by Anise Eden
“We’re way ahead of you,” Ben said. “We got our hands on a device that’s used in eye surgery. It holds the eyelids open while dropping in artificial tears at regular intervals.”
I tried not to wince. “Wow, you’ve thought of everything.” Everything except for the fact that I had no idea whether I’d be able to submerge into a terminally ill man who was in a coma. And that I’d be communicating with him exclusively through a proxy. And that I had no idea how—or if—any of that would work.
From his seat next to me, Ben slid a comforting arm around my shoulders and murmured, “Look, no one is expecting you to work a miracle here. This is an unprecedented situation. No one really knows what’s going to work and what isn’t. All we can do is try.”
I looked around the room at the optimistic faces of my friends, all of whom had already done their best. The least I could do was put my own fears aside and give it a shot. “So when do I get to meet him?”
“How about now?” Asa suggested. “I’m up for it. He’s always pretty calm, so if it’s just a short visit, I can read his mind without having to go into the headache-prevention trance.”
“All right, if you’re sure,” Ben said. Although he was trying to sound confident, I could hear the worry creeping into his voice.
We got up, gathered our things, and headed towards Braz’s room. As we walked, I pulled Ben toward the back of the group and whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
Ben slid his arm around my shoulders, squeezed gently, and kissed the top of my head. “I know you will, because I’ll be right there with you.”
Chapter Seven
Mom.
That was my first thought, and it stopped me cold in the doorway. Dr. Belo’s was a standard hospital room, and he was lying motionless on his back with tubes everywhere—just like my mother had been when I’d finally reached the hospital after her overdose. I recognized the constant beeping sounds of the monitors; the smell of various antiseptics and bodily fluids; the thin blankets and thinner robe; the blue and white everything.
My breath caught in my throat. It’s not Mom, I told myself. Look again. Dr. Belo was a stocky man with tawny skin and a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. He appeared to be in his mid-sixties.
Ben rubbed my lower back as the rest of the crew filtered past me and into the room. He turned to Asa. “Is he awake?”
Asa screwed his eyes shut in concentration. “Well, he is now, and he wants to know why we woke him up. He says he was having a… good dream.” Then Asa turned to Dr. Belo and stage-whispered, “No, I’m not going to tell them that. There are ladies in the room.”
Ben nudged me closer to the bed. “Dr. Belo,” he said, “I’d like you to meet therapist and empath Cate Duncan.”
The whole situation felt uncomfortable, like a shirt put on backwards. But as Ben wrapped his arm around my shoulders and traced circles on my upper arm with his thumb, a sweet sensation slid through me. Instinctively, I tucked my body into his.
Ben gave my shoulders a light squeeze and continued, “As we discussed, Cate is going to be working with you to help overcome this memory block of yours. We’re hoping that she’ll be able to succeed where Skeet and I have failed.”
“Ben,” Asa said, “he wants her to say hello. He wants to hear her voice.”
Dr. Belo’s request pulled me out of the funk I was in. I pushed past the strangeness of talking to a man in a coma and said, “Hello, Dr. Belo. It’s an honor to meet you.”
Asa blushed deeply.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Umm….” Asa hesitated, but Ben gestured for him to proceed. “He said your voice is sexy, and you smell sweet, so he’s sure that the pleasure will be all his.”
Pete and Kai snorted with laughter. Vani threw her hands in the air and said, “I told you he was a flirt!”
Eve leaned towards Dr. Belo and said sternly, “Don’t even go there, Braz. She’s dating Ben.”
Asa sighed. “He says, ‘Ah, I should have known that someone who sounds so beautiful would already be taken.’”
A blush tore across my face. “I’m not taken,” I began, but then realized the absurdity of explaining my relationship status to Braz. I felt the vibration of Ben’s body against mine as he chuckled silently.
Asa shook his head. “Ben, he wants to know if you’ll be sitting in on his therapy sessions, or if you’re brave enough to leave him alone with your girlfriend.”
