by Alex Hayes
“Tonight?”
“Uh-huh. We’ll swing by the apartment first, then I’ll drop you along the way, assuming you can get a lock on your man.”
My man? I can’t wait to find him.
Settling back into the light gray leather seat, I try to imagine our reunion.
I haven’t seen Conithar in fifteen years. I still don’t get why the Livran carers separated us. Mr. Scrim said they tried to keep bonded pairs in close proximity, but that wasn’t always possible.
Not for me and Con. I got shuffled all over Northern California and ended up in Nevada. Cadi said her experience wasn’t much different.
The problem was our abilities.
Cadi’s telekinesis caused all kinds of trouble, though she tried to hide it. And my energy transference—shifting heat into and out of objects—is forever causing me grief. If only I could detach my emotions from the ability completely. But when I’m freaked out, I have a tendency to burn things. Or freeze them. Always the extremes.
I haven’t burned many people. There was one kid, but he got what he deserved. And then that Evatenon who tried to assimilate me. Him, I meant to dry roast.
“Hey, I’ve got great news.” Idris’s comment snaps me from my reflection.
“What’s that?”
He’s grinning again. “A movie company has short-listed that song I played for you and Cadi over the phone. You know, ‘Won’t You Come Home to Me?’ If they choose the song, it’ll be more than great. It’ll mean serious distribution, which raises the chances of my come-find-me message reaching all the Livran kids.”
“That’s great, Idris. Congrats.” Excitement flutters in my stomach. And some major relief. A chance to communicate with the others is huge because it’s my fault we lost the ability to find them in the first place.
5
Connell
I close my eyes and try to ignore the blare of sirens as an ambulance and two police cruisers speed past us on East First Street. With a sigh, I sink lower into the passenger seat, while Azera drives toward home.
This is one emergency I’m ready to ignore.
I’ve been up since four a.m., and I am not in the mood to deal with anything after the celebrity no-show I staked out for the past twelve hours.
Azera echoed one of my favorite lines when she picked me up, “Not every lead is going to pan out,” which only served to further my annoyance.
“Sounds like a lot of sirens,” she murmurs, slowing at a traffic light. “Maybe you should dial in on the scanner in case it’s something big.”
I really don’t want to, but I switch on the radio and dial into emergency services. Voices chirp back and forth with a code this and a code that.
I know what all those numbers mean and I don’t like what I’m hearing. A multi-vehicle collision on Route Five, northbound. Damage to an overpass and a tractor-trailer involved.
Azera glances at me. “There’s only so much you can do, Connie. Maybe give this one a pass.”
I scrunch my forehead because I can’t. “I save one life and I make a difference.”
“Save two and you deserve a medal. How many people have you already saved?”
I don’t keep count. If kudos were what mattered, I wouldn’t be doing this.
“I’m gonna have to check it out.” After reclining my seat, I wriggle into the rear of the car, where I can get out of sight while I transform.
Azera finds a parking lot near a freeway on-ramp and pulls in. “This okay?”
“Yeah, fine. See you at home.” I sigh and slip out of the vehicle.
The aerial view of the accident is far from pretty, but landing in the midst of the disaster seems a thousand times worse. A dozen cars are involved and as many emergency vehicles are on the scene. A tractor-trailer lies on its side, leaking diesel across the roadway. EMTs and cops are scouting out wounded and assessing the situation.
A torn-up guardrail catches my attention as I meet tarmac. Beyond it, a crumpled car lays at the base of a gully, its front end crunched into the cement edge of a high-capacity drainage ditch. None of the emergency services folks have made it this far out, so I turn away from the epicenter and jog toward the vehicle.
No one, not even the motorists trapped in an endless chain behind the blockage, seems to have noticed the crumpled sedan, despite the steam rising from its damaged radiator.
The pungent smell of gasoline makes my nose wrinkle. My invisible form is more sensitive to smell.
I fight the urge to sneeze. Talk about a surefire way to get noticed.
Smashed plastic, torn metal and glass pepper the area. I’m almost afraid to look, but I venture down the short slope to the concrete ditch.
The driver’s side window is shattered, and the door banged in so badly it won’t open. The occupant met his airbag on impact. Thanks to that, he’s still alive.
I touch his shoulder, senses reaching out to assess the damage. It’s extensive. A head injury causing significant swelling in the brain. A leg smashed into the steering column. Blood everywhere. They’ll need the Jaws of Life to get him out.
After assessing his lacerations, I repair the life-threatening ones, then move to the blood leaking into the guy’s brain. He has thick dark hair, no graying. He can’t be more than thirty. The ring on his finger and his suit suggests married and middle-class, probably with kids waiting at home.
I focus on the mess in his brain. Ten minutes later, the internal injury is mostly repaired, then he goes and has a heart attack.
As I drop a hand over his chest to stimulate the organ into beating again, I hear a shout.
Time’s almost up.
A cop, an older guy with a few extra pounds, picks his way past the broken guardrail and heads down the slope.
