Pushed

by Corrine Jackson

  “I thought her problem was telling secrets,” I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

  He shrank away from me, standing straight as he sucked in a breath. I thought he might want to hit me for that comment, and some broken thing inside me calmed because his reaction was an all-too-familiar one that I knew how to deal with. He opened his mouth to speak or maybe to yell. A voice from the living room interrupted him.

  Dorthea, Erin’s mom, clutched her mobile phone in one hand, and terror had bleached her face white.

  “Franc, we have a problem. It’s the Protectors. They’re here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I’d never seen so many people frozen in place at once.

  Within ten minutes, more than thirty people had packed into Erin’s house. I kept looking about for the threat with questions tripping over each other in my mind. Where were the Protectors? Could it be Asher? Had he followed me here and been discovered?

  It took several minutes of watching everyone and listening to their quiet conversations before I understood that by here, Dorthea meant Pacifica and not her front yard.

  If I had thought about how Healers would react to an impending Protector invasion, I would have guessed that these people would jump into action to protect one of their own.

  Instead, I watched in confusion as they did the opposite. They sat around and talked about what the woman’s fate might be. Many of them made a beeline straight for my grandfather, their faces bright with fear. It had been eight months since a Healer went missing, and they wanted his assurance that they were safe. For the first time, I grasped his true place in this society of Healers. Not just as an old wise man, but as their leader. They wanted Franc to tell them all what to do next.

  From what I could gather from my eavesdropping, a Healer had given herself away. A nurse at a local hospital, she’d used her ability to heal someone who hadn’t kept her secret. That was what the group speculated anyway. None of them seemed quite sure how the Healer had been discovered. What they did know for certain was that a Protector—one they’d kept under watch for the last couple of months—had been spotted entering her home about an hour ago.

  I set aside the fact that Protectors lived nearby and that the Healers tracked their movements. My grandfather had forgotten about me in the midst of the confusion, and I slipped away from him, making my way over to Erin. She had curled up in a chair with her knees pulled to her chest.

  “Why aren’t they moving to save that woman?” I whispered, crouching beside her.

  Her eyes rounded in shock. “Save her? Remy, we can’t go anywhere near her. Not now.”

  I rocked back on my heels. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Risk one and we risk all. Yvette knows that. She would never expect us to try to save her.”

  “I thought she was a friend?”

  Anger raised my voice, and Erin shifted uncomfortably. I couldn’t believe they were all going to sit around and let a woman be killed. Not when there was still a possibility that she could be saved. My mother had said that Protectors would sometimes keep Healers around for a while, preferring to use us to feel something again, if only for a short time. Some Protectors outright killed us for an immediate fix, but most wanted to string it out.

  “Pipe down, newbie,” Alcais said in a low voice.

  He slipped onto the arm of the chair next to Erin, laying a hand on her shoulder. For once, Delia wasn’t glued to his side.

  “What if there are a group of them waiting for us?” he continued. “We don’t rush into things. That’s how we get killed. You may not like it, but it’s our way.”

  Abashed, I rubbed my hands together. Asher always accused me of rushing into situations without thinking through the consequences. If only he knew that these Healers agreed with him.

  A few minutes later, my grandfather entered the room, and all conversation stopped.

  “We’ve received word that the Protector is a known loner,” he announced. “Now that we know he’s acting alone, a few of us are going to move in to see if we can help Yvette.”

  He called out to several men in the group, and one of the older Healers. As he followed them to the door, I stood and he seemed to finally remember I existed.

  He hesitated and then said decisively, “Remy, come with me.”

  His command surprised Alcais and Erin, but I didn’t question his motive. I wanted to be there, to see how they dealt with Protectors. I trailed after him to his truck and climbed into the passenger side.

  The sun had set while we’d waited for news at Erin’s house. We drove in tense silence for a time. When my grandfather did speak, his voice sounded sharp, brooking no argument.

