To Have and to Harm

by Debra Doxer

  What he said to me outside Crossroads runs through my head. At the time, I took it too literally because I can see it happening now. True to his word, Grant is there for her when I can’t be.

  GRANT DROPS us off at the condo so we can pack Raielle’s things, but I don’t want to go inside. With the way I’m feeling, I’ll just get on her case. If Shane’s home, it’s likely I’ll lose it on him, too. Her wary expression says she knows what’s brewing inside me.

  “Let’s go for a drive,” I suggest.

  The sun is going down, and we’re standing on the sidewalk. She looks at me like I’m nuts. “We just spent almost four hours in the car today.”

  She’s right. A drive may not be the best idea. “How about we go get some dinner then?”

  She glances up at the condo, obviously not wanting to go inside any more than I do. “We could go to the market. I’ll cook you dinner at your apartment, and we can come back later to get my stuff.”

  At her offer, I feel some amount of relief. I can’t pretend to approve of what she wants, but I can refrain from discussing it for a little while the way she seems to want me to. “You cook?” I ask.

  She nods. “I cooked for my mom and me all the time.”

  I know Cal’s working tonight, and the idea of the two of us alone at my place while she makes me dinner sounds too good to refuse. I dip down to kiss her. “You cooking for me is on my fantasy list,” I say, wanting to lift her mood.

  “It is?” She tilts her head at me. “Why is that a fantasy?”

  “Because you’re doing it naked.” I grin when I see her cheeks redden.

  “I don’t think that’s very sanitary,” she says, wrinkling her nose. But I’m pretty sure she’s feigning her reaction because she can’t hide the gleam in her eyes.

  “I’d be willing to risk it.” I find the truck myself in the valet lot and get the keys from the attendant. Then I pull open the passenger door for her.

  Before she gets in, she levels her gaze at me. “You know I’m not cooking you dinner naked, right?”

  Leaning down, I say quietly, “What if I promise to eat it naked?”

  Her eyes widen. “Umm…” Then she yelps in surprise as I lift her up onto the seat.

  “Keep thinking about me naked.” I shut the door, quietly laughing to myself, unexpectedly eager to temporarily put aside the issues hanging heavy in the air between us if it means we get to spend a nice night together.

  Raielle is quiet beside me as I pull out of the parking lot. We drive through the outskirts of Westwood just as the colorful neon marquees for the various movie theaters so abundant to this neighborhood start buzzing to life. Once we’re past all the shops and restaurants, I take a side road I discovered a few weeks ago.

  She furrows her brow. “Another shortcut?”

  “The last one worked out, didn’t it?”

  I’m heading through an intersection, and I can see her skeptical expression as she watches out the window. When I drive up the narrow hill that will bring us out behind the grocery store, I feel her eyes on me.

  “Told you,” I say smugly.

  “Yes, you did.” She laughs.

  The market isn’t too busy, and I have fun trailing behind her, watching as she chooses ingredients for a pasta dish she’s decided to make. When I toss Ring Dings into the cart, she makes a face.

  “You know you’re gonna want a Ring Ding when you see me eating them.”

  “Doubtful,” she replies over her shoulder.

  I grin, feeling a sense of optimism creep in. Now that we know about Meera, her reasons for needing her father have disappeared. She can get what she wants and tell him to kiss off. But there are two problems with that. First, she doesn’t want to put Meera at risk. Second, she can’t forget about the girl lying sick in the clinic. I can probably change her mind on the first issue, but the second one is problematic.

  The more I think about that girl, the more the situation feels manipulated to me. Her father found a sick kid exactly like Penelope to throw at her, like he knew the best way to pull at her heartstrings. If he manipulated her power to make her believe she could cure the girl, and then he stopped her from doing it, he had to know how obsessed she’d become with healing her. But why would he do that? To keep her close and make sure she had a reason to stay? Maybe.

  We get the grocery bags into the truck and head back. Raielle is fidgety beside me. “Is Cal going to yell at me again?” she asks.

