The Soul Healer

by Melissa Giorgio

  “Evan, watch it!” Rafe roared, kicking at Buggy. It executed a back flip, flying out of reach before Rafe could chop its head off. “In fact, stay out of the fight altogether! You’re too drunk!”

  “I’m not drunk!” the blonde protested, already summoning another fireball.

  “Then why did you almost set my face on fire!” I screamed at him.

  Evan gave me a sloppy grin. “Come on Gabs, I was aiming for—” He blinked. “What are we calling this one?”

  “Buggy,” I said, as Rafe swung his sword, narrowly missing clipping the demon’s arm.

  “What? Why? That’s an awful name.”

  I pointed at the demon. “It has bug wings. I don’t know about its face, though; can’t see it from here. Rafe, what does it look like up close?”

  My boyfriend, still in the middle of fighting Buggy, only managed to grunt in response.

  “Rafe, she asked you a question,” Evan said, tossing the fireball up into the air and catching it. “It’s not polite to ignore her.”

  “I’m a little busy, you ass!”

  “Oh, what’s that? Are you asking me to help you?”

  “No, I told you to stay out of—”

  But Evan, being Evan, didn’t listen to Rafe. Swaying, he lifted the hand holding the fireball and hurled it as hard as he could (toward the demon this time, at least). Teetering forward with the momentum, Evan tried to catch himself, but he ended up falling on top of his booze (yeah, he was still holding onto it) and the bottle shattered with a loud crash.

  Oh crap. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought the glass had pierced his chest, but then Evan, his face buried in the snow, started laughing, the sound muffled. I exchanged a glance with Rafe, who had paused in his fight with Buggy. He shook his head in disgust before lifting his sword and charging the demon again.

  The fireball had completely missed Buggy, by the way.

  I marched over to Evan and grabbed the collar of his jacket, hauling him backwards before he got like, hypothermia and had to get his nose chopped off. “Evan, what is wrong with you!” When he didn’t stop laughing, I shook him as hard as I could. “Evan!”

  He hiccupped, finally quieting down. “Oh look, I’m bleeding.” He held up his hand and I sucked in a sharp breath. Part of the bottle had cut Evan—a large, brown shard protruded from his palm, and blood dripped from the wound onto the ground, the crimson color a jarring contrast to the white snow.

  “Evan,” I said again, nervously. I looked at my gloved hands. Would they start glowing? Was I about to go into a trance and heal him?

  Behind us, the demon let out a shriek of pain, and I turned around just in time to see Rafe’s sword slice cleanly through its neck. We were luckily far enough away to avoid being hit with green monster goo, but some of it did splatter poor Rafe. He winced, wiping the crap off his face.

  Evan cleared his throat. “Gabi.” There was something strange about Evan’s tone of voice, something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. He held up his hand, practically shoving the dirty, bleeding thing into my face, and I recoiled. “Look, I’m hurt. You can heal me, can’t you? Huh, huh? Can’t you? Please, pretty please?”

  I swallowed hard, eyeing the wound. Could I? “Evan, I—”

  BAM! I hadn’t heard or even seen Rafe come over to us, and now he had Evan in a chokehold as he dragged the blonde away from me. “Get away from her!”

  “Rafe!” I stared at my boyfriend in shock. Had everyone lost their minds tonight?

  “What did you I tell you!” Rafe shouted in Evan’s face. “What did I say?”

  “All right, all right, man.” Evan squirmed, trying to fight his way out of Rafe’s death grip. Was it just me or was his face turning purple? “It was a joke—”

  Wrong thing to say. Rafe squeezed harder, his voice going dangerously low. “A joke? You think this is a joke? Are you kidding me? Should I be laughing, Evan? Should I?”

  Evan didn’t respond, probably because he couldn’t. I raced over, throwing my hands over Rafe’s arm. “Stop it, Rafe! You’re going to kill him!” His face was dark, murderous, and I had to say his name two more times before he finally acknowledged me. “Let. Him. Go!”