The victim’s heart is beating again. I spend another fifteen seconds initiating repair to the heart muscle, restoring health to damaged cells, then dive out of the way as the officer reaches the vehicle. He grabs his radio and calls for assistance before assessing the driver.
With a cop standing between me and the victim, there’s nothing more I can do. I circle the sedan, about to head back to the freeway, when I notice a kid’s travel seat laying on its side, abutting some nearby bushes.
I run over, wing feathers flapping in a chilling breeze that’s determined to seep deep into my chest cavity. With reservations, I reach out and touch the infant’s arm, the only body part visible. A shiver runs through me as I back away, swallowing hard. There’s nothing here to save.
The urge to vomit nearly overwhelms me. I stagger away, far enough from the activity that I won’t be heard and throw up into a storm grate.
My vision stars. I’ve got to get out of here.
I’ve been able to heal all my life, even as a toddler. Fixing things was fun, until other kids made it clear my ability was unnatural. So I stopped aiding others and saved my talents for healing myself. Of course, being able to fix my body made me more reckless. Who cared if I sprained a wrist skateboarding, when I could repair it in a few minutes?
But my power to heal is limited. I can’t bring the dead back to life.
For the child in the car seat, there’s nothing I can do. Retreating from that loss, I clench my fists and fight back tears.
Did I do the right thing saving that guy? If he knew what I’d done, would he hate me for giving him his life back when his kid lies dead in the weeds? A loss beyond recovery.
Maybe I saved his physical life, but I didn’t save the life he had before this accident. A life filled with the promise of watching his child grow up.
I wish I could turn back time.
The old lady I healed after a stroke called me an angel, but I’m so far from angelic it’s laughable. I can’t save people’s hopes, their dreams. I can’t bring back their babies.
I choke on a sob and keep walking, but I can’t escape the vision of that tiny hand, that cold body, that little kid I couldn’t save.
6
Rowan
After
a high-speed tour of my new digs, I follow Idris out of his apartment. It’s located in a safe area, but nothing like the neighborhoods to the north, the ones where the stars live in their multi-million-dollar homes.
“Which direction are you picking up Conithar’s crystal?” Idris pulls into the street from his narrow parking space. “I’ve an hour to get across town.”
I point to the east. “That way.”
He brings up a map on his GPS with a flashing arrow showing our location. “Find a route that starts in his direction. I’ll take you as far as I can, then you can catch a cab. You’ll find plenty once we get close to downtown.”
To avoid the freeway, Idris chooses thoroughfares, then winds along backstreets. We merge onto a four-lane thruway.
The tug at my chest notches up. “I think he’s close.”
“Then I’ll drop you here.” Idris pulls into a supermarket parking lot.
After checking I have my wallet, phone and the key to Idris’s apartment, I climb out.
“All set?” he calls.
“Yeah, I’m good. I’ll text you later.” I flash him a smile. “Don’t wait up.”
He laughs. “Try not to jump the guy within five minutes of meeting him.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The BMW’s brake lights flash as the vehicle takes a turn.
I take stock of where I am, standing on the corner of a busy intersection. Holiday lights, shining out of a neighborhood grocery store, and the jingling of a nearby Salvation Army bell ringer gives the place a Christmasy feel, while the Mexican restaurant across the street wafts the smell of fresh tortilla chips into the air.
My stomach twinges with hunger, but I ignore it, focusing, instead, on the determined tug coming from my crystal. The pull of Con’s stone is getting weaker. He’s moving away. I turn like a compass needle, shift side to side to confirm his exact direction and hurry down the street.
An hour later, and I’m still walking. The night air grows cooler and damper, and my enthusiasm wanes.
Con’s crystal keeps changing direction. I shift course, again, and continue.
The winding route leads me to an avenue of aging apartment buildings and the bright storefronts of nail salons, hair dressers and convenience stores.
Does he live around here? The apartment buildings don’t seem that high-end. Maybe not even moderate, so there’s a strong likelihood. Mr. Scrim said Con had run away from his last foster home.
A thread of worry laced with dread quivers through me. The feelings don’t seem entirely mine. God, I hope he’s safe and not living on the street.
The tug in my chest gets stronger with a suddenness that makes me stagger. I stop and look behind me, down a street too narrow given the volume of traffic. The closest light changes, and the bright glow of vehicles speeds toward me down the tight stretch.
Could he be in one of those cars?
Taxis and minivans approach, but the tug of Con’s crystal rushes past before the vehicles reach me.
What in the world? I spin on my heel and hurry after the rapidly fading tug.
7
Connell
By the time my invisible wings carry me within a few blocks of home, grief over the lost child has turned to anger, and I ask myself for the millionth time why I bother to help when all the effort seems fruitless.
Below me, the neighborhood lays velveted by darkness, save for the streetlights, its residents settled in front of their TVs or laptops, oblivious to the endless tragedy that surrounds them.
Every siren, speeding past their apartment blocks and houses, cries out. Another life hangs in the balance. Another family risks heartbreak. Another soul rests at the sheer edge of a precipice.
