Touched (Sense Thieves)

by Corrine Jackson

  My body ignored logic and reacted to Brandon’s embrace with pure instinct.

  My head shot up and butted him in the chin. His head snapped back with the blow, and his large body fell sideways, the back of his head hitting the cement siding. With a loud splash, he toppled into the water.

  Reason returned as drops of water sprayed me. Brandon didn’t surface, and my fear shifted into something darker as I saw him unconscious and sinking. A brief glance around the room found it empty.

  “Help! Somebody help!” I screamed with frantic desperation. Nobody answered my yell for help, and I knew I was on my own.

  “Oh, God, help me please,” I whispered and dove in after Brandon.

  He rested at the bottom of the deep end, his eyes closed and limp arms floating. I kicked as hard as I could until I could grab him.

  When I wrapped a hand around his arm, blue sparks shot from my skin to his as my body attempted to heal him. I’d forgotten how instantaneous my body’s reaction could be to injuries and hadn’t bothered to shield myself. Brandon was drowning and now, I was, too, because I couldn’t separate his wounds from my own. His lungs filled with water. My mouth was tightly closed, but still I felt heaviness invading as the water began to fill my own chest. Lights gleamed a few short feet above my head, but they might have been the stars, so far were they out of my reach.

  I wouldn’t let Brandon drown without trying to save him, and I couldn’t pull him up on my own.

  We would both die.

  Defeated, my lungs ached as my air ran out. Seconds away from opening my mouth to breathe in, I glimpsed a body diving through the water above me. Asher. His eyes narrowed as he kicked his way toward me faster than should have been physically possible. I sensed his wall go up before he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and another around Brandon’s. Placing both feet on the bottom of the pool, he shoved off and sent all three of us rocketing upward.

  My head cleared the surface, and I choked up chlorinated water as Asher dragged both Brandon and me to the edge of the pool. He knocked my hand from Brandon’s arm with an almost violent move in the process. Just like that, I could think again.

  Hank, the pool superintendent, who closed the community center every night—a kind man in his sixties—helped pull Brandon over the lip of the pool onto the concrete floor as Asher lifted him. Then, Asher launched himself out in one lithe movement and reached back to haul me out. Unlike the effort Brandon had required, Asher placed his hands under my arms and picked me up as if I were a child instead of a gangly girl two inches shy of six feet.

  He didn’t put me down, either.

  He cradled me against him with his arms wrapped around my back and my feet dangling in the air. We were both dripping wet, but my chilled body warmed wherever he touched me. Red-hot fire spread when one of Asher’s large hands slipped into my hair to press my face into his shoulder, and I welcomed the heat.

  We might have stayed that way forever if Brandon’s coughing hadn’t pulled me back to awareness. I pushed against Asher’s shoulders until he set me down. We moved to where Hank had turned Brandon on his side. Semiconscious, Brandon was choking up a gallon of chlorinated water, and blood stained the puddle of water by his head. Hank told us to stay with Brandon while he ran to the office to call an ambulance.

  Asher clasped my hand in an unbreakable grip when I reached out to touch Brandon. I peered up into his grim eyes; he looked scared and unmovable as he shook his head at me.

  Hoping it looked believable, I smiled to reassure him. “Let me go.”

  “Your guard will be down. What if I . . .”

  “Go if you have to, but don’t try to stop me.”

  Asher didn’t respond. I tugged on my hand, and a long moment later, he released me. I sensed him reinforcing the barrier in his mind. “Make sure Hank doesn’t see,” I whispered.

  Touching Brandon’s shoulder lit a current of energy that poured through me to him. The healing that had begun six feet underwater continued as if it hadn’t been interrupted by our near drowning. His lungs would be okay: He’d thrown up most of the water and breathed in rough gasps. His chin sported a red bruise from my blow, and a small cut bled on the back of his head from hitting the lip of the pool. These wounds healed with ease, but his concussion worried me.

