Pushed (14 page)

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

A
fter Yvette’s death, people treated me differently in Pacifica, and I found myself wishing the weekend would arrive because that would mean I would be on a plane back home to Blackwell Falls.

The way I healed injuries scared some of Franc’s people and fascinated others. And if the looks were anything to judge by, my refusal to be tested had pissed off many of them. My feelings didn’t seem to matter in the scheme of things when studying me could advance their research.

My grandfather had warned me that some people were angry. He’d asked them to leave me alone, but I alternated between feeling like a bug under a microscope or one burned under a magnifying glass. Before when I’d visited Erin’s house, we’d been left to our own devices. We’d tended to wander off to the beach to hang out without adult eyes watching our every move.

With Yvette’s death still fresh, our hangouts had been restricted to Erin’s or Delia’s. This would have been fine, but suddenly whichever house I was at suffered an influx of Healers and their families passing through. Not one of them defied my grandfather’s order to leave me be, but that didn’t stop the looks or the whispers that followed me everywhere.

If my grandfather would have let me, I’d have stayed at his house. But after seeing me with Asher, he’d begun watching my every move, refusing to leave me alone. I hadn’t seen Asher in three days. If not for his nightly text to check in, I’d have been freaking out.

Asher refused to talk about us, and that told me how much I’d hurt him, albeit unintentionally. It wasn’t like I could always control my thoughts, but somehow that made it worse. He knew I’d doubted him so strongly that I couldn’t hide those fears from him.

As if I didn’t feel bad enough, at Erin’s house, her mother left any room I entered. I couldn’t tell if Dorthea thought me the Antichrist or just something to be avoided, like gum someone had spat out on the sidewalk. Delia would have followed her lead, except that Alcais wouldn’t leave my side.

The bastard had decided he wanted to experiment on me. Yesterday he’d tried hurting himself to force me to heal him. He’d sliced his hand open with a pocket knife. I’d refused to play along and he’d had to run to Delia or Erin to heal himself.

The next day I arrived at Erin’s house, and Delia greeted me with a scowl. Franc had foisted me on her and her friends, and she hated me for it. I followed her into the garage in time to hear Erin shriek in pain. Alcais stood over his sister, holding her flattened palm over a burning candle. She struggled against her brother, but he didn’t relent. Instead, his eyes met mine in a dark challenge, and he smiled.

At last, he let her go, and she shrank away from him, crying. The scent of burnt flesh wafted toward me, and with it came memories of Dean holding lit cigarettes to my skin. I had a particularly nasty scar under my arm from where he’d hurt me over and over. I considered it a reminder that some people were evil through and through.

Alcais had hurt Erin because of me. He knew Delia couldn’t heal anything but surface burns, and probably suspected I might be able to. If I’d had Asher’s strength, I would have sent him flying into the wall. I didn’t, though. I only had my abilities. My very special abilities.

I dropped my purse on the card table where we’d hung out days before, reading and laughing. Then I knelt before Erin and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Let me help you.”

Her brown eyes shuttered in pain, but she shook her head. For a second, I thought she didn’t want to be healed by a freak like me, but she said, “No. I don’t want you to be hurt, too.”

I felt like crap for doubting her, and more determined than ever to heal her. “Trust me, okay? I’ve been through worse. Please.”

Alcais shoved her shoulder, ignoring her cry. “Just give her your hand already.”

“You’re an ass, Alcais,” Delia said from behind me.

She actually sounded pissed at him for once, and I wanted to cheer because she’d found a backbone. My gaze didn’t veer from Erin. I gave her another smile and she finally relented. Huge tears slid down her cheek as she placed her hand in mine.

Little did they know that I had experience healing burns. Dean had often ground his cigarettes into my skin when the mood struck him, and I’d once healed Asher’s burned hand when he’d saved me from falling into a fire. I could heal Erin, but it would be a bitch when I absorbed the injury. Plus there was the fact that I had to let my guard down and touch her in order to do it.

Gritting my teeth, I rested a hand on hers, dropped my guard, and waited. The monster inside me instantly reared its head, but I shoved it down, determined not to give in. It almost hurt to deny myself Erin’s energy, but I stayed in control.

I let the
humming
begin and scanned Erin. Like Chrissy, her internal workings differed from that of a normal human’s and from Asher’s. I hadn’t really had time to study Chrissy with everyone watching me, and I couldn’t take the time to study Erin now.

Erin gasped, and I focused on her injury. Quickly, I pictured the damage to her flesh and the nerves beneath it. I imagined the flesh perfect and pink once more, and it shifted under my hand, mending as my energy worked on her.

When I’d healed her, I looked up and said, “Don’t panic, okay?”

She nodded, her eyes huge as purple sparks lit the air. I let my hand fall from hers. And then I stopped thinking as my flesh charred and my nerves roared in pain. I wanted to howl, but more than that I wanted to teach Alcais a lesson. I made myself get up.

“Hey, Alcais,” I said through gritted teeth. “You wanted to know how my powers work? That’s why you hurt Erin, right?”

He nodded, and a hint of anxiety flickered over his face. I held out my burned hand, palm down so he couldn’t see the burns.

“See for yourself.”

He hesitated a moment before curiosity overcame him. He took a step closer. As soon as he was within reach, I latched on to him with my good hand. The scary red sparks had always come before when I was in danger. I’d never called them to me with such a minor injury. I wasn’t even sure if I could, but in that moment, with Erin still crying and my hand blistered and raw, I wanted to hurt Alcais.

I thought it wouldn’t work, but suddenly the energy rose in me. It scorched my insides like a flash fire, and the red sparks arced between me and Alcais where we touched. He screamed and fell to the floor, writhing from the same injury I had, and I let him go.

