Touched (Sense Thieves)

by Corrine Jackson

  I scrolled through the menu back to the first track. The menu showed the playlist had been added the week before. I hit play again, and she spoke, sounding like her usual, tentative self.

  Remy. Hi, baby. You probably wondered why you got an iPod for your birthday. No computer, and you got a gift we couldn’t afford and you couldn’t use.

  That was precisely what I’d thought. I’d have considered selling it myself for more getaway money if it wouldn’t have hurt her. She’d acted so excited when I opened it.

  I had my reasons. The day was coming when I’d have to tell you the truth about us. About who you are and what you can do. You and I . . . We don’t talk, and it’s my fault. I don’t know how to fix things, baby. I don’t—

  She broke off. I could hear her breathing, so I waited. It sounded like she moved around the apartment from the way her voice echoed when she laughed with a trace of her signature bitterness.

  Enough. This isn’t an apology. I’ve made mistakes. You know it. I know it. That’s not why I’m keeping this journal. On to the important stuff. There are things you need to know if you’re going out on your own. Remy, you’re a Healer.

  I snorted. Like I didn’t know that already. This was her idea of a journal?

  I know what you’re thinking. Hold the phone, right? Let me see if I can get this right. You noticed you were different when you were about twelve. Your cuts and scrapes healed faster than those on other kids your age, and you stopped getting sick. Better yet, you knew when others were injured and sensed you could fix them when you touched them. Am I right?

  She nailed it. I’d been so frightened by what was happening to my body, and I’d wanted my mother to comfort me. Except when I healed her by accident that first time, she’d shrunk away in fear.

  Anna’s cheap high heels tapped on the kitchen linoleum, and I imagined her pacing through the room as she talked, the plastic cherries on her favorite shoes swinging with each step. Where had Dean been when she’d recorded this?

  Of course, I’m right. My mother told me the story of how it happened for her, so I could tell my own children one day. See, the power you have . . . it’s in our blood. The women in our bloodline have been Healers as far back as we can trace our lineage.

  I have to confess I didn’t listen to my mother as well as I should have. The power skipped me. I was disappointingly normal, while your grandmother had this amazing talent.

  My grandmother had been like me. Dozens—maybe hundreds—of women had been like me. I wasn’t the only one. Asher had told me so, but I hadn’t truly believed him until now. Turning my face against my pillow, I muffled a scream of pure rage. For five years my mother had let me think myself a freak, and she’d held the answers to my questions all along.

  I hated what she could do because it took her away from me. When she was murdered because of what she was, I swore I’d never have children. I didn’t want to chance having a daughter who’d live in constant danger.

  A chair scraped across the floor, followed by the snick of a lighter and her deep inhalation. She would be sitting at the kitchen table with smoke swirling around her head and her crossword puzzle book half done in front of her. I pulled the covers over my head.

  Let me back up and tell you about my family. Our family. You wondered why I never talked about them. Your grandparents were good people. They grew up neighbors, and their families always knew they would end up together. They dated through high school, married at twenty, and had me by twenty-two.

  My dad knew about my mother’s power almost before she did. He was the first one she healed when they were eleven, and he broke his arm falling out of a tree. He used to say that he fell out of the tree and straight into love with her. Her being a Healer made things difficult for them, but he never cared. We lived quietly, moving around a lot, and they did odd jobs. Mom was a housekeeper, and Dad a handyman. They tried to make things as normal as possible for me, but it was necessary for us to stay “off the grid,” according to Dad. I didn’t mind as a child. We never had much, but it was enough.

  My throat ached at the affectionate nostalgia in Anna’s voice. She hadn’t sounded that happy since way before my stepfather. What happened to you, Mom? Ice clinked in a glass—I’d guess she was drinking vodka and tonic since Dean wasn’t around to berate her for stealing more than her share—and she sighed.

  My parents warned me people existed who would hurt us if they found out what my mother could do, but I didn’t believe them. I grew up feeling so safe and loved I didn’t think anything could hurt us. The truth is I didn’t think beyond my own selfish desires.

  I told someone our secret, and that mistake is the second biggest regret of my life.

  I shut off the iPod, unsure I wanted to hear any more. If my mother had told someone the secret and my grandmother died because of it, would I want to know that? I hadn’t told Asher what I could do, but he knew. My greatest fear had been that his knowing could drive my family away from me. I hadn’t considered that it could cause them harm. If my mother confirmed that possibility as her second biggest regret, what was her first? Having me? Feeling it and suspecting it was one thing, but it would be something else to hear her say it out loud.

  A longing to forget I’d ever heard this recording flowed through me, but I’d been a coward before and ended up abandoning her.

  I hit play.

  We were living in some tiny town in New Hampshire—the thirteenth town I’d lived in in ten years. At sixteen, I was an awkward loner, trying not to call attention to myself. Different town, same drill.