  I’d never done well with Anna’s head injuries. They hurt like hell and created such mental confusion and distress, I often couldn’t heal myself for hours afterward. Gritting my teeth, I strained to relax. Closing my eyes, I pictured the wound and then imagined the swelling dissipating. From a distance, I heard Hank returning and Asher shifting to hide me from his view.

  Having done all I could, my hand fell from Brandon and my eyes opened to see the familiar blue sparks. They’d faded when Brandon opened his eyes. My sigh of relief was palpable when he focused on me. I struggled to appear normal as my vision clouded, and my brain threatened to explode out of my skull. He blinked at me with concern and said, “Remy? What happened? You okay?”

  Leaning forward, I rested my aching forehead against my friend’s and shivered with the aftermath of the healing. “Sure, Brand. The next time you want to drown, though, you better make sure there’s a good swimmer around. Asher had to pull us both out.”

  Brandon rubbed a gentle hand on my arm to chafe some warmth into me. “What happened? I was helping you out of the pool and . . .”

  “It was my fault. I took a trip down memory lane and panicked.” His eyes widened in comprehension. He’d seen the bruises on my face my first week in town. Lucy had to have told him something about why I’d moved to Blackwell Falls, but he’d never questioned me. I felt another surge of affection for this boy I’d almost killed with my loss of control. Ashamed, I squeezed my eyes closed against the humiliation. “I’m so sorry, Brandon.”

  I’d been kidding myself to think I could fit in, could be accepted.

  He shocked me when he sat up and hugged me, carefully placing his hands high on my back. “For what? You’re always smacking me upside the head for being an idiot. I’m sure you owed me for all the times I’ve checked you out in that bikini when you weren’t paying attention.” To prove it, he leered at me.

  With a tiny laugh, I returned his hug.

  Then, the EMTs were running in to check him over, and I reassured them I was fine. When I stood, the pain radiating from my head made me stagger like Dean on a drunken tear, and my stomach roiled with nausea. Asher said something to the group, and his voice came from a long distance. He steered me to the locker room, staying at my back to shield me from the EMTs, while my body shuddered uncontrollably. As soon as I entered the locker room, I ran to a bathroom stall to empty my stomach in the toilet.

  I sank back on my heels to wait for the pain to ease to a manageable level. Asher had propped me up with an arm around my shoulder and held my hair away from my face.

  “Remy, your head’s bleeding.”

  My fingers came away red when I touched the throbbing spot at the back of my head. Disoriented, I stared at the blood and thought, Damn, that hurts.

  Asher’s laugh sounded shaky. “Do you feel sick still? Can you stand up?”

  I winced. “I think so. You mind getting my bag out of my locker while I rinse out my mouth?”

  After helping me to my feet, he retrieved my bag and waited outside the stall while I changed into street clothing. He left once to check on Brandon at my request and returned in a dry set of clothes someone had loaned him. The EMTs couldn’t find anything wrong with Brandon since he didn’t even have a bruise to show for his fall. They’d called his parents, but it didn’t look like a trip to the hospital would be necessary. Asher had told Brandon I’d call him tomorrow.

  Asher helped me rinse the worst of the blood out of my hair and dried the long strands with a towel as best he could. I couldn’t bear to pull my knit cap on, even if my wet hair would be exposed to the frigid night air. Asher watched with concern as I arranged my hair in a loose braid and helped me into my coat. Exhausted n
ow, it occurred to me that Laura should have arrived by now to pick me up.

  “I don’t have a ride,” I said, stumbling to a stop.

  Asher steered me to the door. “I called Lucy earlier and asked her to let Laura know I’d drive you home.”

  The idea of getting on his motorcycle now sounded like pure, unholy torture. I pictured us hitting a bump and the jolt of pain that movement would set off in my body.

  “I have my car. This way.”

