The Touch (Healer Series) (28 page)

  
She looked back at her home and the light in
Rose’s bedroom clicked on. It gave her an escape route, because standing there
in front of him knowing they couldn’t be together made her want to do nothing
except cry.

  
“I better go. Rose might be awake.”

  
“Tell her a good story for me, would ya?” he
replied.

  
“I’ll finish yours. About the magic people
who fix others and how they are the strongest and bravest people to ever walk
this
earth.
”

  
She started down the steps and AJ watched in
silence. Max came through the door and gently placed a hand on his friend’s
shoulder.

  
As Addie closed her own front door, Max
turned to AJ.

  
“You okay?”

  
“I hope I
will be, someday.”

16
Good into Evil

Devin
had been a casualty of life, as so many children are. Born into a home wracked
with drugs and abuse, not even noticed unless someone needed a punching bag, he
grew up unloved and unwanted. He had been forced to fend for himself, feed
himself, and take care of himself from before he could even form memories.

  
For awhile, as a teen, he had risen above it.
He didn’t care much for people touching him, hugging him or shaking his hand,
because in his experience it was normally followed with a beating. He had
finally opened himself up to the possibility that not all people were bad. He
went to school, achieved good grades, and went in pursuit of a degree in
psychology. He was good at reading people, at knowing what pushed their buttons
and what their reactions might be. He wanted to help others - especially
children - find their way through life and come out better on the other side.

  
When he was twenty he was with a girlfriend.
He hugged her tightly one day as they walked down the street and felt an
enormous shock. She felt it too, and gasped for air as his mind had flashes
that moved so fast, he couldn’t comprehend the images. It was her; that much he
knew. He couldn’t make out what she was doing.

  
Mistaking it for the simple fact that they
were tired, the air was dry and they were more prone to static electricity,
they went about their day. Devin worried for the entire afternoon that perhaps
he had been hallucinating; that perhaps he was developing schizophrenia or
another mental disease that he was sure his parents probably carried, due to
their lackluster living choices.

  
As they both lay down to sleep, he turned to
his girlfriend to kiss her goodnight, yet another shock emanating through his
fingertips. It jolted her. When he awoke in the morning and rolled over to curl
up next to her, he noticed she seemed colder. When she didn’t move, he started
screaming, calling 9-1-1, and watching as they removed her body from his
apartment.

  
The cause of death was ruled aortic aneurysm.
It brought Devin no peace. The loss of the only person he had ever let into his
life - who had ever loved him - changed him to his very core.

  
He became withdrawn again, wanting solitude
over the opportunity to be hurt or let down by others.
 
He watched people smiling or holding hands,
having lunch with their children. He wanted to make them feel the anger and
hurt that he felt inside. These dark feelings only grew worse when there was a
knock at his door one day from a man claiming to be his paternal grandfather.

  
His grandfather visited under the guise of
wishing Devin condolences on the loss of his love. Days later he revealed his
true reasons once he was sure Devin had what he was looking for. They had descended
from a clan, he told Devin, one that had existed for centuries and had once led
a great revolt. He explained Devin’s heritage to him, how his touch could bring
pain and suffering to those on earth.

  
His grandfather’s portrayal of their power
greatly differed from the original mission and values the
Grim
clan had created.
 
His grandfather failed
to mention the original clan was there to bring stability to the earth, to
bring people closer together and to
help the human race make great developments in conjunction with the Healers. He
only spoke of a darker mission.

  
This is where Devin’s grandfather had been
born from, and from early on in life he had cultivated a manipulative and
fiendish personality. Devin recognized that his grandfather’s persona and
actions were most likely the reason his mother leaned the way she did. Upon
learning he had a grandson the grandfather had come looking for Devin to see if
the boy possessed the power.

  
He told Devin everything and offered to train
him if he had the gift. He promised Devin that they held the potential for
greatness. Devin was torn - at first. Wishing he could bring destruction to
people’s lives and actually doing it were two very different things. He had the
choice of which path to take, his grandfather said: loneliness or power. Devin
chose power.

  
After the first few people Devin touched
ended up on the city’s obituary page, Devin was hooked. Seeing others as
miserable as him brought a twisted comfort to his soul after the losses he had
incurred in life. He wasn’t as focused on the people he inflicted the pain on;
he was more interested in the suffering of the loved ones they left behind. He
felt as though he had camaraderie with them because of what he’d gone through.

  
It wasn’t until he was cleaning out his
apartment and preparing to move with his grandfather that he came across a
picture of the girl he had lost. Thinking back to the night and remembering the
details he had previously pushed aside – the shock he had felt with their
touch, the visions flashing before his eyes – that he became aware of the fact
that he had caused her death. To be ultimately responsible for her demise was
all it took for the final straw to snap and for Devin to turn into the evil
Grim that he had become. He stayed within the rules of their clan, stretching
them the way so many people do with laws – just enough to do what he wanted,
yet not enough to get in trouble for it.

  
When he had come to Lee and saw the way AJ
looked at Addie and vice versa, it had sickened him. It was the same way he
used to look at his girl. He wanted to destroy the relationship, to ensure
those looks would not be exchanged again. It wasn’t fair, he convinced himself.
The fact that AJ was a Healer just added a bit more satisfaction to the cause.
Revenge for his people would just be an added bonus.

