“Your Healer, if Fate allows.”
How was I losing so much ground? I wasn’t the kind of girl to make out in the backseats of cars; I had more self-control than that. After ripping my hand away from, I reached around the chair seat, found the release knob, and then pulled it. After opening the door, I crawled out the car and then slammed the door shut even though I didn’t exactly want to leave.
Jace was out of the car and in front of me before I’d gotten the chance to look back. He walked me backwards, sandwiching me between him and the cold side of the car. His hips pressed into mine. A sense of eagerness, engulfed in agitation, overpowered my own hostility. It was like his feelings had mixed with my emotions.
“A Healer who has a knack at seduction?” I gasped, pushing his hard chest away to regain ability to breathe and think.
My hands tingled after pushing him; my body warmed in a way I didn’t know was possible in real life. I couldn’t look anywhere but at his dark eyes. They looked like black holes in his white outline.
“Why do you insist on doing, the exact opposite, of what you feel, Gwyneth?” The way he spoke, pausing at odd times in his rant, reminded me of the song I heard in my visions. It resembled the way he spoke in the foreign language. It was like the rest of the world fell deaf – only Jace and I existed. The promise of an everlasting passion sounded too good to be true. “You want me, so take me. I’m yours. You only need to give yourself up to me first.”
“I don’t trust you farther than I can see you,” I said and then closed my eyes.
When he lifted my chin, I thought he’d try to kiss me. Instead he held me, unmovable. Jace was silent, calculating my response. I wanted to smack myself. He’d picked up on the fact that I could see him and Marco with my eyes wide shut.
“Curious phrasing, dearest; I know the world is more than shades of gray as you see it,” Jace said.
That cleared my head. I’d only told him that in my dreams. “How do you know how I see?”
“Give yourself to me, and I’ll show you a world you cannot possibly imagine.”
His hot breath hit my lips. I fought the urge to stand on my tip-toes and close the gap. I wanted to believe him. I needed to believe him, which was exactly why I turned my head away. I wanted it too desperately.
“Don’t be cruel, Jace. You can’t fix me.”
“I’m never cruel to someone who can see truth through eyes like yours,” he said, “Look at me, dearest. Let me open your eyes to my world. Let me bring you back to the world you once ruled.”
“If you want me to believe you can do something so impossible like give me back my sight, then tell me what you are,” I said, and twisted out of his grasp. The burning on my hand never left, even out of his embrace. Instead it became more unbearable not to be close to him.
“I told you,” he said.
“A Healer is a little vague, isn’t it?” I said, walking away from him. “You could’ve said you are a pharmaceutical rep, a medical doctor, or a mad scientist – anyone with any sort of specificity. But no, you chose to answer me with a Healer. Thanks for the clarity.”
“I’m forbidden to utter a word of my origin.”
“You ask me to believe something as impossible as giving me back my sight. Surely you must understand how Frankenstein-ie that sounds to me.”
“Frankenstein-ie?”
“I made a word up, so sue me.” The further I walked, the more I wanted to turn around and run into his arms. I half expected him to chase after me.
“If you come to me willingly, I’ll owe you.”
The proximity he was to me startled me, since I never heard him. The normal sound of a footstep never gave me any indication he was near, yet his voice sounded like he was right behind me.
I picked up my pace. “I can’t trust you. You can’t even promise that you won’t kill me.”
“Your older sister would call you a fool for walking away from me,” he said. “The younger one would probably find this all too hilarious, but even she wouldn’t deny that I was trustable.”
I stopped instantly and closed my eyes. Jace’s outline shimmered in the night’s sky; he was in front of me – not behind me now. He towered over me by nearly a foot, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if his muscles bulged under his thin shirt. I didn’t care if I felt the slightest beginning of adoration that I couldn’t explain. I didn’t care if I wanted to kiss him more badly than anything I’d ever felt. At that moment, I only cared about one thing, and I refused to take it lightly – my family’s death.
“Correction, I have one sister, and she’s rotting away in a grave next to my parents.”
“Lily isn’t your only sister.”
I jabbed him in his absurdly lean stomach. He didn’t move. I side-stepped him and walked toward the building. If he said anything, I didn’t hear it.
I walked inside Circus. The aroma of fresh popcorn bombarded my sense of smell. The lights were dimmed, which meant I couldn’t recognize the shapes of objects or people very well. People were screaming, cheering, laughing, and complaining. The sounds dulled my sense of hearing. Being stripped of my most reliable sense was why I hated large, dark, crowded places.
“Where’s Jace?” Bree asked, when I found her and Ryker cuddling next in a booth in the far corner of the building.
“He had an unfortunate consequence of my fist slamming into his gut and decided to leave me the hell alone.”
