Brave (Healer)

by April Smyth

  I stop crying. She has to be lying! If Gabe remembered me, he wouldn’t leave me, would he? He would still love me. He wouldn’t choose this, would he?

  THIRTEEN

  Rose tries to explain what happened when Arrow gave Gabe his memories back. At first he pretended he didn’t remember me but eventually he cracked and told her that he remembered everything, even me, but he had to make a decision and he chose Claire.

  I am speechless.

  ‘Cassie, he didn’t do it because he doesn’t love you. He did it because he wants you to be happy and he knows you won’t be happy with him. He’s just a reminder of that horrible time,’ Rose explains. I want her to stop speaking and stop hurting me with her words. I cannot fathom how Gabe would think I could be happy without him. Even if I did decide to be with Oliver, I would always resent the fact I never got the chance to be with my soulmate. I don’t care if he reminds me of Maurice and my time in Toulouse, the past isn’t what matters. Our future would be beautiful.

  ‘Take me home, Rose,’ I say stonily. ‘Now.’

  I can’t be here. I can’t face Oliver or June right now. I can barely look at Rose without wanting to scream. Everyone has been lying to me. Again. I thought Rose had learned not to keep secrets from me after she hid Maurice’s incentives from me and this feels so much worse. Gabe remembers. He knows. God, I need to be away from everyone.

  ‘No, Cassie, don’t overreact. Stay tonight. I told you this because you shouldn’t feel guilty about being with Oliver. Gabe wants you to be happy and in love...’

  I am too angry to be consoled now. Everything I have believed has been a sham. The only thing that has kept me sane is knowing that if Gabe did remember, we could be together, that those memories existed safely somewhere and that in some parallel universe we got our happy ending. I shout as loud as I can and I don’t care who hears, ‘I wanted to be happy and in love with him, Rose! I can’t believe you didn’t tell me! I can’t believe you are telling me this now! I hate you. I hate you. I hate Oliver and Gabe and Arrow and you. I hate all of this. Take me home right now and don’t speak to me ever again.’

  Everything blurs. Oliver comes in and tries to calm me down but I am livid. Rose is crying hysterically and all I can do is shout. Eventually they listen to me and Rose puts me in the car. Oliver puts his head through the window and looks at me, ‘Cassie, don’t leave like this.’

  ‘I have to.’ I feel a pinching sensation as his face closes into mine. Things could be different. They should be. Oliver and I could be good together but I can’t think about that while I know that somewhere in the world Gabe remembers but is trying to forget.

  Oliver leans in and tries to kiss me but I turn my face away and tell Rose to drive. She is still crying and hasn’t said much. I can’t stand to look at them. I need to be at home. I need to crawl under my own bed covers and try to make sense of all this. Why would Gabe do this to me?

  I roll up the window and look at Oliver for one last time before Rose drives away. The look on his face makes me want to die. I have broken him and suddenly I think back to that lovely day we spent on his bed asking one another questions and I remember pitying him for never having fallen in love and suddenly I am filled with dread as I look into his eyes and see his mouth twist into a grimace. He finally got the chance to feel real love. He fell in love with me and I think I’m breaking his heart. ‘Drive away, please.’

  The few hours spent in the car with Rose are torturous. We don’t talk but the sound of Rose weeping the whole way is horrible. I’m not even relieved or happy when she pulls up outside my house. I feel nothing. I have left Oliver with a broken heart, I am about to leave Rose in the same way and why? Because Gabe broke mine? Is that how life works? Do we punish people for the mistakes of others? One person hurts you so you have to hurt the next person that comes along just to feel something again, just to feel in control. I don’t want to be that person.

  I sigh. I look at Rose. Her face is flooded with grief and she doesn’t look me in the eye. She is beautiful inside and out and the only thing she is guilty of is protecting me from the harsh truth. I want to touch her tear stained face and apologise. I should tell her everything is going be okay. She has the hardest life: she lost her parents, her brother is ill, she lost the love of her life and she is losing every friend she has too. The thing is she doesn’t punish me for the hardships she’s faced so why am I doing it to her?

