Touched (Sense Thieves)

by Corrine Jackson

  I stood frozen, stunned at the abrupt change in him. The party continued around me, and I wondered if he blamed me for bumping into the boy. The scene replayed in my head and an alarm went off. His bare hand had pushed away a burning log.

  My brain shut off, and I acted on instinct, running toward where I’d last seen him. The back of his navy blue peacoat disappeared as he rushed up the path toward the top of the cliff, and I worried I wouldn’t catch him if he entered the tree line.

  “Asher!”

  His body froze long enough for me to catch up with him at the edge of the woods. He didn’t turn around or take his hands out of his pockets, so I circled around until I could see his unfocused eyes. His tanned face had turned ashen with pain and shock.

  Yearning to help him, my hand automatically stretched to touch him. It hung in midair when he twisted his shoulders out of my reach. The waxy expression of pain dissolved into the fury I’d seen simmering below the surface every time we talked. “Don’t!”

  “I can help you.”

  Asher’s bleak eyes shut me out. “You can’t! Don’t you get it? I don’t think I could stop myself from hurting you, and I’m not sure why I should even care.” Every word was forced through gritted teeth.

  That he understood what I could do should have sent shivers of fear down my back, but it didn’t. Better yet, his words sounded like a threat. A threat that the blond bimbo always ignored before the killer chopped her to pieces in the woods. I shivered, wondering why the hell I didn’t run for the nearest crowd. The answer was easy. When it came to healing, I got by on pure intuition. Who to heal, how to heal: I didn’t ponder these questions when someone was hurt. Besides, I would turn and fight before I let some wimp stalk me through a forest in a mask. Eager to get this over with, I felt calmer than I’d ever been near Asher.

  My jaw set. “You were hurt saving that boy from the fire. Let me help you.”

  Raw, humorless laughter cut through the air. “Who will save you from me if I let you?”

  Without waiting for my answer, he stepped around me and off the path until his body was one more shadow among the trees.

  I plunged in after him. “Asher, stop!”

  “Go back, Remy!”

  In seconds, he would be out of my sight, and I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Maybe he would attack me. He’d done it twice already, and I had no idea what would happen if he lost control. I remembered how hungry his energy felt and knew he could hurt me. Had hurt me. I should let him go. He could go to a doctor, and we could pretend this had never happened. I could walk out of the forest with a clean conscience.

  But my feet wouldn’t take that first step to the beach. My instincts hadn’t let me down before. That didn’t mean I wanted to chase him through the woods. I dropped my mental barricade and a current of energy spiraled inside me. I sent it unwinding toward Asher and knew the instant he felt it. It was a repeat of the first time I dropped my defenses to scan him at the beach. A wave of my energy sparked something in him, and his body went rigid. I held my breath and waited for his attack. When it didn’t come, I moved to his side.

  Asher refused to look at me, and he shook. In a hoarse voice, he asked, “Remy, what are you doing?”

  “Helping you whether you like it or not.”

  Circling around him for the second time, I wasn’t prepared for the hunger on his face. My heart stuttered, and I sucked air from malfunctioning lungs. Seeing my expression, his eyes squeezed shut, and he inhaled several deep breaths of his own. He remained in control, but just.

  Acting as if it were a normal thing to do, I ordered, “Give me your hand.”

  Green eyes opened to dangerous slits and his control slipped. Powerful energy unfurled toward me as if he would try to hold me hostage again.

  My eyes narrowed in warning. “Go ahead and test me. Imagine the pain you’re feeling doubled and tripled back on you.”

  He must have been in agony, because his energy turned off with startling abruptness. He grimaced, and I thought he muttered, “It might be worth it.”

  I ignored that and demanded, “Just give me your damn hand, already.”

  The corners of his mouth curved in a small, edgy smile, and he gave up. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and held it out to me.

  When I saw the damage, I couldn’t contain my gasp. The tender skin on the meaty flesh of his palm had blistered red and white and was charred black. Blood oozed in some spots where the burns were the worst. The wasted flesh smelled worse than it looked. I’d healed burns before, but never one this bad.

