Spring Rain (8 page)

“Wait, drowned in a fire?”

“Strange I know,” Doctor Bridges said. “It
only gets stranger. We thought she was dead because her temperature
is oh, twenty degrees below average. She shouldn’t be alive. But
her vitals are strong. Nothing wrong with her heart, organs, brain
or body that we can find. She’s just really, really cold – and
healthy. It’s a medical impossibility.”

He listened, unable to place any known human
or witchling capability with what the physician described.

“She was unconscious when they found her. We
have her in an induced coma for now until we can be certain she’s
healthy or at least, not in danger. We’re running every test known
to man as well. If you can identify her, that’d help us out a
lot.”

“Not sure I can help,” Beck said.

They reached the fifth floor of the
hospital, and the elevator’s doors opened. The first thing he
sensed: Decker. He knew his brother wasn’t the one in danger, but
if he was here, it had something to do with a witchling. Beck was
able to sense Summer but no other Light witchling. Whoever it was,
she was probably one of Decker’s Dark sheep.

“Doctor Bridges,” someone called as soon as
they stepped foot on the floor.

“Second door from the end on the right,” the
doctor said before turning on her heel to address the nurse
approaching.

Beck walked down the corridor. The odd
instinct grew more insistent without revealing what exactly it
meant. It was on days like this he wished he had a mentor like
Decker had to ask about the Master of Light instincts that went
above and beyond those of a normal witchling.

Before he reached the doorway, a familiar
form emerged.

“Summer,” he said with a smile. “What’re you
doing here?”

His brother’s counterbalance and girlfriend,
the air-earth witchling with dark hair and eyes smiled at him but
cast a worried look into the room. “I wanted to warn you.”

“About what? What’s wrong?”

“Your brother has been hiding something from
us both.” The disapproval in her tone was clear. “It has to do with
Morgan.”

“Morgan.” Even saying the name aloud hurt.
Beck shook off the sensation. “What about her?”

“Well, apparently, she’s alive. Sorta.”

Beck’s heart leapt in his chest. For a
moment, he didn’t think he’d heard right.

And then it clicked.

Decker had been much nicer
to him the past three months than usual. He figured it was out of a
shared sense of loss, since his twin had lost Summer for a few
months, too. It never occurred to him that it was
guilt,
but it definitely
fit the Master of Dark, who tended to act out of regret rather than
think about his actions ahead of time.

“You can’t touch her, Beck,” Summer said
urgently as he stepped forward. She blocked his path once more.
“She swallowed the soul stone. At least, that’s what Decker thinks.
You can’t touch her without Decker’s fire to balance the
Darkness.”

Beck barely registered the words. He barely
registered anything but the sense he wanted to pass out.

Summer touched his arm, her gentle earth
magick prodding his to life. The soothing warmth steadied his
trembling insides, and he blinked, the tension of his body easing
despite his disbelief and concern.

“I’m okay,” he said quietly. He took her
hand and squeezed it. “Thanks.” Beck walked past her into the
hospital room, uncertain anything could prepare him for what he saw
next.

Decker was at Morgan’s side, his magick
loose and covering her body and the surrounding area in fiery
shadows. Focused on her, he didn’t look up as Beck approached.
“They knocked her out. She can’t fight the soul stone’s effects
well when she’s asleep,” the Master of Dark explained. “It’s eating
her up from the inside.” His fire magick was flowing into her.

For a long moment, Beck couldn’t move. He
stared at the form of his counterbalance.

It really was Morgan in the bed. She had cut
her hair to shoulder length, but the fiery red shade was the same
and a contrast to her blue-white skin. She had the pallor and
general appearance of death, though the machines monitoring her
assured him she was alive as the doctor said.

He forced his body to obey and went to her
bedside, gazing down at her.

Despite Summer’s warning, Beck touched
Morgan’s skin. Pure, cold, familiar ice swept through him, sucking
up the Light and his body heat. He had touched the soul stone once
before and nearly died.