  In the end I can’t bring myself to say sorry right now so I get out of the car, shut the door and don’t look behind me to watch her drive away. I deflate as I look at my familiar house and I can’t bring myself to even be excited about seeing my family again. I am losing grip of all of the things that make me me.

  I must look a mess. I’m still wearing my workout clothes and my hair is matted from the wind and rain. I’m not ready to see my family but they will be so excited to see me again. They thought they lost me again; I wonder if they expected me to return this time.

  When I step into my house, it is quiet. No one is here. It is sad to admit that I feel relief wash over me that I have a little while to gather my thoughts. I start with a shower. Washing the knots out of my hair doesn’t provide a distraction from my life for very long. I can’t shake the horrible feeling in my stomach knowing that somewhere out there Gabe might be thinking about me. I’m not certain if I believe that he did this for my benefit, maybe he just realised he loves Claire more and Rose had to let me down gently.

  I dry myself and my hair and I mull over Gabe’s decision to omit me from his life some more. I am completely washed and dried and my family still aren’t home. It’s almost eight o’clock, where are they? I forget Gabe, Rose and Oliver for a minute and start to worry about my family. I know Maurice is miles away but are they okay? It’s not like them to be out of the house at night.

  Then I hear the door open and I can stop worrying. I run to the top of the stairs and am suddenly filled with excitement to see my family again. How big is baby Lily now? Is Shannon okay? A month can change things; I know things have changed massively in the past few weeks. But then I look at who is walking through the door and it’s not my family. It is three men. Pale, beautiful, stoic. Vampires.

  I run back through to my room and shut the door behind me but it’s too late. They already saw me. Who are they? None of them were Maurice but they were definitely vampires. I would know that eerie complexion and those hungry eyes anywhere. I stare down at the magic bracelet Rose gave me that I’m still wearing and I pray that Rose is wearing hers. She better not have taken it off during our fight and, even if she hasn’t, she might not want to help me after the way I treated her.

  I hear the vampires outside my door. They are calling my name. Who are they? I am thankful that my family aren’t in but then I panic that it’s because these vampires have already gotten to them. My breathing hastens. Shit. What do they want? Well, that’s obvious. My blood is extremely useful to vampires; while it is in their systems they are unkillable. Wood, fire and sunlight can kill an ordinary vampire but with Healer blood they can resist them which is a scary thought although from what I can gather the blood doesn’t stay in their bloodstream long: it hasn’t been of any use of to Maurice.

  In the worst of times, when you think you’re about to die, it is amazing the things that come to your mind. In what I presume to be my last minutes I find myself thinking about Oliver. I want his childish grin to be the last thing I think about and suddenly I am overcome with realisation that, if I survive this vampire attack, I want to be with Oliver. It’s Oliver. Not Gabe.

  Gabe was dark and difficult to read. I desperately wanted the chance to make him a good man but the truth is he is a tortured soul and I would never understand him. I can never comprehend why he would leave me like this for Claire. I thought he loved me. I thought I loved him but how could I love him when clearly I knew nothing about him? I thought he was honourable but he’s a coward. He couldn’t even tell me that he didn’t want to be with me; he had
to pretend he lost his memories.

  Then the vampires break through the door.

  I want to cower in the corner but I’m bulletproof. They only way they can kill me is by draining me of all my blood. I decide to be brave, like Oliver told me I am, and I face up to the fanged fiends. One of them is on the floor nursing wounds from the shards of wood caused by busting through my door. The other two lunge for me and I wish I was dead, I wish I could die, because, although I heal fast, the pain of their teeth sinking into my skin and their strong hands crushing my bones is ceaseless. I could spend an eternity being tortured by these creatures and never die.

  My clothes and pale skin are stained with my own blood and I am losing energy fast as whenever one vein closes over they open up another. They tie my hands up with metal chains and throw me on my bed while they have a casual conversation about what to do with me. I can’t really hear them talking beyond the blood thrumming in my ear.