Crouching beside him, I whispered, “I’m not going to heal you, Alcais. You deserve that for hurting Erin. For using her and Delia the way you do. You better hope I never catch you hurting either one of them again. And if you so much as get a hangnail that you expect them to heal, I will make you regret it. Got it?”

He nodded fast and furious like a bobblehead doll. I didn’t find it funny, though. My hand hurt like hell. Standing again, I faced Delia and Erin. I’d scared them as bad as Alcais. Tough luck. I didn’t regret what I’d done. I’d watched Dean abuse my mom all those years, unable to do more than heal her afterward. I wouldn’t stand by and watch another sadistic bastard hurt someone.

Raising my chin, I grabbed my purse with my good hand and stormed out of the garage.

 

Erin found me in the guest bathroom.

I needed a bit of time to recharge before I could heal myself. In the meantime, I’d climbed up on the sink to rest my back against the vanity mirror while I let cold water run over my palm. Leaving the door ajar, Erin crossed the small room to sit on the toilet, giving me a wide berth. I threw up my defenses, uncertain if I could protect her from myself at this point.

I sighed. “I’m not sorry. Your brother is a creep.”

“A complete psycho,” she agreed.

I gave her an uncertain look. She didn’t sound afraid.

After a moment, I blurted out, “You need to take vitamins. Your immune system is weak.”

Her brows shot up. “How do you know?”

“Same as you, I expect. I touch someone and I sense what injuries or illnesses they have.”

“Remy, our powers don’t work to that degree. I can’t see when someone is getting a cold. I can tell when they already have a cold.”

I closed my eyes. “That’s super. I’m a cold detector.”

She laughed. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

I squinted at her to see if she was kidding. “Sometimes. Mostly, it sucks. I’m more of a vacuum than a cold detector if you get my drift,” I said, referring to how I absorbed what I healed.

“I thought you were more of a badass weapon myself,” she observed in a wry tone.

I couldn’t figure her out. She rose and grabbed a towel from a rack when I shut off the water. I took it from her to dry my hand, and we both examined the damage.

“I wish I could heal you, but burns this bad are beyond me,” she said. “I didn’t say thank you earlier, did I? Thank you.”

Her hug shocked me. Before I could figure out how to respond, my grandfather shoved his way into the room.
Uh-oh,
I thought.
Someone told.

I had to give him credit. He fussed over my hand instead of climbing up my back for hurting Alcais.

“Franc, I’m seriously okay,” I finally protested when he kept on.

“I’m going to kill Alcais,” he said. “You okay, Erin?”

Erin smiled. “Yep. Thanks to Remy. And no need to kill Alcais. Remy took care of him.”

My grandfather scowled. “I heard.”

Delia told, then. Alcais wouldn’t have admitted I’d bested him, especially after I’d done it for torturing his sister.

I jumped off the bathroom counter, cradling my hand against my belly. “Can we go, Franc? I’m tired.”

On the way home, I concentrated on healing my hand. When that fun task was out of the way, I shivered and stared out the window, making it clear I didn’t want to talk. My grandfather didn’t push me.

It had occurred to me as I sat in the bathroom with my injured hand that maybe I’d made a mistake in coming to California. What had I gained? Some knowledge, yes, but nothing that would help Asher and me. I hadn’t even gained access to the Healers’ library. In fact, the damage this trip had done outweighed the good. I was in danger of losing Asher, and I was lying to my family at home. And now I’d exposed my abilities to these Healers who wanted to experiment on me.

The saving graces were my newfound relationships with my grandfather and Erin. I didn’t regret meeting them, but what would it cost me? Beyond my burned hand?

My grandfather parked the truck in front of his house and turned off the engine. He made no move to get out, and I waited.

“I think I get why you’ve been keeping the extent of what you can do hidden.”

I could only see a bit of his expression in the light slanting into the car from the street. I’d expected blustering and anger, and when that didn’t happen I couldn’t tell what he thought about this latest discovery.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “What you can do . . . It must be terrifying. When did you know you could hurt people, too?”

My reflection appeared pale in the side-view mirror. “When Dean tried to strangle me a few months ago.”

My grandfather swore under his breath. “It’s too bad the man disappeared. I’d like to kill him.”

I said nothing.

“Listen, Remy. I don’t want you to go back to New York this weekend. I think you should move here permanently.”

I swung about to stare at him. It had occurred to me that this might come up, but as the weeks passed, he’d never brought it up. I wasn’t prepared to deal with it now. My grandfather put his arm across the back of the seat and held up a hand when I opened my mouth to protest.

“I know you have friends you can stay with back there, but you should be with family. People who understand what you are. Unlike your friends, we can help you if you’re ever in danger.”

“Franc, I appreciate the offer, but . . .”
But I have family back in Blackwell Falls. A family I’ve only just discovered. And a boyfriend I love.

“You’ve been lucky, kid. So damned lucky I think you must have a fairy godmother sprinkling dust on you. You don’t know how to spot a Protector much less how to evade them if they find you.”

I could tell a Protector from a single touch, plus their energy felt different. My training with Gabe had helped me grow stronger in that area, and I could defend myself to an extent with the abilities I’d picked up when I’d stolen Asher’s energy. I couldn’t very well explain any of that to my grandfather, though.

He dropped his voice. “Don’t forget that the Protectors are always going to be hunting you. You put your friends’ lives at stake when you stay with them. To the enemy, they are merely collateral to be used against you.”

I hated that he was right. My family and Asher’s could get killed because of me. I yanked on the door handle and shoved the truck door open, jumping to the ground before my grandfather could stop me.

His shout followed me into the house.

“Think about it, Remy. You belong with us!”

I wasn’t so sure. All I knew was that this trip had clouded everything. I no longer knew where I belonged.