I’m so caught up in these thoughts, the unfamiliar tug at my chest barely registers. Not until I spot a guy running down the street in the direction I’m headed. I wouldn’t think much of it, except for the anxiousness radiating from my crystal.
Some kind of warning?
Nah. Has to be emotional fallout after today’s horror.
Banking, I glide around the block and flap into the alley behind our apartment building. Shadows prevail over a lone streetlight, but my heat-sensing x-ray vision picks up a stray dog sniffing around the community dumpster. The whoosh and wind off my wings scare the mutt, and he dashes behind a row of parked cars.
That weird tug persists, a feeling near physical, like a string yanking on my breastbone, trying to pull me toward the front of the building.
What the hell is this about?
For as long as I can remember, the crystal hung around my neck on a chain that wouldn’t come off. Until a year ago, when the stone came loose from the necklace and sunk into my chest.
The whole thing happened while I slept after a particularly long stakeout. I didn’t notice until late the following day. It was the weirdest thing, but I didn’t freak out. By then, the stone was sending out happiness signals and soon disappeared completely under my skin.
I rub at the offending object, hoping it’ll settle down.
Pulling in my wings, I mount the shed to the fire escape, head up two flights and knock on the bathroom window, an unnecessary habit tonight. Azera’s waiting outside Chateau Marmont for a big-name celebrity event to kick off.
A hot shower will change my frame of mind.
I wish, but the pounding water can’t wash away the tragic images seared into my brain.
Deflated, I take zombie steps out of the steaming cubicle. As I dry off, that annoying tug plays up again. I ignore it, tip my head side to side to unblock my ears and wander into my room to dress.
Food’s next. I’m headed for the fridge when that strange tug jerks me mid-step, to the right, toward the main street.
What is up with this thing?
Azera’s room faces that direction.
With a growl, I tramp through the darkness into her space, careful to avoid her bed and the old-fashioned coatrack lurking in one corner. The curtains are drawn shut, making it easy to sneak a peek outside.
The guy I noticed earlier stands facing the front entrance.
Who the hell is he?
The dark hood of a ski jacket conceals his face. The crystal practically leaps out of my chest in its enthusiasm. Not that the gem can see anything, but it knows something’s out there. Something it wants me to go after.
I am seriously not in the mood for dealing with this right now, but the stone won’t be ignored. I’ll have to send that loiterer packing if I’m to get any rest.
My footsteps thunder down the front staircase. Car lights filter through the mottled glass of the main entrance in streams of white, gold and red. Even at this time of night, well after rush hour, the traffic’s heavy. In a couple of hours, the constant drone, punctuated by impatient horns, will fade.
Puffing out irritation, I open the door and jog down the three steps to sidewalk level. The guy’s obviously skulking. A long-legged, scrawny looking dude. Got to be a dealer.
“Hey!” I shout, hoping to send this person scuttling back to the dark corner he came from before any confrontation is required. I’m twice his size. That should be incentive enough to make him skedaddle.
At my shout, the dude jumps about a foot and stumbles backward off the curb.
A fast-moving taxi speeds toward him. A side mirror clips the guy, knocking him clear across the sidewalk, where he lands face down on the cracked concrete.
Brakes squeal. The taxi stops a dozen yards down the street, blocking traffic.
“What the hell?” yells the driver, shaking his arms. “That guy jumped into the road. You saw that, right?”
I stare at him. Is he talking to me?
Recovering from shock, I lift a hand to acknowledge his words.
The taxi driver seems to take my gesture as some kind of confirmation the guy sprawled across the cement is to blame for the accident. Car horns fill the night as the driver beelines back to his vehicle and drives off down the road.
“Hey, w
ait!” I shout.
What the hell? is right. The taxi driver shouldn’t have taken off. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have memorized his plate number. Now he’s long gone.
A woman hurries past, casting a nervous look my way as she sidesteps the fallen body and keeps moving.
This is not what I had in mind when I came out here to tell this guy to get lost.
Still, the crystal pulls me closer, tingling in my chest like it’s excited.
I crouch beside the guy and touch his outstretched fingers. They’re slender with neatly trimmed fingernails.
My healing ability picks up the damage the moment I make physical contact. Unconscious due to an impact to the head. Cracked ribs and contusions down the right side.
If I treat him here, the next pedestrian will think I whacked the guy with intent to rob him.
I squat and pull the kid onto his back.
Younger than I thought. I peel back his hood to examine the head wound, and a mass of dark curls slide across the most beautiful face I’ve ever seen.
Holy crap. He’s a girl.
8
Rowan
I wake to a swirling light at the end of a narrow path through a dark forest.
My fingers dig into something soft.
A purple glow pulses, then goes out, along with the hum of a vibrating phone, but the images of violet eyes tumble through my head, twisting into a confusing mist.
Where am I?
The crystal seems asleep, content, while terror licks and leaps through my chest like the hungry flames of a forest fire.
This makes no sense. Did an Evatenon kidnap me?
The sharp edges of furniture and a doorframe pierce the bushes and tree branches shaping my surroundings. Not a forest. I’m in a room.
