Keep You From Harm (16 page)

She shakes her head. “You sound just like your mother. You’ll do as I say or I’ll tell everyone about you and the sick people will begin beating a path to your door. Either way, you can’t hide your talents. Why would you want to?”

I strengthen my grip on her. I can’t let her leave here. I can’t let her tell everyone. Panic builds inside me as she takes a deep breath, like she’s getting ready to scream. I focus on the vibration that still travels between us. I concentrate on the feeling, on locating it and harnessing it. Then I use all my strength to force it back in her direction. The disease traveling between us, starting to lose its hold on her as it leaves her body, courses through mine now, and I force it to flow back out again, down my arms and into my fingers, striking out at her like a snake and slithering back inside her. Her fingers fall slack as she releases me. I know the moment I tumble back and hit the window that she’s gone. This selfish, venomous woman is lost inside herself again.

T
here’s
a knock at the door.

“Could you get that, Raielle?” my mother calls from the kitchen. It’s after ten, and I’m sitting on the couch surrounded by my homework. I extract myself, careful not to jostle the papers I’ve carefully organized for my study group tomorrow.

I pull the door open, and Kelvin falls in toward me, landing heavily against me. My knees nearly buckle as I back into the living room, dragging him with me. “Mom!”

“Who is it?” she asks sharply. Then her eyes widen in horror, and she reaches for her on-again, off-again addict boyfriend. “Close the door, Raielle,” she demands as she lays a groaning Kelvin onto the floor.

Once his weight is off me, I glance down and realize that I’m covered in his blood. “Oh my god,” I whisper in shock.

“Shut the door!” she demands again.

I dash to the door and slam it closed, wincing at the loud sound before I return to them. My clothes are wet and sticky, clinging to me with garish warmth.

“Kelvin,” Mom weeps as she lowers herself to the floor beside him. “What happened?”

His answer is a wet cough. Blood seeps from his mouth. Mom gasps and stares up at me. “I shouldn’t do this,” she whispers. “I shouldn’t do this.”

Then she inches his soaked shirt up, revealing the sliced skin of his stomach. Slowly, she lays her palms on him and closes her eyes. “I’ll take it into myself. I’ll pull it into me.”

“What?” I gasp. “No!”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, turning her watery eyes to mine. “I’m so very sorry.”

I sit straight up in bed, struggling for air. Glancing at the clock, I see that it’s nearly time to get ready for school. I try to slow my breathing down and calm my trembling muscles. The dream was so real, every detail so sharp, right down to the leopard headband my mother always wore in her thick blond hair. She was never the same after that night. She healed Kelvin, but the very next day his son died, not my mother. She hadn’t been able to take his injuries into her own body. Instead, they had found his son. A brain aneurysm killed him instantly, and Kelvin knew that somehow it was Mom’s doing. That’s when she began warning me that certain death couldn’t be cured, that terrible things happened when you tried. I think of my grandmother’s story about the boy with leukemia. Mom probably thought that if she used herself as some kind of vessel, Kelvin’s impending death could be contained within her. She was ready to die for him. But it jumped to his son instead. Her assumption had been wrong. It was a deadly mistake.

I scrub my hands over my face. My obviously conscienceless grandmother told me lots of interesting things last night. She cured people like it was an entertaining parlor trick. She advertised her services in the local paper for god’s sake, and obviously everyone knew about it. Maybe she wasn’t taken seriously? I want to ask Kyle what he thinks about the business our grandmother used to run, but I can’t do that without revealing how I know about it. How could I know unless my catatonic grandmother told me? I can’t ask about it without revealing myself to him. Never tell anyone. My mother drilled that into me. I need to find out more before I completely disregard it.

What about my father? Had my mother really met him here and followed him to Los Angeles? Obviously, nothing she told me, which was never much anyway, could be believed. Is it possible my father is alive and he has these abilities, too? Nothing I thought I knew can be trusted now.

W
hat
do you do when a proverbial earthquake shakes loose more secrets from your past? You go to school like any other day. My mind is still turning over all that I heard last night when I close my locker and glance over to find Lucas standing beside me.

“Did you meet your grandmother? Was that the news you were talking about in your message?” he asks.

What the fuck?
Now he’s talking to me again like the cold shoulder he gave me yesterday never happened? I stare at him, shocked and annoyed by his nerve. I narrow my eyes. “Seriously?” Then I turn and head for class. Unfortunately, it’s the same class he’s going to.

“Wait a minute,” he says, catching up to me. “I’m sorry about yesterday, and I’m sorry I didn’t call you back.”

I ignore him and keep walking.

“Stop. Please,” he pleads, placing a hand on my arm.

