Precipice (Tribe 2) (4 page)

“Get away from me!” I screamed.  “Look what you’ve done!  He’ll never come back!  He hates me.  He thinks I’m a monster.  You just had to get involved.  You had to stick your nose in where it didn’t belong, and now I’ve lost him!”  I clenched my fists, wailing in agony. 

“There will be other boys,” she soothed, ignoring my outburst.

“No,” I sobbed.  “There won’t.”

I knew my mother would think I was being melodramatic, but I wasn’t.  We had a deep connection, Alex and I.  I’d never felt that kind of bond with another human being.  I didn’t even feel that close to my own family—and we were closer than any non-Healer family that I knew.  It felt as if my soul had been torn from my body, and I didn’t know how I would go on without him. 

“Ember?”  River’s voice penetrated my fog of misery.  He must have heard the whole thing.

I didn’t respond. 

River tried to pull back the hair that had fallen into my face, and was now pasted to my cheek by the rivulets of tears.  “Mom,
” he said over his shoulder, “I think she just needs time alone.  Come on, Em.”

All I wanted was to remain hunched over on the floor and be left alone.  But I knew he was right—I had to go up to my room.  My mom would never leave me alone while I was downstairs. 

He took me by the elbow and helped me up, then followed behind as I walked woodenly up the stairs to my room. 

When I got to my door, I went inside and
tried to push the door shut behind me, but River stopped it with one hand. 

“Hey, give him time.  It’s a bizarre thing to find out.  But he’s a good guy.  I can tell.  He’ll come around.”

“No he won’t,” I said, turning away to sit on the edge of my bed, hugging myself and staring at the wall across from me.  “He just found out the girl he cares about has been lying to him all this time…and oh yeah, by the way, she’s a vampire.”

“Don’t say that!  You’re a Healer.  It doesn’t matter how the world would see us.  That’s what we are.  You, more than any of us.  You have the heart of a true Healer, Ember.  You’re what we all were meant to be, before modern technology forced us to go into hiding.  In the old days, we could be shamans, medicine men, apothecaries, midwives—anything that would mask what we truly are.  But now, our hands are tied.  We’re forced to hide our abilities, to watch people die unnecessarily, in order to avoid the genocide of our race.  But all you care about is being who you really are.  It pisses me off, sometimes, but it’s special.  Sometimes…sometimes I really envy you.”

His words moved me, but my heart ached too much to let his touching sentiments penetrate beyond my pain.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Just give it time, Em.  If he really cares about you, he’ll come around.”

That’s the problem
, I thought. 
He obviously doesn’t care about me anymore.

Chapter 6

I spent the rest of the afternoon crying.  Like an idiot, I listened to love songs that only made me cry harder, but I didn’t care.  I deserved the pain, anyway, for lying to Alex.  For ruining things between us.  I’d destroyed the one thing that mattered most to me, and I couldn’t seem to feel anything except agony. So I wallowed in it.  I refused to eat, refused to speak to my mother. 

I knew it wasn’t really her fault—at least not entirely—but I needed someone else to blame besides me, and she made the handiest scapegoat. 

My dad even tried to talk to me through the door, but I wouldn’t say a word.  Meadow came by, and tried to goad me into talking, but I just put a pillow over my head until she went away.

I must have cried myself to sleep, because the shadows were gathering in my room when I heard a noise that startled me awake.

“Em?”  It was River.  I could feel him standing at the foot of my bed.

“I locked my door for a reason.”

“Yeah.  I picked the lock for a reason.”

“You’re an ass.”

“Geez, is that any way to thank me?”

Guilt niggled my brain.  He
was
the only one trying to support me through this.  But couldn’t he see that I just wanted to be alone?  “Tell me what you want, and then get out.”  I kept my back to him, curled up in the same position I’d fallen asleep in.

The foot of my bed sank in as River sat on the end of it.  “I’m sorry about Alex.”

“Yeah,” I sniffed.  “Me too.  Is that all you wanted to say?”

“No,” he snapped.  “And stop being bitchy.  I’m trying to help.”

“No one can help.”

“Em, why don’t you stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to think about Alex for a minute.  Mom just informed him that the girl he has the hots for is a vampire.”

“Don’t say that!” I snapped.  I hated that word even more than Mom did.

“Hey, I’m just saying—to outsiders, that’s what they think of, when they hear about blood
-drinking.  That’s major.  No matter how much a guy likes a girl, that’s a lot to swallow.”

“It’s too much to swallow.  He’ll never speak to me again.”

“You don’t know that.  He probably just needed some time.  That’s not the kind of thing you hear and just go ‘Oh, so you drink blood? Okay.  Hey, you wanna go see a movie?’  Assimilating that in his brain takes time, you know?”

I sat up and looked at him.  “How much time?”

“I don’t know.  I’ve never had a girlfriend tell me she’s a monster.”

Snatching a pillow, I threw it at his head.  “That’s not funny!”

“Ow!”

