little homesickness. I miss you.”
“Then come home,” she whispered.
“Soon. I promise.” I changed the subject before she could break me down and force the truth out of me. “How are things? How’s Tim?”
Asking about her boyfriend did the trick of distracting her. She spent the next twenty minutes going on about a fight they’d had the day before. I happily listened to her complaints, wishing I could see her face. Afterward, my parents came on the line, and we chatted about my visit. I described all the sights I’d visited the days my grandfather and I had played tourist. It seemed an eon ago. Eventually we said our good-byes and hung up.
After talking to my family, the house felt emptier than before. I wandered from room to room. The house consisted of three small bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, a small dining room, the kitchen, and an attached garage with laundry room. As I studied the photos in each room on the first floor, it occurred to me that none of them were of my mother. Not even childhood ones. Had they been lost in the fire that had consumed my grandmother? Or maybe my grandfather kept them in his room.
I climbed the stairs and hesitated in front of my grandfather’s domain. I dared to open the bedroom door, calling myself a trespassing traitor as I stepped over the threshold.
I’m not sure what I expected to find. My grandfather was a neat man, and his room reflected that. The bed had been made, and his clothes all put away. Even the carpet had recently been vacuumed and neat horizontal lines marked the carpet.
His closet and dresser stood closed, and I couldn’t bring myself to go through his things. I hovered in the middle of the room, unsure what to do. The phone rang on his nightstand, and I almost jumped through the roof. I backed out of the room and practically galloped back downstairs as if I’d been caught snooping. In the living room, an answering machine clicked on. A moment later it clicked off again when the caller decided not to leave a message.
The silence threatened to close in on me, and I couldn’t take it anymore. My grandfather had asked me to stay close to the house. I considered the forest within that realm, and I headed in that direction as soon as I’d locked the front door behind me.
Sunshine shone through the trees. For once, fog didn’t coat their tops, and only a few puffs of cotton-white clouds drifted through the blue sky. Off in the distance I could hear hikers making their way along a Presidio trail, their shouts to each other echoing off the hills. My grandfather had mentioned the trails were popular, and I could see why. Even though I couldn’t let loose and run the way I longed to, I already felt calmer.
I was glad I showed caution when a man ran past me with his labradoodle. The dog’s tongue hung out of the side of his mouth, lapping up the wind and dripping slobber with each step. He looked like a cartoon character, all clumsy limbs and happy smiles.
I decided to follow the man and dog to see where the trail led. I guessed we went about a mile, winding up through the woods and through an open meadow before we came upon a set of steps built into the hillside. The staircase dropped us into a parking lot filled with cars and two tour buses. The man continued to the left, running toward the street, but I turned to the right to follow the tourists.
I gasped when I saw the view of the bay laid out in front of me. I had arrived at an overlook, replete with benches for taking in the sights. People lined up to take pictures with their backs to the blue water, framed on either side by the forest of the Presidio. It reminded me of home so much I had to get closer.
A concrete ledge enclosed the overlook, and I sank down on it, setting my chin on my knees. Just like at home, sailboats dotted the water, their sails billowing out as they crisscrossed the bay. More than anything at that moment, I longed to go home. An actual ache sprouted inside me.
After a while, the tourists loaded back into their buses, and only a few people remained lounging on the benches a ways from me. The air shifted, and someone sat down beside me. Asher. I wasn’t sure I was ready to see him. In silence, we sat side by side like that for long minutes not touching. I tried to figure out how to tell him about everything that had happened.
I shifted to face him, bringing my leg up to rest my cheek on my knee. The wind played havoc with his hair and it stood on end.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he answered. “I missed you last night.”
At the mention of last night, a dozen images crowded into my mind. Me, healing Chrissy. The alarm going up about a Protector coming to town. Yvette dead. Asher reached for me right when the last memory popped up. I yanked away, but not before he had a glimpse of my thoughts.
Shock rounded his eyes. “What happened?”
I shook my head, staring at his throat because I couldn’t quite meet his gaze.
“Remy?”
He reached out to touch me, and I jerked back again. I didn’t want him to see what I’d thought, how I’d compared him to that other Protector. I didn’t want him to know how the thought still lingered today.
His hand hovered, frozen in midair, and confusion clouded his features. “You’re scaring me, mo cridhe. What happened last night?”
“A woman died, Asher. Another Healer.”
My voice sounded hollow to my ears.
“How?” he asked in a low voice.
“A Protector.”
Asher cursed. At least I think he did. He’d switched to French, his favorite language to swear in. He threw a sideways glance at the other people hanging about, but none had come close enough to overhear us.
“Were you in danger?” he asked.
“No. She was a nurse at the hospital. She healed someone and word got out. Whoever the Protector was, he didn’t know there were others. At least my grandfather doesn’t think he knows.” I pictured Yvette again, and my eyes burned. “It was awful. What he did to her. He—”
I cut off, shaking my head when words failed me. To get it over with, I pictured Yvette as she’d lain on the floor, unseeing and bloodied. I tapped his hand, allowing him to see the image in a quick flash before I pulled away again.
“You’re afraid of me.”