“I can’t take you anywhere,” Bree mumbled, not trying to keep me from noticing her humiliation of having a friend who was incapable of playing nice with boys. From her comment to Ryker, she was acting as if my behavior was inappropriate. Jace certainly couldn’t do anything wrong in her eyes.
“Could you be a gent and get Bree another Coke?” I asked.
Ryker hesitated before leaving. I could almost see his thought process – make some snide remark to get me going like always or put up a good show and pretend his was the nicest boyfriend in the world for Bree’s sake. After he slid out of the booth, I took his spot next to Bree. The vinyl slid against my pants easily.
“Next time you try hooking me up with someone –”
“Sorry for bringing you on a double date with the hottest guy in school,” Bree interrupted. “You’re right, I’m a terrible friend.”
“How does he know about Lily?” I demanded.
Bree was utterly quiet; only the sounds of games blowing up and alarms sounding at the triumph or demise of the video games echoed in my ears. “I didn’t tell him. Honestly, he asked about your family, but I seriously didn’t spill, for real. You know that information is in the newspapers.”
My cell vibrated; I answered it on the third ring. I couldn’t help to smile slightly when Hector greeted me. He always knew when I needed him. It was like he was tapped into my mental state. There were times like this I thought he might be psychic.
“Are you at some kind of rock concert?” Hector asked. “I can barely hear you.”
“No, I’m at Circus, sitting close to the speakers. I swear their goal is to make everyone deaf!” I said. The distain was clear in my voice. “I’m on a date with Bree and Ryker playing the part of the third wheel.”
“That was your choice,” Bree chimed. “Jace would have made great company.”
I covered the receiver with my hand. “Yes, because a walk down murderous memory lane, with him would have been so fun.”
“Need a rescue?” Hector asked.
“You have no idea,” I said.
“You’re thirty-seven seconds from bailing on me,” Bree said. “I don’t expect you to stay, but you have to cover for me. I haven’t been alone with Ryker in over a week!”
I sighed. She was right. I wasn’t really mad at her. It was Jace. I mouthed “I’m sorry. I’ll cover for you.”
Hector picked me up and brought me to my favorite coffee store. The comforting smell of a fresh brewed cup of joe lingered in JJ’s Coffee Shop even late into the night. I slid into a booth, kicked my
feet up on the cushion across from me.
“I can wait here all night, Winnie. What’s troubling you?” he said, taking a drink.
“Jace is a lunatic! The other day he confiscated Stella, which I found on my driveway later. I think he was testing my ability to get around blind. He’s obsessed with my vision.”
“Creeper,” Hector agreed. “But it’s better than the alternative. He could be obsessed with other body parts. He could be an Edgar Allan Poe wanna-be.”
I laughed nervously, “Yeah, hacking me up into little pieces and burying them in the floor board like Poe isn’t ideal.”
“Do you fear him?”
That question stopped me short. Jace was daunting, over-confident, and incessant. I was afraid of him, so why was I giving him so many second chances? I needed to find a way to drive a stake between us and that meant Bree couldn’t be so infatuated with him. It was a battle I wasn’t sure I’d win since Bree was the definition of “boy-crazy.”
“Could you take a peek at our security system? I think Jace and his friend might have hacked it somehow,” I said not wanting to mention the part about him telling me he’d only kill me if I begged him. I didn’t particularly want to dwell on that statement too much.
Hector weighed my words. “It’s not really my expertise, but I could probably take a look at it just in case I see something obvious. Is there any reason this Jace fellow is watching you so intently?”
“He seems rather interested in my family.”
“Bree told him what happened, didn’t she?”
“She wouldn’t out me like that, unless Jace stripped for the info,” I said and took another drink of my coffee. “She treats him like he’s the hottest thing that walked the Earth – like a god even, but no, she swore she didn’t tell him anything about that night.”
“Is he a god? I mean, do you find him attractive?”
I nearly choked. It was the furthest question I expected him to ask. “You’re not listening to me, Hector. He knows something about me, about my family. Jace said my sisters trusted him.”
“You only had one,” Hector said, analyzing my predicament. “It troubles you that he knows you had a sister who died, but what’s really bothering you is that he got the number wrong, isn’t it?”
He knew me too well. Everyone and their dog knew I was the poor little blind orphan girl whose family was murdered. That Jace was positive I had more than one sister bothered me because it gave me a false sense of hope. Did I still have living relatives, or were they taken from me that rainy night too?
“Want my advice?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t be telling you all of this if I didn’t.”
“Find out why he thinks you have more than one sister. Encourage him. Either he knows something about your family, or he’s grabbing at straws. Quite possibly, it’s nothing but a guy pining for your affection, but if there’s a slim chance he knows where your siblings are relocated, it’d be a chance I’d take.”
I asked, “Do you think I actually have more than one sister?”
“Sorry, blondie,” Hector said. “But this Jace character thinks you do, and probably won’t leave you alone until proven otherwise.”
“You say that like you know from personal experience.”