  My stomach flipped over, and I thought I’d be sick for a moment. I took another deep, calming breath through my mouth. My defenses would have to be down to heal him, and I couldn’t think too long about the fact that his wound would be mine because I didn’t know if I’d have the courage to continue.

  I eased my right hand on top of his burned palm, and the humming began. I listened to it start in my body, deep in my chest where my heart beat, and let it flow outward through my limbs and down my arm. It traveled through my palm and into his. He jerked and stilled as he gritted his teeth to contain his desire to push back at me, to hold me hostage again.

  Scanning him took longer than I’d thought it would.

  His body was different in ways I couldn’t begin to explain. The muscles, organs, and bones were all as they should be—healthy and working. Yet, they worked faster and harder than others I’d scanned, and he gave off more heat. The internal machinery felt human, but the gears were more efficient and fine-tuned. It was the difference between a performance BMW and a seventies clunker. I began to understand why his reflexes were so smooth and why he moved with confidence. I wondered if the differences were to do with his talents or for some other reason. The one thing I was sure about was that, at least on the inside, he was not like me.

  My discoveries were cast aside as my entire being became absorbed with healing his flesh and on soothing away the redness and hurt. Green sparks arced between our palms. Drained, my hand fell from his.

  The pain dropped me to my knees.

  I needed to heal my body, make the throbbing stop, but I couldn’t concentrate with the shrieking in my head. Incoherent screams threatened to slip out, and I bit my lip.

  “Remy?” The sound came from a long distance. “Remy, are you okay?”

  The voice anchored me. Whimpering, I said, “Give me a minute.”

  The continuous ribbon of syllables soothed me until I could gather enough of my mind together to concentrate. It wasn’t possible to heal the burn in my weakened state, but I could numb it. I shivered with cold and distress. What I did could be likened to cauterizing the tips of the wailing nerves so they couldn’t tell my brain about the excruciating pain.

  It worked. My body sank to the wet ground, and I curled in a ball in the snow, sweating and exhausted. A long time later awareness returned, and I felt a rough hand stroking my hair from my face. Heat fired where the hand touched my skin, but it didn’t hurt like it had that time on the patio. The warmth felt pleasant when a wintry breeze chilled my wet forehead. This wasn’t the best time to let my brick walls crumble. I was weak now, while Asher was strong. I wouldn’t be able to fight him off.

  He seemed to sense my anxiety, and his hand disappeared from my face as he backed away. A mental wall was up—his, not mine—and I blinked. He had a defense, too. My wall reined my power in, like a dam keeping my energy from spilling out to heal random strangers—or to keep someone like him from holding it hostage. I wondered how his worked because, for the first time, his touch hadn’t hurt me. His color should have been better, but his tanned face glowed white. Distracted, I frowned. Tell me I didn’t do that to myself for nothing.

  “You okay?”

  His deep laugh sounded shaky. “You’re asking me?”

  I nodded.

  The clipped tones returned. “I’m perfectly fine. It’s you I’m worried about. What happened?”

  So he didn’t know the trut
h. Only partial truth. He knew I could heal, but not what it did to me. I decided it would be better to keep that Achilles’ heel to myself but had to give him some answer.

  Shuddering, I sat up and told a half-truth. “Healing takes a lot of energy, that’s all.”

  He didn’t believe me and shook his head while shrugging off his jacket. “You’re lying. You were in pain. You shouldn’t have been. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

  The coat slipped around my shoulders, and I savored the banked fire from his body. I tucked my nose under the collar and breathed in his woodsy scent as I warmed at last.

  He was inflexible and wouldn’t give in until he knew the whole truth. Despite our momentary truce, telling him my secrets was unthinkable. I was curious if his mental wall worked like mine to block energy, but questions could reveal more about me than I wanted to share.

  Using the nearest tree trunk, I used my left hand to struggle to my feet, hoping he didn’t notice how I favored my right hand. I couldn’t risk him telling anyone what he knew about me. The little knowledge he had could ruin me, but I also had information about him that I doubted he’d want others to learn. Doctors and scientists would love to test his streamlined internal system, his over-efficient heart that pumped blood at twice the normal rate, as much as they’d want to test my ability to heal.

