Pushed

by Corrine Jackson

  Sighing, I let go of Gabe’s hand and opened my eyes in time to see red sparks tripping from my skin to his. Gabe’s face had turned a sick shade of gray and glowed with a sheen of sweat. His mouth had tightened into a grimace, and his brow lowered as if he was fighting off a tremendous amount of pain. I cringed, scared he might be losing a battle for control.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered after a long moment.

  He didn’t sound okay. He sounded fierce.

  “I hurt you, didn’t I? I’m sor—”

  “I’m fine,” he cut in, his accent sharp. He stood, putting his back to me. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep, and we’ll figure things out in the morning?”

  Unable to see his expression, I had to take his words at face value. Glancing down at myself, I remembered I wore only my underwear. Maybe I should have been embarrassed, but I shrugged. What did it matter? Gabe hated me, and I didn’t like him. It wasn’t like he was sneaking peeks between cussing me out and cleaning my injuries. Besides, between the cuts and bruises, I looked more like roadkill than someone’s dream poster girl. Still, when he threw a clean T-shirt to me, I gladly pulled it over my head. Apparently, he’d had more than a first aid kit delivered to our room. Money working miracles again.

  I burrowed under the covers and pretended to fall asleep. Gabe shut off the light, and I heard him take the chair by the bed. For a long time, I listened to his breathing, the steady in and out of his inhalations and exhalations. Like using his energy, it felt too intimate to be stuck in this tiny space with him, sharing the same air. I wanted to be alone. I bit down on my knuckle.

  Soon his breathing slowed into a pattern, and I thought he slept. That was when I let the tears fall. I turned my face into the scratchy pillowcase to cover the sounds. I’d mistaken Gabe for Asher and fooled myself into thinking Asher had survived that prison. These wounds would not be patched. I would not heal.

  The bed shifted, and I choked on a cry. Gabe lay down on top of the covers. He pulled me into his side, covers and all, and pressed my face to his shirt. I started to fight him, wanting his touch least of all. He reminded me too much of Asher with his damned green eyes.

  Then my fingers brushed Gabe’s cheek. Tears. Gabe cried for his brother, too. That deflated my anger like nothing else could have, and I stopped fighting him. There was nothing romantic in his hold. We both grieved for Asher, and sometimes it hurt a little less to cry with someone else. Even if it was in the dark and you didn’t really like the person who held you.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Light barely penetrated the heavy curtains when I woke in the morning. Gabe had spared me the awkwardness of waking up beside him. The water ran in the bathroom, and I jumped up to get dressed. I groaned at the aches that move caused. I’d healed the worst of my injuries, but my body had taken a tremendous amount of abuse in the last couple of days.

  My jeans, torn and ruined, had been folded and left on the dresser. I held them up, disgusted by how stiff the dried blood had made them. If anyone saw me wearing them and looking the way I did, there would be questions. Besides, I would go crazy if I had to walk around wearing Asher’s blood.

  The water shut off while I tried to figure out what to do about my clothing, and then it was too late because Gabe opened the bathroom door, rubbing a towel to his head. His wet hair stood up in spikes all over his head, and he had yet to put on a shirt with his jeans. Standing there in just a T-shirt, again the forced closeness of the situation struck me. I backed up and sank into the room’s only chair, clutching the jeans to my chest.

  Gabe noticed me and stopped in the doorway. “You’re up.”

  “What are we going to do, Gabe?” I asked, sounding lost.

  I was talking about losing Asher. Gabe paced forward and took the jeans from me.

  “One step at a time, Remy. First, let’s see what we can do about these.” He gestured to my face and legs. “We can’t go anywhere with you looking like that.”

  I thought he meant the way I was dressed, but when I looked down I gasped. The bruises and cuts had swelled into ugly, multicolored blots that marked much of my exposed skin.

  Gabe sat on the bed across from me and dumped his towel and my jeans on the floor. “Are you feeling up to healing yourself?”

