[Healer 01.0] The Healer Read online

  “Well?” he whispered as I continued to go through all the images his life force showed me.

  “I can’t.” I could barely get the words out. They felt awful passing through my lips.

  “Then stop blaming yourself and start accepting what is meant to be.” He brought his hands up to cover mine. “I’m not afraid to die, big sister. Plus, I’m totally jazzed to meet Elvis when I get to the other side.” His smile was bright and contagious.

  I focused again as I sensed more of his emotions.

  “You’re in pain. Why didn’t you tell me it was so bad when I came in?”

  “You’re tired. It’s just my joints acting up again. All the doctors have pretty much given up on chemo. You can help me some other night.”

  I stubbornly shook my head. “No, just relax, and I’ll take care of this so you can sleep tonight.”

  “Hope, you’re tired,” Kirby repeated as he tried to push my hands away. “You’ve had to do this a lot tonight. You won’t be able to walk home.” He looked out the window and narrowed his eyes. “The fog is rolling in thick.”

  We lived in a small city along the northern coast of California called Eureka. It was beautiful country. You had the ocean to the left and redwoods to the right. The only downside this far north was the weather. It was either chilly or freezing, and it rained all the time. The fog wasn’t my favorite thing to deal with. Driving in it at night was a pain, but walking in it didn’t worry me.

  “I’ll manage.” I closed my eyes and began the process of easing Kirby’s pain before he could voice another protest. I sensed his body relaxing as I lowered him back on his bed and pulled the covers over him.

  “Thanks, big sis,” he said. He reached for my hand as his eyelids closed.

  “You’re welcome, little bro.”

  “You’ll stay ‘til I fall asleep?”

  “Of course I will, Kirby.”

  I kissed his pale cheek and waited until he drifted off to sleep; waited until his breathing evened out before getting up and making my way to the door. Pausing in the doorway, I felt reluctant to leave him. He didn’t have much time left. Just a few weeks.

  Some of his emotions flooded through me as a direct result of our connection, and I gasped in surprise at the awful sorrow he harbored in his heart due to his mother’s absence. Well, his mother may have been absolutely worthless, but I was here for him.

  Always.

  I’d never let him die alone.

  I looked back at him one last time and blew a silent kiss his way before walking into the hallway and heading for the exit. I wasn’t up for another battle of wills with the annoying, elevator so I took the stairs. I made it to the first floor and out the door in record time. No doubt the elevator would have held me captive for an extra ten minutes.

  It was the prickling feeling on the back of my neck that first made me suspect I was being watched again. No, not just watched.

  This time I was being followed.

  I quickly turned around and glanced behind me. The hospital lights were blazing from within, and there was quite a bit of activity visible. No one other than medical personnel was within walking distance from where I stood, and yet I knew someone shadowed me. It was completely different from the feelings I’d experienced over the last two weeks. I wondered if the creepy presence I felt was coming from a hospital room window. Did I have two stalkers now?

  The fog rolling in muted the lights from the hospital, making everything else look smoky and a bit out of focus. It definitely upped the creep factor.

  I turned around and continued on my way, counting the cracks in the sidewalk like I always did. I was fairly certain I had those cracks memorized. I told myself this was slightly less pathetic than my intense dislike of social outings and my virgin lips status. Two blocks later, and I’d almost managed to distract myself from my own irrational suspicions.

  Then I heard the footsteps.

  For every step I took, I could have sworn another person took one behind me. The footsteps were soft though, almost padded it seemed, and stealthy. Taking time to look behind me was probably a bad idea. My best friend Angie had made me sit through enough horror movies to know that when the girl turns around to see who is following her, no one is there, and when she turns back she smacks right into the very thing she’s running from.

  So I kept my focus straight ahead as I began jogging across the street and onto the next block. The footsteps kept pace with my light jogging.

  That’s when I began to freak out a bit.

  I took deep breaths and continued on, wondering if it was such a good idea to lead the psychopath to my doorstep. I mean, my father wouldn’t be home for another hour. I should have been running to Angie’s house.

  I was only two houses away when I felt something hit my feet, causing me to lose my balance and slam roughly to the sidewalk. A hot wind brushed past my face as I went down, my hands and knees taking the brunt of my weight. I barely registered the pain it caused due to the loud explosion that ripped through the silence of the night. I looked up in time to see the tree ahead of me burst into a brilliant blaze of fire.

  What the he-

  Footsteps rushed up behind me, and I forced myself to my feet, turning in time to see…a cat.

  No, wait. A cat?

  The cat skidded to a halt, turned around and made a mad dash back the way it’d come. I couldn’t believe a cat had made all that noise, and it certainly hadn’t lit a tree on fire. I looked around the street to see if there was anyone else in the area. Hadn’t anyone heard the explosion? My neighbors were old, but they weren’t deaf. Not yet, anyway. I looked at the tree blazing a few feet in front of me. For a minute I stared at it, mesmerized, knowing that the bright orange flames licking the sides of the tree would’ve been consuming me if I hadn’t tripped on...what had I tripped on?

  I bent my head down and searched for the hard object that had bruised me while simultaneously saving my life.