  In the distance, Lucy called my name, sounding worried as if she’d been searching awhile.

  “I’m okay, Lucy,” I shouted. “I’ll be right there.”

  She called back in relief.

  Sighing, I faced Asher, whose expression hadn’t changed. “I have to go.”

  Not one muscle moved, but I sensed his opposition. I wasn’t going anywhere until he allowed it. That sounded silly in my head, so I took a step away to test the theory, which he immediately matched with one of his own.

  The lethargy that followed a difficult healing settled into my limbs. I needed a bed quickly before I collapsed. Desperate, I pleaded, “Asher.”

  His face softened when I said his name, and his tense shoulders lowered a millimeter. There was another blur of movement, and he lifted me, cradling me against his chest as he walked toward the path. I should have been too heavy at my height, but he didn’t breathe harder with the effort of carrying me. I fought my body’s desire to relax into the heat, to put my head against his shoulder and sleep. I sensed that his wall remained up, but I wasn’t safe.

  “Why doesn’t it hurt when you touch me now?”

  He shook his head and didn’t answer. We didn’t speak until we saw the light of the bonfire bouncing off the trees.

  “Put me down, please. I don’t want to worry Lucy. I’m fine, really.”

  Asher set me on my feet as if I was fragile cargo, and I kept my right palm curled away from him. We stared at each other, neither of us wanting to spoil the peace with questions. His eyes traveled over my face taking in my exhaustion, and those full lips of his curled in a slight smile. “Go ahead and go. We’ll talk another time, Healer.”

  Knowing we would not talk again, I nodded and handed him his jacket.

  Perhaps that would have been the end of it if Lucy hadn’t called my name again from mere feet away where a grouping of trees hid her from view. The light from the bonfire flickered over my burnt hand when I turned toward her voice.

  Asher’s breath rushed out in an angry hiss, and I knew I was busted.

  I didn’t hesitate to shoot through an opening in the trees and into Lucy’s arms before his hand could close on my shoulder.

  Lucy eyes rounded in surprise when I ran into her, and then shock when Asher stepped from the woods right after me. Her arm wrapped protectively around me. I figured Asher wouldn’t want to give away my secret—our secret—in front of everyone. We were each safer keeping our mouths shut—a stalemate of sorts.

  I chattered to Lucy with forced cheer. “Hey, Luce. You mind if we go now? I’m exhausted, and it’s freezing out here.” My momentum forced her to move at my side when I started walking.

  Lucy gave me a suspicious look. “Sure. Everyone’s ready to go. We were waiting for you.”

  She bit back an incredulous laugh when I babbled on about how excited I was to go shopping the next day. We would be playing a game of twenty questions later, but that was better than playing games with Asher I feared I couldn’t win.

  With Lucy at my side, I felt secure enough to toss a smug, “’Night, Asher” over my shoulder. He stood where we’d left him, his expression black.

  I distinctly heard him growl with frustration.

  Lucy heard it, too. She tensed with shock until she felt my shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. “What was that about?”

  “I turned down an offer to ride his motorcycle. Dad’s heart, you know.”

  I bit my lip to keep a smile from surfacing, but Lucy saw it anyway.

  We grinned at each other. Then, we both laughed, and the sound echoed through the night air.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At home, I climbed the stairs with Lucy on my heels.

  My sister had kept the conversational ball rolling on the ride home to stall questions about what I’d been doing in the woods with Asher Blackwell. Lucy was quickly growing on me.

  I didn’t fight her when she pulled me into her room. She sat on the bed with her legs crisscrossed, and I lounged next to her. Her eyebrows rose and she eyed me like a stern parent.

  “Okay. Spill.”

  “About what?” It felt odd to tease someone, to be this close to another person. I liked it, even while my secrets weighed me down.