  “You’ll do exactly as I say when we get there. Until we have the Protector contained, you’ll stay in the truck. You don’t go anywhere near the house until I tell you to. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. His obvious fear penetrated my defenses. My hands shook a little, and I clasped them around my knee.

  We turned onto a street I’d never been on. We’d driven inland, away from the water, and my grandfather parked at a curb between streetlights. With a terse reminder to stay put, he jumped out of the truck. His long strides ate up the sidewalk as he backtracked a block to meet up with the other men. I didn’t see the Healer with them.

  I couldn’t hear what they said from so far away, but a couple of men drew something from under their jackets. Guns, I realized, when the light glinted off the metal. They had guns. The weapons wouldn’t kill an immortal Protector, but they could slow him down. Moving quickly, the men split up and approached the house, disappearing from my sight.

  What if my grandfather gets hurt?

  I might have been upset with him, but I liked him. I’d even grown to care about him. Until tonight, he’d been nothing but sweet and welcoming to me. I shivered, wanting to do something, anything to help them.

  Outside the truck, the darkness threatened as my imagination created monsters where none existed. I wished I’d remembered my purse with my phone, but in the rush to leave, I’d forgotten it at Erin’s house. Asher would have known what to do if I could have reached him. After he finished yelling at me for healing someone so publicly.

  It felt like an hour had passed before my grandfather reappeared on the street, although it was probably only ten minutes in reality. He raised an arm, gesturing for me to join him. I jumped out of the truck and jogged toward him.

  My heart sank when I got close enough to see his grim expression in the dim light.

  “We were too late,” he said, confirming my suspicions. “Come with me. I think you need to see this.”

  His hand grasped my elbow in a gentle hold, and he guided me into the house. My pulse picked up, and I heard my breath coming faster when we entered through the front door. Only one of my grandfather’s men lingered in the living room. If he had a gun, he’d already tucked it away out of sight. The corners of his mouth were turned down, and his eyes glistened like he cried as he gazed on something in the next room that I couldn’t see.

  My grandfather stopped in the entryway. “Remy, the Protectors are killers. I don’t think your mother prepared you for just how dangerous they are. This may not be right, but I’m not sure how else to show you. You need to know.”

  Know what?

  I didn’t fight my grandfather when he steered me around the couch and gestured for me to enter the kitchen before him. His body felt like a brick wall, though, when I recoiled into him a moment later.

  My gasp hissed loudly through the room as I saw what my grandfather’s man had been staring at. Who he’d been staring at. Stretched out upon the black-and-white tiled floor, the woman lay in a widening pool of crimson blood.

  She’d been tortured. Small red gashes banded her arms and bare legs where she’d been cut, probably to coerce her into using her powers. Blood matted her brunette hair, dyeing it a reddish-black. The Protector who’d killed her hadn’t intended to keep her
around. He’d brutally weakened her and taken her energy. And for what? To smell, taste, and touch after decades of no sensation. In a screwed-up kind of irony, a Protector had done inhumane things in order to feel human again.

  Yvette had not given in easily. She’d fought against her murderer. That much was clear from the bruising that covered her face. I’d been on the receiving end of injuries like that before, and I could guess how much pain she’d been in. Her unseeing eyes stared into mine in accusation. As if she knew I had Protector blood, knew that I loved a Protector.

  My stomach heaved, and I barely reached the front yard before I fell to my knees and threw up on the neatly manicured lawn.

  My grandfather waited behind me when I stood, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth. His expression wasn’t unkind. I didn’t know I was crying until he swiped a finger across my wet cheek. Franc opened his arms, and I gladly went into them. He didn’t seem to mind when I soaked the front of his shirt with tears.

  I hadn’t known Yvette, but I cried for her.

  If this was what Protectors did to people, I was ashamed to be even half of one.

  We left the woman as we’d found her.

  During our drive back to the city, my grandfather explained that one of the men was a cop—and the husband of the Healer who’d accompanied us in case there had been any chance of saving Yvette. The man would take care of Yvette’s body.

