“Whoa,” was all he said, and he relaxed his arms, lowering his chest onto mine, and rolled to the side, keeping me close to him so we ended up cuddled together, me with my head resting on his chest and the line of our bodies still pressed together. I drank in the energy that we seemed to be creating with the contact of our bodies and realized I almost felt lightheaded with the renewed power finally settled in my body.
I pressed a kiss to his chest. He made a noise of contentment. Then I heard my cell phone ringing in the pile of forgotten clothing on the floor and groaned into Jensen’s chest. I knew this perfect moment of teenage lust and oblivious serenity, as if no one in the world existed but the two of us, couldn’t last for long. I had stolen an afternoon for myself in the middle of a crisis; surely this was my punishment calling. Jensen climbed over me and out of the bed to find the phone for me.
“It’s Jodi,” Jensen said as he handed it to me, knowing I would answer it even though I didn’t want to.
“Shay?” Jodi’s voice said quickly when I answered, but before I even said hello. “You’ve got to get to the hospital, like, right now!”
“Why, what’s wrong? Steven?” I asked, sitting up quickly and already off the bed before she answered me.
“No, it’s Dale’s parents,” she said, and I realized then that she was trying to whisper. “My dad got the call and I overheard; after Matt needed to go to Urgent Care and Dale looking like he’s starving to death and everything, the cops are questioning them for child abuse and neglect. Their dad is so mad that they’re probably going to arrest him just because of how he’s acting right now.”
“Shit,” I said, one leg in my jeans and a ball of guilt lying heavy in my stomach, thinking I should’ve foreseen this possibility. “I’ll be right there.”
“Be right where?” Jensen asked when I ended the call. His tone, more than his words, made me stop and look at him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, his arms braced on his knees and not looking at me.
“Oh,” I said a little lamely as I pulled my shirt on. “I’m sorry, it’s just we’re the ones that took Matt to the doctor and now his parents are being investigated by Child Services. I can’t just sit here and –” Jensen lifted a hand, waving off my explanation.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting, not looking at me. “I get it.”
My heart skipped when he spoke. I felt the air shift around us and knew something detrimental had happened here. I felt as though I was staring at Jensen across a great chasm and no matter how hard I tried, I would never be able to reach him again.
Chapter Ten
I gripped the steering wheel tight enough to make my hands ache as I drove to the hospital. I didn’t like how I left things with Jensen. I had the feeling that I had just kissed him for the last time. I tried to push thoughts of Jensen out of my head and started building my shields in preparation for going into the hospital. No matter what was going on between us, now I needed to focus.
I was going to have to consider using the power of persuasion on the social workers whether I liked it or not because Matt and Dale’s parents were already suffering enough without the threat of going to jail for something they had no control over.
I pulled into a parking lot across the street from the hospital, not wanting to park in the underground lot in case I became desperate to get out of the building; I didn’t want to have to get behind the wheel in a panic just to get away from the hospital. As soon as I walked inside the doors, I saw Jodi’s bright blonde hair and Steven standing in front of her.
“Wow,” Steven said, looking past Jodi when he saw me coming. “I didn’t even feel you walk in.”
“What?” Jodi asked as she turned around and understanding dawned on her face when she saw me. “Your shields are tight; I didn’t feel you either.”
“Good, maybe I’ll be okay,” I said, and I let myself breathe a little easier then and realized that I couldn’t feel the weight of the hospital and hadn’t even noticed that. “Okay, so is Dale still in the ICU?”
“Yeah, and his parents are there too,” Jodi said, nodding her head to the side, and led the way to the elevators. We stepped inside the small box, and I held my breath as four other people followed us on.
Butterflies tripped in my stomach at the close proximity of too many people, and I leaned against the corner of the box trying to breathe. Jodi stood in front of me and I felt Steven shift so he was right beside me; the heat of his magic swirled around me. The churning in my stomach eased within my little cocoon of protection.
Finally the doors slid open and we were able to escape from one hell to the next; I found that I couldn’t take a full breath again as the echoes of pain and loss licked at the edges of my shields. I looked up and realized that we had only been in the elevator for two levels, coming out on the third floor, and nearly laughed at the absurdity of it because I would have sworn we had been in there long enough to reach the top floor.
“Oh, before I forget,” Jodi said, digging in her purse and pulling out a sticker with my name. I looked up and saw Jodi and Steven each had one over their left breasts. They were visitor passes. I didn’t like announcing myself so obviously, but rules were rules, so I peeled the backing off of the sticker and placed it on my shirt.
“We have to go to the back,” Steven said, turning and leading the way with us following.
What’s the plan here? Jodi linked her arm through mine and spoke to me mind to mind. I mean, we can’t tell them what’s wrong with Dale, they’ll throw us out or lock us up in the loony bin, so how are we gonna stop the social workers from doing anything?
I’ll probably just have to convince them not to, I replied carefully, letting my green thoughts mix with her yellow ones.
Can you do that in here?
If I have to, I said, nodding my head. Are the cops here too?
Yeah, Jodi said with a mental sigh.
Did you tell your dad that we’re the ones that took Matt to the Urgent Care?