  Except, that town had a clever, handsome boy named Tom. Tom was popular and confident and everything I wasn’t. I thought I would die from loving him, and he never even noticed I was alive.

  So when a car accident threatened to ruin his chance at a football scholarship, I grabbed hold of my chance. I told him about my mother, and he broke my heart when he laughed in my face. It never occurred to me he wouldn’t believe me because I’d grown up believing in the impossible. That should’ve been the end of it, but Tom told his friends about everything, and those friends told others. Nothing but a joke, but rumors spread like wildfire in our small town. It was just a matter of time before the Protectors heard them and hunted us.

  The only pleasure I can get out of what happened next is that Tom lost that scholarship when his injuries didn’t heal right. Last I heard he still lived in that town working as a used car salesman.

  My mother had always had rotten taste in men, aside from my father. She’d made one wrong choice after another, even at sixteen. I tried to imagine her as she’d been, innocent and in love. There’d been no pictures in our home of her parents or her as a young girl. Her mistake had been trusting the wrong boy. What if I was like her?

  I was scared to confess what I’d done, sure my parents would move us again. A couple of weeks later, I couldn’t take the guilt any longer. I decided when I got home from school I’d tell my parents everything. I’d come clean, let them ground me, and maybe they’d see my side of things for once.

  I never got the chance to tell them the truth.

  “Remy?”

  I shrieked when a hand touched me through my bedspread. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t my mother’s ghost. I hit stop and pulled the covers from my head. Laura stood over me with a tray of food in her hands. She saw the iPod and smiled.

  “I thought you might be hungry. I brought you lunch and another pain pill.” She set the tray on the nightstand. “You look like hell, sweetheart.”

  Laura had never cursed around me, and it took me by surprise. She stepped forward and put a smooth hand on my forehead. The burn in my throat now affected my eyes.

  “If you need anything, I’m here. It’s not the same, I know. I’m not your moth—” She lifted one hand. “Well, I’m here.”

  I nodded, unable to speak. She left, and I tugged the covers over my head again. The smell of the vegetable soup wafting from the tray made my mouth water, but I coul
dn’t swallow food now. I started the iPod again. Anna couldn’t quite hide the grief in her voice.

  My father came to school and pulled me from class with blood on his shirt. He told me to get in the car and shut up. He was a gentle man—doted on me, even—but that day I thought my father would hit me. I thought he’d found out what I’d done, and we headed home to pack up and leave town. Then, when we neared our neighborhood, I saw the cloud of black smoke. I had one brief glimpse of our sweet house in flames before Dad steered the car past our street and out of town. My mother died because of me.

  We drove for three days. We had nothing because our belongings burned in the fire. We slept in the car at rest stops and didn’t speak until the third day when my father told me what’d happened. Two men—Protectors—had come to our home because of rumors they’d heard. They suspected my mother was a Healer and hurt my father to force her to choose between betraying her secret and watching him die. When she healed him, they murdered her and would’ve killed my father, if he hadn’t managed to escape.

  The Protectors sounded evil, like Dean. He’d forced a similar decision on me: heal my mother or watch her die. Except I hadn’t been able to heal her. It had been too late. I shuddered, thinking of the house burning down around my grandmother, a woman I’d never met but had more in common with than my own mother.

  My father did what Mom would’ve wanted him to. He saved me and made sure we stayed hidden, but he never looked at me the same way. I think he hated me.

  And she’d learned to hate herself. The sad resignation in her voice said it all. She’d stayed with Dean and let him tear her down a little more every day because she hadn’t believed she deserved any better. There was a long pause filled with the sound of her deep inhale and exhale as she smoked.

  The day I turned eighteen I ran away. I moved to New York, got a job as a waitress, and tried to get lost in the city. I thought I’d put the past behind me but, if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that you can never outrun the past.

  She sighed, and I guessed what she’d say next.

  I met your father, and he was like nobody I’d ever met in my life. He was fireworks and moonlit walks and flowers for no reason. My entire world revolved around him. Despite the fact that I knew we’d never work out, I fell in love with him. Then I got pregnant, and I knew in my gut you were a girl. I broke up with Ben the day I took the pregnancy test. He’s a good man and wanted to marry me, but I couldn’t put him in that kind of danger. It was your destiny to be a Healer, and your destiny goes hand in hand with death, no matter how you try to escape it.

  My fist went in my mouth to stifle the cry of pain. She’d known having me would end in her death, and she’d been right. She’d given up her chance at love to keep my father safe. Grief lit a fire in my belly, and my eyes burned.

  I have a confession, Remy. Okay, two confessions.

  Her voice sounded thick with guilt, and I held my breath waiting to hear her tell me how having me became the biggest regret of her life.

  First, it’s my fault your father was never part of your life. He probably hasn’t told you that, or at least not all of it. He wouldn’t say anything bad about me to you. Did I tell you he’s a good man? He wanted to help raise you, but I refused. He called once when you were older, and I made sure he knew he wasn’t welcome and went so far as to tell him you wanted nothing to do with him. I was too afraid of what would happen when he found out the truth about you.

