Healing Heather

by Aiki Flinthart

  Torin swept the crowd shrewdly. ‘You sure? That’s more than half the team out of action until they get back.’

  ‘We’ll stay in the crowds. Carleton’s men won’t risk a big scene in this mess.’ Kade indicated the surrounding bypassers.

  Torin wavered then nodded and six of the team peeled off, disappearing into the chaos of noise, laughter and music. He jerked his chin at Heather and tapped his temple.

  She sought the minds she’d felt. ‘Still there. Somehow they know I’m here, not with the ones that left. But how?’

  Torin stiffened then swore. ‘Logan mentioned the Mors Ferrum were recruiting and brainwashing sidhe. He also said there was a tagging technique—I forget the name. Where a sidhe can attach a psychic tether of sorts and follow someone anywhere.’

  ‘But how?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t met any of Carleton’s men. Or even seen them.’

  ‘No,’ Torin replied grimly, ‘but I have. One of the bodyguards in my office today. Baker. The one you said had a shield. I felt the shock of recognition Logan described as a clue to meeting another sidhe. He must have tethered me. It’s me they’re following. They’re assuming I’ll stick close to you.’

  ‘Right,’ Kade said grimly. ‘Then you take Carmila. I’ll take Heather and Sara. If they follow you two, we know you’re right.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’ Torin asked.

  ‘Meet us at the MacDonalds across the way and we’ll try something else.’ Kade grabbed Heather’s wrist.

  She wrenched free and hissed, ‘Stop treating me like some stupid, helpless sidekick, Kade. I’ve been taking care of myself for years.’

  Kade shut his teeth with a snap. Carmila snorted.

  ‘She has a point, Kae,’ Torin said. ‘You are being a bit overprotective.’

  Kade flushed, his eyes haunted.

  Torin patted his shoulder. ‘Hey. I get it. But she’s not Amanda. Get Heather to the safe house. I’ll send men over later to stand watch. Go.’

  His jaw hard, Kade stalked away. Heather hurried after him, with Sara close behind.

  ‘It’s working,’ Torin’s voice sounded in Heather’s ear and she jumped. She’d forgotten about the comms earpiece. ‘Two are following you, Kade. The other four are still on me and Carmila. Luke and the others are splitting up to help.’

  ‘Roger,’ Kade muttered. ‘We’ll aim for the other end of the square and catch a cab from there. Hopefully, we’ll have shaken them by the time we get to the rank.’

  ‘We’ll do our best.’ That was Luke’s youthful voice.

  ‘Be careful, kid,’ Kade said.

  ‘Always.’

  Kade snorted and Heather sent him a quick, questioning look. Kade waved it away.

  ‘Sara?’ He addressed the remaining O’Connor Inc staffer with them. ‘When we get to that Starbucks, you peel off and see if you can draw one with you. If not, change clothes, meet with Luke, and circle back to take one out.’

  ‘Roger that,’ she acknowledged.

  Heather touched the woman’s arm. ‘Wait. One of the people following is a woman. If you change in the women’s bathroom she’ll follow you. Then you can put her out of action.’

  Sara sent Heather a look of shrewd interest and cocked her head at Kade, who shrugged.

  ‘You heard her,’ he said.

  ‘Yep.’ Sara shouldered her way through the crowd. Kade arched a brow at Heather.

  She grimaced. ‘I’m doing what I can to influence the woman’s thinking. It’s not easy without touching her, though.’ She stopped mid-stride. Reaching through the maelstrom of minds surging around her, she poured her focus into the woman’s thoughts, concentrating on one idea: the urge to follow Sara.

  The woman paused, then followed Sara into the Starbucks. Heather stumbled, sagging. Kade caught her under the elbow.

  ‘We have to keep moving,’ he muttered.

  ‘I know. It took more than I expected.’ She straightened. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Torin.’ Luke’s voice broke in on their comms. ‘Sara’s taken one out, and two more are dealt with. But there are five others. They must have called in reinforcements. Four are trailing Kade. Instructions?’

  Torin swore. ‘Kade, how far are you from the taxi rank?’

  Kade craned over the top of the crowds. ‘About eighty or ninety feet. Why?’

  ‘You need to get out of sight, fast.’