Ben looked down at me. “Cate? It’s up to you.”
I considered. It would be nice to have someone there for moral support, but I wasn’t used to people observing me while I worked. “I think it might make me less nervous to try it on my own first.”
“Understood. I’ll be available if you need me; we all will. But don’t worry, Braz,” Ben warned playfully, “I trust her completely.”
Asa grinned. “Well, we can’t start right now. He’s asleep again. Or at least he’s thinking, ‘snore, snore, snore.’”
Pete guffawed and slapped his knee. “I guess we’d better leave him alone so he can get back to that good dream of his.”
We all filed out of the room, and Ben closed the door behind us. “So that’s Dr. Belo. What do you think?”
My sadness at Dr. Belo’s situation mingled with hope. He obviously had a strong will, a good sense of humor, and a unique personality. “I think I’m going to enjoy working with him.”
“Glad to hear it.” Ben slid his arm around my waist. “Cate, I was hoping we could get started tonight, but Braz clearly isn’t up for it, and you look tired.”
“I am tired, but I have no idea why. I had a nap this afternoon.”
“Don’t underestimate the stress of the situation. Even if you’re not conscious of it, it can take a lot out of you. That goes for everyone, by the way,” Ben said to the group.
“You do look a bit worn out,” Vani said, draping her arm around my shoulders. “If you’re going to do your best work, you should be well-rested. We don’t exactly have time for trial and error.”
“My best work?” I felt a wave of despair. “But I have no idea what I’m doing!”
“Of course you do,” Ben said firmly. “It’s the same empathic submergence technique you used with me at your house, and the same skills that you’ve been using with your therapy clients. Don’t worry. I know this situation is strange, but once you get started, you’ll be fine.”
I guessed it was possible. I did use the submergence technique regularly, and it had been effective when I’d used it to help Ben with his eating phobia. “I just hope you’re right.”
“I am,” Ben said. “We’ll all meet again in the conference room after breakfast.”
I could barely keep my eyes open as Ben walked me back to my room. Once I hit the mattress, I floated off.
• • •
ParaTrain Internship, Day Two
“Do we have any more paper towels?”
Mom tossed me another roll. “Do you need spray?”
“No, I’m okay.” Mom and I were situated on either side of my Great-Aunt Edith’s kitchen. She had just moved into an assisted-living facility and decided to sell her house. We’d known that her memory was failing, but it wasn’t until we went to clean out the house that we realized how much Aunt Edith had declined over those last few months.
“What’s with the plates of food?” I asked as I picked up another small dish of cheese and crackers. It had been laid out and never touched, left to mold and attract flies.
“I’m not sure,” Mom said, “but the neighbors said that whenever she heard people talking outside the house, she thought they were visitors coming. I guess she put the food out for them.”
“Oh my goodness.” I laid my hand over my heart to soothe a sudden ache. “That’s sad, but it fits. She’s such a good hostess. Poor Aunt Edith.”
“Yeah. I’m glad she’s going to be well cared for now.”
But Aunt Edith had passed away years ago. It was then that it dawned on me
: I must be dreaming. Kai had told me that when the spirits of the dead came to us in dreams, we could sometimes ask them questions. Well, I had plenty of questions, but I didn’t know how skittish spirits were, so I decided to start off light. As I sprayed another layer of cleaning fluid on the counter, I asked, “So what do you think of Ben?”
She waggled her eyebrows at me. “Pretty hot, honey!”
“Eww, Mom!” I flicked some bubbles off of my yellow rubber gloves at her. “You’re not supposed to say that. That’s just gross.”
She threw her head back and laughed her musical laugh. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. In all seriousness, though, I like him a lot. And I can tell that you two connect on a soul level. But please don’t ask me for any relationship advice. That’s not exactly my area of expertise.”