I halt and stare pointedly at his hand. He reluctantly removes it. Then he takes a deep breath and runs the same hand through his hair. “Look, after Friday night I needed some time to think. I guess I needed a little space.”

I nearly laugh at that as I stare at him through a haze of hurt. “You needed space after our
one
date?”

His jaw clenches. “Don’t minimize that night, Ray. It was intense, and you know it.”

“It was intensely disappointing,” I say even though I don’t mean it. Then I turn and resume walking.

He catches right up to me, positioning himself in front me, forcing me to stop again. “We both know that’s not true. I never took you for a liar.”

I avert my eyes because he’s right.

“Just listen to me, okay?”

His eyes seek mine, and I let him find them.

“After that night, I decided it would be better if I stayed away from you.”

I keep my eyes pinned to him, and I don’t let him see how much his words are wounding me.

He rushes a hand through his hair again. His face is a combination of frustration and remorse. “I’ve got a lot of shit going on and with everything you’re already dealing with, it didn’t seem fair to add to it. I didn’t stay away to intentionally hurt you. I was trying to protect you from me. I was trying to be selfless. But I’m not selfless, Ray. I’m the complete opposite of selfless where you’re concerned. Because after just a few days, I can’t do it anymore. I can’t stay away from you, and I don’t want to. I never did.”

Despite my hurt and anger, a part of me can understand what he’s saying, and my traitorous emotions are thrilled that he still wants me. But I don’t deserve the way he treated me, and I can’t pretend it’s okay. He’s watching me with uncertainty. I don’t want to hurt him anymore than he wants to hurt me. But I do want to try to explain myself, something he didn’t bother to do for me.

“You could have talked to me, Lucas,” I say, surprised at how calm my voice sounds. “I’m a reasonable person. I would have listened. If you’d explained yourself, I would have been capable of understanding you. But instead, you turned back into the asshole I first met, and you treated me like crap.”

His jaw clenches at my words.

“And now I can’t be sure you won’t do it again, but I do know that I don’t have to let you.” I step to the side and start to walk around him.

“You know now, don’t you?” he states from behind me. “Those people at the party told your brother.”

Rage flares through me, and I spin around. “Yes, I do know, and if you think that has anything to do with what I just said, you don’t understand me at all. But I guess that makes sense. You always do assume things about me. When are you going to realize that you haven’t gotten anything right yet?” With that, I storm off to class.

“S
ophie
is practically glued to Lucas again. It’s disgusting.” Gwen wrinkles her nose in their direction before offering me a sympathetic look.

I don’t want to glance over at their lunch table, but I can’t help myself. There I see Sophie chatting at Lucas, leaning into him, and he’s basically ignoring her, like always. When he looks over in my direction, I dart my eyes away, but not before he notices me staring. “Damn,” I mutter, taking a nibble of my sandwich.

“I can’t believe it ended before it even got started,” Gwen continues.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Gwen.”

“Fine, be all mopey by yourself then. Sometimes talking about stuff helps, you know.”

I sigh. “Did I tell you that Kyle is giving me driving lessons now? I’m going for my learner’s permit in a few weeks.”

She perks up. “That’s great. You know, he keeps looking over here.”

I slump in my chair. Of course I know exactly who she’s referring to. “Let’s not talk about him or where he’s looking, okay?”

“Are you sure
he’s
the one who blew
you
off because he really looks like he wants to come over here and talk to you?”

I toss my sandwich back into my bag. Feeling like I’m under a microscope is messing with my appetite. “I’m going to head out. I’ll see you in chemistry.”

From the corner of my eye, I notice Lucas stands when I do. By the time I reach the door, he’s there. “So, that’s it?” he says, stepping in front of me. “You don’t give people second chances? I’m not allowed to make a mistake?”

I don’t doubt his sincerity, and I can clearly see his remorse. There’s also fear in his eyes, fear that I won’t forgive him. I nearly cave right then. The strange pull I feel when I’m near him isn’t gone, not even close. It may be even stronger now. My heart wants me to throw myself into his arms, to feel his warmth around me again. But reason tells me it’s better this way. After what he did, I’m afraid to give him another chance to do it again.

“No, Lucas,” I reply quietly, calmly, not revealing that what I’m about to say is killing me. “No second chances.”

I see anger fill his eyes as they shift away toward the hallway. When they flick back to me, they’ve iced over, chilling me to the bone, and I walk away from him, not wanting to acknowledge the hurt I’ve just inflicted.

I sleepwalk through the rest of the day knowing that I’ve done the right thing, but feeling miserable about it anyway. It only gets worse when Chad stops me the in hallway to ask me out again. Of course, Lucas walks by at that moment and sees us talking. He doesn’t look away. Instead, his eyes bore into me as he passes.

