Cursed

Chapter 28

Except the pain never came, and the screams tearing through the cellar weren’t mine.

Mr. Theo spun away from me, falling to the floor as flames engulfed the lower half of his body.

Transfixed by the disturbing dance, I watched until he dove into a puddle large enough to extinguish the flames. He didn’t move after that.

“Ember?”

Hayden stood at the bottom of the stairs. He looked rough—torn sweater, dark splotches staining the front. I think there was a hospital bracelet on his wrist. What looked like dried blood covered half of his face and his hair was matted to his forehead.

But he was, in that moment, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

He was at my side before I could even respond. His expression held a striking mix of terror, pain, and relief. Hayden grasped my face. I didn’t even care that it hurt. “Ember, oh God, Ember, please say something.”

I started to cry and blabber at once, telling him things I was sure he already figured it out while he shrugged out of his sweater and tried to tuck it around my shoulders. Beyond him, I saw Kurt in his cowboy duster poking at Theo with his booted foot.

“Holy shit,” Kurt muttered, shaking his head. “Isn’t he an English teacher at the high school?”

Hayden peered behind me and swore violently. “Kurt, get over here. Em, just hold on a little while longer and we’ll get you out of here.”

“How… how did you find me?” I asked, shivering uncontrollably.

“Parker traced you, with Phoebe’s help.” His breath felt exquisitely warm against my chilled skin—

something I thought I’d never feel again. “When I woke in the hospital and found out you weren’t there—

that you weren’t even at the accident—I knew something was wrong. I got ahold of the twins, who called Kurt. They picked me up and we started driving around until they could feel you.”

“Jesus,” Kurt muttered again. “These are metal. There is no way we’re going to get them off.” He slid out of the duster and dropped it over me. “Jesus. Ember, stop shaking. You’re ripping the skin off your wrists.”

“I… I c-can’t help it.”

“It’s okay.” Hayden tucked the edges of Kurt’s coat around me. He stroked my face and my forehead with quick brushes of his fingers. A strong shudder ran through me as he brushed back my hair. “Em, I need you to open your eyes and look at me.”

I didn’t realize I’d closed them.

“I need to melt the metal to get you free.” He paused, his eyes sharpened by a protective shine. “I need you to be perfectly still.”

“O-Okay.”

Hayden glanced over at Kurt and nodded. “Make sure she doesn’t move.”

“You got it.” Kurt shifted closer and groaned. “Dammit—rats. I hate rats.”

“M-Me too, b-but I think they h-hate me more,” I said.

Kurt laughed, a real honest-to-God laugh. “Trust me, that’s a good thing.”

I rested my head against Hayden’s chest as he felt around behind me. His body heat felt marvelous, so much so that I ignored the first flare of intense heat, but then I felt pain. Real pain.

I stiffened.

“Don’t move,” he whispered. “You helped us find you, did you know that?”

I flinched and squeezed my eyes shut. I should’ve thought about it more when he said he needed to melt the metal. The kind of heat needed to do that had to be ridiculous. My wrists felt like they had been shoved in an oven. Pressing my face into his chest, I whimpered.

“Em? Did you know?” he asked again, coaxing a response from me. “

N-No.”

“Yeah, you kept thinking about Mr. Theo and being in a basement. We wouldn’t have known to check down here if it hadn’t been for you. You did really good, Em.”

Searing, red-hot pain shot through my arms, but I managed not to move. Melting metal stung like holy hell. But it was working. The cuffs were already loosening.

“It’ll be just a little bit more, and we’ll be done.”

“She’s pretty messed up, Hayden,” Kurt said like I wasn’t right there. “You need to hurry up. Her leg is bleeding real bad.”

Probably due to my heart rate skyrocketing. Between the burning around my hands and everything that’d happened, I was pushed to my limits, but I needed to make sure that, if they failed, they wouldn’t take me to my sister. “P-Promise me, you won’t take me to Olivia. If t-this doesn’t work—”

“This will work,” Hayden said. “And if it doesn’t, I’m not losing you.”

“Y-You can’t use Olivia again. I-I won’t allow it.”

“Dammit, don’t argue with me about this!”

In that instant, I realized Hayden would risk anything—anyone—to make sure I lived. But I couldn’t expose her to this. Not again. The handcuffs melted enough that, with Hayden and Kurt’s combined efforts, they broke apart. My muscles screamed in protest, but I ignored them.

I grabbed Kurt’s hand, the raw flesh around my wrists bubbling. His mouth dropped open, a mixture of fear and disbelief crawling across his face. “Don’t let Olivia see me like this. D-Don’t let her touch me. Please.”

Kurt’s gaze bounced to Hayden, then back to me. “Okay. Okay.”

“Dammit, Kurt,” Hayden roared. “I won’t let her die!”

But Kurt was on his feet the moment I let go of him, digging in his pocket. “Jonathan has connections at the hospital, Hayden. He’s already on his way. I’ll call him.”

