The Soul Healer (4 page)

I swallowed hard, eyeing the wound. Could I? “Evan, I—”

BAM!
I hadn’t heard or even seen Rafe come over to us, and now he had Evan in a chokehold as he dragged the blonde away from me. “Get away from her!”

“Rafe!” I stared at my boyfriend in shock. Had everyone lost their mind
s tonight?

“What did you I tell you
!” Rafe shouted in Evan’s face. “What did I say?”

“All right, all right
, man.” Evan squirmed, trying to fight his way out of Rafe’s death grip. Was it just me or was his face turning purple? “It was a joke—”

Wrong thing to say. Rafe squeezed harder,
his voice going dangerously low. “A joke? You think this is a
joke
? Are you kidding me? Should I be laughing, Evan? Should I?”

Evan didn’t respond, probably because he
couldn’t
. I raced over, throwing my hands over Rafe’s arm. “Stop it, Rafe! You’re going to kill him!” His face was dark, murderous, and I had to say his name two more times before he finally acknowledged me. “Let. Him. Go!”

Rafe released Evan, and the blonde fell to his knees, wheezing. I expected Rafe to look stunned at what he had done, but instead, he continued glaring at Evan. Visions of Rafe hacking Matthew Davenport, the Silver Moon hunter-turned-demon, to pieces after he had attacked me suddenly filled my head. Rafe had been very scary at that moment when he saw I was in danger. I thought it had been a one-time deal, but now this… How could he attack Evan like that?

What had happened to Rafe?

Chapter Five

Rafe loomed over Evan, still glowering. I situated myself between them, worried Rafe was about to kick Evan in the head or something. “What the hell was that?”
I demanded.

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Rafe said, his voice cold and flat.

I blinked. I had never heard him sound like that before, and it was scary. Almost as scary as watching him try to choke Evan to death.

“It’s not a game, what you can do, Gabi. I told Evan to keep quiet about it, and now he’s joking about it like it’s nothing.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, “but who do you expect is going to hear him?” I gestured around us. “We’re the only morons standing outside in this blizzard, Rafe. Don’t you think you went just a tiny bit overboard just now? Y
ou attacked Evan
.”

He shook his head stubbornly. “I was protecting you.”

“From
what
?” I stared at Rafe. “He’s drunk! He doesn’t even know what’s going on right now!”

As if to prove my point, Evan let out a loud hiccup.

“No, he knows exactly what he’s doing,” Rafe said. “And I’m not going to just stand here and let him hurt you!”

Okay, Rafe had officially lost his mind.
Hurt
me? All Evan had done was shove his bleeding hand in my face (and narrowly missed burning my face off). Yes, that was disgusting, but I was fine. What had Rafe expected to happen to me?

I curled my hands into fists. The other two times, when I had used my powers,
Rafe and Evan had been on the brink of death. Rafe had been stabbed by Boneless, Evan by Davenport. I remembered sitting there, watching as they bled to death, feeling a painful sense of uselessness. And then—

Nothing.

Whatever happened next was lost to me. I woke up exhausted, my hair white, and the person who had been dying whole once more. More than that, they were brimming with life, unstoppable, untouchable. Completely opposite to how they had looked before I blacked out or went into my trance or whatever it was that I did. And that’s the thing. Evan wasn’t dying. He was bleeding, yes, but it was just a small cut on his hand. Maybe he needed some stitches, I didn’t know, I wasn’t a doctor. The point was, he was going to live.

I didn’t need to heal him.

Rafe had to realize this. He had to! So again, why the freak out? Protecting me? Was he kidding me? I shook my head. It was cold and my pants were wet and my feet were frozen and I was so damn annoyed a stupid demon had shown up during our date and now Rafe was acting batshit crazy—

“You have to stop doing this,” I said quietly.

Rafe blinked. “Doing what?”

“This!” I gestured
toward him, all of him. “This morphing into a seriously scary person when you think I’m in danger, Rafe.”

He flushed. “I don’t—”

“Yes, you do.”

“I’m trying to protect you!” Rafe said again.

“Did you ever think that maybe I don’t need you to protect me?” I shot back, while a little voice inside my head wondered what I was doing. Why was I arguing with him?

Because he
attacked
Evan.

Rafe
frowned at that. “Really? Then how come you keep landing yourself in situations where I need to save you?”

I felt a hot stab of irritation. Save me? Excuse me, but I was
not
a damsel in distress, all right? “My life was pretty demon-free before I met you, Rafe. So don’t you dare blame me for landing myself in these so-called situations. If anything, they’re your fault, all right? I don’t know if you get off on this hero thing, but I don’t need it. I can take care of myself.”

Yeah, I sorta hated myself the moment those words flew out of my mouth, but I was so angry I didn’t even realize what I was saying until it was too late. Rafe paled and took a step back. Away from me. Already, I felt the distance as an ache in my chest.

“Fine,” he said. “I get it.”

“Rafe—”

“No, I get it.” He turned around to retrieve his sword, doing the spell to make it vanish with another bright flash of light. We stared at one another, the five feet between us more like five miles. The fierce, murderous rage on Rafe’s face had been replaced by a hurt, dejected look. He kicked at the snow with his boot. “You’re fine without me.”

“That’s
not
what I meant—”

“Let’s just go, Gabi.” He nodded
toward his car. “You need to get home and I have to clean up this mess.”

“Let me help you,” I pleaded, seriously scared now. What had I done? What had I said?

Dammit, I knew I was going to screw this good thing up.

“I don’t need your help,” Rafe said in a tone of voice that matched the frigid air. “I can take care of myself too, you know.” He walked away without another word.

“Rafe,” I said quietly.

