by Allison Rios
He lightly squeezed her hand, his body aching as he did so. Max was walking past the screen door about to walk out, when he saw them out there. He pulled back, watching for a moment. He had been in AJ’s shoes once upon a time and knew exactly how the kid was feeling. He only hoped AJ would make the right choice for himself so he didn’t have to live with regret.
AJ looked at her, her eyes piercing and questioning. With a deep breath, he managed to get out the words he had been holding inside since the first week he’d been in town.
“I love you, Addie Jenko.”
She hadn’t expected that to escape from his lips – ever – after what Gram had told her. Her lip quivered, the tears in her eyes causing them to look glassy in the moonlight. She couldn’t speak; she could only squeeze his hand a bit more. Was he going to give everything up for her? Share his life with her?
“I don’t understand it. I only know that I love you like I have never loved a woman before. You are strong and fierce. You are smart and gorgeous and everything that someone could want in a woman. You make my heart skip a beat just by smiling at me, and you make anything I’m facing seem a little easier to overcome just by your touch. I know it sounds like some cheesy line out of a love story, but this is how I feel.”
She was crying now, looking down for a moment to try and hide it. He wasn’t done though.
“I can’t promise to be with you. There is a promise I can make, though. Every day, for the rest of your life, I will protect you and Rose and Gram to the best of my ability.”
He struggled a little more to sit up, to not look so weak in front of her.
“AJ,” she whispered, her fingers moving up to her mouth as if to keep his name from escaping her lips.
“Let me finish,” he whispered, slowly moving his other hand over onto hers. “I love you so much, yet it’s not enough. It’s not enough to give you the life you deserve. I can’t give up what I have the ability to do.”
He wanted to. He knew if he did, he wouldn’t be able to protect them from Devin. He knew Max could, or one of the others, yet he felt a responsibility. He needed to do it himself.
“I don’t know if I’ll even get to keep my gift. If I do, I won’t choose to let it go. I’m so, so sorry Addie. I have jobs left to do and if I give up this part of my life, I can’t protect you. I couldn’t live with that.”
She was heartbroken. It was the ending she had been truly anticipating since her conversation with Gram, despite the hope her heart had that he might choose her. He was too good of a man to let go of his gift and risk not being able to help others. She knew his obligation to the cause would be greater than his love for her. Whether or not either of them liked it, it meant they couldn’t be together.
She nodded her head yes to indicate she understood. He heard her crying and sniffles as she tried to fight back the tears. She placed her other hand on top of his.
“Gram explained it,” she whispered sullenly. “She told me what you do. About the people whose lives you save. The changes you make for the world. I couldn’t ask you to give that up.”
As she looked up, it tugged at his heart. The only thing holding him together was a voice inside repeatedly reminding him that the tears she shed today might keep her from the tears she would shed in the future.
“I wish I could change the path, to give it all up. I know your Gram did and that must make me seem like an awful person because I won’t.”
“Not any more than it would make Gram seem like an awful person for giving up helping others,” Addie whispered back. “You’re a good man.”
AJ sat there for a moment thinking carefully of how to say what he needed to say next.
“If I could give you the world, Addie, I would. If I could promise you a lifetime of happiness with no bumps in the road and no fear about the future, I would. But when I look at this town, when I look at what happened to Rose, if I wasn’t who I was, Rose might not have survived.”
He knew Max had been there and could have saved her. He also knew Max probably wouldn’t have, because exposing himself would have broken their laws. If Max was anything, he was a rule-follower because he believed in all that he had been taught.
“I want you to take the knowledge of how I feel about you Addie – about how beautiful I think you are, and how strong – and I want you to keep that in mind every time a guy talks to you. I want you to use it to remind yourself that when the Joseph’s of the world ask you out, you know you’re worth more than what they have to offer. You deserve better.”
“You’ll be here to remind me if a guy’s a jerk, won’t you?” she asked, a slight smile on her lips.
“As long as I can, I will be. Even if I have to leave, I can promise you that I will always be back to protect you.”
Max stepped further into the house to avoid being seen if Addie stood up. He was reminded of his lost love. He saw AJ sitting out there, a broken man. A man never choosing to love someone over the obligation he felt he carried to the world. He wished for the first time that he had told AJ what to do, that he had enabled AJ to feel free to choose Addie. They needed each other.
Addie stood up, her hands slipping from his and easing into her back pockets. She hadn’t told him how she felt. She was debating it back and forth in her mind, knowing that either way wouldn’t make a difference. Yet she couldn’t contain the words. “I love you too, AJ.”
He smiled. He liked the sound of the words as they slipped past her lips.