  One pink fingernail poked me in the chest and then picked a stray leaf out of my tangled hair. “Remy O’Malley, don’t even think you’re getting out of this. Sisters tell each other everything. You were in the woods tonight. With Asher Blackwell. Alone.”

  “And?” I smiled.

  She shrieked. “Oh. My. God. You’re. Dating. Asher. Blackwell. Dad is going to flip.”

  That sobered me, and I shook my head. “No, Luce. I was teasing. I swear I’m not dating Asher.”

  Her eyes squinted in suspicion. “Then, what were you doing in the woods with him? And someone said the two of you were looking pretty serious together down by the bonfire.”

  Someone had interpreted our intense behavior as attraction. I would have to keep my guard up around Asher in the future. “They were wrong. We were talking. I decided to go for a walk and got lost. Asher heard me calling out and helped me back to the path. The end.”

  I tried to stifle my guilt. That last bit was true at least.

  “Do you like him?” Lucy didn’t sound happy about the idea.

  Her question made me pause. Tonight, I’d seen another side of him. He’d helped save another, after he’d apologized to me. Later, when I had lowered my defenses to heal him, he hadn’t taken advantage of me. His abilities intrigued me, and it was far too tempting to spend time with someone that I didn’t have to hide from. He’d called me “Healer” like it was a title, not like he was talking about my power.

  And then there was his touch. I remembered his hands on me when he carried me. Even now, I could almost feel the fire dancing under my skin.

  Lucy giggled. “Your eyes went all blurry when you were thinking about him. I’d say it’s a safe bet you like him.”

  I grunted. My eyes went blurry? I decided to test her theory. “What about you? Do you like . . . Tim?”

  The room was silent for a long time as she pondered my question. When her eyes went blurry, I laughed.

  She shoved me. “Shut up, Remy.”

  Later, when the house slept, I slipped out of my bed and closed the door that led to the bathroom between my room and Lucy’s. It was time to get down to business while everyone slept. Asher thought my hand was damaged like his, but it had been dark, and I’d moved out of his line of sight as fast as I’d been able. If I could heal my hand before I saw him again, perhaps I could convince him it had been a trick of the light. Besides, I wouldn’t be abl
e to hide the injury while shopping with Laura and Lucy.

  Seated in the center of my bed, I concentrated until exhaustion made me dizzy. As I had with Asher, I let the current of energy curl through me and spiral down my right arm to my damaged hand. It took a full hour, but soon the blisters smoothed and the angry colors faded. The skin on my palm looked shiny and new.

  Relieved, I collapsed back into my pillows and slept.

  Ben woke me the next morning when he knocked and opened my bedroom door. He entered when he saw I had one eye open and trained on him.

  “Time to get up.”

  With a huge stretch, I sat up. “Is it time to go shopping?”

  He had a mug in one hand and passed it to me. His fingers brushed mine, and I noticed his heart arrhythmia had returned. Absently, I wondered at its cause and continual return even after I’d healed him, but nothing seemed to ail him that I could find.

  “Lucy and Laura are champing at the bit. I don’t think I can hold them back much longer. I saved a cup of coffee to give you strength.”

  Apparently, Ben and I had the same view about shopping. “I’ll be right down.”

  We shared a small smile, and he turned to leave.

  “Ben?”

  He paused and looked back over his shoulder.

  “Thank you for—” For what? Acting like my friend? For my sister who was becoming the best friend I’d ever had? For a safe home? For a kind stepmother who cared about my needs? My verbal dismount was as awkward as my beginning as I gestured to the coffee. “Well, for everything.”

  My father’s voice sounded rough. “You’re welcome, Remy. Anytime.”

  Shopping with Laura and Lucy was nothing like the loathsome task I’d expected. I let them go crazy picking out my new clothing, but I drew the line at exchanging my jeans for skirts. I had no objection to skirts, but no way would I wear anything that exposed my bare legs to icy temperatures. Later, Laura surprised me with a haircut and manicure.

  On the way home, I sat in the backseat of Laura’s Lexus SUV listening to her and Lucy talk. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed a classic black motorcycle parked next to Ben’s car.