Summer’s air magick knocked him back several
steps. Beck shook his head, dazed, and righted his balance. He felt
… drained to his soul, his earth magick a flicker and the Light
source inside him shriveled. They bounced back quickly. He stared
at the still form of the girl he’d fallen for, horrified by the
idea that his counterbalance was someone he couldn’t even hug.

I have to destroy that
stone.
But no one in a thousand years had
tried to destroy the stone for a reason. If what Sam said was
correct and it couldn’t be destroyed, he wasn’t certain how he was
going to handle Morgan being alive and completely outside his
reach.

“Sorry,” Summer murmured. “Didn’t mean to
throw you back like that.”

“It’s … okay. Thanks.” He managed a tight
smile. “It’s not you I’m considering beating to a pulp.” His gaze
settled on his twin.

Decker grimaced. “There’s a reason for the
secrecy. Sam said her trial isn’t over yet, and her being near you
almost killed you. I made sure you were safe.”

“You don’t get to make that decision for
me,” Beck said, anger stirring.

“Like you made the decision to hide Summer
from me?” Decker looked up, Darkness flaring in his gaze.

“Boys, stop,” Summer said. “Morgan needs
your help. Both of you.” She touched Decker, and his shadows
stilled and retreated. “Beck, you can’t touch her without Decker’s
fire, and Decker can’t heal her like you can, Beck.” Earth magick
held the ability to heal, and Beck’s Master status made him the
most powerful healer alive.

Whether or not he should have understood
what Decker did, Beck didn’t care at the moment. He saw Morgan and
instantly knew his brother had something to do with the suffering
he’d gone through the past few months. As much as he loved Decker,
he also knew his brother well enough to know he didn’t have
boundaries when it came to his actions, and he would protect his
family at all costs, even Beck’s heart.

The full story had to wait, though, because
Summer was right.

“Give me a few seconds,” Decker said,
attention on Morgan.” I can increase the fire magick. Can you hold
the door, baby?” His voice softened, as usual, when he spoke to his
Summer.

Air magick pushed the door closed and sealed
it to keep any unwanted visitors from walking in.

“Try now, Beck.”

Beck approached the bed, nervous for reasons
he didn’t quite understand. It was taking most of his focus to
subdue the emotions roiling in his mind, and he couldn’t let
himself think on what Decker had done without snapping. Instead, he
tentatively touched Morgan’s arm.

She was cold, and the drain strong, but
nowhere near what it had been moments before. Decker’s fire and
shadows coalesced around his hand to protect him. Beck closed his
eyes to concentrate and loosened his magick into Morgan, letting it
find its way to the damage done to her body by the soul stone. It
took some effort, given the soul stone was fighting him, but with
Decker’s fire to support him, he began to heal the internal tears
to her soul.

The soul stone also left a physical track of
damage down her throat and into her stomach and intestines. His
magick, and Decker’s, pooled around the stone making its way
through her digestive track.

What the hell she was thinking, he didn’t
fully understand. She was a fire witchling. If the apartment
building had been burning down around her, she could easily deal
with that and survive. The fact the first responders thought she
drowned, however, and the presence of the stone in her gullet …

Something else had happened during the fire,
and he suspected it had to do with the Dark witchlings pursuing
Morgan.

“She needs to be awake before she can handle
the stone on her own,” Decker said quietly. “Can you clean up the
drugs in her system?”

“I’ve never done that before,” Beck
replied.

“I have.” Summer rested her hand on his,
adding her earth magick to guide him.

Beck didn’t ask. He knew how much trouble
Decker had once gotten into – drugs, women, violence – and
suspected Summer had helped clean him up without understanding how
exactly that happened. She nudged and tugged his magick in the
right direction, to filter Morgan’s blood free of the sleeping
agent.

“All right. Step back, you two. I’ll wake
her up,” Decker instructed.

With some reluctance, Beck obeyed. The scene
was surreal. It hadn’t yet hit him that his Morgan was alive.
Instead, he stood quietly beside Summer and watched Decker’s magick
complete their combined work with the same detachment he watched
television. Morgan’s features were a normal shade again, and she no
longer reeked with the coldness of the soul stone.

