The Soul Healer (32 page)

I nodded. “All right.” I watched him leave and wondered why he couldn’t just stay.

Charles settled back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. He looked comfortable, while I was so nervous to be alone in the same room as him that I was ready to crawl out of my skin and start screaming. “I’m not here to hurt you, Gabi.” Charles paused. “May I call you that?”

I shrugged. “Sure, whatever.” I hoped he didn’t think me allowing him to refer to me by a nickname meant we were buddies now. “So, why are you here?” Rude, but I didn’t care.

“I wanted to talk with you, to explain my absence from HQ when—” Charles looked away, his face tightening with anger. “When everything happened.”

“You mean Nina going crazy and stabbing my boyfriend with her hot pink laser spell?” I focused on the fury brewing inside of me; it helped me forget my uneasiness over being alone with Charles. I hoped Charles could hear my anger with every word I spat his way. “Or Mrs. Chen forcing me to heal her daughter instead of my dying boyfriend? Did he wake up yet?” So much for anger. My voice shook as I asked him that, both scared and desperate for his answer.

“Not yet,” Charles said. He even sounded sorry when he said that, like he truly cared about Rafe, but I didn’t buy that for a minute. “It’s only been a day since the two of you were brought here. He needs to rest more.”

“I want to see him.”

He nodded. “I understand that, but I wish to speak with you first. Like Philip said, what I have to say involves Rafe, and what you told me about his parents.”             

Charles’s words hung in the air between us like bait, and I chomped on them, hook, line, and sinker. “What do you mean?”

“You recall I said I would return to you with food?” Charles asked.

“Yeah, and you didn’t, and Charlotte decided to make a snack out of me instead.”

“Charlotte?” Charles appeared confused, but I did nothing to clarify things for him. “Do you mean the demon?” Still I said nothing, and he let out an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t realize you named them. That’s rather morbid.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “You live in a building that has an autopsy room. With dead demons galore all spread out on tables, waiting to be chopped up. Don’t talk to me about being morbid.” A thought occurred to me. “How did it get into HQ, anyway?”

“We’re still looking into it,” he said. By “we” I assumed he meant other senior members of Silver Moon.
Aww, did they have to cancel their holiday plans and come back to New York? Excuse me while I don’t cry.
“But it’s safe to assume Nina let it in.”

“Why would she do that—” I stopped myself. “Oh. Right. She’s crazy.” I wondered how she had found the demon and lured it to HQ—was that something a hunter could do easily?

“I believe she hoped the demon would kill you, and she could chalk it up to a bizarre accident.”

“She’s a bizarre accident,” I muttered. “Where is she, anyway? Not that I care.”

Charles’s face betrayed no emotion when he said, “She’s been taken care of.”

My eyes wide
ned. Taken care of? Did he mean permanently? Was Nina dead?

Did I care?

Considering the way my heart had squeezed painfully at his declaration, then yeah, I did care. Not for the girl who had went crazy and tried to kill Rafe, but for the one I had thought I had known. The one that was my friend. That’s the one I mourned, even if she was a lie. Even if she had never existed.

Charles continued with his story. “I decided to do some research, to see if the madness Davenport had spouted had any validity to it.”

“About Silver Moon killing Rafe’s parents?” I still thought Charles had killed them, but I kept that opinion to myself. For now. I wanted to see what he had discovered first before pissing him off.

He nodded. “I left HQ and contacted a few of my retired trusted colleagues, senior members of Silver Moon, if you will, to ask them what they knew about that incident, and I discovered something very disturbing.” Charles blew out a shuddering breath and clenched his hands into fists.
He’s angry
, I realized. Not at me, but at what he had found out. My heart began racing, and the stupid machine next to me followed suit with its annoying beeps. I was very close to ripping the wires out of my arm, just to shut it up so I could fully concentrate on what Charles was about to say.

“Matthew Davenport was correct, in a way,” Charles told me. “The stakeout, the nest, the demon sent to the room they were occupying—it was all a test for Rafe. A test gone horribly wrong, which the people who orchestrated it—including the former New York director—quickly tried to cover up.”

I almost fell off the bed again. Holy crap—what? Davenport, a giant, raving lunatic, had been telling the truth? Or was Charles lying to me, to save his own skin? I peered at him closely. His face remained calm, but his eyes were burning with fury. And it was impossible not to notice how his fists were shaking.

“Why would they do that?” I asked, my mouth
dry. “Did they—Did they
want
to kill Rafe?”

He locked gazes with me. “I think so.”

“But
why
?” I threw my hands in the air, wishing I could throw something larger and heavier instead. “Why would they want to kill one of their own?” Charles said nothing as a horrible thought occurred to me. “Is it because he doesn’t have the Sight? Did they think he was inferior? Is Silver Moon that pretentious and idiotic?” I was shouting, and I half-expected Philip to come rushing into the room to see what the problem was, but he didn’t.
Probably because his dad already told him this stuff. He knew I’d react this way—I mean, who wouldn’t?

“I think that’s exactly why,” he said quietly. “Gabi, Rafe was—is, if he’ll still allow me—my godson. Him not possessing the Sight never made any difference to me, or Rosa, or Liam. Rafe worked harder than anyone, was better than anyone, and that bothered the others. The
y wanted him out of Silver Moon. They claimed he was a liability, that he would miss a demon and one of their sons or daughters would pay the price. Liam refused, of course, and I stood by his side. It was such silly reasoning. Why would you banish one of the best fighters from the organization?” Charles looked down at his hands in surprise, like he hadn’t realized he had been squeezing them so tightly. He uncurled his fingers, shaking them out before continuing. “After Rafe proved himself, time and again, things got better. Yes, the others teased him, but that’s what children do, isn’t it? Rafe never let it get to him; he wasn’t like Philip, who launched himself into the fray, breaking someone’s nose for insulting him.” Weirdly enough, Charles actually looked proud when he talked about his son breaking noses. “We thought, foolishly, that Rafe had won the opposition over.”

