by SM Reine
As much as I wanted to go after him, I knew I’d never make it in my shoes.
“Cane, don’t move!” I yelled up to him. “Bryan’s coming.” I wasn’t even sure if Cane knew who Bryan was, but now wasn’t the time for introductions.
I withdrew my phone from my pocket and called Aaron. “We found him, but the idiot is stuck up on the bluff. Bryan is going to help him down.”
Aaron muttered a curse. “Tell me where you are.”
“It’s the bluff bordering the river and the tracks. Eastside.”
Aaron hung up with a promise to be there soon.
“Aaron’s on his way,” I called up.
Cane leaned against the limestone rock, his fingers clutching the crevices. I hoped the river view from fifty-feet-high would help to sober him up. Bryan reached the trail along the side of the bluff and was using it to get as close to Cane as possible. At the closest point, he began picking his way in Cane’s direction.
“I’m almost there,” Bryan called out, his voice echoing between the bluffs. Only a few feet separated them now, but each step closer ran the risk of their rocky footholds giving way. Bryan found a tiny tree growing out from the cracks of the rocks and yanked on it. Seeing that it was secure, he used it as an anchor as he stretched out toward Cane.
“Almost there. Give me your hand.”
Cane shifted to his left and grasped Bryan’s hand.
“I gotcha,” Bryan grunted, holding Cane steady and directing him back toward the trail. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until they made it to the relative safety of the trail, and I let it out with a gush. They’re safe.
“Just follow the path,” I called up. “I’ll meet you back at the fork.”
I entered the darkness of the woods again. Without Bryan there to steady me on me, I tripped on rocks and had to cling to passing branches to keep from falling. Under the loud chirping of frogs and crickets, I could hear the guys off to my right, still quite a ways up, but I couldn’t make out their words. Briefly, I let myself think about that kiss with Cane in the parking lot. Shame filled my lungs as I remembered pressing myself to his warmth and kissing him back. What was I thinking? I chastised myself. How could I do that to Bryan? Especially after the way I reacted over Monica!
I was going to have to tell him, but how would I ever explain? Oh, Bryan. I am some sort of weird psychic who can read emotions, and sometimes I get tangled up in what other people are feeling. Yeah, that’d go over well.
Why did Cane have to go and kiss me anyway? I get that he was distraught, but what made him go there? Maybe it was because I reminded him so much of my sister. I guess he just got caught up in the heat of the moment and wasn’t thinking clearly, but at the time, it hadn’t felt that way. There was something real in that kiss, at least from his side. I found myself hoping that Cane would forget about it once he sobered and never mention it to me again.
I stopped to pick a rock from my shoe when I heard surprised yells and the racket of rocks crashing to the ground.
“Bryan! Cane! Are you okay?” I shouted.
“No!” Cane called out, pain evident in his voice. “Help, Cady, quick!”
I left the path and rushed through the brush in the direction of the voices. Brambles and branches scratched at my legs, snagging my dress, but I pressed on as fast as I could. I reached the base of the cliff and saw Bryan and Cane lying on the ground. Cane’s leg was bent at an unnatural angle below the knee, and Bryan was bleeding from a huge gash on his side. Bleeding heavily.
All of the blood drained from my head. Huge waves of icy pain vibrated off of the guys, stabbing me in the gut. Between the crazy emotions emanating from them and the tinny scent of blood in the air, my stomach roiled with nausea.
“Bryan!” I cried, rushing to him and dropping to my knees by his side.
“I slipped,” Cane explained through clenched teeth, “and he tried to grab me, but then we both came down.”
Bryan’s expression was one of sheer horror as he tore open his shirt to inspect the damage. The rip in his skin started just below his back shoulder, cut across his ribs and reached nearly down to his waistband. Even in the darkness, I knew it was deep enough to expose his ribs bones.
“What do I do?” I cried, pressing his coat to his side to hold in the freely flowing blood.
Bryan looked at me. We both had tears in our eyes. “I don’t think there’s time to do anything,” he whispered with finality.