Yes, I did, as soon as I heard him say his and Dale’s names. She nodded quickly, turning a corner behind Steven. He said it sounded like bullshit to him too, but because the hospital called, they have to respond to it and investigate.
How did the hospital find out about Matt? I asked, seeing my confusion color my usually green thoughts to a shade of aquamarine.
No clue, she said with a shrug that pulled on my arm. I didn’t think to ask. I figured we needed to get down here, sorry. Her yellow thoughts, usually so bright, dimmed as she apologized.
No worries, I said, patting her arm with my other hand. He might not have told you anyway; it’s probably best that we got down here quickly. Although she didn’t say anything, I felt the brightness come back to her.
All too soon we were rounding the last corner and standing at the entrance to the ICU. We stood there, a little lost as to what to do, knowing we couldn’t get in since none of us were related to Dale, but just as Steven turned to face us, the doors opened and Dale’s father and Officer Adams, the same cop that helped us a few months ago, walked out together, arguing.
“You’re telling me to calm down?” Dale’s father said in an outraged voice.
“Yes, sir, that is what I’m telling you,” Adams said very calmly, standing in front of the door to block him from reentering the ICU.
“You’re down here with those vultures accusing me and my wife of child abuse and I’m supposed to be calm?” His voice was rising with each breath, but I couldn’t really blame him.
“Sir, your son is lying in that bed and doesn’t look so good. I’d hate to take you from his side right now, so yes, you want to calm down, now,” Adams said, voice still calm, but there was a new quality to it, one that left me tasting metal on my tongue. Dale’s father fumed, his nostrils flaring and his face staying as red as it was when he came into the hallway, but he didn’t argue. Finally, fists clenched at his side, he gave a short nod in consent. “Wonderful,” Adams said, placing a hand on the door and pushing it open
for him.
“Officer Adams?” I said before he could follow Dale’s father back inside, not really sure what I was planning on saying, but he stopped and turned to look for me. I smiled weakly and half waved at him.
“Shayna?” he said, and I was surprised he remembered my name, but I reminded myself that I was related to a case that had an inmate break the unbreakable partition in the visitors’ area of the jail only to blow a hole in the wall later that night to escape, injuring him in the process. Of course he remembered me.
“Hello,” I said, letting my smile grow, and reached inside me, finding the link I had forged with him then and set it to life again, immediately feeling the zing of power as I connected to him. He blinked as if he felt it too, but after a small shake of his head, he walked over to our group.
“What are you all doing here?” he asked, looking at each of our faces, taking note of where all our hands were. I smiled at his eye for detail.
“A friend of ours is in there, so we came to see him, but we didn’t know you couldn’t see a patient in ICU unless you’re related.” I lied casually, but let a note of regret lace my words and slip down the line I had with him. He nodded slowly in understanding.
“Who’s your friend?” he asked. “Maybe I can go in and check on him for you, tell him you’re out here.”
“I don’t think he’s conscious,” I said and let that note of regret grow into an ache and watched as his brow wrinkled in concern for us. “His name is Dale though, if you saw him?”
“Dale? The kid that’s starving to death?” he asked quickly and I felt the surprise snap along the connection, knowing he didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.
“Oh, he’s not starving to death,” I said, risking a little more power in the connection, and felt my words grow heavy with magic. Adams’ face clouded over for a moment.
“You don’t think so?” he asked, and I laughed casually.
“If you saw how much food that boy puts away, you wouldn’t ask that question.” And with that, I gave a small push of doubt into his mind, making him question the doctors and the social workers.
“Is that right?” he said skeptically.
“Of course,” I said, feeding him more and more doubt. “Why? Is that why you’re here? Is that why his father is so upset?”
“I can’t say,” he said, his cop voice coming back to him quickly.
“Oh, and I bet that whole thing with Matt didn’t help,” Jodi said, her voice full of concern as she turned her large blue eyes up to Adams’ face.
“You know about Matt?”
“Well, yeah,” Steven chimed in as I continued my work on his suspicious mind. “We’re the ones that found him at the beach and took him to the Urgent Care.”
“Yeah, he actually went swimming during red tide, can you believe that?” I asked, letting my astonishment slide down the line into him.
“Did he not know about the red tide?” Officer Adams asked.
“He seemed a little off,” I admitted. “Probably upset about his brother, so maybe he forgot or hadn’t watched the news.”
“Well, if that’s how he got sick, then his parents have nothing to do with that,” he said, half turning towards the door as if he could see them standing there.
“The doctors think they have something to do with the boys getting sick?” I asked, letting fear color my words and Adams feel it.
“I’ve got to go back inside. If Dale wakes up while I’m here, I’ll let him know you all came down to see him.” He nodded at us all and turned quickly, striding through the doors before we could say anything else. I held onto Jodi’s hand for support and closed my eyes to concentrate on the tenuous connection between Officer Adams and me.
He was angry for being called down here to investigate and threaten a grieving family. I smiled, listening carefully since all I could really hear were echoes of his thoughts. Finally when the wave of indignation left me, I held up a hand to tell everyone to wait. A moment later two people holding folders and soft briefcases came out, whispering angrily to each other, moving so quickly down the hall I wasn’t sure they had even noticed us.