  We walked out of the community center into the cold, and my trembling worsened. He rushed to open the passenger door of a sleek, navy sedan and helped ease me in. I sank into the seat and closed my eyes while he started the car, turning the heater up full blast. We drove in silence to my house where he parked on the street in the halo of a streetlamp. He cut the headlights, but left the engine running so the heat continued to pour through the vents.

  Asher reached for my hand, twisting his fingers through mine. “Why are you shivering so badly?”

  “H-h-heat leaves body. W-w-worse with head injuries.” The full aftereffects of a complex healing had set in, and shudders wracked my body. Experience told me nothing could be done but try to stay warm and wait them out.

  Asher’s shadowed face was impossible to read in the dim light of the car. Without warning, he shoved his seat back and lifted me across the console onto his lap. Something warm—his coat—wrapped around me as he cradled me. His hand spread over the back of my neck, and my cold nose pressed into his scratchy wool sweater. He smelled like Blackwell Falls, a natural mixture of salty air and the woods, and his heart beat double-time beneath my ear.

  “Relax,” he breathed, as if I had the strength to fight him. “We’re calling a truce until you get warm.”

  His heat felt delicious, and after several long minutes my shivering tapered off. The last hour had drained me physically and mentally. My defenses had been stripped since before he’d shown up to save me, but he’d kept his raised. I pulled back to study his square jaw, shadowed with dark whiskers. It felt nice not to have to be the responsible one for the moment. I wouldn’t be able to stop him if he did attack me now, anyways.

  He groaned and dragged a hand over his face. “Geez, Remy. I’m not a saint.”

  Still disoriented, I asked, “What are you talking about?”

  He froze and dropped his hand, refusing to look at me. “Never mind.”

  He appeared so upset that I let it go. “Asher, what were you doing at the pool?”

  “I planned to warn you off my brother, even though I know you made that comment to provoke me. But the truth is I was jealous.”

  Even in the shadows his expression looked hard, and I believed him. The darkness wound around us, inviting us to share our secrets.

  “Of Gabe?” I asked. “You’re right. I said he interested me to irritate you. I don’t have any intention of going near your brother.”

  “I know. I meant Brandon.”

  Surprised, I tilted my chin to see his face better. “Why would you be jealous of Brandon?”

  “After I got over being angry at you for taunting me with Gabriel—thanks for that, by the way—it occurred to me that maybe there was someone else. I asked around and found out you’ve been spending a lot of time with Brandon here at the pool. You seem . . . close.”

  Green eyes gleamed when he finally looked down at me. He was jealous. My heart thudded against my ribs. “Oh. He’s my friend. A good friend.”

  The clipped edge to his voice betrayed his anger. “I got that distinct impression when you were willing to die for him. What were you thinking, Remy?”

  He’d returned to insulting me. My voice sounded thick as I tried to put some space between us. “I was thinking my friend would drown if I didn’t try to save him.”

  “Why didn’t you let go of him when you realized you couldn’t pull him up?”

  “I couldn’t—”

  One hand slammed the steering wheel, and he glared at me. “Of all the stupid, reckless actions . . .”

  “If you’d shut up, I’ll explain.”

  The dark muttering halted, and I continued, “When I touched him to pull him out of the water, his wounds jumped out and grabbed me. It was like I was drowning, too, and I couldn’t save myself.”

  His hollowed cheekbones worked as his jaw clenched. “Has that happened before?”

  “Not that bad,” I whispered. “I’ve never been in a situation where someone else’s injuries could put my life in jeopardy before I could heal myself.”

  It was odd talking about this, especially while resting in his arms. These were my deepest secrets that not even my mother knew.

  “You take on whatever illness or injury you heal?” He sounded horrified to have his theory confirmed.

  I rolled my head away to stare out the windshield. “But you already guessed that.”

  “And the pain? Do you take that as well?”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  Asher remained silent for a full minute taking that in. Then he sucked in a shaky breath, and I knew comprehension had dawned when he shook me lightly. His voice burned with raw emotion. “My hand. You healed my hand. I would never . . . I would never have asked.... What were you thin—Why would you do that, Remy? Why?”

