Nina cocked her head to the side, looking confused. “What happened with what?”
“The director position?”
“With Liam out of the running, it went to Charles, obviously,” she said. “He was so happy; that position was something he really wanted.”
Something he really wanted? Her words were like a bucket of ice dumped down the back of my shirt. I stilled, staring at her in shock. How badly had Charles wanted to be director? Bad enough to kill for it?
What had Davenport said, when he was trying to convince Rafe to turn against Silver Moon?
“That was a setup. No, it was more like a test. For you. They wanted to see if you could identify a demon without the Sight. There was no nest. Just that one demon who murdered your parents.”
We had all thought Davenport had been saying anything to get Rafe to join his side, but what if he had been on to something? What if they had claimed it was a test, but it had actually been a way to thin out Charles’s competition?
What if Charles had killed Liam?
“Oh my god,” I whispered. Suddenly, the room was too small, and I could have sworn the walls were closing in on me. Shaking so hard my teeth chattered together loudly, I placed a hand on a nearby operating table to steady myself.
“Gabi, what’s wrong?” Nina asked.
There was a roaring in my ears, so loud I barely heard her. All I could think about was how broken Rafe had been when he had told me about what had happened to his parents, and how he had spent five years blaming himself for their deaths.
But I had been right. It wasn’t his fault. It had never been his fault. My vision filled with red as I thought of Charles, stupid, evil Charles, and what he had done. He had murdered his friend to get what he wanted. I was so convinced of his guilt that I was ready to march out of the room and shove my fist into his face, hitting him until he admitted the truth.
“Gabi?” Philip approached, concern plain on his face. “What’s the matter? You look—well, you look pissed. What happened?”
“Phil, your dad—”
The door to the hallway banged open, and we all jumped. Kain rushed in, an open book in one hand and a grave expression on his face. “Good, she’s here.” He was still using his fake American accent, but I could faintly hear the British leaking through.
“What’s going on?” Philip asked. “We were just texting each other and you didn’t say anything was wrong—”
Kain held up the book, an ancient-looking thing with yellow pages and a missing cover. “I found something on Soul Healers—had to call my dad to see if he remembered reading about them and he directed me to this book. And…” Kain trailed off, sending me an apologetic look. “It’s not good. In fact,” he continued, “it’s downright awful.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Great. Because things didn’t suck enough already.
“Okay, hold on,” Philip said, stepping between us. “Cut the dramatics for a second, okay? Just tell us in plain English what’s going on, without all the buildup meant to scare the shit out of us.”
It was weird hearing Philip speak that way to Kain, and even Kain looked taken aback by Philip’s harsh tone. Glancing at Philip, I saw how tense his shoulders were and realized he was nervous. My heart began thumping in my chest; something told me whatever Kain had to say, I wasn’t going to like it.
My life’s already shot to hell, so let’s just keep the trend going, shall we?
“What is it?” I asked, still leaning against the operating table, wondering if my legs were going to give out on me. I couldn’t stop shaking, and the frigid air did nothing to help the situation. It was so cold I was probably going to die of hyperthermia, but at least then I wouldn’t have to worry about whatever it was Kain had found in that book, right?
Seriously, my life right now.
Kain’s eyes flicked from Philip to me. “Right. Sorry.” He glanced at Philip again. “Should we maybe have this conversation somewhere less…disturbing?”
“This is fine,” I said before Philip could answer. I figured with my luck, we’d step out into the hallway and bump straight into Charles. I’d rather stay with the chopped up demons—they were better company than Mister Director! I glanced around the room. Spotting a stool, I dragged it over, and the others followed suit.
We looked like we were playing school, with Kain at the head of the class and me, flanked by Philip on my left and Nina on my right, facing him. The ancient book rested in his lap, and he tapped a finger against it repeatedly. “Gabiella, what happens when you heal?” he asked, frowning.
