Pushed

by Corrine Jackson

  The ceiling beyond him had twenty-two panels. When the pain had threatened to crush me, I’d spent long minutes counting them. Every movement made my head pound, and I saw spots if I turned it too sharply. Suffocation could do that to you. That had been the last experiment they’d conducted in their ongoing campaign to break me.

  Mark didn’t like my continued silence. While they’d tortured me, they’d asked me a litany of questions. Did I know Asher was a Protector? How was I different? What could I do? Did I know others like me? Did I know other Protectors? I’d clamped my jaw shut, refusing to answer them, and they carried on tormenting me.

  Now, the pressure of the knife increased until the blade sliced through my skin. It amazed me how cold the metal could feel and then how hot the pain burned in comparison. This was what they had done to that other Healer, Yvette. These Protectors thought the cuts and the suffocation and all the rest would weaken me until they could steal everything from me. Like Dean had, they thought they could control me with pain. Stupid men.

  Losing Asher had scraped everything out of me, except for the all-consuming need to wipe these men off the face of the earth. So far, an opportunity hadn’t presented itself, but the moment would come. I just had to wait long enough to gather my powers again, a difficult thing to do when they kept at me so relentlessly. Why wouldn’t they just kill me already?

  I imagined I heard Asher’s voice. Easy, Remy. Be smart. You can get out of this. He might only live in my imagination, but I listened. I would never give in to these bastards. I would rather die fighting.

  Mark cut me again, and I flinched, but my walls held strong. Amateur, my inner voice mocked. Dean had done far worse damage. I could withstand this, but it was wearing me out. Time to change tactics, even if it meant using up my energy stores temporarily.

  I smiled. As Mark sliced into my thigh, I healed the cuts on my arms. His head jerked up when he noticed the wounds disappearing. I didn’t care. I wanted him to see what I could do. To know that I had power and would never use it to help him. I imagined Asher screaming at me to stop taunting these men. But Asher had died and left me on my own.

  “What’s it like to be this close to a Healer and know you’ll never taste her power?” I taunted.

  Mark cursed and lifted the knife away from me.

  I pretended to think, then shook my head like I’d just remembered. “Oh right. You can’t feel anything.”

  Mark jerked his arm back like he would plant his fist in my face.

  Do it, you bastard, I thought. And I’ll heal that, too, while you watch like a salivating dog.

  His scowl darkened before he spun on his heel. The door almost tore from its hinges when he slammed it closed behind him.

  Alone again, I whimpered.

  Oh Asher. I need you.

  The next time the door opened and I heard people enter, I didn’t acknowledge them with so much as an eye blink in their direction. Why bother? Soon they would kill me and this would all be over. I was chained to a wall, and I couldn’t see a way out of this.

  “I told you once that the only good Healer is a dead Healer.”

  The familiar silky voice had me twisting toward the door. Gabe.

  He stood in the doorway, looking as perfect and untouchable as ever. The shock of his presence surprised a relieved sob out me. Asher would be avenged. Mark and Xavier would die. Gabe had always told me that his family came first. He’d promised to kill anyone who put them in danger, including me.

  I waited, soaking up that face that looked so much like Asher’s.

  “Hey, Remy,” Gabe said softly, crossing the room to crouch beside me.

  I stared at him. Why wasn’t he attacking the men? What did he have planned? His face gave nothing away, beyond disgust when his eyes flicked to the dried blood on my jeans. His brother’s blood.

  Something wasn’t right. My brain waded through molasses, trying to make sense of what it was seeing. Gabe had entered the room with the Protectors. They were not threatened by his appearance. He wasn’t here to help me, or even to avenge Asher.

  Our capture had made no sense. Someone had told the Protectors where to find us. That person had also known that Asher could be used as bait to catch me. Who else could have known these things other than the one person we’d trusted enough to confide in? Gabe had never liked me. He’d tolerated me for a time. Then, like Lottie, Gabe had betrayed me to the Protectors. Worse, he’d betrayed Asher. He’d been the one on the phone, the person giving information to Xavier.