  Rafe released Evan, and the blonde fell to his knees, wheezing. I expected Rafe to look stunned at what he had done, but instead, he continued glaring at Evan. Visions of Rafe hacking Matthew Davenport, the Silver Moon hunter-turned-demon, to pieces after he had attacked me suddenly filled my head. Rafe had been very scary at that moment when he saw I was in danger. I thought it had been a one-time deal, but now this… How could he attack Evan like that?

  What had happened to Rafe?

  Chapter Five

  Rafe loomed over Evan, still glowering. I situated myself between them, worried Rafe was about to kick Evan in the head or something. “What the hell was that?” I demanded.

  “He shouldn’t have done that,” Rafe said, his voice cold and flat.

  I blinked. I had never heard him sound like that before, and it was scary. Almost as scary as watching him try to choke Evan to death.

  “It’s not a game, what you can do, Gabi. I told Evan to keep quiet about it, and now he’s joking about it like it’s nothing.”

  “Okay, fine,” I said, “but who do you expect is going to hear him?” I gestured around us. “We’re the only morons standing outside in this blizzard, Rafe. Don’t you think you went just a tiny bit overboard just now? You attacked Evan.”

  He shook his head stubbornly. “I was protecting you.”

  “From what?” I stared at Rafe. “He’s drunk! He doesn’t even know what’s going on right now!”

  As if to prove my point, Evan let out a loud hiccup.

  “No, he knows exactly what he’s doing,” Rafe said. “And I’m not going to just stand here and let him hurt you!”

  Okay, Rafe had officially lost his mind. Hurt me? All Evan had done was shove his bleeding hand in my face (and narrowly missed burning my face off). Yes, that was disgusting, but I was fine. What had Rafe expected to happen to me?

  I curled my hands into fists. The other two times, when I had used my powers, Rafe and Evan had been on the brink of death. Rafe had been stabbed by Boneless, Evan by Davenport. I remembered sitting there, watching as they bled to death, feeling a painful sense of uselessness. And then—

  Nothing.

  Whatever happened next was lost to me. I woke up exhausted, my hair white, and the person who had been dying whole once more. More than that, they were brimming with life, unstoppable, untouchable. Completely opposite to how they had looked before I blacked out or went into my trance or whatever it was that I did. And that’s the thing. Evan wasn’t dying. He was bleeding, yes, but it was just a small cut on his hand. Maybe he needed some stitches, I didn’t know, I wasn’t a doctor. The point was, he was going to live.

  I didn’t need to heal him.

  Rafe had to realize this. He had to! So again, why the freak out? Protecting me? Was he kidding me? I shook my head. It was cold and my pants were wet and my feet were frozen and I was so damn annoyed a stupid demon had shown up during our date and now Rafe was acting batshit crazy—

  “You have to stop doing this,” I said quietly.

  Rafe blinked. “Doing what?”

  “This!” I gestured toward him, all of him. “This morphing into a seriously scary person when you think I’m in danger, Rafe.”

  He flushed. “I don’t—”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “I’m trying to protect you!” Rafe said again.

  “Did you ever think that maybe I don’t need you to protect me?” I shot back, while a little voice inside my head wondered what I was doing. Why was I arguing with him?

  Because he attacked Evan.

  Rafe frowned at that. “Really? Then how come you keep landing yourself in situations where I need to save you?”

  I felt a hot stab of irritation. Save me? Excuse me, but I was not a damsel in distress, all right? “My life was
pretty demon-free before I met you, Rafe. So don’t you dare blame me for landing myself in these so-called situations. If anything, they’re your fault, all right? I don’t know if you get off on this hero thing, but I don’t need it. I can take care of myself.”

  Yeah, I sorta hated myself the moment those words flew out of my mouth, but I was so angry I didn’t even realize what I was saying until it was too late. Rafe paled and took a step back. Away from me. Already, I felt the distance as an ache in my chest.

  “Fine,” he said. “I get it.”

  “Rafe—”

  “No, I get it.” He turned around to retrieve his sword, doing the spell to make it vanish with another bright flash of light. We stared at one another, the five feet between us more like five miles. The fierce, murderous rage on Rafe’s face had been replaced by a hurt, dejected look. He kicked at the snow with his boot. “You’re fine without me.”