“But you were wrong,” I said.

“We were wrong,” he repeated. “I think—I think we made matters worse by both running for the director position. Two potential directors who believed in a Sightless boy. Obviously those who opposed weren’t going to sit by idly and allow this to happen. And we helped them, Liam and I, by getting so caught up in the race that we stopped speaking to one another.” Charles laughed bitterly. “What an idiot I was, to let such a thing come between us and our friendship. Do you know how many nights I’ve laid awake, wondering if I could have prevented his and Rosa’s deaths if I had just done the right thing and pulled out of the race? Liam was far better suited for the position, far better…”

“But that wouldn’t have saved him,” I pointed out. “They still would have tested Rafe, right?”

His face darkened, the rage finally breaking through the calm mask he had been wearing. “That is what I want to find out. After Liam died, I assumed the position of director and buried myself in the role of running this branch. I never spared a moment of my time to look for the truth, the real truth. I told myself it would just be too painful, but now I know the real reason.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m nothing but a coward.”

Silence settled over us. I knew he wanted me to say something, anything, but I needed time to process everything. The man sitting before me was aching with guilt—not because he had killed his best friend, but because he had stood aside and allowed it to happen. And now some teenage girl had waltzed in and thrown his life upside-down with Davenport’s farfetched theories that might not actually be so farfetched.

“I need you to trust me, Gabi.” He said it with such raw desperation that I found myself nodding, realizing that I
did
trust him. And I believed him. Silver Moon was shady, evil even, but Charles?

Thanks to Nina and Mrs. Chen, I knew firsthand what evil was.
             

Charles had made mistakes,
a lot
of mistakes, but he wasn’t evil.

He exhaled in relief. “Thank you. That means so much—thank you.” He reached a hand out, then seemed to think better of it and dropped his hand to his side. “I will continue to dig for the truth, an
d I will tell you what I learn.”

“All of it?”

He nodded. “Yes. All of it.”

“And can I tell Rafe?” I dreaded doing so, but he deserved to know the truth. He still trusted Silver Moon—not to mention blamed himself for his parents’ deaths—and I couldn’t let him continue to do that. Thinking about the ones who ordered the demon test, and how they must be laughing behind Rafe’
s back, even now, set my blood boiling. It seemed like the deeper I entrenched myself in Silver Moon politics, the longer my list of people to hate grew.

“You can, but break it to him gently.”

“Well, duh,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll. “‘Welcome back to the land of the living, Rafe, and by the way, Silver Moon killed your parents.’ That’s exactly how I’m going to tell him. No big deal, right?”

Charles shook his head.
Come on, Mister Director, you couldn’t have forgotten already how frustrating I can be!
Standing, he gestured to the door. “Are you ready to see him?”

I swallowed, suddenly nervous. What would I see, when I finally went to his room? Would it make me cry? Probably. I imagined Rafe all bandaged up, bruised and battered, and already my throat started hurting with tears I choked back.

Charles said quietly, “I’ll have Philip bring you up. You’ve probably had your fill of me.”

“I
had my fill of you after our first meeting, in that warehouse,” I said, brushing away the tears on my cheeks.

“For what it’s worth, I am truly sorry about that,” he said, ducking his head in embarrassment. “I got so caught up in the myths and the idea that I had finally found a Soul Healer, that I forget that you were an actual person.”

“So you’re going to leave me alone now?” I hated pushing my luck like that, but I needed to know.

Charles nodded. “I swear it.”

“Even if I may have demon blood inside of me?” Okay, really pushing my luck here. He was probably two seconds away from brandishing a sword and chopping off my head.

“Now why would you think something as ridiculous as that?” he asked with a slight smile. A smile that wasn’t creepy but actually… kind.

Whoa.

Maybe I had pegged Mister Director wrong. Like, really wrong.

I felt stupid.

But then I thought about all the things he had done to me—kidnapping, threatening both me and my family, yelling at me—and realized that no, I had been correct to assume the worst
from him. It was nice that he was trying to make amends, but if he thought we were going to become BFFs and paint each other’s toenails, he had another thing coming to him.

The idea of Charles painting his toenails was pretty entertaining, though.

He was watching me closely, a wary look replacing his smile. “Let me get my son before you ruin this moment by saying something ludicrous.”

“Hey—” I started, but he walked out of the room before I could throw something snarky his way.

And I swear he chuckled.
Chuckled!

“Totally creepy,” I whispered, trying not to smile myself.

Chapter Forty-eight

I didn’t speak until Philip had wheeled me inside the elevator and the doors had closed. “I look like crap,” I said, staring at my reflection in the mirrored doors. My hair was completely white (it was so bad that I had actually started quietly crying in the bathroom when I first saw it) and there were huge purple bags under my eyes that stood out against my pale skin. “I look like a freaking corpse.”

“You do not!” Philip was quick to respond. He had caught me crying in the bathroom and, once he figured out what was wrong, shook Kain awake and sent him to the nearest drug store to pick up some hair dye. Apparently Kain had a bunch of older sisters and knew a thing or two about dyeing hair, so he was going to help me get it back to my normal honey-blonde color. I had
expected them to judge me for focusing on something so silly when my boyfriend had nearly died, but they had been nothing but understanding. “You just need some rest and chocolate cake, and you’ll be back to normal.”

I perked up. “There’s cake?”

Philip pulled out his phone and started texting. “There will be now.”