An agonizing noise tore out of me as I realized there was no way he could ever survive an injury this huge. The terror between us was so strong that I couldn’t tell where mine ended and Bryan’s began.
“You can’t die! I won’t let you!”
Bryan’s face was already pale and the blood was leaking through the jacket onto the ground.
“He’s dying?” Cane asked confused.
“I have…hemophilia.” he tried to explain, breathing in sharp heaves. He leaned back on his elbow, getting weaker.
“Oh my god!” came a shriek from behind me.
Aaron and Monica stood a few feet behind us, having followed our voices to our location. Monica’s eyes were as large as moons at the sight of the blood. She understood the seriousness of the situation. She dropped to her knees and began sobbing into her hands.
Aaron took off his coat and handed it to me. I dropped Bryan’s soaked jacket and replaced it with fresh, soft cotton, still warm from my brother’s body heat.
“I’m calling 911,” Aaron said taking out his phone.
“There’s no time!” Over the wound, my hands vibrated wildly with icy stabs of pain. I recognized the feeling from when I had detected the tumor on Lucy, only this time it was a hundred times more intense.
“Cady…n-nothing you can do,” Bryan choked out, dropping to lie on his back. “Just h-happy you’re...with me.”
“Don’t do that! Don’t you say good bye to me!”
My hands burned from the freezing pain. Instinctively, I threw up my mental shields and began to press back. That’s when I noticed warmth flooding down my arms into my hands and radiating out from my fingertips. I let my heated hands hover directly over the wound, focusing all my energy on willing it away. The trickle of blood began to slow to a stop, and I feared it meant the end, but Bryan was still conscious and breathing thick wheezy breaths. Determination and love swelled in my chest, as I concentrated on that open wound. Bryan sucked in a sharp gasp.
“W-what are you doing?” he asked. “It tingles...warm.”
I flexed my mind and concentrated harder. Heat vibrated out from my hands and the flesh began to knit itself back together before my eyes.
“Holy shit!” Cane exclaimed, watching as the wound closed into a jagged raised scar.
I fell backward and rested my head hit the ground. My breath heaved as if I’d just run a marathon. My head pounded with every beat of my heart.
Bryan sat up and ran his hands along the seam in his skin. “It’s healed. Doesn’t even hurt.”
Monica looked up, mascara running down her cheeks. “Wha…?” She crawled close enough to get a look, managing to avoid the sticky puddle that I was now half-lying in.
“Cady?” my brother said in confusion. He snapped his phone closed, his eyes darting between me and the closed wound.
“What did she do to you, man?” Cane asked. He tried to lean in to get a better look, but winced and gripped his leg.
I drew myself back to my knees, head swimming, and scooted over to inspect Cane’s knee. His pant leg was already ripped, but I tore the hole further to get a better look. The skin was scraped and embedded with pebbles and dirt, but not bleeding too badly. The knee was twisted and bent about 45 degrees in an impossible direction. It had to be broken. No way could a normal leg form an angle like that.
“There goes my college scholarships,” he muttered.
I wasn’t sure if he meant it as a poor attempt at humor or not, but he spoke the truth. Not only did Cane play football, but he also
ran track and was the school star pitcher on the baseball team. Everyone assumed he would end up going to a Big Ten school on a sports scholarship. Some people even had hopes for him playing professionally someday. From the looks of things, that dream was over.
I placed my hand over the knee and felt around with my senses. Cold stabs of pain flicked my palms. “It’s pretty bad, but I can’t fix it like this. We have to get it straight first.”
Cane’s eyes got round as he realized the pain that would be involved with setting the leg.
I wasn’t sure I could fix it. I didn’t even know how exactly I’d managed to heal Bryan. But I had to try. I had to ignore my weak, trembling body and try.
My hands ran across the cool ground until I found a broken branch. I snapped off the end and dusted the loose dirt away.
“Put this between your teeth,” I instructed Cane. “Aaron, can you give me a hand?”
My brother knelt down by Cane’s feet.
