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Damn, damn, damn.
Asher had mentioned that my powers worked differently. He hadn’t told me that I was healing things beyond what I should be able to at my age. Then again, I’m not sure I’d ever mentioned to him that I’d healed someone with cancer.

I shrugged again, wishing I could eat my words, but it was too late to take them back. “I don’t know what to tell you. A woman had stomach cancer. I healed it. Nobody told me there was an age requirement.”

I turned back to my book with studied nonchalance, while my heart beat way too fast inside my chest.

Alcais jolted the table when he jerked out the chair beside me, turning it backward so he could straddle it. He crossed his arms over the back, and then planted his chin on them. A dart dangled from his fingers, and he let it swing lazily.

“Come on, then,” he demanded. “Let’s hear it. Tell us all about how you did what nobody our age can do when you’ve had zero training from your mother or another Healer.”

If his jeering tone was anything to go by, he expected me to back down and admit to lying. Something about his attitude ate at me, and I slammed my book closed on the table, giving up all pretense of reading. I slouched in my seat, acting like I didn’t have a care in the world.

“It wasn’t exactly a big deal,” I drawled, meeting his direct stare. Hoping it would get me off the hook I’d managed to get myself stuck on, I admitted, “It was actually kind of an accident.”

I confessed how I’d bumped into the teacher and my abilities had taken over. On the recording she’d left me, my mother had mentioned that my grandmother used to wear gloves to avoid that very thing, so I knew it wasn’t a side effect of my Protector side. I left out how the pain I’d taken on had made me want to shriek and how I’d worried I wouldn’t recover. If my mother had noticed at the time, she’d never said a word.

I finished my story, and they all continued to stare at me. Erin looked like she might believe me, but Delia flat-out wanted to call me a liar. I could see it in the disdain she levied my way. Alcais appeared thoughtful for a moment, and then his muscles tightened. He reached toward me aggressively with the dart he still held, aiming to stab through the hand I had resting on the table.

If I hadn’t been staring at him, I might not have been able to dodge him. My hours of training with Gabe and Asher kicked in, and I used Alcais’s momentum against him, jerking him toward me by the arm he’d stretched out to hurt me. Caught off balance, his chair rocked forward. I let him go, and he tipped over. Alcais hit the floor with a loud crash, and I jumped to my feet, moving out of his reach.

Breathing hard, I watched Alcais roll over. My grandfather and Delia’s mother saved him from a swift kick between the legs when they came running through the door to the house. Mouth agape, my grandfather skidded to a stop when he saw me standing over a pissed-off Alcais.

“Remy? Alcais? What the hell is going on here?”

Erin spoke up when I remained quiet. “Alcais was messing with her. She was just giving him back what he was asking for.”

I shot her a grateful glance.

My grandfather seemed to accept her answer and glared at her brother. “What have I told you, Alcais? You need to grow up and stop acting like an eight-year-old picking on the girl he likes at the playground.”

Trying to put a dart through my hand was not the same as pulling on my braid at recess. I didn’t try to explain this to my grandfather, though, because he already looked mad enough to put his fist through a wall.

“Get up,” he spat at Alcais. “Come with me.”

I expected (hoped?) Alcais was about to be on the receiving end of a long, tedious lecture. Before he could follow my grandfather into the house, I whispered, “You
ever
try anything like that again, and I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

Unease flickered over Alcais’s features. Then he recovered and grinned at me. “Promises, promises. I just wanted to see what you were capable of.”

“Don’t test me, Alcais. I know how to fight back.”

After he left, we put the table to rights and took our seats again. Erin sat quietly for all of two seconds before she started howling with laughter. Delia scowled at her, but that only made her laugh harder.

She wiped the tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Delia. I swear. But I’ve been wanting to knock my brother on his ass for years.” Erin turned to me with a wide grin. “If I pay you, will you do it again? Pretty please?”

Delia stomped away into the house, probably to comfort Alcais. Despite the anger still simmering under my skin, I laughed with Erin.

