“I don’t understand,” Lucy asked, with a helpless gesture. “What does all of that mean?”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Okada said. “Her heart is weakening, and she’s not eligible for a transplant. I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time. A day, maybe less.”
Lucy broke down. She fell against me, her body shaking with sobs that rattled out of her chest. Her tears dampened my shirt, and I rubbed her back in comforting circles. Through it all, I felt myself shutting down, all systems powering off. The pain floated away, and the apathy settled over me like an old companion. The way cleared for me to take care of business like I had all those years I’d taken care of my mother. There would be details to go over, plans to make, and my sister to watch over. The responsibility would be mine because there was nobody else.
Asher touched my hand, and I looked through him. He didn’t figure into my plans for today. I couldn’t deal with him, too. He swallowed, and his hand fell away.
“You can visit with her, one at a time,” Dr. Okada said. Then he was gone, his white coat swishing behind him as he went off to save people who didn’t have weak hearts.
Lucy’s sobs didn’t stop, but they quieted. She shuddered against me with great hiccups, sweating like an overwrought child. I pulled away to see her red eyes and shattered expression. “Lucy, do you want to see her first?”
She nodded.
“Come on,” Lottie said, with unexpected gentleness. “I’ll show you where she is.”
She sent a sympathetic glance my way, and I remembered that she had lost both her parents and a brother on the same day. She took Lucy’s arm to lead her away, and I was left alone with Asher. I retreated to a blue armchair. Happy striped wallpaper covered the walls, and a generic painting of a flower hung in front of me. Did anyone really believe that a picture of a flower would offer solace when all you could think about was how a loved one would never make it outside to see the real thing again? Idiots.
“Remy?” Asher repeated my name until I glanced at him. “Are you okay?”
He had probably read my mind, so what was the point of lying? “My stepmother is dying because of what I am. No, Asher. I’m not okay.”
Despite my harsh words, my voice sounded flat. He didn’t say anything else, and I was glad. Silence made it easier to sink into the nothingness. When Lucy returned, she wore a shocked expression as she chose a chair near Asher.
I rose to follow Lottie out of the room and jumped when Asher touched my arm. “Be careful. I know she’s your mom, but . . . be careful.”
I shifted so he had to drop his hand and walked away. Down the hall, Lottie had stopped in front of a door. I moved past her and the door whooshed closed behind me. It was just me, my stepmother, and the unnatural sounds of the machines keeping her alive. I looked at her in the bed and saw my mother instead. Laura’s face was replaced by Anna’s faded features, old bruises coloring her jaw and terror in her eyes.
He’ll come after you, Anna had warned. He knows. All my fault.
Her last words had been a confession and a warning that my stepfather would try to kill me. She’d died, and I hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it.
I pinched the skin on my palms to stay anchored. “No,” I whispered. “Laura’s not Anna.”
I took a tentative step closer to the bed with its white sheets and pink blanket. Laura’s red curls had grown longer, and they framed her face, highlighting how pale her skin was. She’d lost so much weight. Already a petite woman, she now looked incredibly frail. I leaned closer and sniffed. My stepmother’s hugs had come with a cloud of floral perfume, but that was replaced by the slight odor of sweat and antiseptic.
The barrier I had erected around my heart teetered. This woman had welcomed me into her home. She had shown me more love in a few months than my mother had given me in a lifetime. Laura had given her affection without constraints, uncaring that I wasn’t hers by blood. I grasped the bed frame to stay upright. What had I done? I should have stayed away from her.
“I’m so sorry, Mom.”
My guttural whisper sounded loud in the room. I unfurled my energy into the air. The doctors could be wrong about her condition. I reached out to touch her arm, but I found myself bodily picked up and removed from the bed.
“Let me go!”
“No,” Lottie said, locking steely arms around me.
