Flutter (The Discover Series) (22 page)

Andres cleared his throat, a loud warning from behind me. Turning my head toward the sound, I didn’t bother to completely face him. He didn’t understand my reaction to Sara anymore then he understood her reaction to me and he didn’t like it either. I knew I couldn’t ask him why the connection between Sara and I was so strong, and even if I could, I had the feeling he wouldn’t know anymore about the situation than I did.

“I think she has a broken rib, possibly two.” He said interrupting my thoughts. “Her eye is messed up pretty bad, she has a gash in her leg, and she is bruised up pretty badly.”

As Andres gave me a run down of her injuries, I couldn’t control the spark of anger that erupted through my body, boiling my blood. I gritted my teeth against the fury, no longer able to ignore the condition her body was in. Slowly tracing the dark colors that stained the skin around her eye, I couldn’t fight the violent thoughts that filled my head. I wanted to bring Mateo back, just so I could kill him over and over again, slowly and painfully.

I could feel the pain that coursed through each cut and bruise on her body as if they were on my own. The impact it had on me both surprised and terrified me. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on Sara and everything she was feeling. My eyes popped open, and suddenly all of the air rushed from my body until I felt like I was gasping for breath. I could feel the beating of her heart as clearly as if it was beating inside my own chest. It kept in rhythm with mine. I wanted to cover the spot on her chest where I knew I would find the steady hum, but I was aware of Andres still behind me. The realization of how closely connected we really were, was overwhelming.

Ignoring Andres’s uneasy shift when I placed my hand on Sara’s rib cage, I probed the area softly. I hesitated when she shifted slightly on the cot, a frown forming on her face. A soft moan floated through the air as she settled back on the cot, moving away from my exploring touch
this time
.

“She needs to be seen as soon as possible.” I told Andres. “She has two broke ribs. She is in a lot of pain.”

Physically and emotionally
, I thought, but didn’t say that out loud to Andres.

“I have a car hidden, but it’s a ways away.”

“I will carry her.” I said firmly. It wasn’t a request.

He sighed, but didn’t argue. “We need to go soon. I don’t know how long she will stay out and I don’t want her to wake up and see…” his sentence trailed.

“Me.” I finished for him.

“There are rules-”

“Yeah that neither of us are exactly sure of.” So that was a lie, I knew where my boundaries were and I had definitely overstepped them.

“These rules are to protect her.”

I couldn’t deny that. Laying my hand flat on Sara’s side, I tried not to apply too much pressure, wishing I could absorb her pain. Take it myself, and everything that had happened in the last twenty four hours, if it meant sparing her the pain and confusion. Her world was going to change and I hated that I was helpless to alter that for her.

I had been staring off, lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t realized she was starting to twist on the cot until I heard the gentle series of moans flowing from her. I could feel the heat generating from the spot where my hand rested on her and I was aware of the fact that I couldn’t move my hand. Not physically, but the force of whatever was unexpectedly happening, kept me in place.

“What’s happening?” I heard Andres say, then he was next to us, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to explain to him something I didn’t even understand.

The heat built, creating a smoky blue hue where our bodies made contact. I focused on Sara, trying to figure out what was happening between us, and it finally hit me. I was actually
absorbing
her pain, her injuries were becoming my own. The sensation ran up my arm, until my body was filled with an intense throbbing. Her pain was so strong; it soaked into my muscles until they became stiff.

I flinched, and my breath hissed loudly between my clenched teeth as I felt, then heard the snap of my rib, and then another. Breathing became a chore as I felt the crush of my lung. My eye was attacked next, I could the tissue and flesh puckering, and my eyes began to burn until I couldn’t see out of it anymore. My leg was last, and I felt the sting, as I absorbed the gash from Sara’s leg.

Sara’s gasped filled the room, her back arching off the cot, thrusting against my hand. I heard another two pops as her bones merged back together, restoring the structure of her rib cage. She sucked in a sharp breath, followed by a cough, and I knew her lung was no longer being compress. She wilted back onto the bed, her breathing returning to a normal rhythm. The heat faded and the light disintegrated, releasing me.

I fell back against the totes, clutching my side, panting through the pain that was infused around the broken bones. Beads of sweat formed around my forehead and dampened the hair on the back of my neck. Squeezing my eyes shut against the ache, I waited for my body to take over and begin healing itself.