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “Let’s just go, Gabi.” He nodded toward his car. “You need to get home and I have to clean up this mess.”

  “Let me help you,” I pleaded, seriously scared now. What had I done? What had I said?

  Dammit, I knew I was going to screw this good thing up.

  “I don’t need your help,” Rafe said in a tone of voice that matched the frigid air. “I can take care of myself too, you know.” He walked away without another word.

  “Rafe,” I said quietly.

  “Oh boy, did you two just get into a fight?” Evan asked as he slowly got to his feet. “Was it my fault? Did I do something wrong?”

  “No,” I said, watching Rafe’s retreating form. “No, Evan, I did.”

  ***

  So the car ride home was pure torture. Rafe had really been set on driving the two of us home before coming back and picking up the demon’s body, but Evan somehow convinced him to deal with it now. I have no idea how he even managed to do that since Rafe was refusing to speak or even look at Evan. I sat in the car (since Rafe didn’t need my help), wondering why I was such an idiot.

  I wondered if I should give Rafe the necklace back.

  I wondered if we had broken up.

  I was surprised when Rafe dropped Evan off at their apartment first. The blonde gave me a half-hearted smile and a pat on the shoulder before stumbling out of the car, his injured hand clutched to his chest. I hoped they had some of that magical stuff that helped heal cuts, because I could not see Rafe driving Evan to the hospital right now.

  Running him over with his car, yes…

  But I wasn’t mad at Evan. I really wasn’t. Crashing our date while drunk was bad, but asking me to heal him was not worth the death penalty, no matter what Rafe thought. And while I knew I had gone too far when we argued, I was still angry at Rafe for acting the way he had. He needed to control his temper, or else—

  Or else what, Gabi? You want to end things with the best thing that’s ever happened to you?

  When we pulled in front of my house, I quickly turned to him. “Look, Rafe—”

  “No, Gabi, not tonight.”

  “But—”

  He stared straight ahead, watching the wipers go back and forth as they brushed the snow aside in giant icy chunks. The storm had picked up sometime during our battle with Buggy, and I wondered if it would prevent us from leaving for Vermont the next day. More time home meant more time trying to patch things up with Rafe.

  “I think it’s a good thing you’re leaving tomorrow,” Rafe said.

  “What?” Shocked, I felt tears forming, but I blinked hard to keep them from falling.

  Now he turned to face me, and I saw the pain in his green eyes. “Yeah. We’re both angry right now, so some time apart will probably be good. I’ll see you when you get back and then we’ll talk, all right?” He shrugged. “Have a good trip, Gabi.”

  This was a nightmare. A freaking nightmare I was hopefully going to wake up from soon because this was not my boyfriend talking right now. Rafe wouldn’t just brush me off like that. He wouldn’t.

  Or maybe he would. He turned the key in the ignition and gave me a very pointed look. Flushing, I fumbled for the door handle, suddenly anxious to get out of the car as quickly as possible. Without another word, I exited and ran to my front door, hurt and dejected, the tears already falling.

  Chapter Six

  An hour and a shower later, Chloe came down the stairs to find me in the front sitting room, wrapped up in blankets on the couch and halfway through a container of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I was trying to decide between throwing myself out my bedroom window or standing outside in the storm and freezing to death. With the way I was feeling, both options were pretty appealing.

  “Why are you home?” Chloe asked, plopping down on the couch next to me. She swiped the container of ice cream and my spoon and dug in. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Rafe? I figured you wouldn’t be home until at least midnight.”

  I shrugged, too tired to even speak.

  Chloe froze with the spoon halfway to her mouth. “Oh my god, did you two get into a fight?” When I didn’t answer, she leaned forward, her brown eyes wide. “You did, didn’t you? How is that even possible? He does everything you say—what more could you want in a boyfriend?”

