by C.L. Bevill
* * *
As it turned out, the firefly pixies liked the doctor’s voice almost as much as they liked mine. They also didn’t mind Gideon’s off-key tenor or that Ethan and Calida came to listen at the door and watch with unspoken wonder. Zach peeked in and smiled at the pixies when they quickly buzzed him. Then he vanished into the darkness of the hallway without meeting my eyes.
I fell asleep after three versions of Jingle Bells and a variety of sixties’ hits like “You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling”, “Wooly Bully”, “I Got You Babe”, “My Girl”, and “Wild Thing.” I think “Wild Thing” might have supplanted Jingle Bells in pixie popularity. Before I drifted off I made a mental note to make myself learn the lyrics.
When I woke up, the pixies were buzzing around genially and the room was mostly dark. The windows were open, and a breeze was wafting in. It was getting a little chilly, but I liked the feeling. The stars were out in full force and someone was sitting next to the bed looking at me.
My hand reached for the dagger, and I nearly panicked when I couldn’t find it immediately.
“It’s all right, Sophie,” Zach said.
I closed my eyes briefly. I don’t know exactly what I had been dreaming about, but I didn’t think it was something pleasant. I had been fighting again. The image of the long sword in my hand, flashing as it struck its deadly path, was all that was left in my mind’s eye. I had woken up expecting the worst. I was helpless in a hospital bed, and the Burned Man was next to me, waiting to see the fright on my face before he pounced.
“Zach,” I muttered. “You like to scare me, don’t you?”
“Just about as much as you like to scare me,” he stated softly.
“You’re still angry,” I said. Well, thank you, Captain Obvious.
“Yes.”
I swallowed. “Can I have something to drink?” Can I get out of this conversation by prevaricating?
Zach gave me a glass of water with a straw and watched me struggle to position myself to be able to drink it. Finally, he helped me with one arm and an aggrieved grunt. When I was done I handed the glass back to him, and he put it on the table next to my bed.
“I miss ice,” I said plaintively. Also iPods, hot water, and normal conversations.
“There are a lot of things to miss,” Zach said contemplatively. He folded his arms over his chest and looked at me. His face was in the shadows but I could feel the weight of his gaze. “Why, Sophie?”
I frowned. Should I explain? Would he get it? He was so angry, I could feel it radiating off him in surges of fury. He wanted to punish me for doing something so extreme, for putting myself in danger. He wanted me to know this was not only unacceptable but something he would have a hard time forgiving me for, if he ever did.
Would the real explanation placate him? Or would he always disbelieve me?
“Do you trust me, Zach?” I asked, forcing my voice to be neutral.
“No,” he said immediately. “Not anymore. Not without a reasonable explanation.”
“And if my explanation isn’t reasonable, then you’ll continue to mistrust me?”
Zach took his arms off his chest and leaned forward. I could see the glitter of his eyes; the meager light from the stars reflected off them. “I have to know,” he said.
“Why do you have to know?” I asked, suddenly angry. Why did I have to prove myself to him? Why did I have to say that I had a good reason for doing what I did? What if all I had was a reason and it wasn’t good enough to suit Zach’s sensibilities? Suddenly, I felt doggedly resistant. I didn’t want to tell him anything. “Will it make it easier to contemplate? I did something that I felt I had to do, and you wouldn’t have let me do it. That’s why I did what I did. Because I knew you wouldn’t allow me to go.”
“You led yourself to a slaughter!” he suddenly bellowed at me. Jerking back in the seat, he went as far as he could from me without physically leaving the room. His tone lowered. “He might have killed you. He was so close to killing you that death was breathing on your flesh!”
No, he would have killed you, Zach. I didn’t know why, but it hadn’t been my time. It didn’t mean I didn’t get hurt. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I glowered at his shadow-filled face.
“If Kara hadn’t been sick because of the painkillers you gave us—,” he stopped as I jerked. He saw the action and explained acrimoniously, “Yes, it turns out she doesn’t do well with codeine-based medications, something you might want to remember before you drug us again. If she hadn’t been sick, we wouldn’t have awakened in time. The pixies were there, trying like hell to wake us up.”
Well, there was something to feel guilty about. I owed Kara a big apology. Actually, I owed Zach one too, but he was less likely to get one while he was so infuriated with me.
“And these others? Gideon, Sinclair, and the rest? Did you trip over them on the way?” Oh, that was wrong. It came out suspicious and slightly sarcastic. Inwardly I groaned and grappled for better control.