“When I say so, I want you to take hold of his ankle and pull that leg straight.” Amazingly, my brother didn’t question my authority, just gritted his teeth in sympathy, and clutched Cane’s ankle with both hands.
“You want to set his broken leg?” Monica shrieked, then turning to Cane, “And you’re going to let her?”
Bryan set his hand on her shoulder and murmured something about calming down.
I looked at Cane and asked, “Well? Are you going to let me try? I can’t guarantee anything, but it’s your decision.”
Cane’s chest was rising and falling so rapidly, I was afraid he’d hyperventilate. His fear caused my palms to sweat and the muscles to tighten in my limbs.
“I-I saw what you did...to him,” his eyes flitted over toward Bryan face still pale, but from what we could tell, looked to be healed. Cane turned his gaze back to me, trying to focus through his pain. “I tr-trust you.”
“Okay, then,” I said sliding closer. “You have to force yourself to relax, Cane, or I’m not going to be able to help you.” I stroked the golden hair out of his eyes and placed the stick in his mouth. “Close your eyes and think about something calm. I mean it. I need you to do this for me. Think about a warm beach with rolling waves or something.”
“I’ll try,” he grunted around the stick in his mouth and closed his eyes.
Sending Cane to his happy place didn’t really flood me with the calmness I needed, but it did seem to take the edge off of his fear.
“You too,” I said to Aaron. “I need you feeling calm. Think about the beach. I mean really picture yourself there.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, all right?” I snapped.
I took a couple of deep breaths to clear my head and then placed my hands over the leg again. The cold pain reached up for my fingers, and I felt around with my senses, letting them lap the edges of the pain until I could get a mental picture of the damage inside. When I had a good handle on what I was dealing with, I ramped up my concentration, drawing power from somewhere deep in my soul. My abdomen tightened and my own pain flared behind my eyes.
“Aaron, now!”
Aaron yanked on the leg and turned it straight. Cane screamed in agony, dropping the stick. At the same time, I pushed with my determination and felt the heat tearing down my arms and out through my fingertips. I flooded the nerves with as much energy as I could to fight off the pain. Cool sweat beaded on my forehead from exertion as the tissue and bone wound its way back into place. My head spun dizzily, and I felt myself detaching from my body as if I were slipping into a dream. When I couldn’t sustain the force anymore, I let go, sending the heat snapping back into me. This time, I collapsed.
Chapter 25
The persistent pain of a jack-hammer behind my eyes pulled me back to consciousness. In my bedroom, the soft light of morning filtered through my curtains bathing the bed in a rose-colored glow. I tried to stretch my tight muscles, but every part of my body ached.
I blinked to clear my vision, foggy from the migraine. Beside me, Monica dozed, dressed in a pair of my pajamas. Flashes of the night before came back to me, but all I could think about was my desperate need for anything to kill the pounding in my head. I was wearing a long t-shirt and no pants, and I wondered if Monica had gotten stuck changing me out of the bloody dress.
Tossing my covers back, I tried to sit up. The effort made me woozy, and I fell back down, waking Monica.
“You okay?” she asked, her voice dry from sleep.
“I have the world’s worst headache.” I moaned.
“I’ll get you something for it. Where do you keep your Ibuprophen?”
I closed my eyes because the effort to hold them open was just too much. “Bathroom.” I pointed in the vague direction.
Monica slipped off of the bed and disappeared. A moment later she returned with four tablets and a Dixie cup of water. I smiled in gratitude for the over-medication. She held my head so I could swallow.
“How are Bryan and Cane?” I asked as Monica crawled back under the covers on the opposite side of the bed.
“Bryan’s sleeping in the guest room. He couldn’t go back to his place all covered in blood and shirtless. Aaron said that your mom would never notice us here.”
“And she didn’t, did she?”
“No. She must have been sleeping when we got in. Anyway, Bryan carried you up here, and I did my best to clean up so you wouldn’t wreck your sheets. Aaron gave him some clothes, and Bryan crashed out. He lost a lot of blood.”