But even as I settled back into my book, I told myself that this had been a good reminder to watch my back. You never knew when someone would try to stab something in it.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

W
hatever my grandfather said to Alcais, he acted subdued for the rest of the day. He didn’t join Erin and me when we made our usual trek to the beach. I couldn’t help feeling gleeful. Even Erin relaxed, laughing more than she did when Alcais and Delia hung out with us.

I liked Erin, a fact that made me feel guilty for keeping things from her. She’d been nothing but kind and generous to me. I think she liked me, too, especially when I refused to take Alcais’s crap. She didn’t stand up for herself often enough, and I wished I could help her change that. In a way, she reminded me of a shyer version of Lucy.

The time came to return to her house, and our feet dragged the closer we got.

“How do you like that book Franc gave you?”

I grimaced. “Let’s just say Maria was one mercenary chick.”

She grinned. “Oh Maria. She did like her tables. My mom used to say Maria’s diary was a love letter to gold.”

“You’re so lucky,” I told her. “To grow up able to talk about your abilities with your parents. Sometimes I wish my mother hadn’t been so scared to tell me the truth.”

Maybe my abilities wouldn’t have scared me so much if my mother had told me what to expect. The pain might have been more manageable if she’d been there to comfort me.

“Hey, Remy, would it be okay if I offered you some advice?” Erin asked.

Her house had just come into view, but something in her tone gave me pause. I paused on the sidewalk, careful not to let our shoulders touch.

“Be careful, okay? Things aren’t always what they seem.”

“You mean what happened with Alcais earlier?”

She glanced toward her house, wrapping her arms around her waist as if to warm herself even though the sun shone bright and hot today. “Just take care who you trust.”

With that cryptic comment, she continued walking, refusing to say anything more. I trailed after her more thoughtfully. Alcais was so far from being trustworthy that I wondered if she really could be talking about him. Or maybe she meant to be careful around Delia, who probably shared everything with Alcais. Frustrated, I wished I could question her, but she wore a tight, closed-off expression.

Besides, we’d reached her driveway and my grandfather called my name from the front stoop.

“Remy, you ready to get going back to the city?”

Erin hurried past me into the house. My gaze followed her a moment before I answered my grandfather.

“Sure. I’m ready whenev—”

The sound of squealing brakes and screeching tires ripped through the late afternoon air. I spun about on my heel and watched in horror as a girl on a bicycle rode directly into the path of a white pickup truck. The truck’s driver tried to swerve and miss the girl, but it was too late. The right corner of the bumper struck her. She cartwheeled through the air on impact, while the truck’s tires flattened the bicycle. The girl hit the ground, lying half on the sidewalk and half in the gutter with her leg bent at an awkward angle. She didn’t move.

I ran, and my grandfather was at my heels. The driver had already climbed out his truck as I fell to my knees by the girl. I gasped, recognizing her. It was Chrissy, the youngest of the Healers. Blood trickled down her pale cheek from a gash on her forehead.

“I’m sorry, Franc. I didn’t see her,” the driver said to my grandfather. I vaguely remembered him from the night I’d arrived in Pacifica.

Chrissy’s eyes were closed, but when I laid a hand on her cheek I knew she still lived. That voracious hunger I’d felt with Erin clawed at me, but I clamped tight on it. Letting the energy rise in me, I scanned the little girl. Two broken bones—right femur and left elbow. The cut on her forehead looked worse than it was. She wouldn’t even have a concussion. I breathed a quick sigh of relief, and the metallic scent of the girl’s blood filled my nostrils. I could handle these injuries.

Then the voices penetrated the
humming
of my energy. My grandfather hovered behind me, not quite touching me. “She’s okay. A few broken bones and scrapes, but nothing life-threatening.”

“Remy, step back. We need to move her before we draw too much attention.”