She shook her head at me, her chin-length bob swaying. She looked sad as her gaze transferred to Laura, and that shocked me. She had only tolerated me because of Asher. Once she had tried to give me up to the Protectors to keep us apart. Now she almost seemed to hold me the way one friend might comfort another.
“She’s too far gone, Remy,” she said. “Not even you can save her.”
My shoulders slumped. I could heal a complete stranger, but not this woman whom I dearly loved. What was the point of having these stupid powers? Bitterness surged, mixing with grief. Everything was so screwed up.
“She didn’t deserve this. It’s not fair,” I said.
“No. It’s not.” She didn’t offer words of comfort to make me feel better, but then, I wouldn’t have believed them anyway. “Come on.” She pulled me toward the door.
Without trying to be obvious about it, I freed my hand from her grasp. All I needed was another Protector becoming mortal because of me. I followed her from the room, and she stopped in the hallway instead of returning to the waiting room.
Her green eyes narrowed on me as she leaned against the wall. “What’s going on with you and Asher?”
“You should ask him,” I said, focusing on a spot over her head.
I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that Asher had ended things. I couldn’t without falling apart, and there wasn’t room for that right now.
“Have you heard from Gabe?” I asked to distract her.
She nodded with a speculative look in her eyes. “He asks about you.”
“I’m sure he’s worried about Asher.”
“Yeah. Asher.” Lottie smirked as if she knew I’d sidestepped her hint, and that look reminded me of how she used to hate me. I’d never mentioned that Gabe had feelings for me, but her brothers might have told her. It didn’t mean anything that I missed him, and I wouldn’t let Lottie make it mean more.
I bit the inside of my cheek and trained my gaze on the floor. She wore black high heels with her skinny jeans as if the snow outside didn’t affect her. Knowing her powers, it probably didn’t. I would never be able to repay her for what she’d done for my family.
“Lottie, thank you. You didn’t have to do this. Stay here, I mean.”
She tilted her chin in acknowledgment. “I know what it’s like to lose a mom. I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry, too.”
There was nothing else to say because we’d never been friends. Asher looked relieved to see me when we returned to the waiting room. He exchanged a glance with his sister, and I guessed he had sent her after me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to think about that, so I set it aside for later. Lucy’s face was pinched with grief, her black curls in disarray from running her hands through them. She’d go crazy sitting cooped up in the small, cheerful room. I grabbed my purse from where I’d left it on the floor.
“Come on, Luce. Let’s go for a walk. There must be a coffee machine around here somewhere.”
We followed a sign to an alcove that hid the vending machines. For once, I really didn’t want coffee. I didn’t think I’d be able to choke the hot liquid down, but I needed something to do with my hands. A nurse in pink scrubs rushed past the alcove as I dug through my wallet for quarters.
“Did you try to heal her?” Lucy asked in a tiny voice.
I froze. My hand shook, and I dropped a coin. It rolled across the tiled floor and disappeared under the machine. I waited until it was gone to raise my eyes to Lucy’s. “I can’t. I want to, but she’s too far gone.”
“Please, Remy,” she begged. “You have to try.”
I didn’t mention that I would absorb Laura’s wounds: Lucy already knew that. She grabbed my arm and shook it with rising violence. I sensed the helpless rage in her and wanted to close my eyes against the lash of it.
“You have to,” she insisted.
Her nails dug into my skin, but I didn’t pull away. The inevitable door slammed closed, locking me into a fate that I’d sensed coming since Lottie had called.
“I’ve tried to heal a wound like hers before,” I said. “It’s impossible.”
“You’re talking about your mom, aren’t you? The woman was a shit mother, but you tried to save her. My mom has been nothing but good to you, while you’ve lied and gone behind her back. How can you refuse to help her?”
Her words battered at my control. “That’s not fair,” I whispered in a bleak voice. “I love Laura. I would do anything for her. But even if I set aside the danger and tried, it might not do any good. There are no guarantees with injuries like hers.”
“You have to try! Please!”