“Sinclair saved your life,” Zach said coldly. “They were on the highway as we were making our way back to Crescent City. Ethan gave me his bike so I could go ahead. The others followed behind. Somehow they knew something was wrong. Something they needed to be a part of.”
That certainly clicked into place. “Gideon knew, right?”
Zach stilled. “How did you know?”
“Remember what I said about what people had in common?” I asked slowly.
Zach nodded. “Healthy people. Maybe it was because they were healthy that they, that we survived.”
“I think it is something else,” I stated as plainly as I could. “Your dreams, the doctor’s magic hands, Gideon’s foreknowledge. Kara smells cinnamon when something significant is about to happen around her. I bet all of us have that in common.”
Zach took in a deep breath as he considered it. “Selective survival of people with psychic abilities? The ones who have a certain extra oomph? That’s why we woke the next morning and all those others didn’t?”
I shrugged. “It’s a theory.”
Silent for a long time, Zach finally asked, “And what about you? If you’ve put this hypothesis together, that means you’ve got something going on as well. What’s your…ability?”
If I said what it was, would it bite me on the tushie? Probably. So I lied instead, “I’m not exactly sure.”
“And why hasn’t Kara said anything about hers?”
“She has mentioned it,” I said. “I don’t think she realizes what it is that she has exactly. Maybe I don’t have all the answers.”
“And you’re not going to give me the one I really want,” Zach acknowledged resentfully.
“No.” There wasn’t anything else to say. I hadn’t trusted him. He doesn’t trust me. Yikes. What a way to cement a relationship.
Zach shot to his feet and bent over me in the bed, stopping inches away from my face.
To my favor, I didn’t cringe, although he’d startled me. The firefly pixies briefly entered the air in a concerned flurry, but they settled down quickly. His face was in shadows, and I was afraid mine was all too visible in the starlight coming in the windows. I wondered what he was seeing in my expression.
Excruciatingly slowly, Zach lowered his face until his warm lips touched mine. I was frozen. So was he for a long moment. Then it was fire and heat and enchantment. His mouth moved on mine, encouraging me to feel what he was feeling. His hands reached up and tenderly bracketed my face, his thumbs caressing my skin. Every silent message he could send to me came through the pressure of his mouth, the movement of his lips, and the stroke of his fingers of my flesh.
And then I knew why Nate, the boy I had gone out with twice before the change, never would have been enough for me. I knew it, and I didn’t want to admit it to anyone.
There was an embarrassed cough from the door, and Zach jerked himself away from me. I was panting. So was Zach, for that matter.
Sinclair stood just inside the room holdi
ng a lit candle in his hands. The pixies warbled protestingly at him. I wasn’t certain what they were protesting, that the doctor had come in or that Zach had stopped kissing me.
“Sorry,” Sinclair offered insincerely. “I heard someone yell.”
Zach stalked out of the room with an abrupt, “Sorry I woke you, doc.” Then he vanished into the darkness.
I heard his footsteps stomping down the hallway.
Sinclair moved to my side and said, “You all right, Sophie?”
“He wasn’t assaulting me,” I replied morosely. I wasn’t sure what he’d been doing. Well, of course I knew what he had been doing, but I wasn’t sure what his intent had been. Somehow, I just didn’t see my feeble self as an irresistible bombshell that Zach just had to smooch on. Maybe it was his way of proving a point. Oh heck, what did I know about anything, much less the private thoughts of a man? All I really knew was that if Zach knew that I couldn’t have let him die, he might realize that I was falling for him. If I could keep that from happening, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt me so much when inevitably he left me just as everyone else had done in my life.
Sinclair sighed. “I didn’t think he was,” he said carefully.
Kara stumbled into the room. “Everything okay?” she said sleepily.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Did you yell?” she said tiredly.
“No, that was Zach.”
“Zach yelled?”
“Must have stubbed his toe.”
Kara looked at me incredulously. “I was having the best dream, you dodo. There were these great trees, huge trees that grew up in the skies like miles. There were flowers everywhere and these neat log cabins all painted yellow. And I felt good, for the first time since…the change. And Zach stubbed his toe and yelled and woke me up thinking someone was in here trying to kill you again.”
“It must have hurt a lot,” I explained petulantly.
“That’s funny,” Sinclair said oddly. “It sounds like you were dreaming about the place we live, Kara. We simply call it The Redwoods because it’s in the middle of the Redwood National Park. It used be a campground for city kids.”
Kara’s face twisted strangely. “You guys been eating something with cinnamon on it?”
I sighed.