The whole question-and-answer thing seemed to be going smoothly. I decided to go a little deeper. “You never did tell me what happened between you and my father.” All I knew was that my father had left us both when I was almost a year old. I’d asked her about him once, but it was clear that even thinking of him caused her deep pain. I’d never mentioned him again, and neither had she. As a consequence, I didn’t know anything else about him—his name, where he was from, or even if he was still alive.
“You’re right. I never did, did I?” She looked out the kitchen window, the sun filtering through the white lace curtains and lighting her face. “I loved your father in that dreamy-eyed way that young women do. He was a little older, dashing, and impressive, so his interest in me was pretty flattering.” She went back to scrubbing the counter. “Eventually, though, I started to wonder whether he was more interested in me, or in what I could do.”
I squinted at her. “What you could do?”
“Being an empath, I mean. He was fascinated with my gift.”
“Why? I mean, how did he even know?”
“He had a job like Ben’s.” She turned away from me to scrub a different part of the counter.
My father had been… what? A psychologist? Had he run some kind of paranormal clinic? No, that would have been too much of a coincidence. My real life must have been bleeding into my dream. Still, her words planted a small seed of anxiety deep in the pit of my stomach. I could feel her energy pulling away from me, so I tried to draw her back. “Is that what drove you two apart?”
“In part. But that’s a story for another time.” She turned back around and placed one of her rubber-gloved hands on mine, using the other to push an escaped strand of hair behind my ear. Then she pointed at the counter in front of me. “Now get back to work. That’s not going to scrub itself.”
I closed my eyes defensively as she flicked some bubbles back at me. When I reopened them, she was gone, Aunt Edith’s house was gone, and I was staring up at a mesh of springs holding up a grey mattress. I was back in the subbasement—had been there the whole time.
To distract myself from the pain of losing her all over again, I tried to focus on breathing, and on the fact that my mother liked Ben. That was a comforting thought. And I knew intuitively what she meant when she said that Ben and I connected on a soul level. It felt as though our bond was about who we were at the root, not about a lot of the other things that often drew people together. For example, I’d been physically attracted to people before, but Ben had only to be near me to fill my senses and ignite an overwhelming process in my body, a chain reaction of heat and longing. I knew that kind of intensity couldn’t just come from physical chemistry; it had to be a consequence of who he was, his character, his heart—his soul.
At least that was how it felt to me. But what if it was different for Ben? What if he was primarily interested in me because I was an empath?
Up until then, I had tried not to look too closely at why someone as smart, capable, and unreasonably sexy as Ben was dating someone as messed up as I was. After all, a mere two weeks before, I couldn’t leave my house without taking anti-anxiety pills. And at twenty-six years of age, I’d never even had a real boyfriend.
I didn’t count Sid, my former friend-with-benefits, because our physical connection hadn’t been normal, either—something I’d learned during my first week in ParaTrain. As an empath, I absorbed too much negative emotional energy, which eventually reached toxic levels. And Sid was what they called a catalyst, someone who had the ability to draw the toxicity out of empaths like a poultice. So our attraction had been paranormal, two magnets of opposite charges.
But the more important reason that Sid didn’t count was that we’d never been in love. The few other relationships in my past had never lasted beyond the “fledgling” stage. They’d ended when I became overwhelmed by irrational fears and ran away as soon as things got serious—another common side effect of being an empath, I’d been told. With nothing but romantic failures to my name, I had become convinced that romance was something that happened to other people. Ben, Kai, and Vani promised that they could teach me how to have a romantic relationship without getting overwhelmed, which was the only reason I’d decided to risk pursuing something with Ben in the first place.
If Ben’s attraction to me was rooted in my gift, at least that made some kind of sense, and provided an answer to the question of why he was interested in me. For some reason, though, the mere thought made me feel light-headed, and my stomach began to churn. I’d have to push that idea and the dream about my mother out of my mind, at least temporarily.
