Rising (27 page)

I felt something change as soon as I
slammed Jessie’s car door shut.
 
I broke
through Jeremy, Jessie, and Mel to see utter horror.
 
Two huge shadow men had their fingers clamped
down on Gabe’s shoulders, holding him to the spot.
 
There was such a painful conflicted look on
Gabe’s face that I felt my heart sink into my stomach.
 
He seemed unable to move at all.
 
The tallest of the two was whispering
something in Gabe’s ear.
 

I didn’t know what I was doing; I only
knew that I had to help him.
 
I ran in a
fury, wanting only for those hideous things to get their hands off of him.
 
I didn’t even know what I yelled.
 
They leered at me as I went charging
ahead.
 
A look of torment and rage played
on Gabe’s face, altering between the two.
 
I was only a few feet away when I felt the surge of fire and light shoot
from my insides, flaring out around me, in front of me, like a warm
blanket.
 
The shadow men hissed, glaring
with slits of yellow eyes at me.
 
I
didn’t care.
 
I was furious.
 
They had somehow paralyzed Gabe, my Gabe, and
I wouldn’t let it happen.
 
The halo of
gold light flared out from my body, pouring over him.
 
The creatures leapt back in surprise then
vanished into shadowy smoke and air.
 
Just as I reached Gabe, a look of pain swept over his face before he
collapsed to the concrete.
 
Ben was there
and caught him before his head hit the ground.
 
The others were at my side within seconds.

“What happened?” yelled Ben, putting
Gabe down gently.

I lifted Gabe’s head into my lap,
calling his name.
 
Mel leaned over him,
reaching up to his neck.
 
Her fingers
found his pulse then his eyes shot open. He sat up quickly, too quickly.

“
Ow
,” he
said, “is this what it felt like when I—”

He turned to me.
 
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

“What did you do?” asked Jessie,
glaring at me.

“I was helping him,” I stammered.

“That was awesome,” said Jeremy with
his crazy grin.

Jessie ignored him.
 
Her violet aura was tipped with orange.

“It looked like you hurt him,
Clara.
 
You knocked him out with, well,
with whatever that was you just did.”

“You could see that?” I asked, finally
realizing that everyone was staring at me, because
they
could see my aura, too.
 
Wow.
 
This was new.

Jessie looked at me angrily; Ben looked
shifty-eyed and worried; Mel had a look of sympathy for me; and Jeremy, well,
it could only be called a look of admiration.
 
Gabe wasn’t looking at me at all.
 
He was flexing and
unflexing
his hands as if
to see that they still worked.

“It wasn’t her,” said Gabe.
 
“I knocked myself out.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I couldn’t do the same thing again
like last time,” he said.

His dark eyes finally found mine.
 
Then I realized what he had done.
 

“You held it back?” I whispered.

He nodded his head once.

“Can someone please,
please
explain what is going on?” begged
Mel.

I took a deep breath and plunged ahead,
barely thinking as the words spilled out of my mouth.

“Okay, here it goes.
 
Ever since I was little, I’ve been able to
see auras.
 
Yes, lights around people
that tell me what kind of person they are or what they’re feeling.
 
When I started hanging out with you guys a
couple weeks ago, I realized that Gabe has a kind of sixth sense, too.
 
He’s always been able to tell what other
people are feeling when they’re close to him.
 
Then, we discovered that we’ve been having similar dreams, about these
shadow people, and big, black giants, and ash-eaters.
 
Just this week, we realized that Jeremy is
having the same dreams, too.
 
Not only
that, but he’s got this cool sixth sense where he can break glass when he
sings.”

“It’s really cool,” assured Jeremy.

“Can I continue?” I asked, more
haughtily than usual.
 

Jeremy nodded and looked down.

“Gabe and I found this woman on-line
who had pictures of these ancient pictographs that were these exact same
creatures we’ve been dreaming about.
 
Weird, right?
 
So we shoot her an
e-mail then next thing you know she’s here in Beau
Chêne
all the way from Albuquerque.
 
We met her
and she told us how she saw these creatures come right out of a pit in the
ground in Cuba, right before a severe electrical storm hit and this hurricane
formed.”

Jeremy started to say something, but I
jerked up my hand, palm out, to stop him from saying a word, then continued.

“She told us that our dreams aren’t
just dreams.
 
They’re some kind of
warning of what really is heading this way.
 
Then, I see one of these shadow men from my dreams standing at the foot
of my bed.”

Mel gasped, clapping her hand to her
mouth.

“Yeah, I nearly peed on myself.
 
But, it just said this weird word then
left.
 
The next night, three of them show
up in my living room while I was watching TV.
 
This time, they seemed scared of me when, well, it was like I was
starting to do what you saw me do tonight.
 
I realize now that my sixth sense is more like a power against the
shadow people.
 
Not only that, but Gabe
has a power, too, which seems to have less to do with sensing emotions and more
to do with using it as some kind of weapon against these things.
 
Tonight, I think he refused to use it in
order to save all of us from getting hurt.”

That’s when all eyes shifted toward
Gabe, much softer than they looked at me earlier.

