“Yes.” Zusane jerked the parachute out of Jacqueline’s hand, throwing her off balance. Placing her hand flat on Jacqueline’s chest, she shoved her backward out of the plane and into nothingness.
Chapter 22
“Jacqueline.” Caleb held her in his arms and spoke sternly. “Jacqueline, stop shrieking.”
At the sound of his voice, Jacqueline froze. Her eyes were still closed tightly. Her fists were still clenched, her knees drawn up.
But the wind no longer blasted her face. A battered airplane no longer plummeted through the air beside her. The screams of the falling passengers no longer assaulted her ears. The lights on the ground no longer hurtled toward her.
The lights—close. Too close. They were all going to die.
The memory was so clear, she jumped and, in an agony of fear, opened her eyes wide.
Caleb’s face was the first thing she saw, so close she could feel his breath, his worry.
Beyond that . . . she was in the attic. In the attic. Earlier this afternoon, she had stood in this same spot. Now the square of sun had moved on, and she shivered with cold and shock.
So the airplane, the crash, her mother . . . none of that was real.
But it was.
“Jacqueline,” Caleb said. “Speak to me.”
Lifting her hand, Jacqueline looked at the gash in her palm. The blood had obliterated the mark of her gift.
If the eye had been blinded, was she no longer a seer?
“The crystal ball broke one of the floorboards,” he told her. “You cut your hand on the wood.”
She looked where he pointed. The globe was burrowed into the floor, and shards of hardwood were scattered like . . . like a broken bottle. . . .
In her brain, she heard words chanting over and over. If he looks into it, he will die. If he looks into it, he will die.
She tried to speak.
She couldn’t.
The smoke.
She put her hand to her throat.
“You’ve been screaming. And screaming.” Caleb looked pale, strained. Angry.
“My head.” Her voice. A hoarse whisper.
“You bumped it when you fell.”
“I didn’t fall. Mother pushed me.”
The silence in the attic was deep and dark and concerned.
“What do you mean, she pushed you?” Caleb asked, his voice carefully neutral.
“She pushed me out of the plane. She pushed me out of the plane. She pushed me out of the plane! How much more clear do I have to make it?” Jacqueline was sitting up, her lungs ripping with strain as she yelled at Caleb—and she faced another nine pairs of horrified eyes.
Irving. And Martha, McKenna, Isabelle, Charisma, Tyler, Aaron, Samuel, and Aleksandr. They looked shell-shocked, embarrassed, curious, frightened. . . .
In a clear, calm voice, Isabelle asked, “What plane?”
“She was in his airplane. We were. The jet. Caleb, you remember, we used it to get from California to New York City. His . . . It was him. . . . He did it. . . .” Jacqueline started out loudly, insistently, wanting them to see, to believe. But her head hurt so badly. Inside her brain, voices babbled and screamed, memories flashed and flamed, and over and over, the oddest phrase repeated in her head.
If he looks into it, he will die. If he looks into it, he will die.
Wildly, she whipped her head around, wanting to cover the crystal ball, to make sure no one looked into it and died. But she couldn’t hold herself up anymore, and collapsed.
Caleb caught her.
Her head throbbed and throbbed. Lifting her hand, she touched her aching forehead, and again she heard the words.
If he looks into it, he will die. If he looks into it, he will die.
Her hand felt funny, numb and burning at the same time. She looked at it, tried to move her fingers. Nothing worked right—had the nerves been severed? More blood oozed from the two-inch wound.
She tried to explain again. “Mother’s boyfriend . . . his plane was in flames. Mother saw him. I saw him.” The constriction in her chest got worse and worse. She could barely breathe. She coughed. She clawed at the neck of her T-shirt. Her lungs felt scraped and raw.
“All right.” Caleb wrapped his arms around her. “We need to take you to the hospital.”
“No!” Irving spread his arms and pushed the men back. “Let Isabelle help her.”
Jacqueline stared, trying to understand what Irving could mean.
“How is she going to help her?” Caleb demanded. “Is she a doctor?”
Isabelle stood quietly. She wore a pair of jeans, scrounged from a secondhand shop, a large blue T-shirt that looked sloppy on her slender form, and a pair of cheap flip-flops. Yet still, she looked every inch the lady, and not happy about being in the spotlight.
“She’s a physical empath,” Irving said. “That is her gift.”
“What does that mean?” Tyler asked.
“She can absorb Jacqueline’s pain and injuries. She can share them, and heal her.” Irving turned to Isabelle. “If she will.”
Samuel crossed his arms, the epitome of knowledge and skepticism.
Lifting her chin, Isabelle knelt beside Jacqueline. In that precise Boston accent, she said, “If you will let me, I can be of assistance to you.”
Caleb held Jacqueline against his chest, his face still and cold. “I want to take her to the hospital.”