  Asher had died because of his brother.

  Rage snapped and snarled inside me. I wanted to tear Gabe apart with my hands. Better yet, I wanted to pull him apart with my powers. If I’d been free, I would have killed him. The metal restraints chaining me to the wall bit into my wrists when I launched myself at Gabe. I screamed in frustration when I couldn’t reach him, and Asher’s brother watched me with the same distant expression he’d worn the first time we met.

  “How could you?” I asked. “He loved you. Do you know how they killed him? They shot him and left him to bleed to death on the floor. Does it give you pleasure knowing he died feeling all of that?”

  Gabe didn’t answer. He waited for me to stop fighting before he leaned closer, his beautiful face cold. I didn’t think. I spat in his face. Gabe’s stillness sent a chill through me when he stared at me with my saliva dripping down his cheek. After a long moment, he reached for me. I shrank back, but he only lifted my tank top, using the hem to wipe the spit from his face.

  “Not nearly as much pleasure as I’m going to get from watching you die, Healer,” he said loudly.

  I strained forward. “I’m going to kill you, Gabe.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted.

  I continued. “It’s going to be painful, and I swear to you I’m going to make you feel every bit of it.”

  His lips curved in a half smile. “Before or after I break you? Healers are such fragile things.”

  He trailed his fingers from my shoulder to my arm. Before I could unleash my power on him, he grasped my forearm and twisted it like he’d done in our training sessions. Except, where before he tempered his strength to keep from harming me, now he exerted pressure until something broke. Sudden pain burned through me, and I screamed. I heard the men laugh.

  A shadow passed over Gabe’s face. An emotion I couldn’t read.

  Then I stopped caring how he hurt me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Remy? Wake up.”

  I ached like my soul had been scraped out of my body with a dull razor blade. With consciousness, memory returned. Asher. Oh God. Your brother. I’m so sorry. A sob caught in my throat, and I folded in on myself, pulling my knees into my chest. The voice kept talking, and I waited for the blow that would soon come.

  Someone had loosened the tension on the chains at my wrists, and I lay on the stone floor instead of leaning against the wall. I tried to cradle my broken right forearm against my ribs and flinched at the new agony the movement set off. Once Gabe had broken my arm, he’d stepped back and let the other two Protectors take over. Bruises and cuts covered my body from their fists. They’d taken turns hitting me while Gabe watched, his jaw working like he’d been clenching his teeth.

  “Remy?” the voice said again.

  A body hovered inches above me blocking the light. I threw up my uninjured left hand to protect myself before I realized who lingered there. Gabe. Gabe, who’d trained me while his brother watched. Gabe, who had snapped my arm while the others laughed at my screams. And Asher . . . Gabe might as well have murdered his brother himself. He’d set all of this in motion by giving us over to these people. What had I done to make him hate me so much?

  Asher’s brother whispered my name again and then grunted when my left fist connected with his cheekbone.

  “You bastard!”

  Clambering to my knees, I threw myself against him. Stronger and bigger than me, Gabe clasped my wrists to hold me off. Pain streaked from my broken forea
rm to the rest of my body, and I almost threw up. If not for him holding me up, I would have fallen.

  “I hate you,” I said, moaning.

  “Remy, you have to be quiet.”

  Like hell. I threw back my head and screamed.

  “Damn it! I’m trying to help you!”

  He clamped a hand to my mouth, and I glared at him. It didn’t matter. I could hear movement from somewhere in the building. It wouldn’t be long before they arrived to check on us. Gabe had shut us in the room, probably so he could steal my energy without having to share me with the others. If he thought he could overpower me on his own, he’d screwed up.

  It seemed like he’d come to the same conclusion. He threw a nervous glance toward the door. I took advantage of his distraction to gather my energy and hoped the humming of it would hurt him. In the past, he’d spent enough time with me to feel at least that again.

  Gabe didn’t back away or cower when I lowered my walls. Instead, he crowded me, gripping the front of my shirt in one fist and leaning close enough for his nose to almost touch mine.