“You’re the first man to make me feel alive since Robert. You’re the first one to take my breath away. The first one I actually like fighting with because you don’t let me win. You make me earn it. I love that you stand up for yourself and the people you care about. And I love that, even when offered something so many people in this world are searching for, you are a strong enough man to turn it down because you know you can do more. I know the decision isn’t easy, and I know that if you felt you were able to, you’d give it up. I won’t push anymore. Just knowing that you are built into my heart for the rest of my life is enough for now.”
She looked back at her home and the light in Rose’s bedroom clicked on. It gave her an escape route, because standing there in front of him knowing they couldn’t be together made her want to do nothing except cry.
“I better go. Rose might be awake.”
“Tell her a good story for me, would ya?” he replied.
“I’ll finish yours. About the magic people who fix others and how they are the strongest and bravest people to ever walk this earth.”
She started down the steps and AJ watched in silence. Max came through the door and gently placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
As Addie closed her own front door, Max turned to AJ.
“You okay?”
“I hope I will be, someday.”
16 GOOD INTO EVIL
Devin had been a casualty of life, as so many children are. Born into a home wracked with drugs and abuse, not even noticed unless someone needed a punching bag, he grew up unloved and unwanted. He had been forced to fend for himself, feed himself, and take care of himself from before he could even form memories.
For awhile, as a teen, he had risen above it. He didn’t care much for people touching him, hugging him or shaking his hand, because in his experience it was normally followed with a beating. He had finally opened himself up to the possibility that not all people were bad. He went to school, achieved good grades, and went in pursuit of a degree in psychology. He was good at reading people, at knowing what pushed their buttons and what their reactions might be. He wanted to help others - especially children - find their way through life and come out better on the other side.
When he was twenty he was with a girlfriend. He hugged her tightly one day as they walked down the street and felt an enormous shock. She felt it too, and gasped for air as his mind had flashes that moved so fast, he couldn’t comprehend the images. It was her; that much he knew. He couldn’t make out what she was doing.
As they both lay down to sleep, he turned to his girlfriend to kiss her goodnight, yet another shock emanating through his fingertips. It jolted her. When he awoke in the morning and rolled over to curl up next to her, he noticed she seemed colder. When she didn’t move, he started screaming, calling 9-1-1, and watching as they removed her body from his apartment.
The cause of death was ruled aortic aneurysm. It brought Devin no peace. The loss of the only person he had ever let into his life - who had ever loved him - changed him to his very core.
He became withdrawn again, wanting solitude over the opportunity to be hurt or let down by others. He watched people smiling or holding hands, having lunch with their children. He wanted to make them feel the anger and hurt that he felt inside. These dark feelings only grew worse when there was a knock at his door one day from a man claiming to be his paternal grandfather.
His grandfather visited under the guise of wishing Devin condolences on the loss of his love. Days later he revealed his true reasons once he was sure Devin had what he was looking for. They had descended from a clan, he told Devin, one that had existed for centuries and had once led a great revolt. He explained Devin’s heritage to him, how his touch could bring pain and suffering to those on earth.
His grandfather’s portrayal of their power greatly differed from the original mission and values the Grim clan had created. His grandfather failed to mention the original clan was there to bring stability to the earth, to bring people closer together and to
help the human race make great developments in conjunction with the Healers. He only spoke of a darker mission.
This is where Devin’s grandfather had been born from, and from early on in life he had cultivated a manipulative and fiendish personality. Devin recognized that his grandfather’s persona and actions were most likely the reason his mother leaned the way she did. Upon learning he had a grandson the grandfather had come looking for Devin to see if the boy possessed the power.
He told Devin everything and offered to train him if he had the gift. He promised Devin that they held the potential for greatness. Devin was torn - at first. Wishing he could bring destruction to people’s lives and actually doing it were two very different things. He had the choice of which path to take, his grandfather said: loneliness or power. Devin chose power.
After the first few people Devin touched ended up on the city’s obituary page, Devin was hooked. Seeing others as miserable as him brought a twisted comfort to his soul after the losses he had incurred in life. He wasn’t as focused on the people he inflicted the pain on; he was more interested in the suffering of the loved ones they left behind. He felt as though he had camaraderie with them because of what he’d gone through.
It wasn’t until he was cleaning out his apartment and preparing to move with his grandfather that he came across a picture of the girl he had lost. Thinking back to the night and remembering the details he had previously pushed aside – the shock he had felt with their touch, the visions flashing before his eyes – that he became aware of the fact that he had caused her death. To be ultimately responsible for her demise was all it took for the final straw to snap and for Devin to turn into the evil Grim that he had become. He stayed within the rules of their clan, stretching them the way so many people do with laws – just enough to do what he wanted, yet not enough to get in trouble for it.
