Brush of Shade (35 page)

“Have you
learned your lesson?” Zombie guy asked when I recovered enough to blink
helplessly up at his gruesome face. He’d loosened his grip around my neck and
was now squatting at my side. While I choked on saliva and bile, the hand
returned to my chest. The first pulse stung like a hard slap. The second tore a
scream out of my lungs as my chest burned. The hand clamped around my neck,
cutting off my scream. I struggled for air, my chest heaving and my ears
roaring.

“Time to go.
Goodbye, Warden.” Zombie guy grabbed me by the
wrist and dragged me into a pile of wet, slick branches. Blurred hands aimed
for the brick planter and punched the air. Bricks exploded. The air filled with
the sound of tree limbs grinding across the brick façade of the house.

Zombie guy
vanished. Unlike the Whisperer, I couldn’t move like lighting or use my hands
for anything but trying to shove my way through the heavy curtain of boughs
crashing to the ground. The patio shuddered beneath me. I was engulfed and
flattened within seconds. It came to me in a flash of insight. After all those
months of wishing the crash had taken my life, I was now prepared to do
anything to keep the promise of this valley from being snatched away. I’d spent
too long thinking I was broken. I was a survivor. Screw dying, I wanted
answers. Too bad the seconds on my clock had wound down.

Fury raked my
mind. Desperation gouged.

My ears still rang
from the first explosive boom that had accelerated into an unbroken chain of
explosions. So far, I’d avoided being crushed by the tree trunk or having my
body speared by the pointy end of branches wider than my arms. For all I knew,
zombie guy was out there watching for movement. I decided why tempt fate by
trying to get out when my quota for luck had to be due to run out soon.

Boots moved in
my narrow field of vision, a two-foot, square patch of brickwork almost within
arm’s reach. My pulse beat harder.
Had the man come back to
finish me off?
The hem on a pair of washed-out blue jeans materialized.
Branches rustled. Pine boughs were lifted off my legs and back.

“
Livi
, are you hurt?” Shade demanded. “Don’t move. You may
have broken something.”

“I seem to be in
one piece for a change,” I replied. My voice had gotten rough again and my
throat hurt. I pushed up onto my knees and shook out my hair. Sawdust and pine
needles rained onto my face. He took hold of my arm to help me onto my feet. I
felt the barbed sting from his amped up vibrations all the way through my
winter jacket.

“Shade, be
visible,” I ordered air that was empty from his knees up. He was slow—by valley
measurements—to comply and even then from his neck up he’d stayed just this
side of obeying. I meant to say something, but I was distracted by the state of
the patio. Kindling, sawdust, and pine needles coated everything. Most of the
gutter, that had lined the upper story along the back of the house, now
resembled an abstract sculpture of a gigantic octopus.

“You decimated
almost thirty feet of tree in seconds?” I exclaimed. “Wish I’d seen that.”

“You saw too
much. You were supposed to be downstairs. Safe.”

“Extenuating
circumstances, you see, Shadow had collapsed by the gate.”

“Is that true? You
just had to jump back into the fight. If you’d come straight back here, none of
this would’ve happened,” Shade yelled over his shoulder at Shadow who was
standing in the middle of the yard, staring at the forest.

“Quit scowling.
This,” Shadow replied, his gaze sweeping the yard, “could’ve been worse if
Olivia hadn’t knocked out the monster
vibing
the top
of my skull. She improvised and kept her head. I’m going to have to down grade
her designation from drama queen to something a bit more kick ass. What now? Do
we hunt?”

“Now?
You get medical treatment. How many punches got
through?”

“Please, I
haven’t been dethroned in years. They were love taps.”

“You only keep
the throne because I’ve got better things to do than play games.”

“Train, brother.
Not games,” Shadow corrected. “Things
would’ve been different if you’d gotten here sooner after I called.”

“Mason took a
hit, might’ve cracked a rib. They had him cornered like wild animals with fresh
meat, crazed and blood thirsty. They’re licking their wounds. But just in case,
I should head back to make sure Mason gets to the clinic in one piece.”

 “I’m
good,” Shadow coughed, “to vibe.”

“You’re
operating on pure adrenaline,” Shade argued. “This was never meant to be your
fight. You’re a school teacher. I’m the bureau man, as you put it.”

“I held my own.”

