Ignited (41 page)

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O
kay. This is going to hurt like hell.

Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the room, my movements piercing the alcoholic haze insulating Dean. He straightened to his full six-foot-three when he noticed me, his eye twitching when I stared back unblinking. Maybe he suspected I was a freak and it scared him. Maybe he was scared of himself, of what he wanted from me. I figured that’s why he mostly hit my mother when I wasn’t around.

Unknotting my hands from white knuckled fists, I hoped to defuse the tension before it exploded.

“You’re home early,” he said, his heavy-lidded stare straying over me without meeting my eyes.

Tall and plain, I was skinny with no curves, but that didn’t matter. My skin crawled when his pale blue eyes tracked me through a room. I went out of my way to stay away when he was alone in the apartment, but sometimes he managed to corner me in the shadows of our dim hallway. Sick in ways I couldn’t cure, he’d crowd me with his hulking body and laugh when I’d lurch away to avoid his touch.

The funny thing was that Dean looked like the grown version of that charming, innocent boy all the girls crushed on in high school. He had soft, blond curls and a friendly, open face that charmed the unaware. Perhaps that’s what had attracted Anna to him in the first place.

“Maybe I should call ahead next time?” I mused. “That way you could plan to finish beating my mother by 9:05, I can arrange to have the ambulance here by 9:10, and we can all be in bed by midnight.”

My flat voice held no sarcasm, only bitter resignation. Dean’s hands tightened into fists that could feel like steel. I’d stayed too long, trying to protect my mother, but Anna loved Dean more than anything. More than me. Dean loved how my father’s child support checks kept him drinking down to the worm at the bottom of his tequila bottles.

He stepped closer. “Gonna stop me, princess?”

My indifferent act never fooled him. After seeing Anna’s unconscious body on the floor, I wished I could kill him. I shuddered in anticipation of the brutality to come and the moment I would touch Anna. Never taking my eyes from him, I slid sideways to keep the threadbare couch and scarred coffee table between us. Anna moaned, and Dean’s gaze flicked to her, his lip curled in disgust.

“You think you’re a man because you beat up women?” I taunted to distract him.

His smile raised the hair on my arms. It was a smile of warning—a smile to predict the weather by because hell was sure to rain down on its recipient. “You think you’re better than me, kid, but you’re gonna respect me.” He whipped his belt from the loops of his dirty jeans. The buckle glinted in the light when he wrapped the black leather around his fist—a bright, shiny weapon.

Hate speared through me, along with paralyzing fear.
Better to make him angry,
I decided. Then, maybe, it would end faster. I sneered while sidling closer to Anna.

“Respect you? You’re barely human. A pathetic coward. You want to hit me, don’t you, Dean? Go ahead.”

I’d never ridiculed him before and, within two feet of Anna’s limp body, my courage faltered.
Stupid. Stupid. He’ll kill us both
. At least the ghoulish waiting game would be over. He’d come close enough to touch me when I whispered, “I dare you to try.”

He charged and pulled back his arm to hit me as I stepped in front of Anna. His fist landed in my stomach, and I tripped over her. My head bounced off the wall with a dull thud. Dean’s hand clamped around my throat, stalling my fall to the ground as he pinned me, and I inhaled the stale mix of sweat and tobacco wafting from him. Cutting off my breath, he smiled and squeezed his fingers until the pain weakened my knees.

Anna rolled at my feet and screamed, “No!” She jumped on Dean, trying to drag him off me, her red fingernails biting into his forearm. Desperate for air, I clamped one hand on his arm and clutched my mother with the other.

My eyes squeezed shut.
I’m dying,
I thought. Then my ability to think fractured. The mental wall barricading my power collapsed and, without the defense, Anna’s pain thundered through me, allowing me to see inside her body. I noted two broken ribs, a concussion, black eye, and bruises scattered all over her body. Dots of color popped against my closed lids in a spectacular fireworks show. My lungs constricted, and I embraced Anna’s aches, healing them and grafting her pain to my own.

Dean’s grip loosened as he stumbled beneath Anna’s attack, and he yanked her hair to toss her away. She sobbed, and the storm inside me doubled and tripled in size. I had failed to protect her. Filled with rage, I imagined all my pain striking Dean down like fiery lightning.

Violent red light sizzled between my hand and his arm. His face froze in horror as his body jerked and convulsed. A loud crack splintered the air—his ribs breaking or mine—and I passed out.

C
ORRINE
J
ACKSON
lives in San Francisco, where she works at a top marketing agency managing campaigns for several Fortune 500 clients. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English, and an MFA in creative writing from Spalding University. In addition to the Sense Thieves series she is the author of the young adult novel
If I Lie.
Visit her at CorrineJackson.com or on Twitter at @Cory_Jackson.

She didn’t know how far she’d go—until
she was pushed.

Remy O’Malley was just learning to harness her
uncanny healing power when she discovered the other,
darker half of her bloodline. Now she lives trapped
between two worlds, uneasy among her fellow Healers—
and relentlessly hunted by the Protectors.

Forced to conceal her dual identity—and the presence of
her Protector boyfriend, Asher Blackwell—Remy
encounters a shadow community of Healers who will
put her loyalties to the test.

Pushed to the limit, with the lives of those she loves most
on the line, Remy must decide whether to choose sides in
a centuries-old war—or make the ultimate sacrifice and go
to a place from which she may never return . . .

KTEEN BOOKS are published by

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New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2014 Corrine Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

KENSINGTON and the KTeen logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

ISBN: 978-0-7582-7335-2

First electronic edition: June 2014

ISBN-13: 978-1-61773-295-9
ISBN-10: 1-61773-295-8