  ‘No.’ Heather stopped again, gritting her teeth. ‘That won’t help. They’ll keep coming and we might not see the ones who follow us to the safe house. We need to draw them out. Bring them to us, so you and the others can pick them off. I can point them out to you.’

  ‘Too risky,’ Torin argued

  ‘Agreed,’ Kade chimed in. ‘If they have trank guns they’ll put you down and we won’t be able to stop them.’

  ‘Not if we’re the centre of attention, they won’t,’ she said, grimly.

  Kade eyed her askance. ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘Wondering if you can sing or juggle?’ She tilted her head.

  He gaped. ‘What? No.’

  ‘Right. Argument it is.’ She faced him, hands on hips. ‘What? You’re sleeping with her?’ She slapped him, the sound cracking across the square and causing a hush to fall around them. People paused and a little circle of clear space expanded around them.

  Kade worked his jaw. But he picked up his cue.

  ‘Hey! You’re the one who threw me out last week. Where was I supposed to go?’

  ‘Oh!’ Heather flung her arms out. ‘I don’t know. Maybe your mother’s place, like you always do. But no, you had to go to my best friend! How could you?’ A gasp swept through the onlookers. More people crowded in. Phones came out to video.

  ‘Now, Torin,’ Heather muttered. ‘Man in the black hat and red scarf at my three o’clock. Woman in green at twelve. Man in grey with black earmuffs at ten.’

  ‘Got them,’ he replied in her earpiece.

  Kade stepped closer, glowering. ‘You said we were done. You said it was over. She hit on me, not the other way. Don’t you lay this on me!’

  Heather folded her arms. ‘So you’re completely unable to control yourself, are you?’

  He jabbed a finger at her. ‘Don’t talk to me about self-control. You’re the one making a scene in the middle of Times Square.’

  ‘Two down,’ Torin said. ‘Closing in on the woman in green.’

  Heather glanced over Kade’s shoulder. ‘Gun! She has a gun!’

  Her cry rippled through the crowd. People screamed and ran, tripping over each other, covering their heads. A child wailed. The woman in green took a bead on Heather. Kade imposed himself between them. The woman squeezed the trigger.

  Kade jerked and swore. Heather cried his name and wrapped her arms around his chest as he staggered. Torin and Luke tackled the woman and handcuffed her. The crowd dispersed, leaving Heather and Kade exposed.

  Kade let out a groan and his legs folded. Heather sagged beneath his weight. She lowered him to the ground on his stomach. A dart protruded between his shoulderblades. She stripped off a glove and felt his pulse. Steady, but slow. His eyelids drooped shut.

  Arms wrapped her in a bearhug from behind. She shrieked and tried to headbutt.

  Missed.

  She was yanked off her feet and dragged backward. Panic whited out sense. A grab at her attacker’s wrist failed. Her hands were lumps, fingers unwieldy, without power or strength. All her martial arts training vanished behind a fog of fear. His grip tightened and she struggled uselessly.

  Then her hand fell on bare skin and a kind of eerie calm blanketed her terror. Her assailant hauled her a few more steps, but Heather found her balance. With her palm on his arm, she sucked life from him.

  The taste of pine filled her mouth. Honeyed lightning slipped under her skin and into her flesh. Her bones ached with power and her body pulsed with strength.

  The man released her and folded at her feet.

  Now she burned inside with sticky-light
ning, needing to release it, unsure how or where.

  A short, dark-haired man stalked at her, his eyes hard. He touched his ear and spoke a quiet phrase. His hand slid to his hip and the bulge under his jacket.

  He grabbed Heather’s elbow. ‘Come quietly and your friends live.’

  Heather released the energy in one pulse. Sparks skittered across her skin and his. Energy crackled through the cold air and he flew backward. He landed on the hard concrete, limp and broken. Heather swallowed bile and surveyed the comatose men. Their lives were so fragile; so feeble. She shuddered and forced herself to run to Kade’s unconscious form.

  Torin appeared, looming over her, questions in his eyes.

  ‘He’s alive,’ she said. ‘Sedated. Can we get out of here?’

  His shoulders relaxed. He gestured to his people. ‘Luke, you and Sara get them to the safe house. The rest of us will tidy up and see if we can track Carleton’s other people. I doubt it, but we can at least make sure no-one follows you.’