“Oh boy, did you two just get into a fight?” Evan asked as he slowly got to his feet. “Was it my fault? Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” I said, watching Rafe’s retreating form. “No, Evan, I did.”

***

So the car ride home was pure torture. Rafe had really been set on driving the two of us home before coming back and picking up the demon’s body, but Evan somehow convinced him to deal with it now. I have no idea how he even managed to do that since Rafe was refusing to speak or even look at Evan. I sat in the car (since Rafe didn’t need my help), wondering why I was such an idiot.

I wondered if I should give Rafe the necklace back.

I wondered if we had broken up.

I was surprised when Rafe dropped Evan off at their apartment first. The blonde gave me a half-hearted smile and a pat on the shoulder before stumbling out of the car, his injured hand clutched to his chest. I hoped they had some of that magic
al stuff that helped heal cuts, because I could not see Rafe driving Evan to the hospital right now.

Running him over with his car, yes…

But I wasn’t mad at Evan. I really wasn’t. Crashing our date while drunk was bad, but asking me to heal him was not worth the death penalty, no matter what Rafe thought. And while I knew I had gone too far when we argued, I was still angry at Rafe for acting the way he had. He needed to control his temper, or else—

Or else what, Gabi? You want to end things with the best thing that’s ever happened to you?

When we pulled in front of my house, I quickly turned to him. “Look, Rafe—”

“No, Gabi, not tonight.”

“But—”

He stared straight ahead, watching the wipers go back and forth as they brushed the snow aside in giant icy chunks. The storm had picked up sometime during our ba
ttle with Buggy, and I wondered if it would prevent us from leaving for Vermont the next day. More time home meant more time trying to patch things up with Rafe.

“I think it’s a good thing you’re leaving tomorrow,” Rafe said.

“What?” Shocked, I felt tears forming, but I blinked hard to keep them from falling.

Now he turned to face me, and I saw the pain in his green eyes. “Yeah. We’re both angry right now, so some time apart will probably be good. I’ll see you when you get back and then we’ll talk, all right?” He shrugged. “Have a good trip, Gabi.”

This was a nightmare. A freaking nightmare I was hopefully going to wake up from soon because this was not my boyfriend talking right now. Rafe wouldn’t just brush me off like that. He wouldn’t.

Or maybe he would. He turned the key in the ignition and gave me a very pointed look. Flushing, I fumbled for the door handle, suddenly anxious to get out of the car as quickly as possible. Without another word, I exited and ran to my front door, hurt and dejected, the tears already falling.

Chapter Six

An hour and a shower later, Chloe came down the stairs to find me in the front sitting room, wrapped up in blankets on the couch and halfway through a container of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I was trying to decide between throwing myself out my bedroom window or standing outside in the storm and freezing to death. With the way I was feeling, both options were pretty appealing.

“Why are you home?” Chloe asked, plopping down on the couch next to me. She swiped the container of ice cream and my spoon and dug in. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Rafe? I figured you wouldn’t be home until at least midnight.”

I shrugged, too tired to even speak.

Chloe froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth. “Oh my god, did you two get into a fight?” When I didn’t answer, she leaned forward,
her brown eyes wide. “You did, didn’t you? How is that even
possible
? He does everything you say—what more could you want in a boyfriend?”

How about a boyfriend who didn’t go crazy the moment he thought my life was in danger? I couldn’t exactly tell Chloe that, since the demon stuff was a BIG SECRET. Even after she had been kidnapped by Davenport, Evan had worked his magic to make her forget everything. To this day, she believed the bruises and scratches she had suffered were the result of an accidental trip down the stairs after drinking too much in retaliation for Dad grounding her. I hated lying to Chloe, but it was much better than having her remember everything from that horrific night. And, somehow, her new memories had calmed her down. She was no longer going out Friday and Saturday nights, getting wasted and expecting me to cover for her. And she stopped obsessing about disgusting Christian Thompson! I would take that any day of the week. He was not worth her attention at all. The look on his face when he realized
both
Harkins sisters couldn’t care less about him was priceless. Definitely one of my top ten all-time favorite moments.

             
I sighed, pulling the blanket up to my chin. “I don’t know what happened, Chloe. One moment everything was perfect, and the next—”

And the next, Evan showed up. But I couldn’t exactly say that, either. Chloe was over her Evan-crush as well, but he was still a sore topic between the two of us. The less we talked about him, the better (really, the less anyone talked about Evan, the better).

I grabbed the carton of ice cream back. “The next moment we were fighting and I don’t even know what the hell happened, Chloe.” I looked at her, my stupid eyes brimming with tears again. “He said it’s a good thing I’m going away because we need some time apart.” I threw my hands in the air. “We just started dating! Why would we need time apart?” Slumping in my seat, I blew out a long breath. “I think we just broke up.”

“Uh, no you didn’t,” Chloe said, giving me a strange look. “If you had broken up, you would know about it. And you wouldn’t be wearing what looks like an ultra-expensive piece of jewelry around your neck, either.” She pointed to my rose necklace, which I hadn’t been able to take off, as heartsick and angry as I had been when I saw it in the bathroom mirror. My hand went up to touch it, and Chloe continued. “Rafe was probably too scared of you at the moment and figured you needed a week to cool off before he tried to discuss whatever it was the two of you were fighting about.” A wicked grin flashed across my sister’s face and she wiggled her eyebrows. “Were you talking about sex?”

“
What?
” I had just shoved a large spoonful of ice cream in my mouth, and of course it went flying everywhere.

Chloe squealed and wiped a chocolate chip from her cheek. “Gross, Gabi!”

“Why are you talking about…” I lowered my voice, looking around the room for Dad even though I knew he was upstairs, doing some last minute packing. “Sex?”