“We can’t.” Irving sounded impatient and dictatorial. “She just had her first vision, and it was powerful enough to do this to her. We can’t drive her to a hospital and try to explain how all this occurred, and take the chance she’ll tell them her mother pushed her out of a plane. At the very least, they’ll take her in for a psychiatric evaluation. Probably they’ll decide you’re abusing her and demand she press changes. She’s a new seer. She can’t control what’s happening to her, and while she’s there, she might have another vision. And we cannot have her visit a hospital without attracting the attention of the Others. I assure you, Caleb, there is no one they want to eliminate more than our psychic.”
Isabelle paid no attention to Irving’s rant, or to Caleb’s resistance. Her focus was on Jacqueline. In her soft voice, she said, “I have to touch you. I won’t hurt you. Can you trust me?”
Jacqueline stared into her eyes.
Isabelle was completely calm, and completely secure with her gift.
Jacqueline needed help; blood oozed from the cut on her hand, her brain hurt, and the tightness in her chest continued to grow, robbing her of oxygen. She hadn’t died in her free fall from the plane, but she feared she would die here and now. She nodded, and whispered, “Please.”
Caleb tensed.
Isabelle placed her fingers on Jacqueline’s forehead right over her eyes, then on her chest over her heart.
The pain did not diminish. But Jacqueline’s mind began to grasp the reality of this place and this time. Her heart rate slowed as the fight-or-flight instinct moderated. She was safe here. She was secure in Caleb’s arms. And whatever had happened on the jet needed to be dealt with, but not yet. Not until she felt better—or at least as if she would live.
Isabelle pulled away now, and ran her palms over Jacqueline from head to toe . . . yet she never touched her. Her cupped hands hovered mere inches from Jacqueline’s skin, pausing here and there, assessing and deciding. When she was done, she came back to Jacqueline’s face and said, “We’ll start now.” Sliding her hands around Jacqueline’s head, she cupped it, and sighed and swayed as her fingers found the lump on Jacqueline’s head . . . and as Jacqueline’s headache eased, Isabelle’s eyes filled with tears.
She drew her hands away and sat quietly, her face contorted as she fought her way through the pain.
Jacqueline realized that somehow, Isabelle shared her injury to heal it.
“I’m better,” Jacqueline said—and coughed. And coughed.
Quickly, Isabelle passed her hands over Jacqueline’s chest. For a long moment, the pain tightened its
grip, and Jacqueline couldn’t breathe.
Then in unison, they coughed, took a desperate breath, and went into a frenzy of coughing.
Jacqueline rolled into a tight ball of agony. That smoke . . . it shredded the tissues in her lungs. It clung in her airways with hooks and claws. Isabelle couldn’t help her with this. This smoke . . . even together, they couldn’t fight it.
Caleb gripped her shoulders.
Dimly she could hear him shouting at Irving. “Why did you send Jacqueline up here?”
“Because we need guidance or a prophecy or something ,” Irving shouted back.
A few feet away, Jacqueline saw Samuel crouched beside Isabelle as she spasmed and coughed.
They were going to die. They were going to die.
And just when it seemed they would . . . the coughing stopped.
The pain eased.
They could breathe.
Jacqueline collapsed in limp relief.
Isabelle rested on the floor beside her, holding her throat and wheezing.
They lay, exhausted, sweaty with exertion.
Jacqueline reached over and touched Isabelle’s hand.
Isabelle turned her head to face her.
“Thank you,” Jacqueline whispered.
“That smoke . . .” Isabelle began. Then, with a quick glance around at the watching eyes, she changed her mind and replied only, “You’re welcome.”
Caleb touched Jacqueline’s cheek, looked into her eyes. “You’re really better?”
Jacqueline nodded.
He looked up at Isabelle. “What about her hand?”
Samuel still knelt beside Isabelle, and he looked up sharply. “Give it a rest, asshole. She almost died helping your girlfriend.”
Isabelle didn’t stir, didn’t glance, didn’t acknowledge Samuel’s defense in any way.
Scowling, he stood and strode out, leaving a small, strained silence behind.
Sitting up, Isabelle pushed the hair out of her face. Her voice was hoarse, but still cultured and cool as she said, “Believe it or not, Jacqueline’s hand was the least of her problems.”
Jacqueline sneaked a glance at her palm, brown with dried blood, wet with new blood. It was not the least of her worries. But how could she explain what that man with the flaming eyes had tried to do to her?
Carefully, she cupped her injured hand in the good one.
Pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket, Caleb wrapped it around her hand, masking the damage.
Martha stepped forward. “In my day, I’ve had plenty of experience stitching up wounds. Never lost a patient, never had one not heal clean.”
“Let’s get her to our bedroom, and you can take care of that.” Caleb helped Jacqueline to her feet.
Aleksandr helped Isabelle.