I was taken aback by his question (I was expecting something more along the lines of, “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!”), but I did my best to answer it. “Um. Well, I go into a trance, pass out, and when I wake up, I don’t remember anything.” Everyone stared at me and I fidgeted in my seat. “What? Is that bad?”
“Is it?” Philip asked Kain. He shifted closer to me, as if he could physically shield me from whatever Kain was about to say.
Kain scratched at the stubble on his jaw. “Does anything happen to you… physically?”
“I’m exhausted,” I said. “It’s like I transfer my energy to the person I heal; after, they can’t stop moving, while I can’t even move.”
“Anything else?” Kain leaned forward far enough that I wondered if he was about to topple off of his stool. “Anything at all, Gabiella, even if it’s the smallest thing.”
“Actually…” I reached up to touch a strand of my hair. “My hair turns white, for some reason…” Kain grimaced and my stomach plummeted all the way to the floor. Not good, not good. “Does your book say something about that?”
“There’s very little information about Soul Healers. Do you know why?” Kain asked gently.
I shook my head, but I had a growing suspicion.
“Their power? Their ability to save a life? If they use it too much, too often, they will die.”
Philip started shaking his head. “No. No, no, no.”
“She’s going to die?” Nina asked, already tearing up. “Kain, you’re wrong; that can’t be—”
“Guys, stop.” I held up my hand, remarkably calm for just being told I was going to die. I locked gazes with the British hunter. “Tell me everything you learned from that book. And everyone else,” I said, glancing at Nina and Philip, “will let you speak. Okay?”
The two nodded and mumbled their agreement. Kain continued to watch me, hesitating, as if he were scared to continue. But what did he have to be scared about? He had already dropped the bombshell.
“There’s only been a handful of Soul Healers in recorded history, none in the past five hundred years,” Kain said.
“That Silver Moon knows about, you mean.” While I had told Philip and Nina to refrain from interrupting, the same didn’t apply to me. From the moment I had first heard the term “Soul Healer,” I’d had plenty of questions to ask, and now Kain finally had some answers for me. Duh, of course I was asking them all!
“Right.” Kain nodded. “While Silver Moon is a large and impressive force, it does not have eyes and ears everywhere.” He paused. “The ones in charge would beg to differ, but they’re fools. There’s plenty going on in this world that they have no idea about. Including Soul Healers.”
I rested my hands on my thighs, curling my fingers into tight fists. “Okay. Soul Healers are out there, but we just don’t know about them because they die prematurely. Got it.” My voice shook slightly as I asked, “And how do we prevent that from happening to me?”
Kain held my gaze for one, long heartbeat. “You can’t heal, ever again.”
“But—” I thought of Alexandra, and of Evan, waiting for me to bring his girlfriend back. Of Rafe, dying in front of me after being attacked by Boneless. Rafe was a hunter. He would fight and get hurt again. What if he needed me like he needed me that night?
Are you freaking kidding me? As if I would just stand there and not heal him! “Sorry, Rafe, you have to die so I can keep living!” I do th
at and someone better give me an award for worst girlfriend ever.
Maybe I could convince Rafe to retire from hunting. Haha, that would go over well with him, especially when I told him Charles killed his parents. He’d run straight to Silver Moon’s HQ and destroy everyone and everything standing between him and Charles. And where would I be? Hiding at home, telling my hands to behave themselves?
Slowly, I held up my hands, palms facing me. “I can’t control this power, Kain. Someone gets hurt, I heal them. Well, no, maybe that’s wrong. I didn’t heal Jonathan and I couldn’t heal Mr. Snuggly, either.” I shot Nina an apologetic grimace, and she nodded slightly, her brow creased in concentration. “I don’t know what that means, though.”
“Maybe your powers are gone!” Philip said, brightening. “Maybe you used them all up after you healed Evan, and that’s it. You’re not a Soul Healer and you won’t die! That could be it, right?” He looked at Kain for confirmation.
The dark-haired hunter hesitated. “That would be…great news for Gabiella, but I can neither confirm nor deny it.” His gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry.”