  “You were hurt.”

  He laughed with disbelief. “I was hurt? Are you crazy? You let your guard down, knowing you would take on that pain, and I let you do it. And then, I thanked you for it by attacking you.”

  I needed distance to think. When I pushed against his chest, he seemed to understand and helped shift me back into the passenger seat. The cold returned without the warmth of his body against me, until he tucked his jacket around me again. I almost regretted moving. Dangerous or not, Asher was the first person to take care of me after a healing.

  His jaw tensed, and his eyes took on a flinty look.

  I hadn’t answered him and didn’t know what to say.

  In a flat tone, he said, “Did it ever occur to you that I’m not like you? That, in fact, I’m the opposite of you? You feel too much. Your power even works by feeling—by touching.”

  “And yours doesn’t?”

  “Remy, I can’t feel anything. This car, the water in that pool, my wet hair, the air coming out of that vent.”

  My body stilled. “I don’t understand. You were in pain when you burned your hand. You can’t deny that.”

  “I’m not denying it.”

  Frustration sharpened my tone. “You’re not making any sense. Either you feel things or you don’t. When you’re touching me, you . . .”

  I remembered how he’d looked on the beach. How he looked at school. Laughing and surrounded by people, he somehow managed to look alone. Detached. Unreachable.

  Until I lowered my defenses and sent my energy arcing at him. Until he touched me.

  Then he looked in pain.

  I shifted in my seat until I faced Asher.

  He reacted with a humorless laugh as if he could see my expression in the shadows. “Got it in one. I don’t feel anything, except when you’re near me.”

  “How can that be?” I whispered.

  As if he spoke to himself, his voice lowered. “I’m walking on the beach, and you appear out of nowhere looking so damned fragile. I wanted to know who had hurt you, to tear them apart. When I took your picture, I hoped you would look up and speak to me. Instead, you came after my camera, and I realized how wrong I’d been. You may have been covered in bruises, but I would never call you frail. You’re a warrior, Remy, and I had to know you.”

  “But something changed. I felt you change.”

  “You’re right. Until that moment when you dropped your defenses, and I felt your power, I didn’t know what you were. I could’ve killed you. You’re my enemy.”

  He used the present tense. He still considered me an enemy, after everything that had happened. “You started this,” I snapped. “Why keep coming after me? Why follow me here tonight if I’m from the dark side?”
/>   “Curiosity? You’re not like other Healers.”

  He shrugged, and I wanted to punch him. My emotions had been stuck in a spin cycle, and he’d simply been curious about my abilities. “Really? Then, why jump in the pool after me? That’s taking curiosity to an extreme, don’t you think?”

  His eyes dropped. “I reacted without thinking. When you’re near, I feel too much. I didn’t want to give that up, but it has to stop now. You’re affecting my judgment, and I can’t have that. I’m not the only one involved here.”

  His family, he meant. He wanted to protect his family. I couldn’t blame him since my priorities were the same.

  “So what now?” I asked. “We tried ignoring each other. That worked out really well.” I waved a hand around to encompass the both of us sitting in his car, our hair still wet from the pool.

  “I’ll make it work. We have no choice.”

  “We have a choice,” I said. Neither of us was willing to risk our families, though, to choose differently.

  He turned, and I sucked in a breath at the rage I saw staring back at me. “Don’t you get it, Healer? I still could kill you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The shivering started again, but it had nothing to do with being cold. Enemies and killing. The entire conversation sounded bizarre to my ears.

  “Didn’t you feel it on the beach when I tried to give you the film? I needed you to trust me because I intended to save you from whoever had left those marks on you. Then I felt it. Your power was there between us, and my body hurt. I experienced the first physical sensation I’d felt in years, and I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing hold of you to make it last. I don’t trust myself to keep my walls up.”

  Finally, an explanation. My voice came out a husky whisper. “If I hurt you, why try to be near me? Why would you want the pain to continue?”