Of everything he wanted to say, Beck wasn’t
able to pick the first sentence he hoped to utter to the girl who
was his counterbalance and who had nearly killed him and then
subsequently saved his life before disappearing. None of this made
sense. It was rare when he felt anger, but today, fury fed by
confusion was starting to bubble within his breast.

Everything I touch turns
to ash
, she had once told him. He had
never felt that way around her before, but he did standing
helplessly beside her. She’d turned him to ash when she disappeared
and he didn’t quite know what he was now or if there was ever a
chance of there being something left to salvage after all that had
happened.

His eyes settled on Decker, who met his gaze
without hesitation. Beck read the steely resolution on his twin’s
face and knew Decker had no regrets, even knowing how much pain
Beck had been in.

“I did what I had to,” Decker replied to the
unspoken question.

“That doesn’t make it right,” Beck said
icily.

“I’d do it again, Beck, and if her continued
disappearance means you stay alive, I won’t stop because you care
about her.”

“My life is not yours to toy with.”

“One word: Autumn.”

“You know why that had to be,” Beck snapped.
“You don’t get to take Morgan away from me!”

“Omigod. Way too much … testosterone in
here,” Morgan complained faintly as she pushed herself up. “And for
the record, I’m eighteen and I choose where my life takes me.
Decker just paid the bills and was a pain in the ass about
everything.”

“Good girl,” Summer agreed.

Beck met the gaze of the girl meant to be
his counterbalance, unable to identify if he was elated to see her
or terrified or too shocked and angry to believe this wasn’t a
dream. He reached out towards her instinctively.

“No!” she snapped and recoiled. “I swallowed
the soul stone!”

“We figured that out,” Decker replied
drily.

Beck continued to look at her, unable to
summon anything to say directly to her. He’d thought her dead for
three months and now … she wasn’t. His feelings and thoughts were
reeling, and he couldn’t shake his disbelief.

“How are you feeling?” Summer asked and
stepped beside Morgan.

“Good. Chilly.” Morgan sat. “What’re you
doing here?” She eyed Decker.

“The hospital called me,” he replied.

“And me,” Beck added. “I guess we were in
your phone.”

She flushed as red as her
hair, and he recalled with some tenderness that she’d listed him
as
home.
Was she
thinking of that now? “You can’t be here, Beck,” she
mumbled.

“For the record, I, too, am eighteen and
choose where my life takes me,” he replied. It took effort to
subdue the overpowering urge to touch her. Her fire magick was
pinging around, agitated by his nearness and her spiking emotions.
His earth magick had always loved the liveliness she brought it. It
yearned to reach out to her and calm her as much as his heart
did.

“Whatever, but I can’t be here. Dawn found
me.” The fiery, stubborn side of her was betrayed by the shake of
her hands as she pushed off the thin sheet covering her. “I have to
go. Passing through.”

“Like hell,” Beck said with more heat than
he intended. “There are people who care about you, Morgan. You
can’t run away from me or your brother!”

“Beck, I think she means …” Summer cleared
her throat and pointed to the bathroom in the corner.

Beck’s mouth snapped shut.

“Too much testosterone,” Morgan repeated.
“Summer, will you kick them out for me?”

Summer smiled and lifted an eyebrow at
Decker in a silent order, her subtle power nonetheless strong. He
rolled his eyes and went to the door. She turned her attention to
Beck.

“No,” he balked and crossed his arms. “That
won’t work on me.”

“You can talk to Decker about what’s going
on,” she suggested sweetly.

Dammit.
Beck didn’t want to relent, but he did, grappling
with his emotions and the fury building in his chest at the thought
of his brother keeping secrets.

“Peacefully,” Summer added.

Beck went to the door and exited, joining
Decker in the hallway. The two squared off as they sometimes did,
the tension and magick surrounding them palpable enough to passing
humans for them to turn the other way rather than cross paths with
the powerful twins.

“I’m not sorry,” Decker started
defiantly.

“I get that. But you’re … you’re a dick
sometimes, Decker.” Beck sighed, resisting the urge to wring his
brother’s neck. He reigned in the feelings that felt like they were
almost to the point of bursting. After struggling for several long
moments, he managed to speak through clenched teeth. “Start from
the beginning.”