The Healer: A Young Adult Romantic Fantasy (The Healer Series Book 1) (18 page)

I wanted to pound my fists into the bed when, for the first ten seconds, nothing happened.

Then something did happen.

One random, microscopic blood cell began to heal. I nearly cried out with excitement, but instead, I mentally held my breath and waited to see if anything else would happen….and it did. Several white blood cells were beginning to change, to morph into healthy contributing members of Kirby’s body.

I could feel tears slowly slip from my closed lids as more and more immature cells responded to me. I sensed his life force in the background, a silent observer to the events taking place. I was certain this form of healing was completely unorthodox, and his life force knew it. The slight uneasiness concerning the method I used became overshadowed by the simple fact that I was succeeding.

I am healing Kirby’s body!

I continued to give specific instructions to as many mutated blood cells as I could, but I was definitely getting tired. I wanted to keep going, but my strength was swiftly ebbing away. Once my instructions halted, I waited to see if any other white blood cells would jump on board even though I was no longer showing them how to do it. His body continued its slow transformation with more mutated blood cells catching on and some cells being eradicated altogether.

Elation coursed through me. His life force had managed to remember the instructions and healed his body without my supervision. I couldn’t believe it had worked. I’d been able to show over one thousand mutated cells how to heal themselves. Another thousand cells had actually terminated themselves, lowering his white blood count considerably, and now the rest of his disease might be completely eradicated within the next few days.

I took my hands away from Kirby’s head and opened my eyes, intending to rush to my father’s office and share with him my amazing news. The harsh hospital lighting made me wince, and my headache returned in full force. My body would heal itself soon, but I wasn’t interested in sticking around until it did. I needed a bed, and I needed it now.

Kirby had a private room, so finding an extra bed next to him wasn’t an option. I weakly stood and immediately grabbed my head with both hands as a brilliant streak of white light shot behind my eyes and hammered into the back of my skull. I managed to make it out the door, but practically dragged myself to the elevator. My vision blurred, and the pain increased with every step I took.

By the time I hit the elevator button and lurch past its quivering doors, the pain became unbearable and leveled me to the floor. I wasn’t sure how the elevator made it to the first floor, and I didn’t care. As soon as the doors opened a loud commotion greeted me, and then a warm hand touched my forehead. I winced and cried out in pain.

“Hope, what happened? Are you all right? Did someone hurt you?” The voice sounded familiar.

“Vict…?” I tried to say his name, but forming small noises let alone complete words overwhelmed me.

“Move over, Vicky,” said another familiar voice. Two sets of hands were placed against either side of my head. “This shouldn’t be happening.

We have to fix this now.”

“We can’t fix it in front of all these people, Tie.”

“She doesn’t have much time left!”

Their voices sounded distant, muffled, and laced with panic. I might have been able to reassure them that I was okay if my tongue hadn’t felt so swollen. All I really wanted them to do, at this point, was beat me unconscious with a sledgehammer.

They lifted me off the ground. I let out an agonized scream, barely recognizing it as my own. The next few minutes were a blur of head shattering noises, jarring movements, and an occasional human being talking so loudly it sounded as if they were yelling through a microphone inside my head. I registered the panicked tones of my dad’s voice at one point, but my uncontrollable screaming began to overshadow everything else.

After a few more minutes of endless noise, pain, movement, and shouting, they lowered me onto something warm and soft. It was terribly painful. Tie’s hands—I thought they were Tie’s—landed on my head again, and bright flashes of gold and orange soothed the pain away. Something pricked my shoulder and then a warm sensation spread up my arm, towards my head, down my spine, and out through my toes.

I wanted to stay awake. I needed to figure out why my body hadn’t healed itself. My life force had never allowed me to experience debilitating pain for any real length of time. I tried to open my eyes and take in my surroundings, but they refused to cooperate. All I could see in front of me was blessed, pain-free oblivion. I stopped fighting and embraced it wholeheartedly.

* * *

I wasn’t sure how long I’d been walking, but I felt strangely serene considering how lost I’d become. There was a white path before me, rolling green hills on either side of me, and all around me red cherry blossoms were falling from the sky. I reached my hands out to catch the falling petals, never for one minute thinking it strange that blossoms were falling from heaven. As I did so, I noticed my arms were enveloped in white, silky sleeves that draped from my wrists to the porcelain looking floor beneath me. I wore a white silk kimono with a long train billowing out the back. I stopped my trance-like gliding in order to observe more closely the swirling floral designs stitched into the fabric of the silken gown. Every flower resembled the flowing lines of a cherry blossom. I picked up the folds of my dress and continued my walk down the white, winding path.

In a detached sort of way I wondered why I wore such an outfit. Of course, I wasn’t sure where I was going or why I continued to walk down the path that twisted before me, but I felt as if my destiny awaited for me just beyond the sharp bend ahead. The blossoms continued to rain down upon me, and my eagerness to reach this unknown destination made my earlier graceful movements choppy and slightly less coordinated, especially with my long silken kimono tangling around my wedged shoes. I finally kicked them off and gathered the front of my gown into a large mound. I lifted the beautiful material to knee level and began running as fast as I could toward what I hoped would be the end of this mystery.

Upon reaching the bend in the path, I followed it right and continued running. I’d moved several yards forward when another person rose up before me in the distance. My heart nearly leaped from my chest, but I couldn’t account for the cause. My body seemed to be responding to the stranger. My feet propelled me forward until I stood a few feet away from him.