The storm door
opened and Aunt Claire stepped out onto the ruined patio. “I see I’m going to
have to soothe the collective again. Reports are already coming in from
enforcers reporting the extent of the damage. Vibe residuals crisscross the
forest making a hunt impossible. Just in case you’re tactics weren’t
persuasive, enforcers are sweeping the surrounding area. Shadow, in a couple of
minutes, an ambulance will be arriving in front of the house. I expect you to
get in it. Your father will meet you at the clinic. Shade, update the enforcers
and contact your bureau. I want more officers assigned to shifts, starting with
what’s left of this morning.”

Now that I was
standing still, I noticed the bite to the early morning temperature. Even
though I was shivering and couldn’t wait to get inside to strip off pajama
pants that were soaked through above the knees, there were things I needed
cleared up. “You knew what was going on the whole time?” I asked Aunt Claire.
It came out like an accusation. Anger—that I couldn’t be certain was only
mine—made my voice hard and unforgiving. “I thought you were asleep. I didn’t
know what to do. They were laughing and treating Shadow like a punching bag. I
thought they were going to kill him. I couldn’t stop them.”

“Sweetie, I’m
sorry you were frightened. I’ve not had Ethan’s years of practice.
Differentiating between and conversing with so many voices at once is taxing. I
wanted to respond to you, but I couldn’t. And no, I didn’t know every detail,”
she answered, her watchful gaze taking in Shadow being supported by Shade. “Now
please, all of you get inside where it’s safe,” she said, holding open the
storm door.

***

About an hour
after Shadow had been taken to the clinic, several cars and trucks pulled into
the driveway. Commander
Bradeck
and Mr. Cassidy
followed my aunt down to the clan room, but the third gentlemen in their group
accompanied Shade into the living room to speak privately. From the tense
expression on Shade’s face, I reasoned the gentleman must be the commander of
the Protector’s Bureau. Since I’d just disobeyed several rules regarding my
safety, I decided to go hide out in my room.

From my window,
I checked out the destruction caused by the attack. Across huge swatches of the
yard, snow that had been almost knee deep had been cleared down to the grass.
Many trees both on my property and in the surrounding forest had lost limbs or
had been knocked down. I opened my window and leaned outside to check out the
damage to the house. Several of the shutters had broken off and the entire
section of bricks between the corner of the house and my bathroom needed to be
replaced. Next, I checked on my dad’s gazebo. I wished I could go down there to
look it over in person. Several workmen with saws were already working in that
corner of the yard, cutting up limbs and stacking them into neat piles. The
whine of the motors made me wince. I pulled the window down and just stood
there, thinking about how the yard had looked before the attack, so pristine
and beautiful.

 Between my
late night at the Cassidy’s and now this, I was exhausted. My head felt like it
was being squeezed through a press, turning my thoughts into pulp. I pressed my
forehead against the cold glass for relief from the sudden dizziness. The
effort to remain standing became too much. I slid down to my knees in a dazed,
open-eyed stupor. My chin rested on the windowsill while disjointed film clips
with the grainy texture from the era of silent movies, played inside my skull.
A row of men stood at attention with their faces averted. Stone bleachers were
stacked so high that I lost them in the shadows. A blood tipped knife clattered
against a massive marble slab. Flared nostrils and thinned lips twisted into an
expression of rage. As the reel gathered momentum, I flashed on the desperate
desire to please and the bitterness of failure.

 I rubbed
my palm back and forth across the sill. The scrub brush feel of the worn,
raised grain across my smooth palm scraped away the lingering impression of the
knife hilt clamped in my tight fist. Little did it help to expunge the terrible
desire to plunge the blade into a warm, beating
heart.
  

“What are you
doing? Targets don’t sit in front of windows,” a man yelled. A half second later
he followed his outburst with a shaken exclamation. “
Livi
,
what did you do to your hand?”

I whimpered and
blinked up at glaciers. The name intertwined with the anxious face eluded me,
but the face comforted. For the moment, that was enough. I was conscious of
being carried to a bed and laying there while he applied bandages to my palm.
When he was done, blankets were molded tight around my shivering body.

“The cold must
have frozen your brain while you were foolishly disobeying my orders, again.”
Worry took the sting out of the man’s scolding.

Hands slid
beneath the blankets, along my cold arms, and then finally onto the cotton
fabric at my stomach. Delicious warmth stole through me. A hot breath tickled
my cheeks.

“You scared
years off me. What did I tell you about taking on a Whisperer by yourself?”

The fierceness
etched into the man’s face frightened me. Muscles in his jaw throbbed as he
leaned down close to my ear and unleashed a blast of unchecked frustration.
“Well, aren’t you going to answer? I know you’re awake. Is it so difficult to
follow my orders? Do you have no respect for me and my oaths?”

