The Healer: A Young Adult Romantic Fantasy (The Healer Series Book 1) (25 page)

“Why aren’t we calling an ambulance for him? We need to get him back to the hospital,” Angie said urgently.

“There’s nothing they can do that Tie and Victor can’t do themselves,” I said, never breaking eye contact with the broken boy in front of me. “He’ll be fine, just give it a minute.”

“I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” she yelled reaching into her back pocket to pull out her cell phone.

“Stop!” I batted the phone from her hand sending it flying to the other side of the room. “You try getting anyone involved right now it will interrupt the process, and Tie will die.”

Tie shook his head and opened his mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a wheezing noise and then an alarming amount of blood. I looked at the gaping hole in his chest and began to panic, feeling certain Tie should have repaired what he could, and Victor should have been able to heal him by now.

“Victor, why isn’t he healing himself?” I asked anxiously.

“He can’t,” he said.

Victor opened his eyes and sat back looking defeated.

“Then you do it,” I cried out. My voice was beginning to shake. I was about two seconds away from becoming as unhinged as Angie.

“I can’t do it. I can’t heal him.” He buried his face in his hands.

“Quit telling me what can’t be done, and tell me what can!”

“Nothing can be done, okay?” The look he gave me was awful. A look of defeat. “There is absolutely nothing that anyone can do. The sword that stabbed him was forged in the land of the dead, and I only have so much power at my disposal. What little power I did have I used to heal you when we were at the hospital.”

I swallowed down the lump of guilt forming in my throat and let out a trembling breath.

“Even if I hadn’t healed you tonight, I still wouldn’t be able to help him. You can’t heal a stab wound inflicted by that kind of sword,” he whispered. “Tie is going to die.”

I could barely understand what Victor’s words conveyed. The idea that Tie was dying right before my eyes was completely incomprehensible. I wasn’t even close to accepting it. I watched the barely detectable rise and fall of Tie’s chest and felt my own grow hollow and cold. I didn’t have time to analyze the overwhelming wave of emotions that threatened to swallow me whole. A strange kind of energy began buzzing inside of me, building, like it was getting ready to explode. I didn’t know who Tie was, and I didn’t know how he was connected to me. All I knew for certain was if Tie died I wouldn’t be able to face tomorrow or the next day or the next.

“Get out of my way,” I commanded.

“Hope, there’s nothing you can do,” Victor said roughly.

“Get out of my way!”

I didn’t wait for him to comply. Moving forward, I pulled Tie’s head onto my lap and held it between my hands. Just before I closed my eyes I looked down into his and felt his steady gaze strengthening me.

My connection with Tie was just as warm and inviting as it had been the first time, but the colors were fading. He was barely receiving any oxygen due to the blood that rapidly filled his lungs. I searched his body, trying to ascertain the extent of the damage and nearly screamed in pain as his life force sent me very fuzzy images of torn flesh, punctured lungs, and a strange sort of blackness surrounding his heart. The images were gruesome to be sure, but I’d healed much worse and failed to understand why Tie’s life force hadn’t started its own healing process the minute the wound was inflicted.

I did my best to communicate with it, but I received nothing in return. I sent instructions, commands, and even began begging, but his life force was silent and slipping from my mind the same way my mother’s had. I wondered if Tie’s life force was damaged as well. The black mass surrounding his heart seemed to be the source of the problem. I panicked, thinking I was losing him, that his warmth would simply cease to exist and I’d be alone, connected to nothing.

That’s when pure instinct kicked in. I gently pushed his life force into the background and began communicating with his cells directly. I waited for that invisible barrier to stop my progress, but the mental wall I’d been expecting melted into the background, and I was surrounded by thousands of bright lights, tiny intelligences waiting for me to tell them how to proceed.

And so I did.

I walked them through healing process after healing process, starting with cell regeneration, blood production, tissue repair. Veins that had been severed were knit together. Ribs cracked by the force of the blow were bound and strengthened. Intelligences within the blood quickly drained the dark liquid from Tie’s punctured lungs and sent it flowing back to its rightful place within the body. The images swirled through my head with intelligences seeking approval, asking questions, and following every instruction I gave them. Everywhere around me Tie’s body was slowly being put back together. Everywhere except for one area, the most important area.

Tie’s heart.

It seemed impossible to me, but despite the healing taking place within his body, he was still very close to dying. I zeroed in on the inky darkness and felt my own life force shrink away. It was squeezing his heart with a strange vice-like grip. I tried to communicate with the heart directly, but all lines of communication had been severed. The intelligences were unresponsive. I felt nothing but death.

I needed to understand what was happening inside the blackness, and the only way I could accomplish that was to plant myself mentally inside the heart. I did it quickly before I could reconsider and nearly threw myself back out the minute my mind touched it. My senses became overloaded with the need to run, to flee the darkness before me. The fear it instilled within me made it impossible to react, or even think. My senses shut down, my life force losing light. My body was freezing and my hands and feet felt numb. I realized that the darkness didn’t cause death, it was Death.

It was doing the exact opposite of what I could do. I was able to take a life force and give it light and knowledge. Intelligences were activated and educated. They were given life and shown how to give life in return. The blackness did everything in reverse. It took that light and knowledge away. It shut everything off.

It made everything disappear.

Tie’s heart wasn’t pumping blood anymore. It didn’t know how to, incapable of functioning surrounded by the darkness that was closing in.

I had to break it apart. I had to make it disappear, but what weapons did I have at my disposal? Pushing against its barriers only served to weaken me, and there was nothing truly tangible in its form that I could latch onto. I could feel myself getting smaller as the darkness stealthily slid its way in.

