“HEY!” I heard Lily say in a raised voice. “I’ve been calling your name for the last five minutes!”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear you,” I told her before turning my attention back to the spoon.
“LUCIAN!” she shouted. A moment later he walked in the room. “Do me a favor and take her out of here; she’s going to break my spoon,” she told him.
He looked over at me, one eyebrow raised. Then he saw me bend it and laughed. Lily looked at him and folded her arms.
“Come on, Keira, before she hits me with something,” he smirked.
I threw the spoon to her and walked out with him. Just before we got to the living room he stopped me.
“Why didn’t you tell me John had called your name?” he asked.
“I don’t know…I guess I didn’t want to freak you out more than I already had.”
“Keira, you don’t have to keep things from me. OK?”
“OK, I’m sorry,” I said and kissed him on the cheek.
We went back in the living room with the guys and waited for Lily to call us.
Chapter 16
Healer
We all sat around the dining room table while Lily served us the first of our three courses. For our starter we all had a prawn cocktail – it was beautiful. Our main course was homemade lasagna with a side salad. It was cooked to absolute perfection, and for desert we had my favorite, piping-hot homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream.
“Lily, I think we should get married,” Jake laughed. “Then you can cook for me every night.”
“Get real,” she told him, smiling.
“That was gorgeous,” Tyler and Lucian told her.
“I agree but I think you would have to cook it again, say tomorrow night, just to make sure it really was that nice,” Danny joked.
“I’d cook every night, I love it,” she told them all, pleased.
“Right, pass us your plates. Lily cooked so I’ll do the dishes,” I told them.
“You mean you’ll put them in the dishwasher,” Lucian pointed out.
“Yeah, that too,” I said, making a face at him.
Tyler got up to give me a hand.
We had just put the pots on the side and opened the dishwasher door when we heard a loud smash. I turned to look at Tyler, who said it was probably one of the guys breaking a glass. Then we heard it again, only this time it was much louder. It sounded like it was coming from outside. We walked out of the kitchen to go and get the others but they were already out in the hall.
“Did you hear that?” Danny asked.
Then we heard it again – it was even louder now.
“It sounds like… windows breaking,” Lily said.
“Shit!” I shouted as I ran out the front door, the others following close behind me. “I’ve still got the old windows piled up in the side garden.”
As we got around the side of the house we saw two figures standing next to the piles of old windows.
“Hey!” I shouted, annoyed.
We made our way over to them. Both figures turned around quickly and came at us. Lily was the first to be hit. One of them sent her flying into the side of the house. Her body slammed against the wooden panels before she hit the floor and cried out in pain. The figures moved so fast it was hard for us to see them; it also meant we had little, if any, time to react. Tyler tried to throw an energy ball at one of them but completely missed. Not a second later he was on the ground next to Lily. Jake tried to run over to them but he was sent flying through the air, landing on one of the piles of windows. I grabbed Lucian and Danny.
“Don’t try to attack them! Don’t move!” I told them.
We watched for a moment as the figures came to a stop a few feet in front of us. They stood side by side for a minute before shooting towards us. I knew we wouldn’t be able to attack them quickly enough, so I put my arms up to try and defend myself, and closed my eyes. I waited and waited but nothing hit me and I didn’t leave the ground.
“Keira, look,” Danny whispered.
As I opened my eyes I saw both the figures suspended in mid-air. As though they were in suspended animation.
“How did you do that?” Lucian asked.
“I didn’t know I had.”
I moved my arms down a little from my face, but left them raised slightly for fear of the figures moving. I walked slowly towards them – I wanted to see their faces. But I didn’t get close enough. Tyler was now on his feet and sent two large energy balls at them, one each. As soon as they hit them they went crashing to the ground.
One of them quickly recovered and shot away; the other moved close to me and let out a terrible scream. It sounded like a thousand people being tortured and screaming out in pain. I covered my ears and stared at it – its face was human, but its skin looked as though it was rotting away, then it was gone. My ears were ringing so loud they were hurting me. I ran over to check on Lily. She was sore and her ears were hurting too, but she could stand and walk.
“Keira, quick!” I heard Lucian shout from next to the pile of windows Jake had landed on. I ran over with Tyler and Lily. Jake was hurt badly. The first thing I saw was the blood. His shirt and the top part of his jeans were covered in it. He was barely conscious.
“Jake!” Lily screamed now in tears. “Come on, baby, stay with me,” she said as she cupped his face.
“Where’s the blood coming from?” Danny asked as we searched him.
I ripped his shirt open and had to look away from a moment. There was a spike of glass sticking out of him. It had gone right through his back, just below his bottom rib, and out through his stomach.
“Get an ambulance!” Lily cried, on the brink of hysteria.
“They won’t get here in time,” Tyler panicked. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
Jake’s breathing was getting more erratic by the second. Every time he closed his eyes Lily shook him and shouted his name.
“We need to get him off here and inside,” I told them.