  A tree branch. It was thick and long, at least two feet. There was no way I wouldn’t have noticed it on the sidewalk if it had been there in front of me. No, someone had definitely thrown it at my legs, but whether it was to help me or hurt me I simply didn’t know.

  And what was up with the flame thrower? What idiot ran around chasing teenagers with fire balls?

  I tore my gaze away from the flaming tree and made it to my front porch without further incident. I turned around and began scanning the neighborhood again, which was probably a stupid thing to do. Someone had just attacked me. I should have been running inside the house, hiding under my bed and dialing 911 on my cell.

  I hadn’t really expected to see anyone sticking around after that noisy explosion, so I was stupefied when I actually spotted someone standing in the shadows of the house across the street from me. I immediately felt a strange kind of magnetic pull urging me forward. I caught myself taking a step toward the stranger. The creaking of my porch step snapped me out of my trance long enough to make me realize what I was doing.

  Mind racing, I whirled around, opened my front door and slammed it behind me. I leaned against it, taking comfort in its sturdiness as I wondered if the events of the last ten minutes had actually happened. I could explain away the footsteps and the figure standing in the shadows. I wasn’t the only one in the area who enjoyed late nights strolls. I could even talk myself into believing the tree branch I’d nearly cracked my ankle on had been there waiting for someone as clumsy as me…while I escaped a random stalker.

  Okay, so how do I explain away the exploding tree?

  Yeah, I had nothing.

  Another thing I found difficult to wrap my brain around was the way that cat looked as it ran away from me. I was pretty sure my feline stalker had two tails.

  * * *

  “Dad, would you please come back inside? The lasagna is getting cold!” I shouted, following him to the front door. “There’s no way anyone is out there now.”

  My father had reacted rather violently when I
told him some crazy person with a flame thrower had tried attacking me earlier. He’d grabbed a hammer from his set of tools and stormed out of the house, hell bent on finding the SOB who’d dared to threaten his daughter.

  In hindsight, blurting out the news to my father about my late-night stalker the minute he arrived home from work probably hadn’t been the best way to greet him, but I’d been alone in the house for forty minutes, and I’d had all that time to obsess over it. It was probably a good thing I hadn’t mentioned someone had been watching me for the past few weeks.

  He finally came back inside, looking disturbed.

  “Tell me again exactly what happened to you on your way home.”

  As I sat across the table from him and retold my bizarre story I studied his strained features.

  “You’re saying someone followed you, threw a tree branch at your feet, and then a fireball erupted and burned the tree in front of our neighbor’s house?”

  “It kind of sounds stupid and rather anticlimactic when you sum it up like that, but yeah, that’s exactly what happened.” I waited for his response, but all I got was a disbelieving stare. “Dad, didn’t you see the tree? I’m surprised Mrs. Simmons hasn’t called the fire department yet.”

  Now he looked worried.

  “Honey, I just checked that tree, and there was nothing wrong with it. There was no fire. No smoke. I couldn’t even smell smoke. If that tree caught fire the way you said it did, it’d smell like a campfire out there.”

  It was my turn to stare in disbelief.

  “That’s impossible! I swear I saw the tree go up in flames. I’ve never been so scared in all my life. Plus, I got stalked by some ax-murderer.”

  “I thought you said he had a flame thrower.”

  “Which is how the tree caught on fire,” I shouted.

  My father let out a tired sigh.

  “Okay, I believe you saw what you say you saw, but why did that guy bother to shoot a flame thrower at you and not attack you when you fell? It just doesn’t make sense. Why isn’t the tree on fire?”

  I sat at the table feeling like I’d stepped into the twilight zone. Was it possible I’d imagined everything? Maybe I’d been sleepwalking. Had I ever done that before? Not that I could remember.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just tired or something.” I was so wishing I’d never brought it up.

  “Is this a side effect of healing we haven’t encountered yet? Do you think the stress is getting to you and you’re having hallucinations?” My father’s question was innocent enough, but I felt a little insulted all the same.

  “You think I’m crazy,” I accused.

  “No, that’s not what I said.”

  “You do,” I insisted. “You think I’ve lost my mind.”

  “Stop.” My father placed a calming hand over mine. “You and I have had to navigate your abilities blindly. We’ve had no help, no information. There isn’t a manual that can explain why you’re capable of doing what you do or what the side effects and repercussions could be for you long term. Tonight, something very unusual happened with Sarah, and you managed to communicate with her.” He gave me an amazed look. “An actual conversation, Hope. What if that put some strain on you? Not to mention the stressful situation I put you in by asking you to heal Eve. Maybe you just need to take a break from the hospital for a while and focus on yourself for a change.”

  I breathed deeply through my nose instead of saying something snotty and tried to look at the situation from my father’s point of view, although I was finding it hard to do. I should have known he’d somehow tie this back to my job at the hospital.

  “I don’t know how I was able to communicate with Sarah, but why should we view this as such a negative thing?”

  “What was the conversation about then?” he asked pointedly.

  “She wanted me to let her go.” I squeezed my tired eyes shut for a minute as my father processed this new development. I also didn’t want him sensing I was withholding information from him.