“What about her hair turning white?” Nina asked. “What does that mean? It seemed pretty serious by your expression earlier, Kain.”
He tapped the book again. “It has to do with the magic draining the Soul Healer—draining them until...”
Kain trailed off, but we all knew what he meant. I thought back to my conversation with Rafe, when I had first seen my white hair. I had asked him if I was dying, and he had vehemently refused to believe that was a possibility. Well, the joke was on me. I had been right, back then when I knew next to nothing about my new powers. Now I knew, and I felt downright awful.
“So, if it turns out my powers are still there, and I am a Soul Healer… The next time I heal someone?” I bit my lip.
“You could die.” Kain shut his eyes and exhaled loudly.
Philip jumped off his stool, startling me with the sudden movement. “She’s not dying. Do you hear me?” His voice echoed throughout the room; it was impossible not to hear him. “I feel bad for Evan and for Alex’s parents and obviously for Alex, but we are not risking it.” Philip seized my hand, pulling me off the stool as well. His brown eyes searched my face, no doubt seeing the fear that was written there. “Gabi, it’s going to be okay. You’re going to be fine. I’m going to get you out of here.”
“What?” I asked as Kain cursed softly.
Philip took a deep breath, squeezing my fingers gently. “I’m breaking you out of HQ.”
Chapter Thirty-two
I expected Nina and Kain to loudly voice their protests, but they stayed quiet. All eyes were on Philip as he began pacing in front of me. “It’ll have to be soon,” he said, “before my dad tries another sick experiment on you. We can’t risk him hurting someone else, someone like—” Philip broke off abruptly, but it was impossible for me not to notice the way his eyes cut to Kain. It made sense, too. If Charles hated Kain as much as they believed he did, what was to stop him from slicing and dicing the British hunter next? “Tonight,” Philip continued, still pacing. “We’ll leave tonight.”
Tonight? My eyes widened. Half of me wanted to start dancing and singing, “Freedom!” but the other, more sensible part wondered if we could really pull off the Great Escape with only a few hours of planning.
“Is that wise?” Kain asked softly. He held up his hands when Philip whirled on him, eyes flashing. “Hear me out, Philip. I want her away from your bastard of a father as much as you do, but—”
“The sooner we get her out of here, the better,” Philip said.
“But then what? Calm down for a moment and think this through.”
“What is there to think about?” Nina piped up. “If Gabi stays here, she dies. Phil is right, she needs to leave!” Whoa. And here I was expecting Nina to suggest we nicely ask Charles to let me go. What had happened to being a Charles worshipper? She must have noticed me staring at her, wide-eyed, because she reached out to take my hand in hers. “I love Silver Moon, and I respect Charles, but this is wrong. You can’t die, Gabi. If Phil is going to help you escape, then I’m helping!”
“Nina…” My eyes filled with unexpected tears and I blinked hard to keep them from spilling over.
“This is wonderfully touching,” Kain said, “but again I ask, what is the plan?”
Philip stopped pacing to punch his fist into his hand repeatedly. “We wait until midnight. We take her in the elevator, go to the lobby, open the door, and go outside.” He grinned at Kain. “How’s that for a plan?”
Kain sighed, running a hand through his thick, black hair. “It’s a start.”
“No one will see us leaving?” I asked, skepticism dripping off of my words. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? If it were, I could have left days ago!
“I’ll take care of that,” Kain said with a grin of his own. He could only mean magic; maybe he planned on doing what Evan had promised to do if I had healed Alexandra.
Evan. I tried to ignore the stab of guilt deep in my gut, but it was impossible. Would he even let me go like that?
Highly doubtful.
“What about Evan?” Just like that, the hopeful mood in the room plummeted, bringing us back to cold, stark reality. “And Charles? And anyone else that I’ve managed to make hate me since being here? Won’t they all be lining up to come bring me back?” Another horrible thought struck me, one I should have thought of the moment Philip had mentioned escaping. “They know where I live. They’ve already threatened my dad and sister once. If I run away—what would they do to them?” I couldn’t believe that I had been so excited about leaving that I had, for one brief moment, forgotten about my family. What is wrong with me?