“And you’ve never had a girlfriend, loser.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be mean about it.”  He tossed the pillow back at me. 

We both laughed—though my laugh was bitter. 

“Anyway,” I sighed, “I don’t think I’m his girlfriend.  Not anymore.  If I ever even was.”

“I saw the way he looked at you, Em.  He’s crazy about you.  Not that I can figure out why,” he grinned, “but he is.”

“He
was
.”

“He
is
.  He’ll come around.  I have faith in him.  He’s different than the rest.”  River stood.  “Anyway, I brought you this.”  He picked up a pint of blood from where he’d been sitting on the bed, and tossed it to me. 

“I don’t need it,” I said, tossing it back.

“Don’t make me lob this at your head.  Drink it.”  He tossed it back, harder, and I barely caught it.  “I counted the pints you put back last night.  You didn’t drink enough.”

“I did.”  I set the bag beside me.

“You didn’t.”

“
One pint was enough.  I only healed her a little, like a promised.”

“Yeah, but healing severe traumatic injuries, even a little, is a much bigger deal than healing a twisted ankle.”

“I feel fine.”

“Ember, knock it off.
You’re emotionally spent, you’ve slept half the day away, and you’re snarling like a beast.  You’d be handling all of this better if you weren’t so energetically drained.   You drank enough to stave off bloodlust, yeah—but not enough to fully heal yourself.”

“Maybe I don’t deserve to heal.”

He rolled his eyes.  “So you lied to him.  What are you supposed to do?  Tell every guy you meet on the first date that you’re a Healer, and you drink blood?  No!  That would be stupid.  Look, no one likes it when someone keeps things from them, but anyone who isn’t a complete ass is going to understand that you’re protecting your family.  Alex isn’t an ass, so he’ll come around.  In the meantime, stop feeling sorry for yourself.  Mom and Dad are out of their mind with worry for you.  Can’t you feel it?”

I stopped for a moment, “listening” to the vibrations in the house.  How had I missed it?  I had never felt such a surge of agitation before. 

“Has something happened?”

“Well, let’s see…you healed a dying kid, then you healed his mom, then Mom screwed up and announced that we’re blood-drinkers, and if Alex loses it, he could tell the wrong person and get us all hauled off to some medical installment somewhere…
is that not enough for them to worry about?”

“They aren’t talking about the plan, are they?”

River’s brow furrowed.  “Dad brought it up, but nothing has been decided yet.  Mom wants to wait a day or two, then contact Alex and see where his head is at.  I’d be worried, but I really think Alex is trustworthy.  I don’t think anything will come of it.”

But River didn’t know about the call Alex had gotten from the curious doctor.

I sighed, drawing my knees up to my chest and resting my head against them.  “I’ve really screwed things up.”

“Maybe.  But I don’t think so.  I think Alex will come around.”  He pointed at the blood bag beside me.  “In the meantime—drink.”

“I will.”  I picked up the bag.

My brother stood up and walked toward the door.

“River?”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“Thanks.”  I managed a weak smile.

He smiled back.  “No problem.   You may be a pain, but you’re my favorite sister.”

“I heard that!” came Meadow’s voice from downstairs.

We both rolled our eyes.
River closed the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

River was right—Alex was different.  And as long as Alex understood our family, he’d never turn us in.  That meant it was up to me to make sure that he
did
understand.  I opened the pint of blood and drank it down quick. 

Drinking blood when you weren’t in bloodlust was pretty gross.  During the lust, blood tasted like a divine
, sweet nectar—like the most pristine, delicious water on the tongue of a parched desert survivor.  Blood always tasted better when warm and fresh, but cold was just fine, too.  But once the hunger had been satiated, drinking blood was just plain
nasty
.  And cold blood?  It always made me a little queasy, just before I drank it.  But my brother was right—I hadn’t had enough the night before.  And I needed to be in top shape.

I was going back to the hospital. 

Chapter 23

“I’m sorry, Miss, but only family can visit Gina Baxter, at the moment.”  The nurse at the surgical desk eyed me over her wire-rimmed glasses.

“You don’t understand.  I’m looking for her son. 
He’s
the one I’m here to see—but he’ll be in her room.”

“Oh.  Well, then, you’re in luck.  She was just transferred out of ICU, and she’s in a private room now.  One floor up.”  She looked up the information in her computer, and gave me the room number.  “But remember, you can’t go in.  She’s not ready for too many visitors, yet.  Immediate family only.”

“Of course.”  I thanked her and took the elevator up to the next floor. 

As I approached the room, I looked through the door’s narrow window and saw—through a sliver of an opening in the curtain that was pulled around the bed—that Alex was sitting at his mother’s bedside.  I reached out to turn the door handl
e, when a voice startled me.

“Can I help you?”

I turned to see a man in scrubs, about fifty-ish, with greying brown hair, a beard, and glasses.  He was sitting a few feet away at a computer terminal mounted to the wall near Mrs. Baxter’s room.

“I’m just here to see a friend.” 
This guy better not try to get in my way.

