The Vengeance
Page 18
Aside from the fact that his gift was to take lives away, Robert’s second most hated aspect of his kind’s power was the ability to sense so much about another person. Of course it was beneficial in certain circumstances, but mostly, it was only a pain in the ass. He knew who this guy was and thought twice about it before deciding he just didn’t care.
“Why do you care?” he asked, disregarding the fact that the old man was obviously a Grim – and a very longtime, experienced one at that.
“We have this ability,” he said, raising his glass and admiring the contents. “But it doesn’t make us monsters. Our choices are the ones that decide who we are.” He downed the shot and gave a shiver. “Haven’t had a good whiskey like that in years. I’ll have another,” he said, raising his shooter to the bartender.
“I don’t recognize you from around here,” Robert replied. “I’ve been away awhile, but there are never really new faces in Lee.”
“I imagine you wouldn’t. I just made my way back here after a long hiatus.”
“So you’ve been here before?”
“Long time ago. We always have to leave so we don’t give ourselves away, but eventually we make our way back around to what’s familiar. You’ll see.”
“Great. Looking forward to it,” the younger man replied as he downed the amber liquor.
“So what’s eating you?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I left this town so this stupid gift wouldn’t hurt anyone I loved. I’ve come back to give it up and the life I thought would be here is now gone. I thought I’d be okay with that, as long as she was happy. I thought I’d just go on and keep doing what I’m supposed to do in life, but suddenly, it seems to not really be what I want to continue at.”
“You hurt her, didn’t you? I mean, physically?” The old man smiled cruelly.
Robert looked at him with brutality clouding his eyes.
“None of your damn business.”
“Have it your way,” he whispered in Robert’s ear. “But while you’re here drowning your sorrows, that Healer’s there with your girl, whispering in her ear and begging her to come back.”
Robert glared at him, every ounce of his soul wanting to reach over and choke the old man. He’d never had feelings this strong or angry prior to the day he discovered his power and in prison the urges seemed fitting. Now he struggled to change back to the man he was before all of this; the peaceful man who never raised a hand in anger.
The old man had come to town with the purpose of destroying AJ; he hadn’t realized it would be so easy to sit back and let the Healer destroy himself.
25 HOLD TIGHT
So many familiar voices surrounded her. Addie could hear them all. The sadness was apparent and she wanted to reach out and touch their hands to let them know she was still there. Her eyes remained heavy and tightly shut despite the sheer will she put forth into opening them. Although she couldn’t see, she knew the distinct difference between the hands of the nurses and physicians and those of the people she loved.
AJ’s hands had been with her that first night. She could feel the electricity of his touch as he traced the tip of his finger down her hand and arm. It was a warmer sensation than the last touch from Robert. Contact with AJ always had a calmer feel to it. She’d noticed since Robert had come back that his touch was always very calculated, very tense. It wasn’t the same loose and casual feel it had been; maybe it had always been like that and she’d never really noticed.
She listened as AJ spoke to her. What she wanted to do was reach out and grab him and tell him she wasn’t going anywhere. Then for a moment she realized the deeper meaning behind those words; if AJ was saying them, it was because he’d seen something. And if this is what he saw, then she wasn’t going to wake up again for them.
“I will look out for Rose. I don’t know what the future is going to bring, but I will look out for her. I’ll meet her prom date at the door and help her fix up a car for her to drive when she’s sixteen. I’ll be a part of her life, as long as Gram and Robert will let me.”
AJ was telling her she was going to die. Wait, she thought. Why did she just have the thought run through her mind that AJ could see the future, she wondered? She had no idea where the idea came from yet somehow, she felt it to be real.
She wanted to scream and focused intently on moving her fingers. Nothing seemed to shift. She heard his whispers and felt the warmth of his breath on her skin as he tried to withhold the tears. She’d heard Rose’s voice come into the room and suddenly her thoughts shifted again in a mad dash. She’d never be able to say anything else to Rose, she thought. No more I love you, no more hugs and laughter filling the living room. No more bedtime stories.
As she heard her daughter’s soft and melodic voice drift in and out of her consciousness, her mind raced with thoughts of everything they’d miss. Who would tuck Rose in at night? As far as she could tell Robert had taken off again – and quite honestly, she was glad seeing as how his last words were all she remembered before turning into this vegetable. Who would help Rose with her homework and picking out school clothes? Gram wouldn’t be around forever. And she’d never made a will. What if Robert ended up raising her? What if he took her out of Lee to wherever he’d been, she worried?
Her mind raced with instance after instance where Rose would not have a mother for every event that a little girl so desperately needed one. What about her wedding, Addie worried? Who would help her pick out her dress and find the perfect matching shoes?
Most importantly, who would be there to make sure she didn’t make the same mistakes Addie did?