Once I’d managed to clear my head, only one thought remained: coffee. I needed it, and I knew where to get it. The clock read 7:02 a.m. Ben and I hadn’t decided on a meeting time, but I was pretty sure no one would be coming for me before 8:00 a.m. at the earliest. I did a quick job of making myself presentable in case I ran into anyone, then grabbed my handful of pennies and headed to the staff lounge Nessa had shown me.
In answer to my silent prayer, I could smell coffee brewing. As I rounded the corner and approached the open door, I heard familiar voices. I picked up my pace, but then stopped dead when I got close to the door and heard the end of a sentence spoken in Kevin’s Southern drawl: “…Cate’s just not the kind of gal I would’ve imagined he’d go for.” Following an instant impulse, I ducked behind the propped open door and hid.
“Nice, you mean?” Nessa asked jovially.
“Maybe that’s it,” Kevin said.
Hector’s voice chimed in. “Yeah, Ben’s so stubborn, I always figured it would take a hard-as-nails harpy to keep him in line.”
“Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “She seems kind of soft, like he could roll right over her.”
“You never know,” Nessa said. “Cate might be tougher than she looks.”
Hector chimed in, “Well, you know he’s got a kink for that paranormal stuff.”
His words felt like fingers poking a bruise. I covered my mouth before any sound could escape.
Nessa quickly scolded, “An intellectual interest and professional commitment is not a ‘kink,’ you moron.”
“You know what I mean,” Hector said. “He’s into that stuff. And she’s a what, a telepath?”
“Empath,” Nessa said.
Kevin asked, “What’s an empath?”
“Somebody with the magical ability to put up with Rottie,” Hector said.
“Now that’s a rare gift,” Kevin agreed.
Nessa said dryly, “I don’t even know why I bother trying.”
I heard footsteps coming down the hallway towards me—fortunately from the direction that wouldn’t reveal my hiding place. I peeked out through the crack between the door and the wall to see Ben heading our way.
Hector chuckled. “Well, she must be supernaturally tolerant, at least. I mean, they’ve been together a whole day and he hasn’t blown it yet.”
“Who hasn’t blown what yet?” Ben asked as he breezed into the lounge. I slowly released the breath I’d been holding.
There was a cacophony of warm greetings. Then Kevin said, “We were just talking about you—trying to figure out how you got a woman to s
tay with you for a whole day without screwing it up.”
“Yeah,” Hector joked. “I mean, I don’t remember you ever getting past one date. You been going to charm school or something?”
“Nobody’s more surprised than I am.” It was nice to hear Ben sounding lighthearted.
Nessa laughed. “Well, whatever you’re doing, keep doing it. Don’t listen to these two love doctors. They’re both still single, you’ll notice.”
“Which means we have lots of failure to learn from,” Kevin said earnestly.
Ben guffawed. “Now, there’s a selling point.”
“Unfortunately for you,” Hector interjected, “the love doctors have to go on duty. You’ll have no one but Red here to keep you company.”
“We’ll manage,” Ben said.
As mugs clinked into the sink and boots headed for the door, I flattened my back against the wall. “See ya, bro,” Kevin called over his shoulder as he and Hector proceeded to walk away from me down the hallway.
I considered joining Nessa and Ben, but then realized that they would wonder why they hadn’t heard me coming, and I’d be busted. I’d just have to wait it out—not for too long, I hoped.
“They’re in the top drawer,” Nessa said.
“Thanks,” came Ben’s reply. I heard a drawer slide open, followed by the jostling of silverware. There was silence except for the sounds of coffee being prepared: liquid pouring, a spoon tinkling inside of a mug. Finally, Ben said, “Cate told me you two spent some time together yesterday. Thanks for keeping her company.”
“I appreciated her company, too,” Nessa said. “I like her. She seems like a really nice person, if a bit preoccupied. Of course, I would be, too, under the circumstances.”
There was an unusually long pause. “What circumstances?”
“Oh, you know. Finding herself in the middle of a mission like this when she’s only been at the whole paranormal thing for a week—and with a guy she just started dating. No offense.”