  
It was a pattern he’d seen a thousand times
in his life, and in the lives of the people he had previously been trying to
help. When people are labeled, they tend to live up to that label, whether it
is to be amazing or useless or stupid or trouble. The only difference between
him and them was that he had the ability to create retribution through a touch
of his hand.

**************************************************

  
As morning rose, AJ laid in bed with the sun
peeking through the shades and arousing him from sleep. Max had to help him
into bed the night before, although not before AJ made him swear to watch Addie’s
house. As he sat up, feeling slightly better after a night’s rest, he saw Max
sitting in the chair near the window.

  
“He’s getting more flagrant with his powers,
AJ.”

  
“I know. To do that to a child…”

  
“He doesn’t care. We’re all one big target
for him.” Max turned to look at AJ. “You can’t do this, kid. You’re not strong
enough.”

  
“I’ll be fine,” AJ said irritably. There was
no choice to be made about this, no decision to debate. He was doing it.
 
“It’s going to happen. I’m going to end
this.”

  
“It might end you.”

  
“Then so be it,” AJ replied, standing up. “If
my life will save the lives of others, then that’s what will have to happen.
What is the alternative? This isn’t your fight. You can’t initiate it, Max. If

you
do, you’ll lose everything. He hasn’t
challenged you. He challenged me.”

  
Max knew he was right.

  
“Besides, I can’t let him continue to
terrorize the town. Or follow me to the next one to do the same. I have to make
a stand.”

  
“You’re not strong enough.”

  
“Then find a way to make me stronger.”

  
“AJ, I don’t have a way to make you stronger!
Not strong enough to defeat Devin. I saw it when I picked you up – I saw it in
my mind. You are not strong enough to win this.”

  
AJ took a deep breath. Max had seen what AJ
had been feeling – and fearing – for awhile. The fight would not end in AJ’s
favor. If he could just end it in a way that helped the town, that was all he
needed.

  
“We have until tomorrow Max. You are the king
of history, my friend. Tell me what to do and we’ll do it.”

  
“We have to head out to meet with the group
soon,” Max replied. “Someone should know something.”

  
Max exited the room, leaving his friend to
stand alone. AJ walked over to the window and peeled back the rustic curtain to
reveal a view of Addie’s house. She was sitting on the top step, a cup of
coffee in hand and staring down at the yard where Rose was playing as if
nothing had ever happened. AJ knew Rose would have woken up and thought it was
all just a nightmare. Addie would always know the truth, though.

  
Getting dressed, he wondered if it was
possible to love someone, to feel the way about them that he felt towards Addie
and be able to simply live alongside them as a friend. Then he remembered what
Max had just told him. He wasn’t going to have to worry about being her friend
for long, anyway.

  
As the men headed out in the early morning to
Max’s home, Addie watched the car pull away from her position on the step, her
eyes meeting AJ’s as the car chugged forward. Her head turned, following his
stare just as his did the same until the car was out of sight.

**************************************************

  
As the men pulled up to Max’s, they saw
double the number of cars and people they had seen before with even more
trickling in from as far as their sight could stretch. They headed up onto

the
porch, making their way through the
tents and campers that the Healer’s had set up for their overnight stay.

  
“Thank you again for coming friends,” Max
said, standing tall and proud to be part of such a group.

  
Most of them didn’t know each other and would
probably never meet them again. Yet they were here and willing to risk their
lives and their futures to help. It spoke volumes of their personality and
soul. Max didn’t mince words as he continued.

  
“This Grim – Devin – is strong. Last night,
he touched a child in revenge. This child fell from a broken ladder, the rung
penetrating her leg clear through, slicing an artery.”

  
The crowd of Healers gasped, some sounding
scared while others angry.

  
Max continued. “AJ ran to her, his visions
showing she was meant to live. With the amount of blood, there wasn’t time to
wait. He couldn’t disguise himself, and he couldn’t perform the healing
privately. A mortal saw. Addie, the girl’s mother watched as he sealed the
wound with his hands. Her grandmother was one of us once, although Addie does
not carry this gift. She saw and therefore, AJ has broken a rule that he was
left with little choice but to make, to right a wrong by this rogue Grim.”

  
They turned to each other, nodding in agreement.
He had done what he had to and not one of them would judge him for his
decision. The Healers all knew what this meant. AJ was the only one who could
directly battle with the Grim.

  
“What we need is your strength, your Healing
for him. He’s exhausted, his body worn. Everything he had been saving up to use
for battle is gone and he will surely lose his life if he goes into a fight
like this. Devin would be free to continue his mission of harming those the
universe did not decide upon.”

  
The mutterings of the crowd were loud, and
there were a lot of them. One by one, the Healers began to come forward,
reaching for AJ’s hand and transferring strength to him. If everyone gave a
little, it would amount to much more.

  
AJ felt stronger, minute by minute. Each hand
that passed through his gave him not just strength, but courage. He saw the
faces of people these Healer’s had saved and felt their pleas to win the battle
and save the innocent. The crowd stretched out and it was hours before every
last one of them had given a part of themselves to AJ in the hopes that it
would be enough to overcome the evil that was among them.

  
As their healing of AJ was done, they
assembled together with the elders in the middle to determine the plan of
action.

  
“AJ will have to face him alone,” one said,
“and we can only serve as backup for strength. We cannot engage in the battle
ourselves.”

  
That much was understood. AJ felt stronger,
and addressed the group as a leader would.

  
“I will lead him to a private place to face
off with him without the dangers of hurting anyone else.”