“And, today in the library, we found
out that there’s a guy who lives out on Canebrake Island who’s been having
visions of these creatures for about thirty years.
 
Then, tonight, as soon as we walked through
the gates, I must’ve counted about forty or fifty shadow people wandering
through the crowds,” I said as confidently as I could.
 
“Oh, and Ben’s having these dreams, too.”

All eyes swiveled to Ben.

“Hey, don’t look at me.
 
I might be having these dreams, but I don’t
know anything about sixth senses or freaky powers or anything like that.”

“So,” said Jessie quietly, “you must’ve
seen some of these, uh, shadow people standing by Gabe?”

I nodded, thankful Jessie was no longer
looking at me like I was a hateful witch.

“Sorry I fussed earlier.
 
I just didn’t—”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said
quickly.
 
“So, you all believe me?”

“Of course they do,” said Jeremy.
 
“Damn, Clara, that was wicked what you did
with the burning aura and bright light and everything.
 
That was
sa-weet
.”

His voice went up an octave on his last
drawn-out word.

“These shadow people,” interrupted Mel,
“You think they have something to do with what happened here tonight?”

“I know they do.
 
When they started to touch people as they
passed them, that’s when the arguments started between everyone.”

“What happened when they touched you?”
Mel asked Gabe.

He combed a hand through his wavy hair,
trying to push it out of the way, but it fell right back in place.
 
A couple with a young boy in tow scurried to
their car one row over, not bothering to wonder why a group of teenagers was
crouched on the pavement.

“I felt fear,” he finally said,
“intense, raw fear.
 
I couldn’t even
move.”

“Why did they seem so angry back in the
stadium?” asked Jessie knitting her brow together into a frown.

“They only touched those people,” I
said, remembering how the black, scaly creatures slipped through the crowd
brushing their bony fingers along shoulders as they passed.
 
“But, those two I saw right here, they were
clutching at Gabe’s shoulders.
 
I could
see their fingers pressing into his t-shirt.”

“It’s like a mob mentality,” added
Gabe.
 
“One person reacted to that touch
of fear, then the next, then the next.
 
It was bound to end in violence.”

A small group of Trojan fans was headed
down the aisle.
 
One woman clung to her
husband who held a Ziploc of ice to his head that seemed to be dripping blood.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Yep.
 
That’s our cue,” said Jeremy.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” I told
Jeremy, not as a question.

He gave me a two-finger salute, then
walked with Jessie to the Durango.

“What’s tomorrow?” asked Mel.

“We’re going to see that man on
Canebrake Island,” said Gabe, standing up and heading toward the Jeep.
 
“You want to come?”

“Uh, no thanks.
 
You just let me know how that works out,”
said Mel, then she stopped Gabe by the shoulder, her tone very serious.
 
“Thank you, Gabe, for whatever you did
tonight.
 
I don’t pretend to understand
it, but I know that you were thinking of us.
 
And, you too, Clara.
 
I know how
it must’ve felt to keep all of this in.”

I remembered how Mel had only briefly talked
about her grandmother, the
traiteur
, as if hiding a family secret.
 
Traiteurs
were faith-healers, a mystical thing that not
everyone believed in, especially in this modern world of science and
technology.
 
I gave her a quick hug.
 
She seemed surprised, but smiled sweetly in
return.
 
Gabe just waved then we jumped
in the Jeep and headed home.

I had become used to silent rides in
Gabe’s Jeep, but this one had to be the worst.
 
Usually, there was no awkwardness or tension.
 
Tonight, I could tell there was more brewing
in his head than the incident with the shadow people.
 
He walked with me up my drive-way then
stopped me before we reached the porch.

“You lied to me.”

What?
 
I didn’t lie to him.

“What are you talking about?”

I heard the tightness in my voice.

“You told me that it didn’t hurt you
when I made you pass out that night.”

His voice was stern, but it wasn’t
cold.

“Oh,” I said dumbly.

Um, oops.

“Look, I don’t want you ever to lie to
me, not even to save my feelings.”

The moon shone brightly above us.
 
Whatever clouds had blocked it earlier were
now gone.
 
Gabe’s eyes held a look I
hadn’t seen before—annoyance, affection, and something more that made me lean
closer, press my head against his chest, and wrap my arms around him.

“I won’t,” I promised sincerely.

It was weird.
 
He was shaking a little.
 
He held me tightly.
 
One hand went up and gently stroked my hair.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered into his
chest.

He sort of laughed, but not really.

“That thing told me something.”

He paused.
 
I heard his heartbeat pick up pace.

“What did it say?”

“It told me that there’s no use
fighting.
 
It basically told me that
we’ll all die.
 
But, honestly, that’s not
what upsets me.”

I pulled back and looked at him with
what I knew was an expression of surprise.

“Clara, I know I can kill these
things.
 
I can feel it.
 
It was like instinct to fight them tonight,
but I couldn’t do it.
 
I held it back
because I didn’t know how to do it without hurting—”

There was a hard look of pain on his
face, just like I saw earlier tonight.
 
He cupped my face in both his hands, stroking my cheek with one
thumb.
 
He seemed unable to speak at all
for a long minute.