  I wince, still feeling guilty over that situation. “He won’t be back until late. I talked to him, though.”

  She says nothing in response, but her knee stops bouncing.

  When we arrive at my apartment, I’m surprised to find the front door unlocked. Shit. Maybe Cal is home. I look around for him as I carry the groceries through the hallway into the kitchen. He doesn’t seem to be here, but I hear Raielle calling my name. After dumping everything onto the counter, I find her standing in my bedroom doorway. Her face is pale as she looks at me. Then she takes a step back, and her eyes shift toward my room.

  When I come up beside her and look into the bedroom, the naked girl lying on my bed grins at me. “Your roommate let me in,” she says. “I didn’t realize you already had company tonight.” Then slowly, making sure I have time to enjoy the view first, she reaches down to pull the sheet up over herself.

  My brows arch up in surprise. “And you are?” I ask, wondering if she’s one of Cal’s castoffs.

  Her dark hair falls over her shoulder as she sits up more fully. “It’s okay. I get it.” She gives me a wobbly smile. “I’ll go.”

  I step inside. “What do you get?”

  She pushes her hair off her face. “I know you didn’t make me any promises, Lucas, but please stop pretending. You’re not fooling anyone.”

  My head reels when she uses my name. Then she looks at Raielle. “He told me he has a girlfriend, but that he doesn’t mind screwing around on her. Is that what he told you, too?”

  Raielle’s eyes grow wide. I storm the rest of the way into the room. “Get the fuck out!” My head snaps back to Raielle, still standing in the doorway.

  Her eyes bore into mine before she turns and starts to walk out of the apartment. My jaw clenches. If this is Cal’s idea of a joke, I’m going to kill him. “This isn’t fucking funny. Get dressed,” I bark at the girl before going after Raielle.

  I find her out on the sidewalk, waiting for me. Her expression is pained. It shoots a dagger right through my heart. “You know that wasn’t what it looked like,” I begin, pretending her hurt isn’t written on her face. “She’s lying. I have no idea who she is. Someone put her up to this.” After everything we’ve been through, Raielle can’t really believe I’m the one lying here. But her reaction makes me fear that all the trust we’ve built has just been obliterated.

  She takes a shallow breath. “Why would someone put her up to it?”

  My hands rake through my hair. “I have no idea. Please stop looking at me like that. If I’d done anything with anyone other than the blonde at the club, I would have told you about it last night. I’ve never even seen that girl before.”

  Her expression doesn’t change.

  I take a step closer to her. “Come on. You know me better than this.” When she doesn’t move away, my hand reaches toward her cheek. “Ray…”

  She averts her eyes and shifts her weight. Then she starts to nod. “Okay. I believe you.”

  I let out a relieved breath and reach for her hand. But she steps back. “Get her out of your bed first. Then come find me at Nikki’s. I’m going to walk over there.”

  She won’t even look at me. “If you believe me, why are you punishing me?”

  Her eyes close for a moment, and she seems tired. “I’m not punishing you,” she says. “It’s been a long day. I don’t want to go back in there right now. Just figure out what’s going on. Okay?”

  As she starts to turn away, I grab her hand. When she finally looks at me, I see how weary she is, and i
t’s not just from lack of sleep, it’s everything piled on top of that. She pulls on her hand and reluctantly, I release her, watching as she walks away from me.

  I MOVE to the side to let a group of girls pass. It’s dark, and the sidewalk is uneven and cracked. I keep my eyes on the ground, trying not to trip and add injury to insult.

  I know I’m abandoning him, but I don’t trust myself or what I may say to him right now. After what happened at the club the other night, I thought the girl in his bed really knew him, and that she was waiting for him, which would mean he’d lied about not being with anyone else. It would also mean he gave up everything and followed me out here just to start sleeping around with other girls. That makes no sense; I know that. I guess I really do believe him. Does that make me an idiot?

