C
HAPTER
T
WELVE
I
slipped a coat on over my sling and hurried down the stairs as fast as I dared in the ratty tee and sweats I’d slept in. I scribbled a quick note to my family to let them know I’d gone for a walk in case they woke before I returned and stuck it to the fridge with a magnet before leaving through the back door.
Asher had disappeared, but I knew he hadn’t left. A labyrinth of short paths divided the wooded nature reserve of Townsend Park. Only a block wide, the miniature park was a favorite for birdwatchers and bored teenagers wanting to lose a few hours in the maze. Some trails took you to a haven in the center, and I headed toward the entrance where I’d last seen Asher. Inside, snow smothered every surface, and the overhead arch of branches dimmed the foggy morning light. I’d halted, unsure of which direction to go, when I heard his low voice.
“Remy, what are you doing out here?”
He chided me for walking out in the cold alone to meet him. Focusing on his voice grew easier as my eyes adjusted to the light, and I stepped into a circular clearing. He stood with his back to me.
“I couldn’t sleep. The pain pills wore off.”
My husky sleep-filled words got his attention. He twisted about and reached my side in an instant. The color faded from his face when he spied the sling, split lip, and new bruises. My bulky clothing hid the cuts on my arms and back and the deeper bruises banding my hip and back where I’d hit the entry table.
His eyes slipped to my hip with a shimmer of danger, and I wondered for an insane moment if I’d betrayed the painful injuries in some way. Then, those melancholy eyes were back on mine, and a fresh emotion distracted me: I’d missed him.
“How bad is it?”
He didn’t look surprised to see me hurt. “How did you hear about it?”
Asher’s expression turned bleak. “You’re all anyone’s been talking about at school. I tried calling Lucy, but she wouldn’t give me your dad’s cell number. She said you’d call when you got back. You could have been killed.”
Lucy’s fierce devotion made me smile, and I held out a hand in a playful manner. “I’m very much alive. Want to pinch me to make sure you’re not dreaming?”
We both thought about the last time he’d touched me in his car. He scowled and took a step back. “That’s not funny, Remy. I was at the airport trying to get to you when Gabe heard you were on your way back.”
He’d been coming to the rescue, my very own damaged knight in shining armor. An extreme reaction for an enemy. I exhaled and my breath puffed out in a white cloud.
“Why would you do that, Asher? And what are you doing out here? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a stalker, and you obviously knew I was back in town, alive and kicking.”
“I was worried.”
Circling around him, I swiped a mound of snow off one of the stone benches so I could sit. The seat felt like a slab of ice, but my body protested standing.
“Were you now? Well, that’s . . . confusing. One minute you’re threatening to attack me, and the next you’re worried about someone else attacking me. Maybe you should stop playing games with me and find the guts to finish the job yourself. At least Dean is consistent.”
Asher’s body tensed and his head whipped toward me. I’d expected it, had provoked it, but couldn’t help gasping at the fury that ignited in his eyes.
“If I thought you meant that, I’d be pissed off. Stop antagonizing me, Remy, and say what’s on your mind.”
“You first,” I challenged.
“Fine.” He stalked several feet away and glared at an innocent sapling that had bowed beneath the ivy creeping up its side. I almost missed his whisper.
“It was my fault.”
“What?”
Louder, through his teeth, he said, “It was my fault.”
“What are you talking about?” Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I’d thought because he made no sense.
His hands balled into fists when he faced me. “What I did to you was a warning. To make it easy for you to stay away from me.” The sound of his bitter laugh startled a bird from a nearby bush, and we watched it flit to a tree branch. “It worked, all right. You didn’t tell me when you left. I could’ve protected you if I’d been there, but I couldn’t even get a phone number to reach you. My brother found out you were coming home when he called your mom on fake PTA business. The PTA, damn it.”
I stood and approached him. “Wait a minute. Forgetting for a second that Gabe is involved with the PTA, let’s focus on the important thing. You think it’s your fault Dean got to me?”
Asher nodded, and my temper flared. When I shoved him in the chest with my good hand, he cursed. Even as I savored the heat that came with touching him, I gave him another shove. This time he didn’t budge an inch, though I’d put some effort behind the push. He grabbed my hand, holding it between his warmer ones with a gentle grip, and the fight left me as green fire sparked between us.
We stared at our joined hands, and I told him without anger, “You’re an idiot.”
As if my skin scorched him, he dropped my hand. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be here.”
Asher could exasperate me like no other person I’d met. “Not about that. You’re an idiot for thinking you’re responsible for me. What makes you think I would’ve invited you? Who asked you to save me? I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. What happened a couple of days ago . . . Well, it wasn’t the first time. Dean, my stepfather, was hitting me years before you knew I existed. Hitting my mother, too.”
At the mention of Anna, I retreated to the bench and huddled in my jacket.
“If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. I knew he’d kill Anna if I left her without protection, but being here . . . Well, it’s been a long time since I felt safe.”
My words trailed off, and I squeezed my eyes shut to hide from any pity in his eyes. The air shifted as Asher kneeled on the ground at my feet. He didn’t touch me, but I wished he would.
He groaned, and his hand slipped to the back of my neck, urging me to look at him. His mental wall had gone up, proof that he wasn’t taking any chances, and a wise action since I hadn’t bothered with my own defenses.
“She was your mother. She should’ve protected you. Not the other way around.”
The severity of his gaze willed me to believe him. “You’re right, of course. What kind of mother lets her husband do the things Dean did to me?” The dour Officer Kazinski’s horror at seeing the cigarette burn on my arm appeared in my mind. Anna had watched Dean brand me like cattle. My hatred for both of them mingled with sorrow because Anna and I would never have a chance to start over without the lies between us.