I hadn’t been fast enough, and Asher had seen more than I wanted him to. He sounded destroyed, his voice cut up and rough. I hated myself for doing that to him, but I couldn’t hug him or hold his hand in comfort. He’d know I’d dreamed of him killing Elizabeth over and over again last night. Except in my dreams, Elizabeth had looked like Yvette.
So I denied what he’d said. “No. You’re wrong.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I really wish I was.”
“It’s not fear,” I protested. “Not of you, at least. I just had never imagined how awful it would be. You told me, but I didn’t understand.”
“How could you?” he asked.
“He tortured her, Asher. He cut her to weaken her so he could take what he wanted. How does someone become a monster like that?”
“A monster like me, you mean?” he asked bitterly.
“No! I know you’re not like that.”
Before I could stop him, he picked up my hand. His fingers cradled mine gently, not holding them hostage. I tried to think of us as we’d been in the forest, happy and full of hope. If he was testing me, I failed. Whatever he saw in my mind, a terrible sadness settled over him. He set my hand on my leg with the same gentle touch and then rose to his feet beside me.
“Come on,” he said. “We should get back to your grandfather’s.”
The silent hike back was agonizing. Where before the scenery had entranced me, now I walked blindly, trying to think of a way to fix this. I’d never hated our bond so much as I did at that moment because it allowed him to see what I wanted to hide.
At the edge of the forest near my grandfather’s house, we stopped, and I turned toward Asher. I would have hugged him, but he stood apart from me, his hands in his pockets and his expression remote. I wrapped my arms around myself instead and wishe
d I could take back the last hour.
“Please don’t go,” I begged. “Not like this.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I swear I’ll be nearby if you need me, but I think maybe it will be easier for you to figure out how you feel about this if I’m not around.”
He meant about him, but I already knew how I felt about him. I loved him. Why couldn’t I stop picturing Yvette, though? Why couldn’t I stop imagining how Elizabeth had died?
A truck engine roared in the distance. My grandfather had arrived home.
Wind whipped a strand of my hair out of my ponytail, and Asher caught it, tucking it behind my ear. He didn’t touch my skin, I noticed with a twinge of pain.
“Be careful, okay?”
A door slammed, and I turned my head toward the house when my grandfather called my name. A light breeze caressed my face, and I spun about in a panic.
Asher had gone.
My grandfather stood at the counter when I entered through the kitchen door.
“Hey,” I said.
I hoped he wouldn’t want to talk. All I wanted to do was go to my room and hide under the covers. I didn’t want to have to pretend I didn’t feel tired and scared and sad.
“Who was that?” my grandfather asked, nodding his head toward the kitchen window that faced the forest.
I grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge, giving myself time to think. What had he seen? I closed the fridge door and dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, slouching as if I didn’t have a care in the world.
“Just a boy I met when I went hiking.”
Asher and I hadn’t hugged or kissed. In fact, we’d done nothing to make my grandfather think I knew Asher that well. I hoped the mention of hiking would distract him. If he got busy yelling at me for going off on my own, maybe he’d forget about Asher.
I continued. “I was going stir-crazy in the house, so I went up to that overlook that’s near here. Inspiration Point, I think the sign said.”
I tossed back a sip of water while my grandfather eyed me.
“And you met him there?” he asked.
I shrugged and ducked my head like I was embarrassed. “Honestly, I got a little turned around on the trail. He was nice enough to walk me here.”
Did he believe me? My knuckles turned white with my tense grip on the water bottle. I relaxed my fingers before I spilled liquid everywhere.
“I’m sorry,” I added. “I know you said to stay close.”
My grandfather rested his hips against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest.
He gave me a stern look. “You need to be more cautious.”
“I will. I promise,” I said in a rush. “I’m going to shower before dinner.”
I jumped up and practically ran out of the kitchen. But not before I saw my grandfather turn to gaze out the window with a thoughtful expression.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After Yvette’s death, people treated me differently in Pacifica, and I found myself wishing the weekend would arrive because that would mean I would be on a plane back home to Blackwell Falls.
The way I healed injuries scared some of Franc’s people and fascinated others. And if the looks were anything to judge by, my refusal to be tested had pissed off many of them. My feelings didn’t seem to matter in the scheme of things when studying me could advance their research.
My grandfather had warned me that some people were angry. He’d asked them to leave me alone, but I alternated between feeling like a bug under a microscope or one burned under a magnifying glass. Before when I’d visited Erin’s house, we’d been left to our own devices. We’d tended to wander off to the beach to hang out without adult eyes watching our every move.
With Yvette’s death still fresh, our hangouts had been restricted to Erin’s or Delia’s. This would have been fine, but suddenly whichever house I was at suffered an influx of Healers and their families passing through. Not one of them defied my grandfather’s order to leave me be, but that didn’t stop the looks or the whispers that followed me everywhere.
If my grandfather would have let me, I’d have stayed at his house. But after seeing me with Asher, he’d begun watching my every move, refusing to leave me alone. I hadn’t seen Asher in three days. If not for his nightly text to check in, I’d have been freaking out.