“The boy—Alex?”

I nodded.

“I’m Dr. Kline.  You wouldn’t happen to be Ember, would you?”

I nodded again, biting my lip.  I didn’t like the feeling I was getting from this guy.  He wasn’t going to be of any help.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “but it’s family only, for right now.”

“I just need to see Alex.”

“I understand, but you see, Alex Baxter left specific instructions with the nurses that you weren’t to be allowed near his mother…or him.  It’s right there in the chart.”  He pointed to the computer terminal he’d just abandoned.

Just my luck that Mrs. Baxter’s doctor was updating her chart right when I arrive,
I thought.  “Please, I just want to talk to him.  I’ll wait out here, if you could only let him know—”

“He was very specific.  And his father supports his request.  My hands are tied.”

“Please…you don’t understand…he’s just angry.  I just need to talk to him…please, just tell him I’m here.”

I sensed that he was wavering.  I turned on the water works, letting the tears flow that I had held back the whole way to the hospital.  “Please, doctor….
please?”

He sighed.  “Alright. 
But you can’t go in.  Mrs. Baxter’s condition is such that there are no visitors allowed except immediate family.  I don’t want you yelling through the door, either.  You go wait over at the nurses’ station, and don’t move from there unless I tell you Alex Baxter has agreed. But you have to promise to leave if he refuses to see you.”

“I will, I promise.”  Relieved, I turned and walked toward the nurses’ station, halfway down the hall. 

Pacing back and forth for what seemed like an eternity, I worried about what Alex might be saying. 
What is taking so long?  Is the doctor arguing on my behalf?  Is Alex angry—is the doctor calming him down?  I have to know.
  I strained to listen, but they must have been whispering, because I couldn’t hear anything over the din of the bustling nurses’ station.  I sent out my “feelers”, but all I could sense was distress coming from Alex.  If there was anger, it wasn’t enough to outweigh his worry over his mother. 
Does that mean he’s coming around?

From the doctor I could sense curiosity and some kind of excited feelings.  I was grateful—
he must be arguing in my defense, despite not knowing the context of the disagreement between Alex and I.  Either that, or Alex was telling him I was a dangerous person and I should be kept away.

Sometimes, sensing feelings isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The waiting was killing me.  Glancing at the nurses—who were busy entering information into computerized patient charts, answering the phone, or chatting with each other—I stole away and tiptoed down the hallway toward Mrs. Baxter’s room.  I sidled up to the door and slowly peeked through the window. 

A blur blue scrubs obscured the window, and I jumped back just as the door opened with a soft click, and the doctor slipped through the door and shut it quietly.  He turned, startled to see me standing so close.

“I thought I told you to wait over there.”

“I…I did, but I was worried.  It was taking so long.  I was coming to check.”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t want to see you.”

“Did you tell him—?”

“Miss, you promised to leave after I asked.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he put an arm around my shoulder, leading me away from the door.  “I don’t know what happened between the two of you, but I do know that things can get pretty heated when boys and girls get into an argument.  I’m sure things will work out.  He’s going through a lot right now, so just give him some time, alright?”

I sighed.  “Alright.”  Arguing with the doctor would do no good.
I could feel his resolve—he wasn’t letting me into that room.

He walked me to the elevator, then pressed the button.  “In the meantime, if you need to talk, let me give you my card.”  He pulled a card from the breast pocket of his white coat and held it out.

Why would I want to talk with him?
  “Are you a shrink?”  I took the card and held it up, without having read it.

“No.  A cardiothoracic surgeon, actually.  I’m with Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore.” 

I raised an eyebrow.

“I’m here for the week, as proctor for a pioneering robotic surgical technique,” he said, in answer to my unasked question.  “Sacred Heart is taking part in my trials.  One of the surgeons I’m working with mentioned that he had consulted on Mrs. Baxter’s case last night, and when he told me this morning that she’s had a miraculous recovery, I just had to come down and see it for myself.”

My heart sped up, and it was all I could do to keep my breathing in check. 

It’s him!  The one who called Alex.

“Oh?” I said, working to keep my voice from faltering.  “She’s doing well, then?”

He smiled.  “Well, you’re not family, so I can’t give you any specific information about her condition.  But I think you know how she’s doing.” 

I frowned in false confusion, hoping to hide my fear.  “I do?”

There was a long, awkward pause, while he held his smile frozen in place.  His gaze was penetrating.  At last he spoke.  “Of course.  She was moved from ICU to a private room.  That’s a good sign, don’t you think?”

I let out the breath I didn’t even know I was holding.  “Yes.  Yes, thought so, too.  I just wish I could talk to Alex, so I could find out how she’s really doing.”

“I’m sure he’ll contact you soon enough.  Now you get going, before it gets dark.  It’s not a good idea for a young woman to be walking around in a parking garage at night, even if there is security.”

I was so relieved to get away from the doctor, that I didn’t even recognize until the elevator reached the ground floor that I’d felt something strange when talking with Dr. Kline. 

He was…pleased.