  Luke heaved Kade across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. He pointed at a pair of police who ran their way.

  ‘You’d best deal with them, Boss,’ he said. He gestured for Heather to join him. ‘C’mon. Before they try to stop you for questioning.’

  With one last glance back at her brother, Heather followed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  KADE

  Kade awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling and unfamiliar sheets. The bed was too damned soft. Where was he? The room was dark and smelled faintly of cigarettes. Dim light filtered in around blockout blinds covering the windows.

  Somewhere, in another room, a phone rang. Someone answered. A woman’s voice.

  Heather! He sat up, only to clutch at his aching skull when that echoed the beat of his heart. His mouth felt like he’d been chewing on cotton wool. He rose and stumbled to the door, wrenching it open. The tiled floor was cold under his bare feet. He was only wearing his jeans. His shirt had disappeared somewhere. Ah. There, lying over the corner of the bed.

  Dressed, and squinting against too-bright lights, he emerged into a narrow hall, which led into a small kitchen-dining-lounge open plan area.

  At one end of the faux-marble kitchen bench, Heather stood with an old-fashioned landline phone to her ear. She caught Kade’s eye and spoke into the phone.

  ‘He’s woken up, Tor. But he doesn’t look all that well. Do you want me to put him on?’ She held the phone out. ‘Tor wants to talk to you. I’ll make you some coffee.’

  He took the phone. She passed him a glass of water and flicked on the coffee machine.

  ‘Tor,’ he croaked. ‘Hang on.’ He downed the full glass of water then cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. What happened?’

  ‘You were sedated,’ Tor replied. ‘I’m at the office, cleaning up and shutting down police inquiries.’

  ‘How many of Carleton’s men did we get?’ Kade scrubbed at his scalp, trying to shake off the lingering headache.

  ‘Six. Five more got away that we know of.’

  Kade swore. ‘What’s the blowback?’

  ‘The six we caught are being held indefinitely under the terrorism laws,’ Tor replied. ‘I’ve had a chat with a couple of key people. Seems the FBI have been observing Carleton for a while. They’re not impressed with me, though. They suspect I’m withholding information. Which I am.’

  ‘Any danger of the phones being tapped?’

  Tor laughed. ‘How long have I been in this game, Kade? This line was swept and is scrambled. The one you’re on was swept this morning.’

  ‘Right. Yeah. Sorry.’ He scraped stiff fingers through his hair, trying to massage intelligence back into his brain. ‘Anything else I need to know?’

  There was hesitation on the line.

  ‘Tor?’

  ‘Is Heather there with you?’

  Kade resisted the urge to check on her where she fussed with the coffee cups and milk. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she tell you that she took out two of them?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Same thing she did to you in my office. But this time she drained one and used the energy to knock out the other.’ Tor sighed. ‘I didn’t see it, but Luke did. Said it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. But you know him. They’re both alive. Still unconscious though. Thought you should know.’

  ‘Right. Yes.’

  ‘Go easy on her,’ Torin warned. ‘She’s strong but she’s been through a lot the last few days.’

  ‘Understood. Keep me posted.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Kade ended the call, considering what to say. He looked up. Heather slid a steaming cup of coffee toward him. Her eyes were huge, her cheeks pale.

  ‘I…um…wasn’t sure if you took milk or not.’ She gave him the milk container, collected a packet of chocolate cookies and her own coffee, and walked into the small lounge area. She put cookies and coffee on the low table and sat, with her face down and hands folded in her lap. Kade joined her, leaving space. They stayed in silence awhile, sipping coffee and nibbling cookies.

  Finally, Kade set his cup aside and faced her. ‘Want to talk about it? Tor told me what you did to protect me.’

  She clutched the empty cup. Kade gently removed and placed it on the table. He took her cold fingers in his and held tighter when she murmured a protest and tried to draw free.

  ‘Heather, talk to me. You’re not on your own any more, remember?’

  She nodded. ‘Sorry. I’m not used to…’

  ‘What, having someone to lean on?’ Kade grimaced. ‘Me either. It’ll take some adjusting on both our parts. Let’s start with how you feel about what’s happened today.’

  ‘Are they…’ She shuddered. ‘Are those two men still alive?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, putting all the sincerity he could into thought and word. He held back the bit about them both being unconscious.