Asher refused to talk about us, and that told me how much I’d hurt him, albeit unintentionally. It wasn’t like I could always control my thoughts, but somehow that made it worse. He knew I’d doubted him so strongly that I couldn’t hide those fears from him.
As if I didn’t feel bad enough, at Erin’s house, her mother left any room I entered. I couldn’t tell if Dorthea thought me the Antichrist or just something to be avoided, like gum someone had spat out on the sidewalk. Delia would have followed her lead, except that Alcais wouldn’t leave my side.
The bastard had decided he wanted to experiment on me. Yesterday he’d tried hurting himself to force me to heal him. He’d sliced his hand open with a pocket knife. I’d refused to play along and he’d had to run to Delia or Erin to heal himself.
The next day I arrived at Erin’s house, and Delia greeted me with a scowl. Franc had foisted me on her and her friends, and she hated me for it. I followed her into the garage in time to hear Erin shriek in pain. Alcais stood over his sister, holding her flattened palm over a burning candle. She struggled against her brother, but he didn’t relent. Instead, his eyes met mine in a dark challenge, and he smiled.
At last, he let her go, and she shrank away from him, crying. The scent of burnt flesh wafted toward me, and with it came memories of Dean holding lit cigarettes to my skin. I had a particularly nasty scar under my arm from where he’d hurt me over and over. I considered it a reminder that some people were evil through and through.
Alcais had hurt Erin because of me. He knew Delia couldn’t heal anything but surface burns, and probably suspected I might be able to. If I’d had Asher’s strength, I would have sent him flying into the wall. I didn’t, though. I only had my abilities. My very special abilities.
I dropped my purse on the card table where we’d hung out days before, reading and laughing. Then I knelt before Erin and gave her a reassuring smile.
“Let me help you.”
Her brown eyes shuttered in pain, but she shook her head. For a second, I thought she didn’t want to be healed by a freak like me, but she said, “No. I don’t want you to be hurt, too.”
I felt like crap for doubting her, and more determined than ever to heal her. “Trust me, okay? I’ve been through worse. Please.”
Alcais shoved her shoulder, ignoring her cry. “Just give her your hand already.”
“You’re an ass, Alcais,” Delia said from behind me.
She actually sounded pissed at him for once, and I wanted to cheer because she’d found a backbone. My gaze didn’t veer from Erin. I gave her another smile and she finally relented. Huge tears slid down her cheek as she placed her hand in mine.
Little did they know that I had experience healing burns. Dean had often ground his cigarettes into my skin when the mood struck him, and I’d once healed Asher’s burned hand when he’d saved me from falling into a fire. I could heal Erin, but it would be a bitch when I absorbed the injury. Plus there was the fact that I had to let my guard down and touch her in order to do it.
Gritting my teeth, I rested a hand on hers, dropped my guard, and waited. The monster inside me instantly reared its head, but I shoved it down, determined not to give in. It almost hurt to deny myself Erin’s energy, but I stayed in control.
I let the humming begin and scanned Erin. Like Chrissy, her internal workings differed from that of a normal human’s and from Asher’s. I hadn’t really had time to study Chrissy with everyone watching me, and I couldn’t take the time to study Erin now.
Erin gasped, and I focused on her injury. Quickly, I pictured the damage to her flesh and the nerves beneath it. I imagined the flesh perfect and pink once more, and it shifted
under my hand, mending as my energy worked on her.
When I’d healed her, I looked up and said, “Don’t panic, okay?”
She nodded, her eyes huge as purple sparks lit the air. I let my hand fall from hers. And then I stopped thinking as my flesh charred and my nerves roared in pain. I wanted to howl, but more than that I wanted to teach Alcais a lesson. I made myself get up.
“Hey, Alcais,” I said through gritted teeth. “You wanted to know how my powers work? That’s why you hurt Erin, right?”
He nodded, and a hint of anxiety flickered over his face. I held out my burned hand, palm down so he couldn’t see the burns.
“See for yourself.”
He hesitated a moment before curiosity overcame him. He took a step closer. As soon as he was within reach, I latched on to him with my good hand. The scary red sparks had always come before when I was in danger. I’d never called them to me with such a minor injury. I wasn’t even sure if I could, but in that moment, with Erin still crying and my hand blistered and raw, I wanted to hurt Alcais.
I thought it wouldn’t work, but suddenly the energy rose in me. It scorched my insides like a flash fire, and the red sparks arced between me and Alcais where we touched. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing from the same injury I had, and I let him go.
Crouching beside him, I whispered, “I’m not going to heal you, Alcais. You deserve that for hurting Erin. For using her and Delia the way you do. You better hope I never catch you hurting either one of them again. And if you so much as get a hangnail that you expect them to heal, I will make you regret it. Got it?”
He nodded fast and furious like a bobblehead doll. I didn’t find it funny, though. My hand hurt like hell. Standing again, I faced Delia and Erin. I’d scared them as bad as Alcais. Tough luck. I didn’t regret what I’d done. I’d watched Dean abuse my mom all those years, unable to do more than heal her afterward. I wouldn’t stand by and watch another sadistic bastard hurt someone.
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