  Franc’s people did what they had to in order to stay hidden, and I guessed they wouldn’t leave the Healer’s body there to draw suspicion. Especially if questions about her killer could draw the attention of other Protectors. I didn’t respond to my grandfather’s explanation. I worried I would throw up again if I discovered exactly how that man would dispose of her body.

  At my grandfather’s house, we migrated to the kitchen in unison and he made us tea. I didn’t drink tea, but somehow it was the right drink, and I think the process of boiling the water and steeping the tea bags offered comfort to my grandfather.

  He set a mug in front of me on the table, and I wrapped my freezing hands around it to warm them. Suddenly, exhaustion set in. Healing Chrissy and then myself had drained me. What energy I’d had left had been stolen by seeing that woman dead.

  My grandfather sat across from me, and he looked older than when I’d first met him. His white hair, crazy at the best of times, stood up all over his head, and his movements dragged, his limbs weighted by responsibility and sadness.

  He sighed in a deep gust of breath and pushed his mug away. “I’m sorry I forced that on you. I think maybe I made a mistake. Can you forgive me?”

  “Why did you take me there?” I asked.

  The question had bothered me all the way back to the city. I remembered how surprised Erin and Alcais had been when he ordered me to go with him. I don’t think they had ever been along on a “rescue,” if that was what you could have called tonight.

  My grandfather crossed his arms, resting his elbows on the table. “It was what happened when you healed Chrissy.” He gave me a direct look that made me want to flinch. “Secrets get people killed, especially if they’re revealed at the wrong time and in front of the wrong people. Yvette died tonight because she healed the wrong person. Did you know that?”

  “I heard some of the others whispering,” I admitted. “They said she was a nurse.”

  He nodded. “Yes. Our kind tend to gravitate toward the healing professions.”

  I got that. I wanted to be a doctor, after all.

  “It’s not always a good thing,” he continued. “It makes us easier to find, especially if one knows what to look for. Word of a miraculous healing tends to get out. We have to be careful.”

  Wasn’t Asher always saying the same thing to me? I ran a finger around the rim of my mug, catching the condensation. The thought of Asher made me shift in my seat uncomfortably. He hadn’t tortured Elizabeth, the Healer he’d accidentally killed. Yet, seeing that woman—Yvette—dead had made things very real to me. Someone had died for him to become immortal.

  My grandfather misinterpreted my discomfort. “I’m sorry I was so angry with you earlier tonight. I should have told you that it scared the shit out of me to see you hurt, and instead I yelled at you.”

  I shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. You just took me by surprise. I’ve never seen anything like it. What happened, Remy? Why did it happen?”

  I tried to figure out a way to explain it without giving too much away.

  “I don’t know why, but my ability works differently. When I heal people, I take on their injury. I always have.”

  His forehead furrowed as he thought about that. One brow lifted, and his eyes flicked to the sink. I guessed what he would say before his mouth opened to ask the question.

  My words came out in a rush. “Yes, my finger was cut after I healed you. I took care of it in the bathroom while you finished making lunch. And please don’t yell at me.”

  His lips pressed into a thin line, while he suppressed his urge to bellow. I waited for him to work out the rest of it. He would know that I’d taken on my mother’s injuries all those years Dean had beat her. It didn’t take long.

  Pure horror crossed his face, but all he said was, “Your mother?”

  I nodded.

  He swallowed. “For how long?”

  “Since my powers showed up when I was twelve.”

  His chair flew into the wall when he shoved to his feet. I nearly stood in a panic, bad memories of Dean’s abuse rising in my throat. Before I could do more than sit up straight, my grandfather had left the room. I frowned after him. A moment later, he stalked back into the kitchen. He stared at me and then left again without saying a word. He did this three more times as I watched in confusion.