After Andres finished checking on Sara, he turned to check on me. Worry and confusion masked his face as he tried to comprehend what just happened.

“Are you okay?” He asked after a few minutes.

“Yeah.” My side bowed against the sting and the snap as my bones fused together. “I’m okay.” I finally managed.

“How did you do that?” Andres asked. So many emotion
s
laced around the question, I couldn’t name them all.

“I have no idea.” I shifted my position until I was sitting up straighter.
“Is she okay?” I rolled my hea
d in her direction.

Andres cast a glance back at Sara. “She’s fine. You… you healed her.”

I nodded and took a deep breath. “Good,” I whispered.

“Have you ever been able to heal another person before?”

“Never. My body heals itself, but never anyone else.”

Andres didn’t say anything, he just stared. “Can you get up? Do you need a few more minutes?”

I could feel the last of the after effects fading from my body, and it was as if nothing had happened.

“I’m fine.” I said and moved to get up.

Andres helped me up and we faced Sara. Her color was starting to return, leaving her skin with a healthy glow and a pink tint to her full lips.

She was beautiful.

“Will you be able to carry her?” Andres asked me.

“Yes.” I said moving toward Sara.

Bending over, I lifted her into my arms, waiting until her body adjusted to mine before I moved toward the door of the shed. Her face nestled in the warmth of my neck and her soft breathy pants caressed my skin, causing a reaction of goosebumps to erupt across my skin.

To hell with the rules!
I thought.

I was too far gone, way past the point of return and there was no turning back now. Feeling her in my arms, being close enough to touch her, smell her, be consumed by her left an odd ache in my gut. I couldn’t stay away from her now and I wasn’t going to try, council be damned.

I was always watching her from afar. For so many years I had blended into the background of her life, but I was done hiding. I needed to protect her and I wasn’t going to do that in the shadows anymore. Andres wasn’t going to be too happy about my decision and that’s why I had no intention of telling him.

Mateo’s confession had alarmed me, but I made sure not to show him that it had rattled me. I wasn’t sure if that had been his plan all along, but one thing was for sure: I couldn’t go home and leave Sara unprotected.

I would find Aaron after.
I needed to let him know I would not be returning home with him.

Flutter

Seven

No place like home

Sara

Andres pulled into the darkened driveway and parked the car.

I covered my huge yawn with the back of my hand, and sat up in my seat, stretching my arms above my head. I arched my back, and tried to work out all of the kinks, but quickly regretted it. I was quickly reminded the damage done to my rib cage had not been a dream. I stared at the house through the windshield. Memories flashed before my eyes, and I felt like I was watching a slide show of my past. I shook my head and the images were gone.

I wanted to go through them one by one. But I was too tired too, so I pushed them aside for later. Even though I had managed to sleep the entire trip home, sleep clung to my body, making each movement slow and dragging.

I grabbed at the handle on the passenger door of the rental car and pulled on it, pushing on the door at the same time. The door opened smoothly, and I slid out of the car standing between the car and the open door. I took a deep breath, and took in the two story house in front of me. It was bigger than I remembered the size was almost overwhelming, but Andres had designed and built it and I loved it even more for that reason.

He had pulled through the circular driveway instead of the garage and I looked over to ask him why.

“Your car is in there.”

I had forgotten I had a car.

I frowned. “My car takes up three garages?”

He gave a short laugh. “Well that one,” he pointed toward the furthest garage from the house, “is my work space.” He said wrapping air quotes around the word. “The second one has our car, and the third is yours.”

I looked away with a nod.

“You found the way home.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m assuming you’re remembering a lot more?” I didn’t look at him when I asked.

He cleared his throat. “I don’t remember anything recent. Do you remember the house?”

“I don’t remember it being so… big. We’re the only ones who live here right?”

“It’s only us. I guess I went a little crazy on the size.”

“I love it.” I whispered.

I moved from between the door and the car, shutting the door a little too forcefully. I instantly regretted, as a shooting pain raced through my entire body. I rested against the car to catch my breath. My leg was tender and I couldn’t put much pressure on it, which meant walking to the door was going to be an adventure I didn’t want to experience. My lungs no longer felt crushed by the weight of my ribs, but it was still hard to breathe. The only thing that kept me from wilting to the ground was the low flutter I could feel.