  I wish I had the chance to tell Oliver that I want to be with him. I wish I had realised that he is the right one for me when we first kissed but I was too obsessed with Gabe to see what was really going on. Gabe never wanted me. Dangerous situations push people into rash thinking. Gabe thought he loved me but he had lost Claire and he was moved by my acts of kindness; he didn’t love me and did I ever really love him? I think so. I think he was the first boy I ever had a crush on. I think he crushed me. I think I cared for him and my heart bled to see him hurting but is that enough to make a relationship work? Is that enough to stop me from being with a man with the biggest, kindest heart I know? Should I forfeit a life with somebody who makes me feel incredibly happy, safe and warm for a lifetime of unrequited love?

  I guess I’ll never get a chance to know. These vampires are going to take me far away and they are going to drain me of every last drop of my Healer blood so they can have a few days of true immortality, so they can ruin the lives of more innocent people in the light of day.

  Then something incredible happens. I can barely see it through my wearying eyes and I think I might be imagining it but a wolf springs into the room and pounces on top of the three whispering vampires. It’s Oliver. It’s a full moon! Of course. But how did he know they were here?

  As a wolf he is as a beautiful as he is as a human. His fur is lustrous and dark brown like his hair and his soft brown eyes are set into the pretty canine face.

  I am starting to regain my consciousness and energy as I watch Oliver, in a majestic wolf form, tear the vampires apart but they have some of my blood so whenever I think he has succeeded in ripping them apart and killing them they come back to life. There is no way he can win and with three strong vampires fighting him, he is going to die. I can’t watch him kill himself for me. ‘Stop it! Oliver! Stop it!’

  When I think things can’t get any worse, when I think that I can’t watch any more of the people I love crumble to nothing before my eyes, Rose runs into the room, breathless with mascara running down her cheeks. She can’t be here. They will kill her. She managed to save me against Maurice but she had the element of surprise and wooden stakes to her advantage; now she is defenseless and there is triple the amount of threat.

  ‘Go away, Rose!’ I scream. I am watching Oliver fight and die for me. I won’t watch Rose die too. ‘Please leave.’

  She looks at me briefly with the strangest expression in her eyes then she holds her hands out in front of her and starts speaking in a foreign language, I can’t even decipher what it is - it sounds Latin? Rose can speak Latin? My eyes widen as I watch her body convulse as she recites these bizarre words. My mouth drops open as her eyes rolls to the back of her head and sparks begin to fly from fingertips.

  The white sparks hit the vampires and I can’t believe what I see next. Their porcelain skin begins to crack and crumble into dust until there is nothing but a pile of clothes and a confused looking wolf.

  Rose is a witch?

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Wait. What? What?’ I feel hysterical after what I’ve just seen. How can Rose be a witch? I’ve known her for almost a year and I had never suspected.

  Oliver, in his wolf form, scampers off. I wish I had the chance to talk to him when he couldn’t talk back. I would tell him all the things I realised, tell him that I want to be with him, but now is not the time for heart-to-heart’s.

  Rose puts her hands on her hips and with a smug smile says, ‘You didn’t think those were ordinary wooden stakes I used on Maurice, did you?’

  I open my mouth but I can’t think of anything intelligent to say. I feel duped but suddenly things make sense. There was no way she could have taken Maurice down as a human even if she did have surprise on her hand. He had had my blood. He was untouchable but do even the untouchable have an enemy? Witches must be able to destroy any vampire - Healer blood or not. Then I think about how odd it was that Rose’s family had such close ties with so many supernaturals. She knew so many witches and she worked for Maurice and June, her Aunt, was the caretaker of a wolf. The bracelets! It wasn’t Arrow who made them, it was her! Was Arrow even real or was she just a coverup and it was really Rose casting all these spells?

  ‘You have a lot of explaining to do,’ I say when I manage to find my voice. I knew she kept secrets from me but this... this was on a whole new level of secrecy. She has hidden a massive part of her life, of who she is, from me. Things would have been different if I had known she was supernatural.