  “Don’t do it,” he warned. “I didn’t want to hurt you, but they had to believe I was like them or they wouldn’t have let me near you. I don’t have time to explain everything, but please stop fighting me. I’m trying to get you out of here, and you’ll need your energy.”

  I frowned at the urgency in Gabe’s low voice. The hum of my energy waned a second, but then I regrouped, remembering how he’d snapped my arm without blinking. It had to be a trick.

  “Think! I knew you could use your injuries against them.”

  “Liar,” I accused. “You told them where to find Asher and me. You were the only one who knew, Gabe.”

  “Was I?” he asked, shaking me slightly. “Asher didn’t call to check in, and I followed the GPS on his phone to this place. I lied my way in.”

  A small, niggling doubt wouldn’t shut the hell up. Hadn’t the Protectors found the Healers before despite my grandfather’s precautions? Hadn’t they found Yvette? They could have been watching us all along. Every time I went into the forest, I’d drawn them to Asher.

  No! I thought. Don’t be stupid. You can’t trust Gabe. He’s threatened you before. Gabe had been the one to betray us. Hadn’t he? This had to be another trick. Except that he’d also tried to help me in the past. When Asher had struggled with training me, afraid of hurting me, Gabe had stepped in to do it in his place. Then, later he’d helped Asher protect my family.

  In the next room, someone tried to open the door to my prison. The man shouted when he found it locked. The door shivered when he threw his weight against it. Gabe’s grip on me loosened, and I focused on him. He almost looked . . . hurt that I doubted him. Which made less than zero sense because Gabe had never cared what I thought about anything.

  “Whatever I’ve done, you know I would never hurt my brother,” Gabe pleaded. “Please tell me you know that, Remy. At least give me that.”

  I searched his face, wanting to believe him.

  Before I could respond, someone struck the door with enough force to splinter the wood. In seconds, the Protectors had ripped it off its hinges and tossed it aside. Xavier entered the room first, his gun pointed at Gabe’s back. I hated that damned gun.

  Gabe’s expression hardened, all emotion shutting off until he once again wore a polite mask. I’d never seen anything like it, the way he seemed to flick off a light inside.

  In a single, elegant move, he eased me to the ground and then rose to face the men with me behind him. Almost like he intended to shield me from harm, the way Asher would have. That couldn’t be right. I shook my head to clear it. Gabe had hurt me. He wasn’t like Asher at all.

  “What the hell are you doing, Gabriel?” Xavier asked. “I told you not to come in here alone.”

  Gabe shrugged. “I didn’t think I needed help to break a Healer.”

  Healer. Gabe always called me Healer, as if to distance himself from what I was. Earlier he had called me Remy, though, as he tried to wake me. Another memory prodded me. When Gabe had first arrived, he’d said something. A phrase he’d used before. I frowned, trying to remember. Then it hit me.

  I told you once that the only good Healer is a dead Healer.

  The night Dean died, Gabe had said those exact words to me to provoke me into saving myself and Asher. It had worked that night.

  Oh God. Gabe had been trying to give me a signal, and I’d been too caught up in losing Asher to notice. Exhausted, I shifted to ease the ache in my muscles. Gabe shadowed the movement, confusing me. Why was he blocking me? And then I realized. The Protectors didn’t know yet that I was unchained. I froze in place, but it was too late.

  “You freed her,” Xavier said. He patted his pocket, and then growled, “You stole the keys.”

  “I told you not to trust him,” Mark growled, shoving forward.

  Gabe crossed his arms, relaxed and arrogant as usual. “I don’t need to chain a Healer to the wall in order to control her.”

  The implied insult hit its mark, and Xavier had to throw an arm out to stop Mark from attacking Gabe.

  “Or maybe,” Xavier said thoughtfully, “you’re like your brother.”

  “I think I’ve proven that I’m nothing like my brother.” Gabe said. “I’m not a slave to a Healer.”

  “And yet . . .” Xavier gestured toward me. “You’re trying to save the girl.”