“Let’s just say I’ve had my fair share of stalkers.”
Finishing my coffee, I declined Hector’s offer to drive me home. Walking in the dark didn’t exactly instill much confidence I’d get home safe, but I needed time to think. The cool breeze had transformed into a cold wind. Hugging myself, I paced quickly down the sidewalk, with Stella stretched outward. The night was getting colder so I couldn’t wander the streets forever, even if I owed Bree a night out with her boyfriend. Then I remembered that I’d cracked my window open. I hadn’t climbed the tree in years, but it was a shot to slip inside my room and buy Bree more time with Ryker. I owed her that much.
“Anything,” I said, looking into his chocolate brown eyes.
“Give me a second chance to make this right,” he begged as smoke seeped from his skin. “Give me a second chance to be with you like we once were.”
“You wish for my immortality,” I said, stroking his thumb with my gnarled hand. My old body scarcely obeyed my command. I wanted to rest, needed it. The thread of my life was unraveling while his was as strong and youthful as ever. It was cruel in more ways than one.
He held my face in his hand, comforting me. “I want your immortality and for you to have what you and the humans used to have.”
“You only get one request, and you have to be willing to kill me for it,” I said and guided his hand over my chest. The knife skimmed my skin, but it was enough to tear it open.
“Living as an immortal in this body would be more like a curse than a gift,” he said. The regret in his eyes was already evident. “I want you to have the opportunity to be what you once were, before she took it.”
I missed a step as the vision faded. I walked the rest of the way home and tried not to think about what I just foresaw, my abnormal gift, or anything important. I didn’t want to know my death. The future wasn’t meant to be seen. The truth scared me. Would I react differently because of what I foresaw? Could I prevent or change it? Or was I just a few years from wearing a straight-jacket?
Folding up my stick, I walked carefully to the tree outside my window. Years ago, unwanted children built a tree house. I tested the first two-by-four step. It held. I carefully climbed each step, reminding myself that I owed Bree. Even if I didn’t like Ryker, she did, and asked me to cover for her.
Climbing up the sawed off two-by-fours, I made my way up the steps into the tree house. I slid my shoes off and left them on the broken floorboards. Scurrying across the old tree branch, I pretended not to notice how it cracked with my weight as I came within a foot of my window. Sitting on the edge of the branch, I braced my weight with my feet and slowly managed to slither inside my room without alerting the entire neighborhood. I breathed a sigh of relief that the branch hadn’t broken.
For the rest of the night, I had to be careful not to step on any of the squeaky floor boards. Leaning against my wooden bedroom door, I listened for any acknowledgement of my presence downstairs. I gasped in disbelief hearing his laugh. The smooth vibrations of Jace’s voice were so attractive – too attractive. I cracked the door open to hear their conversation.
“–moved here a couple weeks ago,” Jace said. From the projections of his voice, he must be near the front door. “I never thought I’d be sitting next to a goddess who was so adamant about never accepting a helping hand.”
“That she is,” Martha admitted. “She’s come a long way and should count her lucky stars that she has someone as nice as you to care about her.”
“Just do me a favor,” Jace asked smoothly, and my hand began to tingle like it had when he kissed it. “Don’t let her know I was here. I don’t want her thinking it was a handout, or she’d never take it; especially since I’m sure she’s heard the rumors that I’m… financially well off.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The moon’s light shone through my open window, illuminating a light silhouette. A young man sat on the edge of my windowsill. Hoping that I’d imaged it, I blinked a couple times. The two people I’d seen outside the windows earlier couldn’t have been all by chance. I was constantly being watched, but by friend or foe? My heart skipped a beat as his familiar warmth passed over me, which calmed me, but was accompanied by his anger too. It prickled my skin. I closed my eyes. Jace’s clearly defined outline stretched around him as it poured like smoke into my room.
“You cry in your sleep,” Jace whispered.
I sat up and nonchalantly covered my pillow. The feathers had absorbed my tears. Times like today, it would have been easier if I were in a coffin next to my family.
Jace whispered my name so softly it felt like he’d caressed my soul with his voice. “You’ve been screaming to the heavens for years too, haven’t you?”
I cle
nched my teeth, willing my swollen eyes not to flood with more pointless tears. I buried my own suffering deep in my soul. He acted like he knew me for years when we’d only just met a month ago. He hadn’t earned the privilege of seeing me cry about lost loved ones. As often as he picked up on the feelings I’d broadcasted, I hoped he didn’t acknowledge the grief still alive in my broken heart. The sense of loss had consumed my life for as long as I could remember.
He moved from the windowsill like he was going to comfort me when the floor creaked by my bedroom door. I tore my gaze away from Jace for a split second to look at the door. After I saw Elsie’s dark shadow, I looked back at the windowsill that Jace had been perched on. The window was now closed; Jace was gone.
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