I hesitated, torn between the desire to do what my sister asked and what I knew to be true. Lottie had stopped me from touching my stepmother for a reason. I would absorb Laura’s injuries. Her failing heart. Her head wound. I could die, and even then, I might not be able to save her. And that assumed my attempts to heal her worked when I hadn’t been able to heal her before now.
“Lucy . . .” I pleaded, reaching for her. Don’t ask me to do this.
She shoved away from me in disgust, and my heart ached at the hatred in her narrowed eyes. “You did this,” she accused. “They hurt her because of you, and you’re going to let her die.”
“That’s enough, Lucy.” We both started at Asher’s harsh voice. He vibrated with anger as he stared at my sister. “Remy didn’t make those men hurt your mother. She would die before she let harm come to any of you.”
“I’m sure I’d believe you if my dad hadn’t been taken, and my mother wasn’t down the hall dying because of the people after her. Funny how everyone around her falls while she comes out standing every time. You should know that better than anyone.”
Lucy pushed past Asher and disappeared around the corner, the sound of her sobs reaching us. Asher appeared torn between following her and staying with me.
I helped him decide by straightening my shoulders and blanking my expression. “Go after her. She shouldn’t be alone, and God knows she doesn’t want me.”
He hesitated for a second and then nodded. I watched him go, choking back despair. Lucy was right about everything. I imagined what my father would say if he was here. Somehow I couldn’t get past the grief and blame that I knew would be carved into his face. I hadn’t hurt Laura, but my choices had brought this upon us. Nobody had made me go to Franc. No, that had been all me. My grandfather wouldn’t have known about my parents if I had kept my distance. Asher had warned me, but I’d rushed in, so sure I could handle things.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
My feet marched me to the door of Laura’s room before I’d made a decision, except this had always been my destiny. The hardest choices sometimes boiled down to the most basic truths. I wanted Laura to live more than I feared pain or death. I would gladly pay the cost for her. I trembled, my hand shaking violently as I turned the doorknob.
The room was empty but for my too-still stepmother. I had to hurry before the others returned or fear took over. I touched my stepmother’s hand and scanned her body. Laura’s heart was shot. Worse, her head proved an impenetrable black fortress that my mind fought against entering. Perhaps it was my body’s defense mechanism: I used my mind to focus my energy during a healing and taking on a head injury would cloud that and prevent me from healing myself. Whatever the reason, her injuries seemed impossible to take on. I battered against Laura’s mind, trying to find a way in without success. I shoved my power at her, and nothing happened because my body instinctively fought against a death sentence.
I can do this, Mom, I thought, stroking her forehead. I won’t give up.
I pictured my stepmom hugging me when I got home from school, and the joy she took from sharing her home and family with me. She’d been so proud at my graduation and enraged at the way I’d been treated by my mother. Stark love had shone out of her eyes when she helped pick up the pieces of me that had been left after my mother and stepfather had finished with me. She had accepted all of my rough edges and helped save me when I didn’t think I was worth saving. Those were not gifts you could repay.
Something loosened inside me. I stopped fighting, and the tendrils of my power wound through her, healing her broken body. Her heart thudded triple-time like it would explode out of her chest. Her spine bent and bowed off the bed as she gasped around the tube in her mouth. Her mind . . . oh God, her mind unsnarled, the wound healing. Her eyes snapped open, and hope replaced despair. Then I saw how empty her brown eyes were. She was gone. The woman I’d known wasn’t in there anymore.
Terror slammed through me as the machines blared warning alarms. I’d made things worse. Her body couldn’t handle the energy I’d pushed at it. Her heart skipped, stuttered, stalled.
A door slammed open. Hands pushed and shoved me out of the room, breaking my connection with her skin. Not again, I thought, as my pulse raced and my heart worked overtime. Please, God, no.
Lucy appeared beside me in the hall with Asher, crying as she watched the doctors try to save Laura. Nobody noticed when I stumbled back and slammed into the opposite wall, crushed by the overwhelming pain.