“My dad would never hurt them,” Philip said. I looked at him in shock. Had he forgotten about Jonathan? Mr. Snuggly? “No, I mean it. That was a bluff.”
Hugging myself, I shook my head back and forth. “I am not taking a chance with my family’s lives, Phil. Your dad is a monster.”
“Yeah, he is,” Philip agreed. “But he’s more bark than bite. He would never do something that drastic to call attention to himself or Silver Moon. He loves his position as director too much to lose it all on a single whim.”
Oh yes, I know just how much Charles wanted to become the director…
“He wouldn’t kill your family,” Philip continued. “Or hurt them or anything like that, I swear it. I won’t let him, either.”
“What, you’re going to move in and become my protector?” I joked.
Philip didn’t respond.
“You’re serious!” I gasped. “Phil, no, you can’t—”
“Until he agrees to leave you alone, I can and I will,” Philip said.
“No, you won’t.” This was worse than Rafe’s protective streak—this was downright suffocation! Not to mention the fact that I’d be plucking Philip from the life he’d always known and forcing him to start all over again. And how would he do that, anyway? Dad wasn’t about to let a total stranger move in, and there was no way in hell Charles would send him any money… Visions of Philip camping out in my backyard sprung to mind and I grimaced. This was ridiculous!
“Hold on, hold on.” Kain stepped in between us (we were doing some major glaring at each other at the moment) and held up his hands. “Has everyone forgotten Rafe Fitzgerald? Gabiella’s boyfriend, who also happens to be a highly skilled hunter? Wouldn’t he be the one doing the protecting?”
“Thank you,” I said loudly. At least someone in the room was using his brain.
“I can protect her, too,” Philip said stubbornly.
“Don’t you think you’d be better off here, convincing your dad to leave her alone?” Kain asked. “And I don’t mean by threatening him, although that would be entertaining to watch.”
Philip refused to back down. “Then how? He doesn’t listen to me, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“By showing him this.” Kain waved the book in the
air. “And anything else we can find. We’ll show him that there is a very good chance Gabiella will die and convince him to back off.”
“Will that work?” I asked. I looked from determined Kain to uncertain Philip to scared Nina. They exchanged glances, and it was Philip who nodded.
“It’s worth a shot. I mean, it’s better than being a fugitive, although that would have been fun too, right, Gabi?” Philip grinned at me.
The vision of Philip in my backyard was replaced by us speeding across the country in a beat-up car. “That’s what you had in mind!”
His face reddened. “What? We would have had a good time!”
I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, Phil…”
“This is why I suggested we come up with a plan,” Kain said with a smug smile. “Philip has an overactive imagination, as he just demonstrated.”
“Shut up,” Philip growled, turning even redder.
I began laughing. I was tense and scared, and our plan sorta sucked (no, it really sucked), but I couldn’t help myself. It felt good to laugh. It reminded me that if you pushed the Sight and the very likely chance that I was a Soul Healer aside, I was still a normal teenage girl.
I held out my hand, making a fist. When no one moved, I glared at them, each in turn. After much groaning and eye rolling, they placed their hands on top of mine, making a stack. “Let’s break out of HQ, guys,” I told them. “And get me the hell home.”
“To Gabi!” Philip yelled. No one echoed him, and he grimaced. “You guys suck, you know that?” Kain laughed and pounded Philip on the back, good-naturedly. Philip, in turn, did a horrible job of disguising how much he enjoyed the physical contact, brief as it was.
After they pulled their hands away, I brought my fist up to my heart, where I whispered, “To me.”
We were getting out of HQ.
I was going home.
Chapter Thirty-three
“I have something for you,” Rafe said, reaching into the backseat and handing me a wrist corsage, still in its plastic case.
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