  He waited patiently while I tested my strength. In truth, I could heal myself, but it would use up the little energy I’d stored up overnight. I still wasn’t at 100 percent. Gabe seemed to read my response in my expression.

  “Let me help you, Remy.”

  I shook my head.

  Gabe exhaled in frustration. “You’re a damned mule! Fine. Have at it.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest, and for the first time I noticed the discoloration covering his ribs. Those marks had been caused by fists when he’d been trying to rescue me. I wondered if Mark and Xavier had survived and hoped not.

  I swallowed and tugged the hem of my T-shirt over my thighs. I hated this. I didn’t want to be here with Asher’s brother. I didn’t want to owe him anything or depend on him.

  Gabe sighed. “Please, don’t cry. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He rubbed his face. “Can you see it from my side? We can’t stay here. We need to get moving, but if we go anywhere with you looking like that, it’ll draw attention to us. Attention we don’t need. Let me help you.”

  I chewed on my lip, undecided.

  Gabe pounded a fist on his thigh and stared at the ceiling in disgust. “I can’t believe I’m begging a Healer to let me help heal her.”

  That kind of comment was exactly the Gabe I knew. The Gabe who’d held me last night while I cried was someone I wanted to forget. The arrogant, irritable Gabe in front of me was someone I could deal with.

  “Okay,” I said. “But on one condition.”

  “What?” he snarled.

  “I heal you first.” He started to balk and I sliced a hand through the air. “I’m not going to have you walking around with an injury because of me. I heal you, and then you help me take care of my injuries. That’s the deal.”

  Gabe rolled his shoulders back, and he appeared bigger and more intimidating. He’d used the tactic before to get me to do what he wanted. I’d thought him a predator then. Something along the lines of a shark.

  I snorted. “That won’t work. You can’t make me heal myself.”

  The silence stretched on.

  “You’re either a masochist or a martyr,” Gabe accused.

  “Do you like it when you take on other people’s injuries? Does it make you feel important?”

  I nearly punched him. Of course, that was what he wanted. Me, so angry I’d refuse to heal him. Rather than give in to my anger, I smiled. Then, I clasped Gabe’s hand. He wasn’t expecting it, and I held on when he jerked away in reaction. I dropped my walls and sent my energy unwinding toward him, only to find he had his guard up.

  “Come on, Gabe,” I said. “You’re wasting time.”

  If anything, his scowl grew darker, but he did what I wanted and dropped his defenses. I watched him closely as I scanned him. Like last night, he squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, but he remained in control. I hurried to take care of his injuries, and moments later the bruising stippling his side disappeared. Green sparks lit the air, and I sucked in a breath as my side began to ache. Stupid, macho jerk. If I’d made him mortal at all, he’d been in pain and hiding it.

  I started to drop my hand, but Gabe grasped it.

  “Now you,” he said. He did not sound happy.

  I prepared myself for the way his energy would come at me, aggressive and sure like Gabe. It still made me shudder in distaste when I felt it. I set to work on my injuries. I’d never healed myself so quickly. Gabe was more powerful than Asher. His energy would have overwhelmed me if he wasn’t in such perfect control of it. The bruises and cuts disappeared, and with them, the constant edge of pain faded. I’d become so used to it in the last few days that its retreat made me sigh in relief. Goo
d as new, except for my heart. More green sparks lit the air when I pulled away from Gabe.

  “Thank you,” I said simply.

  Gabe stared at me with an expression I couldn’t interpret. Then he rose and picked up my jeans. “Why don’t you take a shower, and I’ll see what I can do about finding you some clothes?”

  I stood and escaped to the bathroom. We hadn’t talked about what he had planned, but I thought I wasn’t going to like it.

  Gabe sat on the opposite side of the booth at the tiny café in Oakland. He sipped coffee without any expression, and I wondered if he’d ever tasted it. Asher didn’t like coffee in any form. Hadn’t liked it.