When I get home, I do my homework and listlessly sit through dinner. Then Kyle takes me out for another driving lesson. It’s the same route we took last night after we left the nursing home. He sensed something was wrong and out of the blue, he asked me if I wanted to drive home. Now we’re going to go out a few times a week to practice, he promised. When we’re alone, I’m tempted to ask him what he knows about the healing ability our family has. What harm could there be in asking? Then I remember my mother’s adamant warnings, and I remain silent.

L
ucas
isn’t in school the next day. I worry about him, but I don’t ask anyone about him. Flyers for the senior prom have appeared all over school and it seems everyone is buzzing about it.

“We’ll all go together,” Gwen exclaims at lunch. “All four of us since we don’t have dates.”

Then Lisa clears her throat. “Actually, I do have a date.”

This is news to Gwen and me.

“I’m going with Jared from work. I asked him yesterday.” She blushes a deep red and glances down at her lunch tray.

“I was going to ask you, actually,” Tyler states with surprising confidence.

Gwen levels a stunned expression at me and then transfers it to Tyler. “You’re asking Raielle?”

Tyler chuckles. “No. No offense, Raielle, but I’m asking you, Gwen.”

Her mouth drops open. “You are?”

He nods and she turns to me, seeming to seek my approval.

“Say yes, you idiot,” I laugh at her.

She giggles, trying to stay cool despite her obvious excitement. “Okay, yes,” she tells him. “But what about Raielle? She can come with us, right?”

Tyler hesitates, but I don’t. “No way. I’m not crashing your party. You guys go and have fun.”

“But what about you?” Gwen asks.

“I don’t really do dances. I’ve never been to one, and I don’t want to break my record now,” I say good-naturedly, trying to make them believe it. It’s true that I’ve never been to a dance, but I can’t help imagining what it might be like to go with Lucas. I immediately chastise myself because I decided not to think about him today. Taking it one excruciating day at a time, I am determined to purge myself of all my feelings for him.

They stare wide-eyed at me. “You’ve never been to a dance?” Lisa says, verbalizing all their thoughts, bringing me back to the conversation.

“Last I checked, it wasn’t a requirement for graduation,” I joke.

We finish lunch with talk of hiring limos and buying dresses. At least, they talk about it. I eat silently, somehow managing a smile whenever someone looks at me.

L
ucas
arrives at school the next day with a cast on his arm and misery in his expression. His eyes are sunken in, and I can feel the pain of his injury the moment he lowers himself into the desk beside me during first period. The room is still half-empty, and after the way he looked at me when I refused his apology the other day, I would have thought he’d be sitting as far away from me as possible. But he’s stubbornly sitting beside me even as he’s ignoring me.

“What happened?” I ask.

He doesn’t move, and I decide he’s not going to answer when he finally glances at me and shrugs. “It was an accident. I was fixing a loose shingle on the roof and I fell.”

“You fell off the roof of your house?” I ask, incredulously.

“Yeah,” he mutters through tight lips.

“You’re lucky you only hurt your arm? Is it broken?”

He sighs and turns toward me. “Are we speaking again?”

I hate the anger that sparks in his eyes despite his outward calm. “We were never not speaking.”

“Just not dating,” he says, wincing slightly when his cast bangs again the desk.

“Right,” I reply quietly. “Are you taking anything for that? Some aspirin maybe?”

“Not your concern.” He faces forward again, dismissing me.

It’s his right arm, and I watch as he struggles to take notes with his left hand. I feel the familiar pull toward him, but there’s more beneath it now. Empathy for those who are hurting is another part of my power that I try to control. But I know I can’t with Lucas. There’s no point in even trying. It would be so easy to fix his arm. Fixing a broken bone is like riding a bike for me, easy as can be. He winces again as the teacher hands back our homework assignments from last week and Lucas reaches for it with his right arm, the bulky cast that runs from his elbow to his wrist banging against the desk again, harder this time, emitting a loud thud.

At that moment, I decide to heal it. Consequences be damned. I can’t watch him in this miserable state when I know I can do something about it. I’ve repaired many friends’ broken limbs, making them think that it was never as bad as the doctors thought. It’s interesting how easily people believed the improbable over the impossible, the impossible being that I healed them.

After the bell rings, Lucas glances at me with surprise as I fall into step beside him on our way to our next class.

“So, what is this? I’ve got to break something so you’ll be nice to me?” he asks with his familiar smirk.

“I never wanted us to stop being nice to each other,” I explain without quite looking at him.