I couldn’t believe it was Tie. His smug smile beamed brightly through the onslaught of blossoms that fell at a much more rapid pace. His golden hair had an otherworldly glow to it, and his clothes were bright white and silken as well.

He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

I wanted to speak to him, ask him what was happening and demand he tell me why we were here, but before I could do so he lifted his empty hand out invitingly and a cherry blossom the color of ebony suddenly appeared, hovering above his proffered hand. Its black hue took on the darkest shades of midnight. It was a startling contrast against the white of our apparel and the red blossoms falling all around us.

“Take it,” he said softly.

“Why?” I felt mesmerized by his crystal blue eyes.

“It belongs to you. It always has, and it always will.”

The blossom’s ebony petals glistened enticingly within my reach. I stepped forward hesitantly and reached out my hand to take it.

“Wait,” said a commanding voice.

I turned around, surprised to see Victor a few feet behind me. His jet black hair matched the blackness of his own attire, and his striking features looked stormy and forbidding. His presence agitated everything. A strong gust of wind began whipping the folds of my kimono. My long, dark tresses blew haphazardly around me. I pulled them back in frustration so I could better see and understand the look of anger—or maybe it was betrayal—radiating from the depths of Victor’s eyes.

The cherry blossoms showering down upon us began changing from red to midnight black. I turned to my left as a statue of a kneeling woman with her arms outstretched materialized out of thin air. I looked down and stared at my apparel in amazement. It was no longer white, but blood red.

My focus shifted between Tie and Victor. The black blossoms swirled around us all, creating a dark blanket which shut out every shred of light. The darkness pulled me under, leaving me feeling hollow, empty, and hopeless.

Chapter Ten

“You say you found her passed out in the elevator?” My father’s voice echoed from a great distance.

“Yes, sir. She really had us frightened. When I saw her this morning at school she seemed perfectly fine to me.”

I recognized Victor’s deep, soft voice almost immediately, and then I wondered if my father knew who he was actually talking to. After what he knew about Victor and Tie, I was pretty sure my father would be less than anxious to have a conversation with either one of them.

“Does she usually get migraines like this? I mean, with the way she was screaming I thought she was going to die.” Victor’s voice shook when he spoke.

I was touched he actually seemed to care about me. I wondered, though, if he was also trying to fish some information out of my father that might help him prove his theories concerning my powers. I hoped my dad would play it safe and be cautious about what he said.

“Never,” my dad replied. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen Hope in that much pain.”

Wow. He is obviously clueless
.

I became frantic, trying to pull myself up and out of the sleep induced fog surrounding my mental processes. I did my best to open my eyes and move my arms which were resting limply on either side of my body.

I soon realized that any attempt at arm movement would be futile. I was now willing to settle for finger flexing and some possible toe wiggling.

“Hey, I think she’s waking up,” Victor said.

I felt someone grab my hand and squeeze it softly a few times.

“Hope, honey? Can you hear me?” my father asked.

I had to lick my lips a couple of times and swallow. It felt like a small desert had taken up residence within my mouth.

“What in the world did you give me?” I croaked out.

“She’s fine,” my dad said.

I opened my eyes a little more and squinted, afraid another blinding streak of light would hit me, and the pain would start all over again. The room was mostly dark, however, and the only light I noticed came from the hallway.

Did I miss the rest of the afternoon, somehow?

“Dad, how long have I been out?” I asked feeling confused.

“Not long. Maybe twenty minutes. Which is surprising when you consider the amount of drugs I gave you would have knocked a small elephant out for a decade.”

I cringed, knowing Victor probably thought any normal human being would still be unconscious right now. I worried about how I had missed half the day. Healing Kirby must have taken up the entire afternoon. I turned my head slowly to the right and took in Victor’s strained features and mussed up hair. He looked like he needed to sit down.

“Victor, what brings you to the hospital?” I asked, making sure I emphasized his name for my father’s benefit. I felt my father’s hand stiffen on mine and then relax imperceptibly.

“When I couldn’t find you after school let out I asked your friend Angie if she knew where you might be. She said I’d probably find you at the hospital.” He looked a little sheepish for having followed me here.

I would’ve thought his expression cute if I hadn’t been distracted by the huge lecture I was already forming inside my drug addled brain when next I saw Angie. She was more than dead to me. She was extra dead to me.

“I also had to drive Tie over here because the nurse at the school eventually decided her stomach was too delicate for the type of nose job he required. We were kind of hoping your dad could fix him up,” he finis

hed.

So they’d decided to continue this charade even though Tie could have healed himself instantly. Granted, his overnight healing might have looked suspicious, but who really wants to be in that much pain any longer than they have to? I knew I didn’t.

Tie’s presence here at the hospital made Victor’s face sour at the thought. It had become easier to read people’s emotions over the last two days, and I didn’t know what to think about it. From the nervous look on my father’s face it was obvious he wasn’t too thrilled either.

“So where is Tie?” I asked, surprised he wasn’t in the room with us.

“He was the one who picked you up in the elevator, actually.” Victor’s admission came out grudgingly. “When we got to the floor your father was on, a nurse took one look at Tie’s face and attempted to make him wait in one of the other hospital rooms. He put up quite a fight.”

The small smile tugging at the corner of Victor’s mouth made me want to laugh a little. These boys were so petty with each other. They really could’ve been brothers.

“Was Tie the one I saw being dragged out of this room by three security personnel and Betty?” my dad asked in startled amusement.

Victor’s grin broadened big time.