Glancing around, I noticed a neighbor coming out of her house, probably to investigate the noise. My grandfather whispered something to the driver, and he took off to speak to the neighbor. I didn’t ask why they wanted to avoid an ambulance and the hospital. The attention could hurt everyone in this community.

Franc lifted Chrissy’s sleight body in his arms and strode toward Erin’s house. I trailed after him into the living room, where he set Chrissy on the couch with gentle hands. I knelt by her side. I realized I was the most experienced Healer in the room, and they seemed to realize it, too.

“Can you heal her?” my grandfather asked.

My eyes met Erin’s worried gaze, and it occurred to me that I shouldn’t do this. Shouldn’t expose what happened to me after a healing. Then I met Alcais’s mocking stare and knew that not healing the girl would cause problems, too. These people would wonder why I hesitated.

I wavered, unsure what to do.

Chrissy groaned in pain, drawing my attention. She’d come to and started to cry, huge tears leaking from the corners of her eyes to mix with the blood and dirt smeared on her cheeks.

The crying decided me, and my insides settled into some semblance of calm.
Heal who I can when I can. Okay, let’s do this.

I held her hand and concentrated on pushing my energy toward her, seeking out the injuries one by one. The monster inside me rose again, wanting to steal Chrissy’s energy, but I controlled it. Her internal workings felt different from mine and Asher’s, but I couldn’t stop to figure out how. Then it hit me. For the first time in my life, I was healing another Healer. I started with the head wound and then moved on to the broken bones, imagining them healed and good as new. Chrissy roused under my hands, her eyes huge with confusion and no longer clouded with pain.

Sparks flashed as I released her hand after one last squeeze.
The sparks are purple,
I thought.
Like my grandmother’s.

My bones snapped and the skin on my forehead ripped open. I bit back a scream, drawing blood as my teeth sank into my lip. Gasping and breathing through my nose, I rolled onto my back on the carpet, trying to calm myself as the room erupted in chaotic shouts.

Now you’ve gone and done it,
I thought.

A hand pressed a cloth to my forehead. Somebody had given my grandfather a kitchen towel to use as a compress.

“Remy?”

Franc sounded scared, his deep voice rumbling like summer thunder. I wanted to smile to reassure him, but someone—Chrissy?—jarred my broken leg and the pain nearly sent my teeth through my tongue.

“God, what’s happened to you?” my grandfather asked.

He reached for me, but his hand hovered a few inches above my skin like he couldn’t bring himself to touch me.
Fantastic,
I thought.
Once again I prove I’m a freak. Get ahold of yourself, damn it.

“I’ll be fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just give me a minute.”

I closed my eyes against the curious stares of Delia, Alcais, Erin, my grandfather, and the driver, who had joined us. I blocked everyone out to concentrate on healing my injuries. It would have been so much easier with Asher there to lend me some of his energy. Healing Chrissy had nearly depleted me. I scraped the remnants of my powers together and took on the broken bones. Slowly, slowly, I felt the breaks mending. The throbbing pain began to ease off. I didn’t even bother to try healing my head. The injury wasn’t that serious, and I had no juice left.

I lay there, catching my breath and shivering from my version of Healer Hypothermia. To be truthful, though, I hid, not wanting to see the suspicious expressions on the faces of my grandfather’s people. Or worse, the fear that must now be in my grandfather’s eyes. They knew I was different from the other Healers. There would be no going back.

A warm hand traced the skin on my arm. The hunger crawled up inside me, and my eyes flew open. Immediately, I threw up walls to control the monster that scratched and clawed against my defenses. Where the monster was easier to control with Chrissy, it fought harder to get at Erin, as if sensing that she was more powerful. She knelt beside me on her living room carpet, her face tensed as she gave me an asking glance. It took me a moment to grasp what she wanted to do. She wanted to heal the head injury that I couldn’t.

I gave her a hesitant nod, feeling somewhat in control. Her brow knit in concentration, and heat zapped into me where she touched me. It arrowed straight toward the wound on my head. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t exactly feel good, either. The closest sensation I could compare it to was getting zapped by static electricity, but only if you multiplied that experience times ten. Was this what healing felt like to the people I healed?