  Just now, I could see how my doubt hurt him. Could he blame me, though? If the situation were reversed, he would take it at face value, too. He wouldn’t automatically assume my innocence when the evidence of my guilt was lying naked right in front of him. But who would set him up like this? Who would pull such a mean-spirited prank?

  I keep walking, shaking my head at no one, trying to sort through my jumble of thoughts that are all tangling together into a knotted mess. I’m the one who found a naked girl in his bed, and he’s probably mad at me now. What’s wrong with this picture?

  Because my eyes are cast down, I don’t see Apollo’s car until he rolls down the window and calls out to me. I startle, realizing that I’m already at Nikki’s building.

  “You okay?” His eyes narrow on me as he leans across the passenger seat.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, bending down to see him better.

  “I was looking for you. You’re not answering that new phone you told me you had.”

  It’s actually my old phone. The one Apollo made me leave behind, but I don’t bother correcting him. I pull it out of my bag and see that it’s dead. I can’t remember the last time I charged it.

  Apollo pushes open the passenger door. “Get in. Your daddy said some girl you tried to heal took a bad turn, but whatever you did to her yesterday helped. He wants you to do it again.”

  I steady my hand on the door. “The girl in the clinic? I helped her?”

  “That’s what he said.” He shrugs, indifferent to the news.

  But my hopes flutter. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  He gives me a disparaging look. “When you don’t answer your phone, and you don’t turn up at home, it’s hard to tell you much of anything.”

  I look back the way I came. “I have to let Lucas know where I’m going.”

  Apollo reaches into his pocket. “Call him from my phone. I don’t think there’s much time. That’s why I came looking for you.”

  I hesitate a moment longer before finally giving in and getting into the car. My reluctance is because I know Lucas wouldn’t want me to go. But Apollo’s words confirm what I already felt inside. I was helping her before I was stopped. I could help her again.

  He hands me his phone, and it takes Lucas a long time to answer. He sounds out of breath when he picks up.

  “It’s me,” I tell him.

  “Ray? Where are you calling from?”

  “Apollo’s phone. My battery’s dead. We’re headed to my father’s house. The girl in the clinic got worse and—”

  “What?” he yells over the line. “You’re going back there?”

  Apollo glances at me as Lucas’s raised voice carries to him. “I’m already on my way. My father says that I helped her. He wants me to do it again. Where are you? It sounds like you’re in the car.”

  “Ray, no.” I hear shuffling in the background. “I was headed to your condo but I’m turning around. I’ll meet you at the house. Don’t do anything until I get there.”

  I grip the phone tighter. Based on what Apollo said, there won’t be time to wait for him. “Why were you going to the condo?” I ask.

  “It was Shane,” he replies, and I can hear the tension in his voice. “He paid that girl to act like I was fucking her. He helped her break in, and then he left her there. She told me easily enough. I think he wanted me to know it was him. I was planning on showing him what I thought of his little joke.”

  There’s no love lost between Shane and me, but I never imagined he’d go this far to hurt me. “Why would he do that?” I ask, thinking of the planning and sneaking around needed to pull that off.

  “Who knows? To make trouble. To break us up.” He pauses. “Tell Apollo to bring you back.”

  My eyes close at the quiet plea in his voice. “I can’t.”

  He says nothing in response, he just breathes out, and I imagine I can hear his disapproval over the line.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I say quietly. Then I take the phone away from my ear and disconnect the call.

  Apollo eyes me for a long moment, and I wonder how much he heard.

  “You okay, kid?” he asks.

  I grip my hands together in my lap. “I’m fine. I’m always fine, right?” I smile humorlessly.

  He looks down his nose at me. “You always say you are.”

  We’re stopped at a red light, and his eyes hold mine until I turn away first to stare out the window. My thoughts go to Shane and the malice he must feel toward me. He put that girl up to it? I can’t understand it. Other than that one drunken moment at the bar when he apologized, he’s shown me nothing but disdain and now he does this?