Addie could feel the tears under her eyelids but they held fast and didn’t escape. She fought to push them through. AJ couldn’t help. He’d look out for her, that much Addie was sure of, but he wasn’t her father and he wasn’t even true family. They didn’t know each other that well. Despite his kind words muttered at the bedside of a dying woman, she couldn’t hold him responsible for such an intense obligation.
After Rose and AJ left the room, she heard the softness of Gram’s voice creeping in and felt her warm, gentle touch.
“Wake up, my darling girl,” she whispered, a sense of urgency in her voice. “Come back to us. It’s too soon. You can’t go this soon, despite what AJ’s seen.”
Addie’s mind raced. What AJ’s seen? So the idea that he saw the future was real? How was that even possible? She wanted to ask but the words merely drifted like a light breeze through her mind.
“Your baby girl needs you. I need you. Healers aren’t always right. I know what I saw wasn’t always the end-all, be-all.”
Healers? She’d heard that word before, but where? And what did Gram mean by saying she was one?
“There was one time, I’ll never forget it, where I wasn’t allowed to heal the farmer down the street from me. I saw it clear as day – he was going to fall off a ladder while climbing up to fix a patch on the roof. The vision though told me that he was supposed to live, because down the road, he’d save a little kid’s life in an accident. I was frantic, running around like a chicken with my head cut off the day I knew it was supposed to take place. I was heading down the street to be there when it happened and sure enough, I watched him fall off that roof. I screamed, sure that I had just let him down and a chain of events would be set off, creating the loss of several more unexpected lives down the road. When I reached him, he was sprawled out on the ground. Only he wasn’t lifeless! He had fallen into a bed of hay and was laughing hysterically! Thought it was the damn funniest thing in the world. So that’s when I knew that sometimes what we see in our visions aren’t always the end-all-be-all. Sometimes what we don’t see is equally as important.”
What were these visions Gram was speaking of?
“Oh honey, you’ve got to get back here. Your little girl needs her mama. And AJ, well, he can’t be with you in the way that he wants and I know it breaks his heart to watch you with Robert. But if he’s not able to heal you and yo
u leave us, it will kill him for sure. I don’t think his heart could ever recover from that. I know what that love is like; I felt it with your grandfather. Only I was lucky enough to be able to love him and let him love me back. AJ can’t have that, but he can have the joy of being a part of your life. And he’s just gotten used to things being how they have to be. You can’t up and die on him; he’ll never forgive himself.”
Addie wanted to scream, confusion overtaking every viable space in her mind. Though her heart surely felt as though it were racing, the light beeps and steady stream of sounds around her told her that there was nothing irregular about it. There was no way for her to tell them she was still here. The doctors and nurses used words like coma, saying she may never wake up. They didn’t know she was still there, still inside the shell of a body with no way to scream out that she was alive.
She heard AJ’s voice enter the room again but he and Gram’s voices lowered to an inaudible level as they discussed what the doctors had said. It was as though saying the words any louder would make them truer than anyone liked them to be. The doctor’s voice joined in and they moved closer to the bedside as they discussed options.
“It’s been a few days. Right now, her body is starting to shut down very, very slowly.”
“What is causing it?”
“We’re unsure,” the doctor replied. “We’re looking over all the scans again and going over all the blood work. So far, there is nothing. No brain bleeds, no stroke, no tumors of any kind. We are, quite frankly, baffled. She is a medical mystery.”
“So what happens now?” AJ’s gruff voice cut in. “Run more tests, do whatever it takes.”
“We keep searching for answers and consulting with experts in the field. We keep her comfortable and try to stave off infections as we try and keep her organs from shutting down. If her oxygen levels keep dropping and she encounters trouble breathing, it will be necessary to put her on a ventilator.”
In her mind she was flailing her arms and yelling at them to stop and look at her, but none of her appendages worked in her favor. She heard Gram and the physician step out into the hallway, but could feel AJ’s presence still in the room.
“Addie, please don’t leave me,” he said through tears. “If I could go back and do it all over, I’d have given up everything. If I’d done that maybe this wouldn’t be happening. Maybe you’d have chosen me over Robert. It’s all I can think about, the what-ifs. I should have done things differently. I should have just walked away from everything. I should have given it all up for you. And now I can’t do that, because healing you now would just give you a little time before something else took you. Or Rose. Or Gram. The rules are well intentioned I know, but so aggravating!”
She could feel his sobs on her skin, his breath tickling the lifeless limbs stretched out next to her. The tears that dropped from his cheeks onto the bed splashed across her clammy skin.
He pulled her hand into his and brought it up to his mouth.
“There is nothing else more important to me right now. But I can’t heal you. I have Max out looking for another Healer to bring in, one that can maybe do something I can’t. I know you would hate me forever if I fixed you and then wasn’t able to do it down the road if something happened to Rose or Gram. Please, please just hold on for me. Please baby, don’t leave us yet.”