The cut on my head closed, and her touch fell away. The monster inside me receded, and I wanted to cry with relief. The shivering resumed, and I tried to imagine a way to explain all of this.

My grandfather tugged my chin toward him, his crazy white eyebrows practically meeting in a stern scowl. He pitched his voice so only I could hear his accusation.

“You’ve been keeping secrets, granddaughter.”

 

I was getting blood on the carpet, I realized. And somebody must have lit up their phone to get so many Healers to Erin’s house so quickly.

Irritated by the growing crowd, Erin’s mom suggested we move to the kitchen. My grandfather couldn’t decide between carrying me and trusting I could reach the room under my own steam. The result was him getting in my way every two steps and a constant stream of “Are you okay?” in my ear. Another shiver racked my body, and he dropped an arm across my shoulders, fitting me to his side.

My head spun. What would I say? How could I explain this? I certainly couldn’t say I had Protector blood that caused me to absorb everything I healed. My thoughts collapsed into an unhelpful repetition of
damn, damn, damn
that offered no answers.

In the kitchen, he pushed me into a seat at the small table. He wet a towel and swiped it across my forehead. Of course, it came away bloody. He almost ignored me while he cleaned my face, a difficult feat considering he was touching me and dismissing me all at once. Several people lingered in the doorway to the living room, chief among them Erin and Alcais’s mother.

Chrissy’s parents arrived. Her mother unleashed her fury on the driver who’d hit her daughter, and the crowd shifted their attention to that drama. The driver insisted it had been an accident, and eventually Chrissy’s parents decided to take her home. My grandfather had already asked a few of the men to help the apologetic driver move his damaged truck, and they’d prepared a story in case nosy neighbors asked any questions. Still, a crowd remained.

“Um, Franc?” I whispered.

He followed the direction of my stare, and said, “Dorthea, do you mind keeping everyone out for a few minutes?”

She nodded and shooed everyone away. They only went as far as the living room from the sound of it, giving us only the semblance of privacy. The word
prophecy
floated back to us, and I sighed. First, the Protectors thought that I was the one mentioned in that stupid rumor, and now these people would, too.

My grandfather threw the red-stained towel into the sink. I shoved my wet hair away from my face and waited for the explosion I could feel coming. He leaned his hips against the kitchen counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and leveled a suspicious stare at me.

“Well?” he said at last. “Care to explain what I just saw?”

Why was I always having to defend myself to everyone? I hadn’t freaking asked for these abilities. I could feel my chin lift in defiance, as I saw all the progress I’d made with him going up in huge, fiery flames.

“Chrissy got hit by a car. I healed her.”

Franc’s jaw tightened. “Your damned bones snapped. I watched your head split open. Just like Chrissy’s.”

He stalked toward me and placed both hands on the table. Other girls might have been intimidated, but I’d grown up with Dean, the Master of Fear. Irritation swelled at my grandfather’s tactics, and I forced myself to stay seated. I decided to play dumb and raised my eyebrows.

“Doesn’t that happen to any of your other Healers?” I asked in false surprise.

I didn’t fool him. His features sharpened, and the corners of his mouth turned down in disappointment.

“You are just like your mother,” he accused. “Keeping secrets.”

That hurt, but I refused to let him see how much. It wasn’t like he knew my mother in her last years.

“I thought her problem was telling secrets,” I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

He shrank away from me, standing straight as he sucked in a breath. I thought he might want to hit me for that comment, and some broken thing inside me calmed because his reaction was an all-too-familiar one that I knew how to deal with. He opened his mouth to speak or maybe to yell. A voice from the living room interrupted him.

Dorthea, Erin’s mom, clutched her mobile phone in one hand, and terror had bleached her face white.

“Franc, we have a problem. It’s the Protectors. They’re here.”