When he had come to Lee and saw the way AJ looked at Addie and vice versa, it had sickened him. It was the same way he used to look at his girl. He wanted to destroy the relationship, to ensure those looks would not be exchanged again. It wasn’t fair, he convinced himself. The fact that AJ was a Healer just added a bit more satisfaction to the cause. Revenge for his people would just be an added bonus.
It was a pattern he’d seen a thousand times in his life, and in the lives of the people he had previously been trying to help. When people are labeled, they tend to live up to that label, whether it is to be amazing or useless or stupid or trouble. The only difference between him and them was that he had the ability to create retribution through a touch of his hand.
**************************************************
As morning rose, AJ laid in bed with the sun peeking through the shades and arousing him from sleep. Max had to help him into bed the night before, although not before AJ made him swear to watch Addie’s house. As he sat up, feeling slightly better after a night’s rest, he saw Max sitting in the chair near the window.
“He’s getting more flagrant with his powers, AJ.”
“I know. To do that to a child…”
“He doesn’t care. We’re all one big target for him.” Max turned to look at AJ. “You can’t do this, kid. You’re not strong enough.”
“I’ll be fine,” AJ said irritably. There was no choice to be made about this, no decision to debate. He was doing it. “It’s going to happen. I’m going to end this.”
“It might end you.”
“Then so be it,” AJ replied, standing up. “If my life will save the lives of others, then that’s what will have to happen. What is the alternative? This isn’t your fight. You can’t initiate it, Max. If
you do, you’ll lose everything. He hasn’t challenged you. He challenged me.”
Max knew he was right.
“Besides, I can’t let him continue to terrorize the town. Or follow me to the next one to do the same. I have to make a stand.”
“You’re not strong enough.”
“Then find a way to make me stronger.”
“AJ, I don’t have a way to make you stronger! Not strong enough to defeat Devin. I saw it when I picked you up – I saw it in my mind. You are not strong enough to win this.”
AJ took a deep breath. Max had seen what AJ had been feeling – and fearing – for awhile. The fight would not end in AJ’s favor. If he could just end it in a way that helped the town, that was all he needed.
“We have until tomorrow Max. You are the king of history, my friend. Tell me what to do and we’ll do it.”
“We have to head out to meet with the group soon,” Max replied. “Someone should know something.”
Max exited the room, leaving his friend to stand alone. AJ walked over to the window and peeled back the rustic curtain to reveal a view of Addie’s house. She was sitting on the top step, a cup of coffee in hand and staring down at the yard where Rose was playing as if nothing had ever happened. AJ knew Rose would have woken up and thought it was all just a nightmare. Addie would always know the truth, though.
Getting dressed, he wondered if it was possible to love someone, to feel the way about them that he felt towards Addie and be able to simply live alongside them as a friend. Then he remembered what Max had just told him. He wasn’t going to have to worry about being her friend for long, anyway.
As the men headed out in the early morning to Max’s home, Addie watched the car pull away from her position on the step, her eyes meeting AJ’s as the car chugged forward. Her head turned, following his stare just as his did the same until the car was out of sight.
**************************************************
As the men pulled up to Max’s, they saw double the number of cars and people they had seen before with even more trickling in from as far as their sight could stretch. They headed up onto
the porch, making their way through the tents and campers that the Healer’s had set up for their overnight stay.
“Thank you again for coming friends,” Max said, standing tall and proud to be part of such a group.
Most of them didn’t know each other and would probably never meet them again. Yet they were here and willing to risk
their lives and their futures to help. It spoke volumes of their personality and soul. Max didn’t mince words as he continued.
“This Grim – Devin – is strong. Last night, he touched a child in revenge. This child fell from a broken ladder, the rung penetrating her leg clear through, slicing an artery.”
The crowd of Healers gasped, some sounding scared while others angry.
Max continued. “AJ ran to her, his visions showing she was meant to live. With the amount of blood, there wasn’t time to wait. He couldn’t disguise himself, and he couldn’t perform the healing privately. A mortal saw. Addie, the girl’s mother watched as he sealed the wound with his hands. Her grandmother was one of us once, although Addie does not carry this gift. She saw and therefore, AJ has broken a rule that he was left with little choice but to make, to right a wrong by this rogue Grim.”
They turned to each other, nodding in agreement. He had done what he had to and not one of them would judge him for his decision. The Healers all knew what this meant. AJ was the only one who could directly battle with the Grim.
“What we need is your strength, your Healing for him. He’s exhausted, his body worn. Everything he had been saving up to use for battle is gone and he will surely lose his life if he goes into a fight like this. Devin would be free to continue his mission of harming those the universe did not decide upon.”
The mutterings of the crowd were loud, and there were a lot of them. One by one, the Healers began to come forward, reaching for AJ’s hand and transferring strength to him. If everyone gave a little, it would amount to much more.