“Wait.” Irving stopped them with a raised, trembling hand. “First, I must know—Jacqueline, what was your vision?”
Jacqueline shook as she realized . . . she had seen it; she had been there. . . . In a slow, halting voice, she told Irving, told them all, about Zusane aboard the failing aircraft, how Zusane had seen her and been horrified, how Jacqueline had tried to save her and instead been pushed out of the plane by her mother’s own hand. She told them everything . . . except seeing the man with the flaming blue eyes.
Some caution, some lack of trust for these people she barely knew, held her back.
“So . . . your mother saved your life,” Tyler said.
Jacqueline turned her head and looked at the quiet, handsome man.
“She did.” Tyler sounded very certain of his facts. “If you’d gone down with the plane, or strapped on the parachute, you would have been tied to that place and time, and you wouldn’t have escaped. When she pushed you out, she pushed you back here to the attic, where you were having your vision.”
“How do you know that?” Charisma asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know how. I just do. I am a psychic, too, you know.”
“Sure. My mother’s great,” Jacqueline said. “Pushing her daughter out of a plane should clinch that Mother of the Year award.”
The awkward silence fell again, an almost familiar presence in the attic.
“Enough discussion. Jacqueline needs to go to bed,” Caleb announced firmly, and led her toward the door.
Everyone followed, a solemn procession down the stairs and into her bedroom.
Irving indicated that Isabelle should take the chair.
Caleb helped Jacqueline onto the bed. “Okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“I’m fine. See what you can find out about Mother.” Not because she was in any doubt, but because he had been Zusane’s bodyguard for years. He’d once walked away from Jacqueline on Zusane’s command; he was loyal to Zusane, and she could sense the unease behind his calm facade.
With a nod, he left.
Martha left, too, and returned with a medical bag. Unwrapping the cloth, she examined Jacqueline’s hand, and even her voice sounded pinched and disapproving when she said, “If I might make a suggestion, Mr. Shea? In the future, when you send Miss Vargha off to access a vision, perhaps it would be wise for her to draw a circle on the floor around her. A circle drawn by one of the Chosen Ones promises at least a little protection, I believe.”
Picking up the remote, Irving turned the television on and flipped through the news channels. He wasn’t paying attention when he said, “Yes. Good idea. Make sure you do that, Jacqueline.”
Martha sighed audibly.
McKenna left the room and returned with bottled water and a plate of nuts and cheeses. Opening a bottle, he handed it to Jacqueline. “Here, miss, you’ll need this after your ordeal.”
He didn’t look or sound any different than he ever did, but Jacqueline was pleased. She’d helped Irving, and with that, she’d won her way back into McKenna’s good graces. Thank heavens; she wouldn’t have to worry about undercooked chicken now.
Aleksandr fell on the food as if he hadn’t eaten for months. The others took the water with thanks.
Martha’s bag proved surprisingly well-stocked. As she worked on Jacqueline’s hand, she saw Jacqueline peering anxiously at her work, and said, “I can’t do what Isabelle can do, but when the Gypsy Travel Agency recruited me, I was a nurse.”
“I thought you were a—” Jacqueline stopped when Martha shot her a dark glance.
“A maid? A cook? A housekeeper? I’ve been all that, too.” Her sutures were small and neat. “I’ve been everything they’ve ever asked me to be.”
“For which we are thankful.” Irving never took his gaze off the television.
Neither did Aleksandr or Aaron. The small room was crowded with everyone in the house—except Caleb and Samuel. They watched the TV or nibbled at the appetizers. No one seemed to want to leave. They wanted confirmation of Jacqueline’s vision.
And when they got it—what would they do? Be awestruck? Thank her?
Treat her like a freak?
With a shock, she realized—no, they wouldn’t. Because among the Chosen Ones, she was not a freak—she was gifted.
Leaning close to Martha, she whispered, “Can you sew my tattoo back together the way it was?”
Martha looked up into Jacqueline’s face, and what she saw must have satisfied her, because for the first time in Jacqueline’s memory, she smiled. Smiled and said, “I will do my best.”
“That’s all I ask.” Leaning back, Jacqueline relaxed, at home for the first time in her life.
Chapter 23
Martha was packing her medical bag when Caleb returned. He looked stern, older, as he said, “I can’t get Zusane on her cell, which doesn’t surprise me, but I can’t get any of my men, either, and that is unusual.”
“Damn.” Irving flipped off the television in disgust. “There’s nothing here. Aleksandr!”
Aleksandr jumped and dropped a slice of cheese on the carpet. “What, sir?”
“You’re good with the Internet.”
“I am?” He scooped up the cheese a
nd popped it in his mouth.
“You’re a college student. Of course you are.”
“If you’re looking for porn,” Aaron said out of the corner of his mouth.
Aleksandr ’s fist shot out and smacked Aaron’s arm hard.