“Okay,” I said finally, exhaling loudly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” I knew it was pointless to try to get inside the ICU, but with the social workers gone, I felt better about leaving. I convinced the others to take the stairs with me since I now knew we were only on the third floor and had to force myself not to make a mad run for the front doors when I saw them. Outside, I took a deep, lung burning breath, nearly doubling over in relief.
“Have you thought anymore about what we’re going to do about Dale and Mark?” Jodi asked. I had to straighten up to see where she was.
“Of course I’ve thought about it,” I said, tossing my hair back over my shoulder to hang down my back. “Have I come up with a solution? No.”
“I had a thought.” We both turned surprised looks to Steven when he spoke up. “Well, we know it’s a magical creature and therefore has to answer to magical laws, so why don’t we try to summon it from the water and bind it to us so we can figure out how to take the souls back from it?” Jodi turned to look at me.
“Not bad,” I said with a nod, considering what he said. “I don’t think we can call it out of the water though.”
“Why not?” Steven asked.
“Well, it’s a creature of water. I’m afraid that if we take it out of the water completely, it’ll die,” I explained.
“Don’t we want to kill it though?” Steven asked.
“Not before we get the souls back. We don’t want it to die and then find out, because it’s dead, it’s taken the souls with it.” I drew in my lower lip and started chewing on it, eyes downcast to the grass we were standing on as if the answers were hidden among the blades. “But maybe there’s a way to bind it to one spot so it can’t disappear on us anymore.”
“Like a trap or a cage?” Jodi asked and I nodded, still looking at the grass.
“Contain it somehow, still in water, but under our control; maybe we can even just get it to talk to us if we have it trapped,” I said, blinking and looking up at them.
“Worth a shot,” Steven said with a shrug, and Jodi nodded in agreement. “Do you want to try an actual cage? Like a lobster trap or something?”
“After what I saw it do to Dale, I don’t think a metal cage can keep it trapped; it’s no easy task ripping into someone’s chest with your bare hands.” I shivered and shook out my hands at that thought.
“But wasn’t that a metaphysical injury?” Jodi asked, confusion plain on her face.
“At this point, I’m just not sure,” I said with a shake of my head.
“You know in the fairy tale about the mermaids, they want to share the souls of mortal men so that they can live forever; have we considered that maybe it can’t be killed until we take the souls back?” Steven asked, and I nodded slowly.
“I just didn’t want to say it out loud,” I said, and it was Steven’s turn to nod. “I think we need to try to do this soon. If it doesn’t work, then we move on, but we need to try before any more people get hurt. So how about tonight?”
***
When we got to my house, the first thing we did was raid the kitchen. We weren’t actually hungry, but we needed to look like we were doing normal teenage things so my parents wouldn’t wonder why three teenagers were marching right through to my tree house. Luckily, we were all at that age where things from our childhood were really cool to us again, like cartoon characters on Band-Aids and backpacks, so going up to my tree house wasn’t as conspicuous as it seems. And besides, with Steven with us, my parents would insist on the door being left open if we went into my bedroom, so naturally we’d want to go elsewhere. I still didn’t understand this because they knew Steven was gay, but as my mom said, “He’s still a boy.” I thought it was ridiculous, Steven thought it was hilarious.
We piled the food and sodas into a basket I kept tied to a rope that hung down out of one of the w
indows of the tree house. I led the way up the ladder that was propped against the trunk. Once up in the branches of the tree, we had to climb up the pieces of wood my father had nailed into the tree before we could actually reach the trapdoor into the tree house. I fished my keys out of my pocket and balanced carefully as I unlocked the Master Lock on the latch before pushing the door open and pulling myself up and into the oddly shaped room. I walked over to the windows and unhooked their latches, swinging them open.
The large window that faced away from the house gave a sweeping view of the orchard behind our house and I took a moment to stop and breathe in the waxy, citrus filled air. I let the scent memory fill me, bringing with it images of faeries and gnomes and magic that I knew lived just behind the veil hidden in the trees beyond our fence. As Jodi was climbing up through the door, I turned and opened the smaller window that looked down into our backyard, grabbed the rope tied to the branch just outside of the window, and started hauling up the basket.
Once Steven was inside, he closed the door, giving us that precious extra room we needed when more than two people were inside. Jodi put my iPod on the stereo and hit play, letting the music camouflage anything else that might be heard once we got to work. Steven opened the small box we kept our supplies in and began pulling out the standard items necessary for us to cast our circle of protection and begin calling up the power we would need.
Finally, when all of the supplies were pulled from the trunk and Jodi was sitting in the East position, Steven in the South, and me in the North, we began placing our tools and candles in their appropriate places. Eventually, as we began chanting quietly, invoking the corners and guardians of the four directions, the sounds from the radio became ambient noise in the background, until it faded away and we didn’t hear it anymore. I began the invocation.
“We call on the power of the North, by the strength of Mother and Earth, to guide us this day.”
“We call on the power of the East, by the strength of intellect and Air, to guide us this day.” Jodi’s melodic voice opened another current of power to join mine.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 69