As he held her hand, the warmth and electricity she always felt when he was near began traveling from her palm to the tips of her fingers and down through her body as if it were ignited within her veins. Her mind cleared, the sunset from the field painted across her memory. A sudden rush of thoughts exploded within her and she began seeing a mixture of events and people, remaining unsure as to what was actually real and what undoubtedly a dream.
26 RESTLESS
He hadn’t slept in days and found himself drifting in and out as he stood guard at her bedside. He could feel Robert close, though not close enough to be within the walls of the hospital. He imagined the man was pacing somewhere outside and assessing the situation. He gave in to the sleep deprivation and rested his head on the cool, white sheets adorning an unremarkably white bed.
“I remember,” she whispered in her mind, her hand still clasped tightly between his. She could feel his grip and even feel his heartbeat through their skin.
Somewhere in his subconscious, he swore he heard her voice. The whisper wound itself through his dream, his mind in a faraway world where Addie was safe and he was in love. Involuntarily, he inhaled deeply, the scent of her lotion invading his nostrils.
“I remember,” she whispered again, perched above him.
She looked even more beautiful in his dream. He stirred as the sound of her voice seemed too real to be a dream. When his eyes fluttered open, he instinctively reached out to grab her arms, twisting her body behind him with ease as he stood up prepared to fight. He hated the feeling of fear that overwhelmed his soul and forced him into fighting stance, but he couldn’t stop it; the feeling had become part of him now.
A light shriek jolted him upright, an intense look of terror on his face as his heart went plummeting into his chest. His hands immediately let go of her, his face as white as a ghost at the pain he had just caused.
“Addie, I’m so sorry,” he started to say before realizing she was awake. He hadn’t been dreaming.
“Hi,” she smiled.
“Addie, oh my God, when? I’m so sorry I hurt you!”
“No, AJ, really. That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.”
“I can’t help it, it’s just a reflex,” he whispered. The tears loomed in his voice. “Ever since –”
“Ever since you saved my life.”
She remembered. He stood back, looking her over. She wasn’t in a hospital gown anymore.
“How are you here? Talking? When did you wake up?”
“I’m not giving up that easily.”
“Addie, I didn’t save your life. You just bumped your head. You can’t remember anything. Remembering puts you in danger. It will put us all in danger.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
His head cocked to the side and he squinted at her.
“What are you talking about, Addie?”
He had his arms around her, pulling her tightly to his chest, not wanting to let her go for fear she’d leave him again.
“I remember.”
“You remember what, exactly.”
“I remember you.”
“You better,” he laughed, trying to shrug off her memories and allow her the kindness of being oblivious to all that had transpired in her life in the last few months.
He turned his back to her, massaging his throbbing head with his hands.
“You’ve only been underfoot about every day the past few weeks.”
“AJ, you can stop it. Stop the act. Stop all of this.” She fumbled in her walk slightly and AJ caught her, setting her gently onto the bed.
“You need to lie down and rest,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out what’s wrong.”
He looked back towards her over his shoulder – his strong, muscular, far tanner than it should be shoulder – and his heart was equally consumed by both hope and disdain.
When he remained silent, she approached him – more cautiously this time. She hadn’t taken time to notice before, but his body towered over hers and with the moonlight trickling in from between the tree branches, he seemed to be that much more daunting. And handsome.
She stopped just short of his overwhelming persona and kept herself from touching him.
“I remember you, AJ. And me. And everything I felt for you.”
“So you remember,” he cut her off, “that we can’t be together.”
It was a statement as opposed to a question.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“If you have to ask, then you can’t remember.”
He walked towards the window, his footsteps surprisingly light and agile for a man of his stature.
“You can’t remember all that Addie. They took that away from you!”
“Gram said that sometimes, the human body is stronger than anyone gives it credit for.”
“You don’t understand,” he barked, shirking away from her touch and pacing across the room. “They did that to save you. They saved you Addie. Not me.”
“You were going to give up your gift for me!”
“Yes, but even if the story ended there you wouldn’t have been saved. You’d be a target for every Grim coming to seek revenge on me for taking out Devin. You’d be forced to feel whatever it was you felt for me and not be able to have any of it reciprocated.”
“I’m already dying AJ,” she whispered. “I know it and you know it. I can see it in your eyes when you look at me. I heard it in your words. And I remember. I remember that you can’t save me if we’re together.”
When he bit his lip and threw his head back, she felt a surge of recognition race through her.
“It’s not that you can’t save me if we’re together, is it?” she whispered, coming closer. “It’s that you’re not supposed to save me at all.”
He looked at the diminutive figure in front of him, his stare burrowing into her. A flash of light shot through the room through the branches of the oak outside and she saw his watery eyes tinged with a sadness she’d only seen one other time: on Gram’s face when grandfather died.
“Oh… oh my…,” she stammered, her arm wrapping tightly around her body while the other covered the choked sobs vying to escape. She stopped against the wall, using it for support. “I didn’t … I mean, I figured … how long do I have?”