  It took a while for him to calm down. He set his chair to rights, every movement precise. After resuming his seat, he spoke, but he sounded choked up.

  “Your mother was wrong to put you through that. I hope you don’t think all of us are like that. Using gifts like yours in that way.”

  Alcais popped into my mind, and I wondered if Franc knew how he used Delia and Erin. With my grandfather sounding so upset, though, I could only nod.

  “Did your mother know why your abilities are different?”

  I met Franc’s gaze with a direct one of my own, as I lied through my teeth. “She didn’t say. I didn’t know I was different until I got here.”

  He accepted my answer to my great relief and grilled me about how my abilities worked. I didn’t see any point in lying about that. I’d wanted his help understanding the limitations of what I could do so that maybe I could find a way to have a future with Asher, or at least a way to not get myself killed by healing the wrong person. I described how I healed a person and what it felt like when I took on whatever I’d healed. He asked me a thousand questions about the process and what happened afterward. He’d noticed how I’d healed myself after taking Chrissy’s injuries, but left the cut on my head.

  We’d finished our second cup of tea before I’d sated his curiosity. And that’s when he hit me with a request that left me reeling.

  “I want to test you. You know that some in our group are working to understand how Healers get their power. The differences in your abilities may help them in their research. We can begin tomorrow.”

  He sounded excited, and I hated to disappoint him, but no way in hell could I let him test me. Gabe had confirmed that my blood matched that of the Protectors. One blood test and the Healers would know exactly how different I was.

  “No. I don’t want to be tested.”

  My answer surprised my grandfather. Obviously, he hadn’t considered that I would refuse him and that irritated me. I should be the one to decide what happened to my body. I refused to be poked and prodded like someone’s lab rat. I told him as much.

  “I don’t consider you a lab rat, Remy,” he protested.

  “I’m sorry, Franc. I’m not going to change my mind on this.”


  He blew out a frustrated breath, but he let the subject drop. I had a feeling it wouldn’t be for long.

  Later, he hugged me before I headed up the stairs to my room. “You haven’t had it easy, have you?” he asked. “Just know you can always trust me. I won’t hurt you.”

  I would die of guilt for withholding the truth from him.

  In my room, I pulled my mobile phone from my purse and discovered that Asher had sent me several text messages. We’d planned to meet that night. I sent him a text telling him I planned to go to bed early. Then I slipped out of my clothes and under the covers.

  I’d lied to Asher.

  The dirty truth was that I couldn’t face him while the image of Yvette’s mutilated body burned fresh in my mind. He’d hear my thoughts and know that I was horrified that he was a Protector.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The next morning I told my grandfather I didn’t want to go to Pacifica. Last night burned fresh in my mind, and I couldn’t handle seeing the looks the others would give me. By now, they would all know that my abilities differed from theirs. A freak even among my own kind.

  My grandfather offered to stay home to keep me company, but the phone had been ringing off the hook all morning. People wanted assurances that they were safe, that Yvette had been the only one discovered. They wanted to know what was being done to find the Protector who had killed her. I told him to go to Pacifica without me, and he looked so relieved that I knew I’d said the right thing.

  I spent the morning calling my family back in Blackwell Falls. Lucy answered the phone on the first ring. As soon as I heard her voice, an urge to cry nearly overwhelmed me.

  “Hey, Luce, it’s me.”

  “Remy! How are things going with Gramps?”

  Bad. Terrible. Someone died.

  I forced a lightness into my voice. “He has me darning his socks, but other than that things are good.”

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  I should have known that I couldn’t fool her. My sister had a way of knowing when I lied to her. I heard a door slam shut on her end, and I closed my eyes, imagining her in her pink and purple bedroom. My dad and stepmom would be downstairs. Laura loved the kitchen, a place my mother had only liked to escape to when Dean was around. Laura might be cooking something that would make the entire house smell wonderful. Maybe Dad would be working at the dining room table—something he did to be near us, rather than locked away in his office. My stomach cramped.