  Earlier I’d stepped out of the shower to find a pair of sweats and another T-shirt folded on the closed lid of the toilet. Worn and soft, they belonged to a stranger, but they smelled like laundry detergent. I hadn’t asked where he’d found them, or the clean clothes he wore, but I’d guessed that they belonged to the same person. The sweats would have fallen off my hips if I hadn’t cinched the tie at the waist. We’d checked out of the motel and stopped at a Walgreens. Gabe had run in and bought me a pair of flip-flops so I wouldn’t have to go barefoot. Then we’d walked to this café. Mostly, we’d eaten in silence, each of us lost in our separate thoughts.

  I didn’t know what to do next. I wanted to kill the men who’d murdered Asher, but I didn’t know the first thing about how to find them or go about it. It would take time, but what was I supposed to do in the meantime? Twiddle my thumbs and wait for the Protectors to find me before I had a plan? Right. I needed to warn Franc. And then maybe I should go home and give myself time to regroup.

  “You can’t go back to Blackwell Falls.”

  I dropped my fork. “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “I know how your mind works, Healer.” Gabe swirled a bit of sugar through a water ring on the stained tabletop. “You’re thinking about running home to Daddy.”

  The way he put it made me sound like a coward. Okay, I had been thinking about going home, but I couldn’t see another option that didn’t involve me dying a slow death at the hands of Protectors or hiding in a cave in a desert somewhere.

  “So what?” I sounded belligerent and I didn’t care.

  “So you’ll get your family killed.”

  I felt like he’d struck me. He hadn’t ended his statement with “too,” but we were both thinking it. I couldn’t even argue because I agreed with him. Asher had died because of me. I should never have come here. I should have stayed back in Blackwell Falls, and maybe he would still be alive. Why hadn’t I listened to Asher when he asked me not to go? How many people had to die? Gabe should have left me in that prison . . .

  “Stop it,” Gabe ordered.

  I blinked back the tears that had begun to form. For a girl who rarely cried, the waterworks wouldn’t stop.

  Gabe continued in a neutral tone. “These guys used Asher against you, but how could they know he’d lead them straight to you? For some reason, they were watching him.”

  “What makes you think they weren’t watching me?” I asked. “We met in the forest a couple of times. They could have seen Asher and me together and figured out I cared about him.”

  Gabe shook his head. “No way. They followed Asher.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Gabe threw an arm over the back of the booth, giving every appearance of being relaxed but for the way the tendons stood out in his neck. “If they knew how to find you without him, you’d have been dead and Asher would still be alive.”

  His words rang with truth. If Gabe meant to cause me more pain, the barbs hit home, heaping shame on top of grief. Asher died because of what I was.

  I balled up my napkin and tossed it on my plate. “What does it matter, Gabe? What does this have to do with my family?”

  “The Protectors don’t exactly hide their whereabouts from each other. Our numbers are small, and we stay connected.” He waited for that to sink in. “Those men knew we weren’t from around here. Do you know how easy it will be for them to find out where we live?” He snapped his fingers. “A two-minute phone call, and they’ll be in Maine by tomorrow, if they aren’t there already. And from what those guys told me, you and Asher didn’t hide how you felt about each other.”

  A lightbulb went off. “They’ll be looking for me in Blackwell Falls.” Another horrible thought followed, and I stared at Gabe helplessly. “Oh God. My family.”

  He reached across the table and grasped my forearm when I tried to stand. “They’re safe. I spoke to Lottie this morning and she checked on them. Your dad is at work, and your mom and Lucy are at home.”

  I sank back into my seat with a thud, and he let me go.

  “You can’t go home. The second you show up there, your family ends up being collateral.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, thinking. “Won’t they attack my family to draw me out?”

  “Not if they know you’re here. You’re going to show yourself just long enough to get their attention. And then you have to go back to your grandfather’s.”

  Gabe sipped his coffee like he hadn’t dropped a series of bombs on my head.

  “Are you crazy?” I exploded. I wasn’t ready to take the Protectors on again. And I refused to chance leading them to my grandfather’s doorstep.