“Asher, I couldn’t heal her. I tried, but I couldn’t. She woke up for a few minutes, but . . .”
He grimaced in pain, and I wondered if he guessed what I’d risked to bring her out of the coma. It had been impossible to tell my father any of this, and now the words rushed out of me in a quiet confession. “I was so angry. She died because of Dean, and they hadn’t arrested him. He had an
alibi
. He didn’t even bother to come to her funeral. I
hate
him.”
Asher squeezed my hand. “What happened?”
I described how Dean had shown up in the apartment and the fight that followed. “He wanted revenge. He knows what I can do, how I can hurt people. Last time I saw him, he was unconscious with two broken ribs, among other injuries.”
I heard the satisfaction in my voice as I replayed that moment in my head when I’d transferred my pain and Anna’s to Dean. I’d been sure I would die, and instead, I’d incapacitated him. A mere girl had flattened a grown man twice her size. That must have infuriated him.
“He wanted to kill me. I saw it in his eyes,” I added, with a shudder.
I’d left a lot out to spare Asher. Like Dean knocking me to the floor and wrenching my shoulder. How he’d thrown me into the entryway table and the mirror hanging above it. And the moment when he’d known he’d won and intended to kill me, before I’d loosed my pain on him.
“I’d like to kill him,” he said, his deep voice raw with emotion.
My urge to do the same frightened me because I knew I could do it with my new power. Shivering, I said, “I want to forget him.”
Asher’s expression softened as he brushed a gentle finger over my split lip. “Why haven’t you healed yourself?”
“Too many people have seen the wounds. It would cause a lot of questions.”
“Has he told anyone about you?”
“Not that I know of. At least, not anyone who would believe him.”
Asher leaned forward until his forehead rested on my knees. “I give in. It doesn’t seem to matter if I stay away, Remy. You need a bodyguard.”
My uninjured hand slipped from his to stroke his unruly hair, and my fingers sifted through the dark, silky strands. It felt softer than I had imagined. “Don’t you mean a Protector?”
The woods stopped breathing. When Asher’s head came up, my hand fell away, and I let him read the truth on my face. He sat back on his heels with a blank expression.
“How did you find out?”
“My mother. Last night, I discovered some audio tracks she recorded and left on my iPod.”
“What did she tell you?” he asked, in a flat voice.
“Enough for me to figure out who you were. At least, she gave me a name for what you are. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know you were different the first time I scanned you when you’d burned your hand.”
His lips quirked in a half-smile. “You never said anything. I thought maybe you hadn’t noticed.”
“Not likely. Hypothetically, say a normal human body is working at 60 percent efficiency. Your body is working at about 210 percent efficiency. Definitely not normal. Besides, did you think I didn’t see how fast you move when we’re alone? Or how strong you are? Give me a break. You pulled Brandon and me out of the deep end of the pool like we weighed ten pounds each.”
“I knew I wasn’t careful enough around you, but I couldn’t seem to—”
By rising to his feet and moving several feet away to stare into the wilderness, he shut me out. Mentally, his wall increased the distance between us.
“What does your family think about having a Healer living in town?”
He shot me an unfathomable glance before answering. “Scared and pissed off.”
“All that, huh?”
Asher spun to face me and peered at me with obvious disbelief. “Why don’t you sound afraid, Remy? Didn’t your mother tell you how dangerous we are to you?”
Adjusting my sling to find a more comfortable position, I returned his look with considerable calm. “I’ve been in Blackwell Falls for weeks. They would’ve hurt me by now if they were going to. Why are they scared and pissed off?”
With his hands tucked in his pockets, he shook his head. “Don’t think that. Don’t ever forget you’re in danger while Protectors are around.” I nodded to placate him, and he continued with a wry twist of his full lips. “Lottie is afraid. She’s worried about what will happen if others come for you, and they think we’ve been hiding you.”
They called Charlotte “Lottie.” As intense as our conversations had been, we didn’t know much about each other. He didn’t say it, but I knew she worried about him, not me.
Curious, I asked, “What about Gabe? Is he the pissed-off one?”
His eyes met mine, and he frowned. “It’s complicated.”
He didn’t expand. There was some conflict there, and I wondered what it could be.
“Asher, my mother said something.” I was taking a huge chance telling him, but I’d come this far. “A theory the Healers have.”
Asher’s tone bristled with a challenge. “They think they have the answer to stopping the Protectors. A Healer with the ability to cure immortality.”
The statement was a test to see what I knew, and I didn’t blink. “And that’s what you want? To be mortal again?”
He stared into the fog with fierce longing. “Almost more than anything.”
I wondered about that
almost
. What did he want more than to be mortal? “Why?” I asked.
His tired sigh sounded loud in the silent clearing. “I never wanted to be immortal in the first place. What do you know about the War?”
I tried to remember my mother’s words. “Anna said the Healers were greedy and kept all the profit from the healing to themselves. And the Protectors used it as an excuse to go to war. In the end, though, they killed the Healers to become immortal. Only it backfired because they lost the use of most of their senses.” What had Anna said?
Can you imagine living forever and never being able to feel another person’s touch?
Asher leaned against a nearby oak tree, and his enigmatic expression gave no hint of his feelings. “She’s right. It backfired big-time. The first Protectors to kill discovered their mistake, but by then it was too late. We were at war. You have to understand, Remy, it was more of a class war than anything else.”