I’m having a heart attack, I realized.
My vision blurred. From a million miles away, I heard Lucy sob and I knew Laura was dead.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nobody noticed when I slumped on the floor. Laura’s injuries had reverberated back onto me. The strong thump of my heart pulsed in slow, thready beats, and pain streaked up my left side. The center of my chest felt like a vise had been wrapped around it, and the pressure tightened until I struggled to breathe. Knives stabbed the inside of my skull, undermining my ability to think. There was a reason my body had fought against this.
Instinct kicked in when I began to lose consciousness. Time froze and the hospital hallway faded when energy surged at my heart. The muscle seized for ten of the longest seconds of my life before it kick-started to life. Beat by beat, my pulse picked up the pace. Adrenaline stormed my system, and my world narrowed to getting my breathing under control while the icy aftermath of healing spread through me. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
“Remy?” Lottie spoke from somewhere above me. She crouched beside me and patted my arm awkwardly. “I’m so sorry.”
She watched Asher holding Lucy, and I realized that she didn’t know. None of them had a clue about what I’d done. She thought me bowed with grief, but that wouldn’t last when my post-healing hypothermia kicked in. Using the wall as a crutch, I rose to my feet, thinking to get help. Asher could help me. My heart skipped a beat, stuttering like it would stop again. My legs almost gave out under me, and I leaned against the wall to stay upright. Every breath hurt, and my head throbbed with a pain so intense I gritted my teeth. Even the light hurt, the fluorescent rays burning the back of my skull.
My movements drew Lucy’s gaze. She swung around, an avenging angel pointing a finger at me. “This is your fault!” she screamed.
In that instant, I knew it would be useless to tell her that I’d tried my best to save our mother.
She shoved me, and I slammed into the wall, almost losing my footing. “You brought this on us. I hate you. Do you hear me? I hate you!”
Her shouting drew attention that we couldn’t afford, and Asher tried to hush her. He couldn’t even look at me. Lottie stepped toward Lucy, too, and I used the distraction to stumble away from them. My shaky limbs threatened to give out, but through sheer force of will, I kept going, even as my teeth chattered and chills ra
cked my body. I didn’t stop moving until I saw a sign for the hospital chapel. The wooden door opened with a slight shove, and I entered the dim room, grateful to find myself alone. Powers depleted, I collapsed on a pew in the darkened back corner, curling into myself as a cold sweat broke out on my skin. I fought off a wave of nausea.
I should have been crying. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. Everything hurt too much.
Growing up with Dean and my mother had taught me about pain, though. I’d learned ways of dealing with it when I’d understood how my fear had excited Dean. My stepfather had used my emotions like weapons against me, and so I’d buried them. I set about doing that now. By the time the last of the shivers faded, I had dug a hole so deep that I could almost pretend I felt nothing. Almost.
At the funeral, I hid behind oversized sunglasses and watched my stepmother be buried far from her home with only the Blackwells, my sister, and me at her graveside. It shouldn’t have been this way. My stepmother had been loved by so many people, and she’d deserved to have all those people present to celebrate her life and mourn her death. My father should have been there to grieve for his wife, but he didn’t even know she was gone.
My fault, my fault, my fault. My heart almost seemed to beat to the words now.
After the service, we drove back to Lottie’s apartment. She’d rented a small one-bedroom to stay in while she watched over Laura. The place felt crowded with four people occupying a space meant for one. Sadness stifled the air, making every breath a workout even before you factored my weakness into things. Despite the cold outside, I slipped through the sliding glass door off the living room. Lottie had a couple of lounge chairs on the enclosed balcony, and I curled up on one, tucking my legs under the skirt of my black dress. Even the gray skies seemed to mourn my stepmom, crying tears that I couldn’t. The rain poured down a few feet away, creating an invisible wall around the balcony and making a mess of the snow on the ground. Nobody could see me, and I let my guard down for a minute.
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