  “Well, this has to mean something. Are your abilities beginning to grow? Have you felt different in any way?” He was studying me as if he were about to perform a complicated surgery that required excessive planning first.

  “I felt just the same as I always do after trying to heal someone…and failing miserably.” I muttered that last part. “I feel perfectly normal.” Normal being relative in this case. “Sarah did mention my powers are getting stronger, but I have no idea how she knew that unless her connection to me gave her that information.” I felt frustrated at not having the pieces of the puzzle laid out before me.

  “This is really interesting, and what does it mean for you in the future? So far what you do merely makes you a little tired. You also tend to take on some rather unfortunate personality traits from the people you heal, but other than that you seem to be fine.”

  “I am fine,” I replied automatically.

  “Physically you’re fine. I’m not so sure how you are emotionally. Did she say anything else?”

  I considered sharing the comment Sarah made in regards to my mom, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to see the heartbreak resurfacing on my dad’s face.

  “Nope, that was the extent of the exchange between us.” I wished I could’ve sounded more convincing. I knew my father would sense that I was keeping something back. Thankfully, he didn’t push the subject further.

  “At any rate, this is something new to deal with, and maybe it’s affecting your ability to tell what is real from what isn’t. You should take a break from healing for a while, and we can see if anything strange—like a tree catching on fire when it really didn’t—happens again.”

  I frowned, completely annoyed by this.

  “I’ll compromise with you,” I said leveling my gaze at him. “I won’t heal anyone for a whole week if you promise to quit harping about my job at the hospital. I only work there three nights a week, and it’s the best job I’ve ever had.”

  My father rolled his eyes. “It’s the only job you’ve ever had. You’re a janitor for heaven’s sake! Don’t you think you’re more qualified for something else? Do you really love cleaning that much?”

  “You’re completely missing the point. Of course I don’t like to clean. I like to heal, and I’m good at it.” I smashed my fork into my cold lasagna and shoved a piece into my mouth, glowering at him as I chewed.

  “You don’t have to work at the hospital to heal people,” he said, trying another tactic. “I could call you if there are any emergencies I think you should be aware of.”

  “That’s just it, Dad. They are emergencies!” I set my fork down, knowing if I didn’t I might fling it across the room in frustration. “I almost didn’t get to Eve in time tonight. Do you realize that?” From the solemn look on my father’s face I could tell that he did. “It was crucial for me to get to her as soon as possible. Every second matters. You know this. There are some people that I just can‘t heal, but I’ll be damned before I allow another person who can be healed to die just because I can‘t get there in time.”

  My father studied me silently across the table then put his fork down and rubbed his tired eyes. “I think there are a couple of things bothering you.”

  “The only thing bothering me is your desire to fire me.”

  “Did you go visit Kirby again tonight?” He sat back in his chair looking as if he already knew the answer to that question. I was confused by the change in topic.

  “Um, yeah. I did.”

  “He’s part of what you’re frustrated about, isn’t he? Because you can’t heal him?”

  I stared down at my dinner plate. I was so tired of crying, and now, not only could I not heal the people I wanted to, but I was hallucinating because I was healing too much.

  “You’re doing it again.” He looked like he was getting ready to bring up another sensitive subject.

  “I’m just visiting him.” I swallowed hard, knowing my father wasn’t buying it. I tried reasoning with hi
m. “His mother doesn’t want anything to do with him. Since he’s ill he’s not something she can use to further her career. He needs some support. He needs a friend, and we’re friends.” I looked up to see the sympathy in my father’s eyes and took that as a good sign. “At the very least I can help him manage his pain, even if it’s just for a little while longer.”

  He nodded. “He doesn’t have much more time?”

  “No.”

  I was grateful he didn’t ask for a specific date.

  “I think it’s great that you visit Kirby. He needs someone like you to keep up his spirits, but who’s keeping up yours? I’m really concerned about what this is doing to you emotionally.”

  I remained silent. My lasagna sat cold and lumpy in front of me.

  “You’re too attached to him, too close to the situation, and you may be trying to ease his pain, but I know you, Hope. You’re trying to heal him, too. Not being able to heal someone always wears you out more than anything because of the way you beat yourself up when you can’t. And yet you keep doing it when you already know what’s coming. You’re setting yourself up for some real heartbreak here. What happens when he’s gone?”

  I flinched. It felt like my heart was being pulled from my chest. I raised my eyes to his and tried to remain outwardly unaffected by his question.

  “I’ll be fine.” The words sounded hollow, even to me. “I’m completely prepared for the inevitable here. It’s not like I’m a stranger to death. Besides, Kirby helps me be at peace with…with things.” I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and knew my father was once again not buying it.

  I sucked so much at lying to him. Of course it’d affect me. We both knew I’d be a total wreck once Kirby was gone, but admitting it would only further my father’s convictions that not only should I not work at the hospital anymore, I shouldn’t go visit Kirby anymore either.

  “Please stop doing this to yourself,” he pleaded. “Don’t you remember how bad you were after your mother died?”

  Wow, he really wasn’t holding anything back tonight.