“No, you can’t move him, you’ll kill him!” Lily screamed.
I walked over to her and grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard for a moment.
“If we leave him here he will die,” I told her. “Lucian, Danny, can you get him in the house?”
“Yes, but…” Danny started to say.
“Good! Tyler, go and knock everything of the dining table and get a pillow.”
He ran inside quickly.
“GO!” I shouted.
They pulled him off the windowpane and carried him into the house, straight to the dining room. Everything that was on the table was now on the floor. Glasses, wine bottles, salt and pepper shakers…They lay him on the table and put the pillow under his head. I made all the chairs fly to the edges of the room. As I stood beside him, Lily grabbed my arm.
“Keira, please, I’ve never asked you for much. Please don’t let him leave me, please,” she pleaded, her face tear-stained. “Please, I’m begging you…I’ll do anything…”
I didn’t know what to do – seeing him and Lily like that was breaking my heart. The glass was still inside him. If I moved it, it would kill him, and if I left it there it would still kill him.
“What good are two powers if you can’t heal someone,” I said out loud as my eyes turned white. “Lily, you need to hold his hand.”
She ran around the other side of the table and held his hand tight in both of hers.
“What are you going to do?” Danny asked me, frightened. “What do you want us to do?”
“Pray!”
I held my left hand just above where the glass was sticking out. An aura of white light appeared over my skin all the way down my arm. The others watched in silence as the glass shard slowly rose out of him. I grabbed it with my other hand and passed it to Danny. Jake started bleeding more heavily and he was starting to shiver.
“Keira!” Lily cried.
“Be quiet!” I commanded in a voice that was a mixture of my own and something else.
<
br /> I put my hand against the gash, covering it completely. His skin and my hand began to glow a brilliant white. His breathing returned to normal and he opened his eyes. When I moved my hand away from him, there was no sign of a wound – his skin was healed and there was no scar. The only evidence that remained was the blood on his clothes. Tyler and Lucian sat him up just in time for Lily to grab him and hold him close to her. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his head in her neck.
A great feeling of relief suddenly washed over me and I felt a tear run down my cheek. It was at that moment, watching them all together, that I realized how much I cared for them. It was also when I realized, even before they had, that Lily and Jake were in love.
My eyes hadn’t calmed down yet and I was glad. There was one more thing I had to do. I walked out of the dining room and back outside to where the windows were. I stood there staring at them for a moment. You could see Jake’s blood on the middle pile.
“Keira,” I heard Tyler say softly. He was standing beside me. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. Stand back,” I said, turning to look at him for a moment.
He went to stand near the porch. The ground started to shake violently. I heard the others come running out and Tyler telling them to stay away. I raised my arms above my head then pulled them apart slowly, as though I was stretching outwards. At the same time the ground beneath the three piles of windows split and pulled apart. The windows fell and disappeared down the open void and a strong wind blew the smashed glass shards in after them. Once it was all gone I put my arms back together and the ground closed up, then the wind disappeared. I turned around, eyes still white, and looked at everyone. They were all staring at me; I started to feel really uneasy until Jake slowly walked over to me and hugged me tight.
“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. Saying thank you just isn’t enough,” he said as he hugged me tighter and tighter.
“Just seeing you walking, seeing you and Lily happy again, Jake, that’s all I need. You don’t need to thank me,” I told him, hugging him back. That was when my eyes returned to normal. “Come on, let’s go back inside.”
We all tidied the dining room up in silence before heading into the living room. I sat down on the sofa, then I noticed that the only other person to sit down was Jake. The others were glaring at me.
“What?” I asked impatiently.
“How did you do that?” Danny asked.
“I just did.”
“I think there is something you’re not telling us.” Lucian shot.
“Pardon!”
“I do. You heal someone, talk in a voice that was half yours and half…inhuman, then you crack the earth open like it’s nothing, make it swallow things and then stick it back together again without leaving a trace…” he thundered, hardly stopping to take a breath.
“He’s alive, isn’t he?” I snapped. “What else matters?”
“Everything!” he shouted. “Stop lying and keeping things from us.”
“I’m not!” I shouted back.
“Calm down, everyone,” Tyler said.
“Shut up!” Lucian scowled at him.
“No, leave her alone for God’s sake,” he said as walked over to me and grabbed my hand.
He walked us out of the master living room and into the smaller one at the back of the house. He sat down next to me on the sofa.
“Tyler, don’t fall out with them over me,” I told him.
“He’s out of line,” he shot.
“The truth is I’m not keeping anything from you. I didn’t know I could do that before tonight. Same as I didn’t know I could put things into suspended animation. I’ve never had to do these things before, so they’re new to me.”
“I know. What was going through your mind when you heeled Jake?” he asked.
“I was just willing it to happen. I don’t think I’ve ever willed anything to happen so hard before. But it felt natural, like I didn’t have to will it to happen at all.”
“You sounded different too.”
