by Rose Garcia
***
Finally, I was in my room, surrounded by my own private ocean. Although exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. My mind raced with everything I had learned. Mom and Dad had said I was safe, but I didn’t completely believe them. The only thing that made me feel better was having Farrell in the house just one room away from mine. I wondered if he was asleep. Or maybe he didn’t sleep? He was my Walker after all, my protector. Even though I knew what that meant, I didn’t completely understand it.
After tossing and turning, I stared at the tree branches outside my window. They were stiff, frozen in time. Just like me. My body shuddered from the cool air that hugged the house and seeped into my room. I sat up and looked at Trent’s sweatshirt draped over the chair. I was just about to get it, when I heard something.
"Hey."
I yelped, and nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Farrell standing at my doorway. "Dominique, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you."
My hands went to my chest, clutching my shirt up to my neck. "Don’t do that!"
He gave a small smile. "I heard movement in your room, so I just wanted to check on you. Can I come in?"
He heard me sit up? Did he have super hearing or something? "Yeah, sure, come in." I turned on my lamp and pulled my comforter up. My heart fluttered while he sat next to me, his gaze landing for a moment on the sweatshirt still on the chair. That’s when I noticed faded marks that streaked from his hands up to his elbows, like old wounds.
"How did that happen?" I asked, studying his injuries.
He rubbed his arm. "It’s the energy that blasted from the Ouija board when I shut it," he said. "It burned me, but I’m okay."
My hands covered my mouth. "You got that because of me?" Here I was complaining about him, and he had injured himself risking his life for me. Talk about selfish. "Farrell, I’m so sorry."
"Hey, don’t worry. It’s nothing. It’s almost completely healed, anyway."
My mind flashed back to the mist that had come out of the board and swept around my ankles. I shuddered. "That black mist was one of the Tainted?"
"Yes, his name is Tavion. He was about to manifest but hadn’t come out all the way."
I reached out and touched his hand. "Thank you, Farrell. You saved my life." My head began to soar; my mind grew fuzzy. I moved my hand away.
He avoided eye contact. "I’m just down the hall if you need me."
When he left my room, I had more questions than answers, so many that my head wanted to explode. Mom and Dad had said that Transhumans were energy beings, but what did that mean? Why was I marked and not somebody else? And how on Earth could Farrell protect me this lifetime if in all others I had died?
My questions would have to wait for the morning, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