His fears
touched me, calling out to my heart.
Shade
, how could I have forgotten
his name?

I wanted to
touch his cheek and smooth away the tiny, tense lines at the corners of his
eyes and mouth. It was a silly notion, and one I wasn’t brave enough to carry
out.

Ignoring his
scowl, I wiggled until I was sitting up. I wanted to make sure I stayed awake
and in my own head. “This is what you and Sister Willow meant, isn’t it? I
caught somebody’s intentions. But it can’t be. I wasn’t part of a joining, or
close enough to a Whisper to accidently pick up anything.” I gasped. “Someone
just connected without me even knowing. Is that what happened? Does this mean I’m
a book to be browsed without my consent?” I turned towards the window,
expecting to discover my yard filled with people waiting for their opportunity.

“You are
Pepperdine and our warden. No one browses without permission,” Shade replied as
though that really did answer all aspects of my questions.

My stomach
clenched uncomfortably, churning in anger at my enemies for the fear that
accompanied my life and at Shade for seeing me as a weak, frightened girl that
couldn’t handle the truth. “You must be wrong. It just happened. Everything was
fine then out of nowhere I felt too heavy, like I was being crushed,” I argued,
twisting my hands into my bed sheets, aggravating the scratches I’d gotten
during the battle outside.

“Hold on. You’re
not talking about knowing Shadow was in danger. Something happened up here?”

“That’s what I’m
trying to tell you. I was looking out the window, then
bam
, I was being
crushed.”

“Crushed by
what?” he demanded. Hooded eyes narrowed to cat like slivers of shining white.
Firm hands held my cheeks, drawing me closer until our foreheads touched. “Why
did you injure your palm?” he asked in a silky tone that wormed its way past my
startled denial.

Like clothes
tumbling in a dryer, his scorching emotions twisted, curled, and intertwined
intrusively into mine. Seething rage hunted and chased, wearing me down to make
way for predatory cunning’s interrogation. Finally, when I could bear no more
of this brutal revelation of my friend, I shrieked, “Get out of my head.”

Shade snapped to
attention. Semi-transparent hands cushioned his head. Towering glaciers tumbled
into crystal seas. “
Livi
, don’t give in. Fight,” he
ordered. “Let me help.”

 “Stay out
of my life,” I commanded. My jaw clamped shut, refusing to open so I could cancel
the order. Corrosive voices applauded their puppet. Then, like vultures ripping
into fresh kill, they slashed open unbearable memories straight from my worst
moments of the accident, slicing and parrying hope into bloody strips. The
barren state of my existence suffocated my will. What was the point of going
on, I despaired? My hand tightened within the constraints of the bandage. All
too clearly I remembered the smooth, balanced weight of the knife in my palm. I
craved the feel of hot blood coating my hand. A picture formed in my mind of
the knife sinking to its hilt in my stomach.

Perfect. Do
it now. End this wretchedness
.

 “Olivia
Rose Pepperdine, obey the words of your defender,” Shade commanded. “Deny the
fetid touch. Focus on the spiraling bands in my eyes. Breathe slow and steady.
Feel the cadence of my voice tapping against your temple. Notice the gentle
stroke of my emotions across your mind. Soak them up. Hear my words that bring
truth and peace. Know you are safe in my care. Olivia, never forget, my warden,
that you are the heart of this valley. Your being strums our soul music.”

My bed squeaked
from the violence of the tremors sweeping my body. Ice-crusted seas pulled me
in, forming an ice pack between me and something terrifyingly vile. Coated by
the sheer ferociousness of Shade’s conviction, he became my sturdy shore. I
sagged and was cradled by his strength.

“Give yourself a
few minutes for your mind to sort itself out,” he said calmly. One look at the
clusters of icy seas and towering icebergs that were his eyes showed just how
far he was from achieving that particular state. “I promise everything is
fine.”

“Fine?”
I cried tremulously. “If you hadn’t been here . . .
If I’d had a knife, I would’ve plunged it into my heart.”

“I’m here,
Livi
,” he said gently, catching up my hands to keep me from
rubbing at the bandage. “Sorry I was so callously brutal before. You’ll be
alright now. I shoved out the voices and the imprint has been contained.”

“Voices?
The what? It’s in my mind, still?” I shrieked,
trembling harder.

“But not part of
you, hon.
We’ll
get it removed, I swear,” he said,
pressing my cheek against his while his long fingers entwined in my hair.

“What manner of
person would place such a command in another’s mind? Am I hated that much?”

“Turn away
before you grant it entrance.”