  Apollo touches my arm to get my attention back. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, Lucas is okay in my book. You do better with him than without him.”

  My shock prevents me from responding at first. Apollo never likes or approves of anyone. But then I find my voice, needing to say something that I’ve been holding back. “You should have told me sooner that he was here.”

  The light turns green and his eyes go back to the road. “You’re right. I should have told you,” he says, still not looking at me.

  He surprises me again by admitting that, and I watch his profile, dimly lit by the red dashboard lights, wondering if he’s going to explain himself about why he kept us apart. When I realize that he’s not going to say anything else, I turn back to the window, deciding not to ask. If he was going to tell me, he would have. Questioning Apollo never gets me anywhere.

  Apollo may approve of Lucas, but the feeling isn’t mutual. Lucas hates Apollo. After taking me away and keeping us apart all summer, Lucas believes I should hate him, too. But what he did for me the day I nearly died is not something I’ll ever forget. He saved me as much as my father did. Even though I regret the way I got my life back, I don’t blame Apollo for it. It’s because of his actions that I’m alive and I’m with Lucas again.

  Soon Apollo is turning into the long wooded road that leads up to the house. Once we pull in front of the fountain, I see Nyla standing in the open doorway, wearing a long, shimmery silk robe. My father appears beside her.

  “Go on in,” Apollo urges, apparently not intending to stay.

  Smiling my thanks at him, I get out of the car and walk up the steps.

  “I’m glad you came,” my father says.

  Nyla nods at me before quietly disappearing inside. Then my father motions for me to follow him. Once I’m behind him, he walks swiftly through the house, heading straight for the clinic door.

  I thought I’d be nervous being here again, knowing what he did to make me lose control of my energy, and understanding that greed is probably his main motivation. He may want me here for his own reasons, but whatever they are, he’s done nothing to indicate an intention to hurt me. He’s played with me so far, just like Meera said. But my determination is giving me courage, and as far as I’m concerned, playtime is over.

  His eyes travel over me as we walk. “She doesn’t have long now, and we haven’t found a volunteer,” he says solemnly. “But after you left yesterday, she woke up and was able to get out of her bed for the first time in weeks. I ran a blood test and saw that her counts were better. You didn
’t cure her, but you did manage to reduce the amount of disease in her body. I’d like you to do it again.”

  I can feel myself smiling as I remember how it felt when I was healing her, and now I’m even more certain they shouldn’t have stopped me. “I could do that, but I’d like to try to cure her again.”

  His head shakes dismissively. “You can’t.”

  I stop walking. “But it felt like I could. I want to try again.” Meera’s words about my father tricking me into feeling that way echo in my head. If that’s true, will he let me try? Because either way, I still need to know.

  He pauses in front of the door and turns back to give me a harsh look. “If you’re not strong enough, she has a mother or a sister it could travel to. Or even worse, you could give it to yourself. As I told you, when your power is strong enough, you can move an illness into anyone. But if it gets inside you, you may not be able to get it out again.”

  Feeling his doubt and even his condescension, I say, “I know the risks.”

  His lips press together. “I shouldn’t let you do it. But I didn’t think you could help her either and you did. Can I ask why you feel so strongly about this?”

  I swallow hard, wishing I could explain. “It’s something inside me, an instinct or a belief that I can’t really put into words, not even to myself.”

  He looks at me for a long time. Then he nods. “All right. I’m going to let you try. If there’s anyone who can do this, I have a feeling it’s you. But if I see it’s not working, I will stop you again. I can’t let you hurt yourself or anyone else.”

  I nod my agreement, feeling the way my energy seems to spark with anticipation.

  His expression gentles as he urges me toward the door. This is really happening. My heart races as I stay close behind him. I wonder how far Lucas is from the house, but I won’t delay this and risk my father changing his mind.

  We go down the stairs until we reach the brightly lit clinic with its sharp smells and white walls. Soon my father is standing in the doorway of her room. “You can change your mind,” he says.