“Let me help you.” Andres said.

He pulled the keys from the ignition, closing his door, and making his way around the car. I wanted to refuse his help and make my way up to the house alone, but as stubborn as I
wanted
to be, my body was rebelling.

Fine, have it your way!
I thought bitterly.

I waited against the car for Andres to come around. Wrapping his arm around my waist, I leaned into his body for much needed support. I had no choice, but to put my arm around his back, he was too tall for me to put it around his neck without him having to hunch over. That would have been awkward enough having to watch, let alone having to actually do.

We made our way past the garages, it was dark, so when the lights above the garages clicked on one after another, I nearly screamed. Clutching to Andres, I buried my head in to his side. His arm tightened, gently, as he tried to sooth me.

“It’s okay Sara,” he said reassuringly. “It only the motion detector for the lights.”

I took a much needed breath and relaxed my clenched muscles. “I’m sorry.” I said feeling silly.

“Don’t be, I should have warned you.” He urged me forward.

With the light on, I could still see the tall pine trees that scattered the parts of the front yard. There were a few decretive trees among them and their leaves had already started to change colors, in preparation for fall. We moved up to the stone archway that led to the front door.

The house was very modern, and most of it was decorated with the stone accent. The stone and brick walls gave the house its neutral sandy color. The house was long, even for having a wide ‘L’ shape to it. There weren’t very many windows in the front, except for the second story and I recognized one as mine.

I stopped before walking up the steps to the doors and looked up at the towering entry way. The altering, layered, roofs of the second story gave the house more depth, adding to the height. Even with the house’s massive size, it managed to blend into landscaping. The forest in the back yard went with the matching pine trees in the front, camouflaging the house.

I stared at the front door. The glass in the middle was decorated with different colored shards of glass that caught the light and gleamed teasingly at me. Something I had been completely fascinated with. I frowned because I couldn’t remember why it had caught my attention. I was hesitant to go inside, and I didn’t know why. I felt like once we were on the other side and those doors closed, all my questions, everything that had happened tonight would be forgotten.

“Sara?” Andres said quietly.

I looked up at him, realizing he was waiting for me to follow him. We moved through the front door, and Andres unlocked the door. Pushing it open, he helped me inside, stopping so he could shut and lock the door. He turned the light on, illuminating the entrance with a small chandelier above the door.

The inside of the house was breathtaking. The vaulted ceilings made the whole entry way open and an inviting, which helped ease the slight intimidating feel of the size. Stone lain stairs, with a mental railing, greeted you, curving slightly to the right and leading to the second floor. There was a small balcony loft, right off to the left when you reached the top of the stairs.

The kitchen was on the other side of the stairs, and the dining room was just beyond that through an arched doorway. The living room was off to the left and a bathroom, laundry room, and another room was also in the back corner of the house. Most of the walls had the same stone accents throughout the house and fans scattered the house.

“Do you want to explore-”

I was shaking my head before he could finish, cutting him off. “I just want to go to bed.”

He helped me up the stairs and down the hall to my room. The door was closed, adjusting our weight, he pushed open the door. I don’t know if I had expected something to jump out at us or there be something different about the room, some kind of clue to explain everything that had happened to us the last few days, but everything looked the same.

I untangled myself from Andres, limping faintly into the room into the room. I continuing to scan everything, giving up when there didn’t seem to be any clues that were going to tell me anything. I had made a full circle around my room, and I stopped facing Andres who stood awkwardly, hovering just inside my room.

“Umm,” he finally managed to get out, clearing his throat loudly. “Are you feeling okay? How is the pain? Did you grab your pain pills from the car?

My hand had been in the pocket of my black hoodie, and I shook my hand, making the bottle of pain pills, that I had gotten from the small urgent care, rattle inside my pocket.

“Good, good. Take some before you go to sleep, it’ll help with the discomfort.”

Gee really, is that what pain pills do?
I bit my tongue.

“How did we get home?” I asked.

The last thing I could remember was falling asleep on the cot. I had wanted to stay away as long as I could, hoping My Wolf would come back to us, so I could just see that he was okay one last time. But the adrenaline that had coursed through my body, from the events of the night, had made me numb to everything. As the adrenaline wore off, everything my body had been through, settled and I was in excruciating pain, so I had welcomed the fade into unconsciousness. I fell asleep almost instantly.