Darkness. Find its weakness. Find its...

The idea came to me in an instant. I could overpower it with light. I could penetrate the endless night with all the things it could never be. I sent images to the tiny intelligences within the tissues of Tie’s heart. They surrounded me, drawn forward by the idea of being something rather than nothing. I showed them how to pump blood in and out of the heart.

In and out. In and out.

The more they moved the more brightly they shone. In and out. In and out.

Other intelligences began to catch on, and soon, not only were Tie’s cells shining brightly with light and knowledge, but his tissues, his muscles, and the whole of his heart were beginning to create a light that burned so bright it melted through the darkness. The muscles of his heart began to move on their own again. The pressure surrounding it lessened as the darkness dissolved into the background. Brighter and brighter it burned, until finally the only thing that did eventually disappear was Death and the darkness it brought with it.

I waited and watched, making sure his heart would continue to beat even if I couldn’t be there to help it. I didn’t want to leave. The longer I stayed the more I sensed a strange kind of pain being held within the chambers of Tie’s heart. It was the same pain I’d felt with him at the nurse’s station. I couldn’t see what the problem was. Everything was functioning properly, but the pain was there like an old, hurtful memory, and I couldn’t find its source.

I decided to leave it for now and investigate it later. Tie would live, and that was what mattered.

I reluctantly opened my eyes wishing I could stay wrapped within the confines of Tie’s spirit forever.

Beautiful, ice blue eyes were there to greet me.

I couldn’t contain my relief. I pulled him into a sitting position where I promptly wrapped my arms around his bloody body and crushed him to my chest. His warm arms enfolded me almost immediately, holding me just as tight. I pulled back to examine him; to reassure myself he was okay. He moved some hair away from my face and softly caressed my cheek.

If I’d thought a brush with death would’ve been enough to forever wipe that smug, almost challenging grin off his handsome face, I would’ve been dead wrong. There it was, shining at me like it’d never be darkened again. Even his face had completely healed. He looked amazing.

“You know, for someone who has no idea how to heal people, you sure are a quick study,” Tie said as he playfully tugged on my hair. “Don’t you think she catches on awfully quick, Vicky?”

“Don’t call me Vicky,” Victor said sharply, but the look of relief on his face softened the delivery of his words.

As Tie’s remarks sank in, I felt my heart speed up a little. I stared at him, knowing full well my little masquerade was truly over. There was no talking myself out of that very large blunder. I slowly disengaged myself from Tie’s arms and put a little distance between us. Tie sat there looking healthy, whole, and annoyingly triumphant.

My father was going to kill me.

Victor’s reaction came out of left field. His eyes were big and bright with unshed tears, and the smile on his lips seemed to reach every inch of his gorgeous face. I’d heard of people glowing before, but Victor’s smile seemed to light up the entire room.

“It’s you, Hope. It really is you.” He reached forward and pulled me up into a standing position.

I thought I heard an angry sound coming from Tie.

Victor’s eyes took me in almost hungrily. I should’ve seen what was coming, but his kiss took me by surprise. He wasn’t timid at all, and there was nothing soft about the way he caught my lips with his own. He kissed me as if he’d been waiting hundreds of years to do so, crushing me to him, no longer polite and reserved as he had been earlier. This was a completely different Victor.

I always thought my first kiss would be kind of anticlimactic. Everyone in school talked about it like it was just a practice run, a way to get your feet wet. With Victor’s arms holding me close and his lips pulling me in I felt completely submerged.

It wasn’t a bad feeling or a bad first kiss, but I couldn’t help it when Tie’s face flashed through my mind.

Someone in the room cleared their throat, effectively ending the exchange. I couldn’t help, but compare it to the memory of Tie and I kissing—whenever at may have been.

Victor backed up looking sheepish.

“I’m…uh…sorry about that.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what came over me. I don’t usually…um…”

I tried to nod like I understood, even though I didn’t.

Awkward.

I turned to our audience.

Tie and Angie were sitting side by side on the floor. Tie surprised me by looking extremely annoyed, angry even. The look Angie was giving me could have melted iron.

“Normally, I’d be performing a highly entertaining victory dance to Will Smith’s “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” in honor of this very momentous occasion, you receiving your first kiss and all, but I’m a little preoccupied by the fact that I just saw my car explode, Dr. Fairmont’s head get chopped off, and my best friend seal up a gaping, bloody wound on a guy that may or may not be on a date with me tonight. Your thoughts?” she asked politely, turning to Tie and holding an invisible microphone up toward his mouth.

Tie obligingly spoke into it.

“I don’t care who I go on a date with so long as they buy me dinner and feed me chocolate cherry bon bons while giving me a much needed neck massage. Getting stabbed in the chest has left me feeling slightly famished and incredibly sore. Although, I am very interested in watching you get jiggy with it.”

He quirked a naughty eyebrow in her direction. Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave me a defiant look. It was like he was flirting with Angie to get under my skin. It was definitely working. I tried not to let it bother me. After all, I’d just kissed Victor. Maybe that had bothered Tie a little. I secretly hoped so.

I sighed heavily and tried to put even more distance between Victor and myself.

“I guess we have a few things to talk about, huh?” I gave Angie a fat grin, testing the waters.

“Ya think?”

Chapter Fourteen

“You’re not supposed to be able to do that,” said Tie.

He and Angie were still sitting side by side on the floor. I felt an unreasonable twinge of jealousy and tried to shake it off. I knew it was silly, but I had this crazy urge to plant myself in between them.

“Do what?” I sank to the floor in front of them, completely exhausted.