  She studied him dubiously. ‘I can’t tell if you’re lying, now. Not with the shields up.’ She withdrew her hands from his and tucked them under her thighs. ‘I don’t know how to read people normally, I guess. I thought I was a healer, but suddenly I feel like an arm has been cut off. I can’t sense when people are near, or what they’re feeling, or when they’re lying.’ She shuddered again. ‘How do people live like this?’

  He quirked a grin. ‘We don’t know what we’re missing.’

  Her responding smile was half-hearted at best. ‘It was too easy, Kade. I…’ she waved vaguely ‘…thought about sucking the life out of that man, and it happened. Then the other one grabbed me and I panicked and sort of…dumped the energy into him.’ She gulped. ‘The crackling sound…the smell of burnt skin. The way the first guy collapsed. It…’ Her cheeks paled.

  ‘Reminded you of your father?’ he prompted.

  She hunched a shoulder. Her fingers stole to the scar on her temple. ‘When my father slapped me I fell and hit my head on the table. But when I cried he just…stood there. Staring at me like I was some sort of bug he wanted to squash.’ She drew a slow, shaky breath. ‘Suddenly he didn’t love me anymore. He grabbed my arm.’ She inspected her wrist. ‘And yelled about throwing me out. I thought he meant off the stairs. We lived on the second storey. I thought he was going to kill me.’

  ‘That must have been terrifying,’ Kade said gently. He wanted to hold her. To tell her nothing would hurt her again, ever. But he couldn’t. She needed to talk this out.

  ‘I…’ she displayed her hands ‘…sucked the life out of him. Like I did today. And it felt good, Kade.’ She wrapped her arms around herself. ‘That’s what scares me most. It felt good to be so powerful. I’d always been the youngest. The smallest. Suddenly I was stronger than my father.’ Heather lifted her eyes and Kade saw fear and lingering horror in their crystal depths. ‘I think, if Mother hadn’t arrived, I might have killed him. She pulled the power from me. And I cried. Not because of what I’d done, but because she’d stopped me. What sort of person does that make me?’

  ‘Ah, Heather,�
� Kade dragged her close, holding her, feeling her fragility, her shivering. ‘When you were eleven it made you a frightened, hurt little girl desperate to regain personal power. Then you spent the next seventeen years destroying yourself trying to make up for something you didn’t even do. You have to let it go. You didn’t kill him.’

  ‘But I wanted to,’ she said, shoving at him. ‘Don’t you see? I would have. Like today. I didn’t pause for a second when those men attacked us.’

  ‘You didn’t kill them, though,’ Kade said, hoping desperately that would stay true. ‘And Rowan said you wouldn’t be able to. That you can’t hold enough power to drain or kill anyone.’

  Heather thrust his arms off hers and rose, pacing to the window. ‘She’s wrong. Today I worked out how I could do it.’ She spun to face him. ‘I can’t drain someone all at once. But if I release their power into someone else—like I did today—I could still finish the job.’

  Kade stilled, trying to keep calm. But she emitted a humourless laugh and turned back to the window.

  ‘See? You hadn’t even considered that. But I did. The minute the power left me, I realised what I could do.’ She gave a stifled sob. ‘I am what I always thought I was. I’m a killer. Some sort of monster.’

  Kade rose and approached her slowly, unsure what to say. He had to get her out of this depressive spiral. Fast. He rubbed her arms.

  ‘Hey. You’re too hard on yourself. You’ve spent years saving lives. Almost killed yourself in the process. You’re not a monster. So you could have killed that guy, today. You didn’t, did you?’

  She looked narrowly at him. ‘Only because Torin dragged me away.’

  ‘No. You had time. You chose not to. And you will again.’

  Heather covered her face. ‘I don’t want to have to. I wish I’d never met you. If you hadn’t dragged me here, I’d never have met Rowan. I’d never have found out what I can do.’ Her voice rose. ‘And Carleton wouldn’t have found me.’

  ‘And you’d never have met Torin again, either,’ Kade replied, trying to keep his voice steady. Guilt dug at him. He had dragged her here against her will. He’d put her in this position. He had to get her out; to secure her freedom; to ensure Carleton never laid a hand on her.