  “I didn’t say you should invite them into your grandfather’s home, but you have to admit, the old man has done a good job at keeping his people hidden from our kind. They’re better equipped to keep you safe right now.”

  My grandfather had said the same thing when he tried to persuade me to stay with him. He’d also told me that I would put my friends in danger if I went near them. My family was the only good thing left in my life. Without them, I really was alone. What if I never saw them again? Could I give them up when I’d just found them? The bigger question, though, was whether I would risk getting them killed so I could keep them.

  I sagged in defeat. No.

  “I won’t hide forever,” I whispered to Gabe, giving in to the inevitable. “I’m going to find those men and make them sorry for what they did to Asher.”

  “And I’ll be at your side when you do,” Gabe said. “You have my word.”

  I can do this. For them, I can do this.

  Gabe backed off to give me privacy as I dialed my house on his mobile phone. We’d paused in the park. The sun had come out, and people had crowded onto the green lawns with their blankets and Frisbees and laughter.

  I gripped Gabe’s phone and prayed Lucy wouldn’t pick up. I wasn’t sure I could do this if I spoke to her.

  After two rings, my father answered. “Hello.”

  “Dad?” My voice shook, and I touched a finger to my quivering lip.

  “Remy? Hey, sweetheart! How are you? Are you having fun out there? We can’t wait for you to come home. We’re all coming to the airport to pick you up on Sunday.”

  He sounded so pleased to hear from me. It almost broke my resolve. Then I felt Gabe’s bracing hand on my shoulder, and I steeled myself against my grief.

  “That’s kind of what I’m calling you about. I’m not coming back.”

  Silence greeted me on the other end of the line, and then my father said, “You’re staying longer?”

  I ducked my head to hide behind my hair. “No, Dad. I’m not coming back. My grandfather asked me to live with him, and I’ve decided it’s the best thing for everyone.”

  That was the truth, and I held on to that.

  “Remy, why are you doing this? Did I do something wrong? I’ve made so many mistakes, but I’ve been try—”

  My stomach ached at the worry in his voice, and I cut him off.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. It was too much. With everything that’s happened with my mom and Dean, there are too many memories. I just need a fresh start. Please don’t be mad at me.”

  “I’m not mad,” he answered and he didn’t sound mad. He sounded sad and hurt. “I don’t really have a right to be mad, d
o I?”

  You do have the right. My father blamed himself for abandoning me to everything that Dean had put my mother and me through. My leaving would make him think I blamed him, too.

  “Will you tell Laura and Lucy good-bye for me?”

  “You should talk to them. They’re going to be hurt if you don’t.”

  “I can’t,” I choked out.

  “Where should I send your things? Are you coming home to get them? What about the Mustang?”

  “Keep it. I don’t need anything,” I said.

  More quiet. “You know, I have some vacation time. We could always come visit you. I could bring your things.”

  “No. I have to go.”

  “Wait!” he shouted. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? What’s going on? Talk to me, sweetheart.”

  He sounded heartbroken and desperate. I’d made my father sound like that. Gabe squeezed my shoulder. I was doing the right thing. My father would tell people I wasn’t coming back. Word would get out that I’d left them all, and the Protectors would have no reason to attack my family.

  “I love you, Dad,” I whispered. “All of you. Thank you for giving me a home. Take care of each other.”

  Then I hung up, severing the last tie to anything that mattered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hanging up on my father had finally flipped off the part of me that wouldn’t stop crying. A person could only take so much pain before they shut down, and I’d reached that point. A kind of inability to feel anything settled over me. I embraced it.

  Gabe and I took a train to the city. On the way, he called Lottie and told her to hide out in case the Protectors came looking for the Blackwells. He wanted our enemies to believe that the Protectors had left Blackwell Falls, along with the town Healer. After he said good-bye, we stared out opposite windows in silence. I had nothing to say.

  In San Francisco, we exited the BART train station, and Gabe hailed us a cab. He ordered the driver to let us out several streets over from my grandfather’s house in the Presidio. The cab drove off, and I faced Gabe on the sidewalk.