“I noticed that, but I don’t know why,” I said, lowering and shaking my head.
“Did you feel different in any way?”
“I did actually. I would say I felt strange but in a way I didn’t. I just felt…like me. Like that’s how I should be or…I’m not making sense, am I? I can’t explain it. It’s like I knew I was me, and I was in control of me…but it was as though there was something else inside me, helping me, allowing what I wanted to happen to actually happen…”
“Like another part of you?”
“Yes, kind of…Jesus, Tyler, what else could I be capable of? Is there anything that I can’t do?” I said, looking him in his eyes.
“Maybe it’s another power. Maybe up until now you have only been using one of the two powers we know you have. That could be the explanation.”
“I wish I knew,” I said frustrated. “Now Lily isn’t speaking to me. Neither is Danny. Lucian is shouting at me and thinks I’m keeping things from him. Jake was out of it, so he doesn’t really know what happened. You’re the only one that never goes funny on me. That doesn’t shout at me or accuse me of things. Why?”
“I trust you. You’ve never tried to hurt us, you always help us, and you saved my dad’s life,” he said, then he looked down and spoke quietly: “Maybe you picked the wrong one to go out with…”
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said, standing up and walking towards the new stone fireplace. “So what now then?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Have you ever thought of going out somewhere, somewhere deserted where nobody will see you and putting your powers to the test? You know, seeing what you can really do?”
“No, I haven’t. I wouldn’t want to go on my own. When I use it seriously I find it hard to snap out of it. That may be one thing I haven’t told you I think.”
“What?”
“If I’m just moving a chair or making something float over to me, it doesn’t take much – it’s effortless. But when it’s something bigger, like making Lily fly or making the ground shake, my eyes turn –that’s when it’s hard to snap out of it. It feels like I shouldn’t have to,” I explained.
“You mean you feel natural and normal when your eyes change?”
“Yeah, as though that’s the real me.”
“Then stay like that.”
“I look scary.”
“No, you don’t. It suits you.”
“I can just imagine what any normal person would think,” I laughed.
“Yeah, I’d love to see their reaction; they’d shit themselves,” he said, laughing with me. “Seriously, though, why don’t you go and see what you can do?”
“I don’t know where to go.”
“I could show you a few places, or give you directions.”
“Would you come with me?”
“Are you serious?” he asked with wide eyes.
“Yes, but if you don’t want to, I’d understand.”
“Are you kidding? Miss out on watching you break loose? No way, I’m there; just let me know when you want to go.”
“Anytime,” I said, laughing at him.
“OK, tomorrow it is then. I’ll come and pick you up about ten.”
“Fantastic. I’ll tell you what, as a thank-you for taking me, I’ll drive us there and you can drive us back.”
“In your car?” he asked, his eyes going wider still.
“Yes.”
“Wahoo!” he said, getting giddy.
There was a knock at the door and Lily walked in. She walked straight up to me and hugged me.
“I don’t care what’s inside you…I don’t care how you talk or anything. As long as you’re my friend I don’t care. I love you to death and I don’t want to fight with you,” she said in tears.
“I don’t want to fight either, but I swear I’m not keeping anything from you,” I said, pulling away.
“I know you’re not. You promised
me you wouldn’t and I know you keep your promises.”
“Is Lucian still pissed?”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I’m tired. I’m going to get in the shower and then call it a night. Will you see them out?”
“Course I will.”
I gave them both a cuddle and went upstairs.
Chapter 17
Playtime
I woke up at 9:15 with butterflies in my stomach. I was both excited and nervous about going out with Tyler. I wanted to know what I could do, but I was also scared of losing control. I didn’t want to end up hurting Tyler or putting him in harm’s way. If he got hurt I’d never forgive myself. I knew he wouldn’t let me back out of it now though. I got washed and dressed and went to make some breakfast. Jake was already around and sitting in the kitchen with Lily.
“You’re up early,” Lily said to me.
“I know, I’m going out with Tyler at ten.”
“Oh, where you going?” Jake asked.
“I don’t actually know to be honest,” I told them.
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?” I asked him.
“Tyler likes you.”
“Good, he’s a great friend”
“No, I mean he likes you, Keira.”
“Does he?” Lily smiled
“Yeah, a hell of a lot. He was really upset when he found out things were going on with you and Lucian. He told me.”
“Well, at the moment there is nothing going on with me and Lucian.”
“I was waiting for that.”
“He didn’t even come and say goodbye to me last night” I said putting two pieces of bread in the toaster.
“He’s adamant you’re hiding something,” Lily said.
“Well, I’m not, and if he doesn’t trust me he can piss off!” I said sharply. “There’s no point being close to someone who doesn’t trust you.”
“Tyler trusts you,” Lily said
“Yeah he does – he’d trust you with his life,” Jake added.
“Are you trying to get me to go out with him?” I asked.
“No, just saying it as it is. Anyway Lucian and Danny will be around any minute now.”