I cringed remembering the sticky puddle spread over the ground. It was amazing he was alive at all.
“It is really fixed, right?”
Monica nodded. “As far as we could tell. Aaron stayed with him for over an hour, but no bruise formed and Bryan said he felt fine.”
The thought of almost losing him made my chest ache. At some point over these past few weeks, he had become something like a lifeline to me, the one bright spot in my otherwise dismal life. I needed him, sure, but I also felt the stirrings of what might be something more in my heart. I sighed. But if I liked Bryan, why had I kissed Cane?
As if reading my thoughts, Monica continued. “We took Cane home. He said if he went in by the patio door, he could get to his bedroom without his parents seeing him.”
“So he can walk?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Good as new, I guess.”
After a moment of silence, Monica asked in a timid voice, “Cady, what did you do last night? I mean, I watched it happen, but I don’t know if I believe it yet.”
“I don’t know if I believe it either,” I moaned, rolling onto my side.
I drifted off to sleep again without really answering her question.
I woke to find Bryan kneeling beside my bed, running his fingers along the side of my face. When my mouth curled into a grin, he stood and sat on the mattress next to my hip.
“Nice outfit.” I commented.
He wore a pair of Aaron’s sweatpants, too short by a few inches and one of my brother’s zombie t-shirts. His hair stuck up in randomly spaced spikes that somehow worked on him. The warmth of his familiar presence flooded my soul, and I breathed deeply, as if I could suck more of it in.
“Thanks,” he replied. “How are you feeling?”
My migraine was down from a ten to a three on the ouch-o-meter, but I was still weak. “A little better, I guess. I feel like I have a hangover without having had the fun of drinking.”
He raised one of his brows, “Have you had a lot of hangovers?”
I shook my head. “Once. The morning after our sixteenth birthday party. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Sounds like a good story.”
“Maybe another day...” I rubbed the sleep out of the corners of my eyes.
Aaron came in carrying a tray of sandwiches. Monica followed with sodas. Bringing up the rear was Cane. A slight blush spread on his cheeks when his gaze met mine, and I knew we were both thinking about that kiss we shared. I bit my bottom lip to stop it from t
ingling with the memory. The warmth of Bryan’s happiness burned me with guilt.
Bryan must have sensed something because he glanced back and forth between us with curiosity.
“Thought you could use some lunch,” Monica said. “It’ll help you get your energy back.”
“I went in to see Mom a bit ago,” Aaron explained, setting the tray on my bed and straddling my desk chair. “I told her we were out late after the dance, and Monica and Bryan decided to crash here. She didn’t seem to care.”
Cane cleared his throat. “I just stopped by to see how you’re doing,” he said without meeting my eyes.
He was too far away from me to get a reading, but he looked profoundly uncomfortable. Even after practically living at my house for half a year, I think it was the first time he’d ever been in my bedroom. Cane leaned against the back of my door as if afraid to come too far into the room. I saw his eyes flick to my hand wrapped in Bryan’s.
Rising into a sitting position, I tucked the covers around my lower half. Monica sat down cross-legged on my bed like we were having a picnic or something. Cane waved away her offer to join us.
I picked up a peanut butter sandwich from the tray and bit into it eagerly, not realizing how hungry I was until the sweet grape jelly hit my tongue. Bryan popped open a soda can and handed it to me. The liquid tingled all the way down to my belly, making me feel more human already.
When we finished the sandwiches, Aaron set the tray on the floor and leveled his gaze on mine. “Okay, Cady. It’s time that you tell us what happened last night.”
I looked to Bryan for help, but his face was as expectant as everyone else’s. How was I supposed to explain something that I didn’t fully understand myself? I took a long swig of Diet Pepsi to buy some time.
“Well?” Aaron prodded, poking me in the foot.
I drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I have a theory.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I began to pick at my comforter to avoid looking at any of them. It’s like a Band-Aid, Cady. The quicker you tell them, the easier it’ll be.