  Gabe laughed. I wondered if the men could tell it was forced. If I believed what my instincts were telling me, then Gabe would try to save me. Out of pity or loyalty to his brother, he would put himself between me and the Protectors. And I would watch him get hurt, too. Protectors shouldn’t die from bullet wounds, but . . . I’d trained with Gabe for months. Who knew how mortal he’d become around me? He’d never said anything, but then, he wouldn’t.

  I imagined Gabe dying in the same spot Asher had and knew it would kill me. I wouldn’t come back from that. As it was, I already felt severed from myself. I would not chance letting another Blackwell die for me. A new calm settled over me.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” I said. I continued, ignoring the warning look Gabe sent over his shoulder. “Asher loved me. He was honest and courageous and would do anything for those he cared about. Gabe is nothing like his brother. ”

  I injected as much venom as I could into my perusal of Gabe. He actually flinched, and part of me wanted to tell him I was sorry. Sorry for doubting him and for getting him into this mess. He wouldn’t be in this situation if Asher hadn’t followed me to San Francisco. If I did nothing else before these men killed me, I would fix this.

  Using the wall for support, I rose to my feet, groaning at the pain but glad for it because it would be our way out of here. The weaker and more pathetic I seemed, the better.

  “Gabe always wanted my power for himself, and he hated me for choosing Asher.” I sounded fierce as I faced Xavier. “I would rather kill myself than let Gabe have any piece of me.”

  Xavier’s mouth twitched in a smug smile.

  “You win,” I told him. “We all know I’m not getting out of here. If I’m going to die, I choose you. I swear I won’t fight you. Just don’t let him touch me again.”

  My movements slow and creaking, I limped toward Xavier. Dropping my mental walls, I controlled my energy, letting it unfurl inside me. It was the first time I’d had my walls down since meeting these Protectors. The hum of it hurt Protectors, even when they could feel nothing else. That sensation was how Asher had known I was different when we’d met.

  Now, with my defenses crashing down, Mark and Xavier sensed my energy for the first time. Mark recoiled, bringing a hand to his head. Xavier’s gun hand faltered and the muzzle dropped, pointing at the floor as he frowned at Gabe. They understood something was off, but they didn’t know what.

  I spared a glance at Gabe. He felt my energy, too, but unlike the others, he had no doubt where it came from. He had that tense look about him, the one that signaled he was about to jum
p into action. He’d guessed what I intended to do, but I didn’t know if he planned to stop me or help me.

  Xavier’s glance bounced between Gabe and me, and then remained on me. His eyes flashed with a darkening realization. I had seconds to act and I used them, hoping Gabe would be on my side.

  Using every last bit of my strength, I launched forward with the speed of the Protectors. I wasn’t fast enough to surprise them entirely. Xavier managed to lift his gun and fire off a shot off just as I reached him. I recoiled backward when the bullet hit me with the force of a baseball bat to the belly. A bat that had been lit on fire.

  I fell to my knees, absorbing the pain. Using it. Luckily, Mark and Xavier stood close enough together that I could reach over and touch an ankle of each man. The right grip made my eyes water as pain shot up my side from my broken arm. I’d never tried to take out two people at once, let alone two Protectors. What if I failed? I imagined my power striking out of me like lightning and lashing each man. Behind me I sensed movement, but Gabe didn’t interfere. Red sparks lit the room.

  Bones snapped as arms broke, and Xavier dropped the gun. Cuts opened on their skin, the blood seeping through their clothes to mirror mine, and matching bruises formed on their skin. Wet stains spread across their stomachs like dark red ink blots.

  These two Protectors had felt nothing for a century, except the snatches of feeling they’d stolen when they’d taken the lives of Healers. I fiercely wished that they could have felt the pain of the injuries I’d inflicted on them, but I knew it was hopeless when they didn’t even drop to the ground. I hadn’t spent enough time with them for them to begin to feel mortal like I had with the Blackwells.

  My hands fell away from them, not out of choice, but because I was too weak to hold on when they jerked away from me. Like an autumn leaf falling to the ground, I dropped, landing hard on the cold concrete. I touched my stomach, and my fingers came away bloody. Xavier had shot me.