  How about a boyfriend who didn’t go crazy the moment he thought my life was in danger? I couldn’t exactly tell Chloe that, since the demon stuff was a BIG SECRET. Even after she had been kidnapped by Davenport, Evan had worked his magic to make her forget everything. To this day, she believed the bruises and scratches she had suffered were the result of an accidental trip down the stairs after drinking too much in retaliation for Dad grounding her. I hated lying to Chloe, but it was much better than having her remember everything from that horrific night. And, somehow, her new memories had calmed her down. She was no longer going out Friday and Saturday nights, getting wasted and expecting me to cover for her. And she stopped obsessing about disgusting Christian Thompson! I would take that any day of the week. He was not worth her attention at all. The look on his face when he realized both Harkins sisters couldn’t care less about him was priceless. Definitely one of my top ten all-time favorite moments.

  I sighed, pulling the blanket up to my chin. “I don’t know what happened, Chloe. One moment everything was perfect, and the next—”

  And the next, Evan showed up. But I couldn’t exactly say that, either. Chloe was over her Evan-crush as well, but he was still a sore topic between the two of us. The less we talked about him, the better (really, the less anyone talked about Evan, the better).

  I grabbed the carton of ice cream back. “The next moment we were fighting and I don’t even know what the hell happened, Chloe.” I looked at her, my stupid eyes brimming with tears again. “He said it’s a good thing I’m going away because we need some time apart.” I threw my hands in the air. “We just started dating! Why would we need time apart?” Slumping in my seat, I blew out a long breath. “I think we just broke up.”

  “Uh, no you didn’t,” Chloe said, giving me a strange look. “If you had broken up, you would know about it. And you wouldn’t be wearing what looks like an ultra-expensive piece of jewelry around your neck, either.” She pointed to my rose necklace, which I hadn’t been able to take off, as heartsick and angry as I had been when I saw it in the bathroom mirror. My hand went up to touch it, and Chloe continued. “Rafe was probably too scared of you at the moment and figured you needed a week to cool off before he tried to discuss whatever it was the two of you were fighting about.” A wicked grin flashed across my sister’s face and she wiggled her eyebrows. “Were you talking about sex?”

  “What?” I had just shoved a large spoonful of ice cream in my mouth, and of course it went flying everywhere.

  Chloe squealed and wiped a chocolate chip from her cheek. “Gross, Gabi!”

  “Why are you talking about…” I lowered my voice, looking around the room for Dad even though I knew he was upstairs, doing some last minute packing. “Sex?”r />
  “I’m trying to figure out what you could possibly be arguing about with your hot boyfriend,” Chloe said calmly. “Poor, innocent Rafe. You were probably trying to jump him in the car, like you tried to jump him in your bedroom—”

  “Nobody was doing any sort of jumping, Chloe!” I glared at her. “And for your information, what happened that day in my bedroom was completely innocent.”

  She laughed. “Right, so that’s why Rafe is banned from the second floor.”

  “No, he’s banned because Dad loves ruining my life.”

  “Who loves ruining your life?” Dad asked, coming down the stairs.

  I elbowed Chloe in the side as she started laughing again. “No one.”

  “No, really,” he said, “what were you girls just talking about?”

  Chloe opened her mouth. “Se—”

  “HOW EXCITED WE ARE TO GO TO VERMONT TOMORROW,” I proclaimed loudly over her. Dad gave me a strange look, probably wondering if I had been drinking with Rafe. Great, another thing for him to give me hell about.

  “Hmm,” was all he said. Dad glanced at the clock on the wall. “Speaking of, you girls better head to bed. I want to get up early tomorrow, remember?”

  Chloe stopped laughing to groan. “Why, Dad, why? Why must you torture us with early mornings?” She slid off the couch and dragged her feet to the stairs.

  Dad smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “Because it’s my greatest joy in life.”

  “You need a hobby.”

  After Chloe vanished upstairs, Dad came over to me. “Gabi, you too. Go to sleep now. I need you to help me with the maps tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes, giving him a small smile. “That’s what the GPS is for.”

  “You know I don’t trust that thing.” He paused, looking me over. “Is everything all right, honey? I didn’t expect you home so soon, honestly. I thought you’d want to spend as much time as you could saying goodbye to Rafe.”

  Thanks to stupid Chloe, all I could think of was the various ways I could have been saying goodbye to Rafe, but then I remembered our fight and my stomach soured. “No, the evening kinda sucked, to tell you the truth. We had a fight and… now I have to wait a week to find out if we’re okay or not.”