  Rose is breathing heavily. The spell must have been exhausting. ‘Let’s get this place cleaned up first,’ she says. I feel too fragile, too frightened, to move. She helps me peel off my bloody clothes and put them in the washing room then she washes my body in the shower and I feel nauseous to see the clean water turn to a vile shade of pink swirling around the drain then she dresses me in clean pyjamas. There is no way that I can thank her. She has been my hero so many times in so many ways. I feel horrible about the way I treated her earlier today. I told her I hated her, why? Because she tried to protect me from getting hurt. I keep taking her for granted and it makes me hate myself.

  I smell and look fresh. There are no bite wounds or bruises, there is no evidence at all of the ordeal I just experienced. Yet again I come out of the worst situations unscathed. I wish the memories were so easily erased. I wonder if Rose could take them away with a spell. I want to forget so much that has happened to me.

  ‘I think we need to go back to Oliver’s,’ Rose says to me. ‘It’s not safe here anymore. Maurice has sent out the message to all the vampires he knows to come find you.’

  ‘What about my family?’ I say, I’m shaking. Not only do I have to worry about Maurice but apparently every vampire in the world wants to kill me. Then I think about my family. They aren’t home yet, where are they? Are they okay? There is a giant lump in my throat as I imagine all the horrible things that could happen to them.

  ‘Shannon is in the hospital. She hasn’t been well since Lily was born. Your dad is with her and Bruce, Jana and Lily are staying with Shannon’s mum,’ Rose explains. ‘They’ll be safe. I have put up stronger wards on the house but I doubt vampires will come after them anyway.’ She has been keeping an eye on my family but I’m not reassured by what she says. It’s been a month since I left and Shannon is still ill. This is serious and exactly what my family don’t need. Lily has just been born and I disappear off the face of the planet and suddenly Shannon is sick. My dad can never get a break and he so badly deserves one.

  I exhale deeply while I try to think about what I’m going to do. I have to leave. I’ll die if I don’t go back to Oliver’s. The vampires will do anything for a taste of my blood. ‘Can we stop by the hospital before we go to Oliver’s?’ I ask. ‘I need to see them.’

  I expect her to say no. That it’s not a good idea or that we don’t have time but Rose, always surprising, smiles and nods at me. We drive to Ayrin Central. This place has bad memories for me. It’s the place where I used to be prodded at in order to figure out what made me a freak. I had to end
ure hundreds of disapproving stares here. The familiar smell of disinfectant fills my nostrils and I want to run away. The last time I was here my baby sister had been born and now her mother was dying here.

  The nurses are surprised to see me when I ask for which room Shannon Mueller is in but they lead me and Rose to her ward and there I find my dad sleeping on the small seat beside Shannon who looks frail and pale lying on the hospital bed. How many times did my dad have to do this for me? He never gets the chance to live a life outside a hospital. They both look dreadful and it makes my eyes well up with tears.

  Shannon’s eyes flicker open slowly and her voice is croaky when she speaks, ‘Cassie.’ She smiles as best she can but even that looks like it hurts.

  I dash over to her side and hug her as gently as I can so I don’t hurt her weak body. I want to embrace her tightly and in that moment I know what to do. It seems very clear to me what I have to do. There is a pair of nail scissors in the make up bag on the cabinet beside Shannon, I pull them out and drag the blade across the wrist. I smear the small spurt of blood that appears on my fingertip before the wound closes over again. ‘I know this is weird, Shannon, but you know I’m a Healer and I need you to take my blood. It will make you better.’

  The Shannon that I know would normally protest to partaking in anything supernatural. After dad told her what happened to me and my mother with the vampires she shunned ever talking about anything out of the ordinary but she is dying and she needs to be there for her babies so she does’t fight it. I place my finger against her lips and she licks the salty blood off in a static movement. I cut myself and do this again three or four more times until I’m sure she has enough of my blood in her system to heal her. I hope it works.

  Rose steps forward. I realise how crazy she looks now, her hair matted and her clothes stained with my blood. It’s my fault and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to apologise enough for the way I treated her today. ‘We should go, Cassie,’ she says softly. I know she doesn’t want to drag me away from my family. I’m not ready to leave them. I give her an understanding nod and she leaves me alone for a minute.