When I woke again, the first thing I remembered seeing was the stars through the window. I touched my eye gently, realizing I could see out of both my eyes. The skin and muscle no longer felt swollen and painful. We were in a car and I was laying in the back seat. Tilting my head back, I looked further out the window, wincing as my body stretched. The severe pain I had been in earlier was now a dull ache in my sore muscles. My body felt… different and it had nothing to do with the combat it had endured earlier. I didn’t under stand what I was feeling.

If felt cold inside the car, and that could have been the sensation I was experiencing. I reached up to touch the icy windows with my fingertips, alerting Andres that I was awake. He looked back at me, I could see his mouth moving, but the words weren’t being registered. There was a whooshing sound in the background, making it hard to focus on what Andres was saying. It suddenly felt colder inside the car and sleep became impossible to fight. Not that I ha
d
tried or wanted too.

I didn’t remember how we got to town, or even what the name of it was. Andres had found the small urgent care, and carried me inside, insisting that I be seen immediately, and I was taken back without any questions. Andres has explained that we had been ‘hiking’ and I had fallen down the trail, hitting a tree on the way down, which technically wasn’t far from the truth.

While we waited for the doctor, I questioned Andres about the gash on my thigh that was only a fading scratch now. He told me that it hadn’t been as bad we thought, but the blood soaked around the rip in my jeans, told a different story. The doctor had come in then. They did an x-ray finding nothing, but scares from what looked like an old break.

“Scars?” I remember asking.

The doctor had looked confusingly at Andres. “You’ve broken your ribs before. Don’t you remember?”

Andres had stumbled over the explanation, before I finally interjected. “It must have slipped my mind.”

He patted my hand reassuringly, giving me a sympathetic smile. “Of course dear. You’ve been through a lot.”

He gave me a shot for the remaining pain, and told me if would help me sleep. He wrote me a prescription for pain medication, and sent us on our way. I passed out again the minute my head touched the headrest. I didn’t remember anything after that, except for bits and pieces. I would wake up for seconds while Andres lifted me here, or put me there, but everything had been fuzzy, like I was in a dream.

I had been so caught up in my own memory that I had tuned out Andres, catching only the end of his story.

“…we took the last connecting flight to
Phoenix
,
Arizona
, and I rented a car there at the airport to drive us home.”

I just nodded my head, not really wanting to ask him to repeat everything, but the last part. The only part about the trip home was the plane, and only because finding out we had been in another country on the other side of the planet, wasn’t something you just forgot.

“I should let you rest now.” He said, about to retreat.

“Do you think anyone was looking for us? I mean, do we just go missing and no one thinks to file a missing persons report? No one wonders where we are? How long have we been gone?”

“Not long,” he said. I wanted to ask him how he knew, but he was talking again. “No one thought to file a report, because we haven’t really been missing. We were going on vacation Sara. Our neighbors knew we would be gone.”

“Isn’t the question of how and why we were taken, and buried in ice, halfway around the world bothering you at all?! You’re so calm about all of this, like its normal, and it makes me wonder what you’re not telling me. Aren’t you angry?”

I wanted to scream and yell at him, I wanted him to snap out of it! Pretend like he cared about what had happened to us. I wanted him to stop acting like a robot!! I knew that my anger toward him went much deeper than his frustrating calmness about the whole situation.

“Calm down Sara,” he said gently. “Of course I want to know. I plan to find out what exactly is going on, but my main concern was getting you home and making sure you were safe. I needed to be focused and clearheaded about everything, and I couldn’t do that if I was worrying about all the wrong things. I have no doubt everything will be explained, we just have to be patient.”

I wanted to scream at his explanation, even if it
did
make a
little
sense. It still sounded cryptic, and I was sure there was a hidden message in there somewhere. I was too tired to argue with him anymore, and I was wanted him to go away, so I could lose myself in sleep.

“Whatever you say Andres.” I rubbed my forehead. My head had started to pound.

“Get some rest Sara. You’ve been through hell and back.”

That wasn’t something I needed to be reminded of.

I put my hand on the door, to close it, but I remembered something else, and pulled it open again.