  Had that call been in response to my one desperate plea for help? Bitter rage surged through me, even though I understood why she’d turned him away. She’d kept us apart because she’d been afraid of rejection, or worse, that he’d trust the wrong person with our secret and end up hurt. A small inner voice reminded me I had the same fears. Still, I’d often wondered what it would have been like to have been raised by Ben. I hadn’t realized it had once been a possibility in his mind.

  So, now that you’re good and angry at me, I’ll make my second confession.

  My mouth twisted in a sour smile. She knew me better than I’d thought. Glass skittered across a surface, and I guessed my mother had crushed out her cigarette in the glass ashtray she kept on the kitchen table, often overflowing with gray ashes and cigarette butts.

  I know you think I didn’t want you. That’s just not true. I acted selfishly because I wanted you from the instant I found out I was pregnant. It scared me how much I wanted you. From the moment I held you in my arms, the thought of losing you terrified me. And when you healed me the first time, my worst nightmare came true. I wanted to pretend you weren’t a Healer, and I made you keep a secret you shouldn’t have had to bear alone. I can’t ever make that up to you, baby.

  It sounded like Anna was crying. She’d never been one for apologies, and this confession was the closest she’d ever come. There was no mention of how she’d let Dean ruin both of our lives. Raw grief replaced my anger because I would have forgiven her in a heartbeat if I’d been given the chance.

  Okay. Enough of that mushy crap. Let’s talk about the Protectors.

  I hit stop. For once, I wished my ability to heal worked on emotions. I didn’t want to feel the maelstrom of sorrow, anger, and hurt Anna inspired. Craving the forgetfulness of sleep, I took the pain medication Laura had laid out on the tray with a glass of water.

  Night had fallen while I’d slept. My bruised hip ached from lying on it. Cotton filled my head from the medication, and the growing intensity of the pain must have wakened me. I sat up and hissed in frustration because circumstances dictated I couldn’t heal the visible wounds. I hadn’t appreciated how easy it had been to heal myself when I was invisible.

  After a slow-going trip to the bathroom, I felt relieved that I wouldn’t need help from Ben again in that arena. Entering my room, I couldn’t bring myself to crawl back into bed. Grabbing the iPod, I curled up in the chair by the window. A chill permeated the air, and I wrapped a blanket around my legs before hitting play.

  Okay. Enough of that mushy crap. Let’s talk about the Protectors.

  Way back in the beginning, the Protectors and Healers were allies. Protectors have been around as long as there have been Healers. I can’t say when the first Protector and Healer showed up—or why they showed up—but my mother assured me they’d been around for centuries. There are those in the Protector bloodlines with no powers.

  Some have forgotten the old ways, unaware this world exists, while others like me can’t escape it.

  As you know, Healers have zero defenses after a healing when their energy is lowest. The Protectors watched over our kind, protected us, if you will, when we were at our weakest. Protectors had certain gifts of their own—more strength, speed, and agility than the average human—that made them good allies. In exchange for their service, the Protectors gained immunity to most illnesses just by being near the Healers.

  At least that’s the way my mother told it.

  Protectors were superhuman. Like me but with their own set of crazy powers. That explained a lot about Asher.

  Sounds insane, huh? But then, so does the idea of a person who can manipulate energy and heal with the touch of their hands. It’s amazing what you can do, Remy. And dangerous. You have to be careful. You won’t always choose who you heal. My mother told us how she hated touching strangers because she couldn’t stop her body from healing them. I’ve noticed how you steer clear of crowds yourself.

  Unlike me, my grandmother hadn’t learned how to shield herself. With my guard up, I could touch people. Of course, Anna didn’t know I’d had a defense because she’d never asked.

  So, what happened, you ask? The Healers and the Protectors are great allies and become very, very powerful. Around the 1850s, the Healers began to sell their abilities to the highest bidders, and they chose not to share the profits with the Protectors, who were dying in service to the Healers. Before you know it, war has broken out between them, and as I mentioned before, the Protectors are gifted with massive strength and speed, while the Hea
lers . . . aren’t.

  I sucked in a breath. It must have been a slaughter. Anna got into the story now, pacing around the kitchen again, her footsteps tapping on the linoleum floor. She spoke faster and breathier.

  The Healers almost became extinct. There were thousands of us alive at the time, but only a handful survived the war. Oh, and that’s not the worst of it....

  You see, the Healer-Protector relationship has always been a mystery. We know that as the daughters become Healers in certain bloodlines, so do the daughters and sons in other bloodlines become Protectors. My mother said that sometimes a female Healer would form a bond with a male Protector. Not romantic bonding, since it was unheard of for a Healer and Protector to be together that way. Rather a mental bonding that made each of them more powerful. Unfortunately, neither party had a choice in who they bonded with.