The heat of his anger poured off him. “If anything happens to her…”

“I know. You’ll kill me.” Kurt pulled out his cell and cursed. “I have to go upstairs. I’m not getting a signal.”

“I’ll get her. Just go.” Hayden turned back to me, already dismissing Kurt. His gaze traced every inch of me, enduring every cut, scrap, and bruise. His voice turned husky. “Em, I thought—I thought I’d lost you.”

“N-No, I’m here.”

Hayden leaned in and brought his mouth down on mine. I sank into him—his warmth and his love.

When he pulled back, his eyes shone in the dim light.

“I want to go h-home.”

“Hospital first,” he said. “Then we go home. Together.”

My eyes fell around the dark recesses of the cellar—the area I’d thought would be my final resting place. They roamed over the damp walls covered in mold and over Hayden’s shoulder where I saw Mr.

Theo—on his feet, gun in hand.

“Hayden—watch—” But it was too late. Hayden gasped and shifted as if he planned on shielding me with his body. I broke into a wild struggle, so powerful that Hayden jolted to his left just as the gun fired.

Mr. Theo missed, but he was aiming again.

Using the last of my strength, I pushed hard. I heard Hayden yell my name, but I focused on Mr. Theo.

He fumbled with the gun. With all the burns, he moved in halting jerks. Anger and desperation propelled me across the slick floor. The pain didn’t matter—nothing did but stopping Mr. Theo.

He leveled the gun, not at me, but at Hayden. I stretched out, running my hand under the hem of his charred pants and circling the sticky flesh of his ankle. He jerked once, twice. His entire body went rigid, even his fingers. The gun slipped from his hand, hitting the floor with a sharp rattle of finality. I held on.

Mr. Theo dropped to his knees, arms splayed out like some kind of fallen angel. A grayish color raced over his skin, veins bulging and darkening as if someone had taken a charcoal pencil and traced the fine lines. He turned his head and stared down at me, mouth gaped in a silent scream. In that heartbeat, our eyes met.

I felt my lips spread into a smile.

A great and terrible spasm rolled through his body, then his eyes rolled back and he fell face-first into a cold puddle. Mr. Theo didn’t move again.

Over the next couple of hours I slipped in and out of reality. When I woke in a warm place, I reached for Hayden. My fingers curled into the empty air until someone gently guided my arm back.

Cromwell moved into my line of vision. “Hayden’s all right. Just getting checked over again.”

I blinked and my head rolled in the other direction. A white curtain fluttered and a machine beeped.

There were voices far away. Or were they close? Things were kind of foggy from there on out. Someone in medical scrubs shot a syringe into the IV tube snaking from my arm, which didn’t help with my observation skills at all—not to mention I felt like I was floating halfway off the bed.

“Don’t touch her skin, whatever you do.” Cromwell—I was pretty sure that was Cromwell. Talking to the doctor, I guessed.

I couldn’t open my eyes again. I felt pleasantly numb. Detached. A door opened and closed. I hoped it was Hayden. I held my breath, waiting, hoping, waiting, floating some more.

“So this is Project E?” said a female voice I didn’t recognize.

“Yes, this would be her.”

“Do you want us to take her? We have a place for her immediately.” The woman’s voice was soft and melodious. She sounded like Mom. I liked that.

“No,” Cromwell answered after a stretch of silence. “She’s one of mine now. And she’s very important.”

“You should take better care of her, then. It would be a shame to lose this one, too.”

Then I floated up and up, past the ceiling and into a bright, warm nothing.

“It hurts. I can fix it.”

“No. Olivia, don’t touch it.” I pushed at the arm hovering way too close to the side of my face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

She sat back on her heels, dipping the bed. “Emmie, why are you hurt?”

I turned my head slowly and stared up at the ceiling. How could I tell a five-year-old that my crazy English teacher had wanted to kill me? I couldn’t. So I settled on the same thing I’d told her ever since I’d woken up with her next to me. “I was in an accident.”

“With Hayden?”

My heart squeezed. I’d only been awake for a little while, and Olivia was the only person I’d seen.

“Yes, with Hayden.” Her lower lip trembled. “I don’t like accidents.”

“I know, honey, but everything is okay now.”

“You promise? No more accidents?”

I smiled, but it was more of a wince. When I’d first woken up, I’d hobbled into the bathroom and gotten a good look at myself. Half my face looked like someone had pummeled it. I had a knot the size of a golf ball on the side of my head. Even now, every inch of skin hurt, every muscle felt torn, and every bone ached, but my leg and wrists had suffered far worse. Olivia said I had over a hundred stitches, so I deducted eighty from that. I couldn’t see most of my hands; they were wrapped in heavy gauze.

“Emmie?”

“No more accidents. I promise.” I started to sit up, but a wave of dizziness forced me back down. I hit the pillow, grimacing. I felt out of it, tired and so damn thirsty. “Olivia, want to do me a favor?”

Her head bobbed eagerly.

“Can you get me something to drink?”

“I can get you juice. I can help.”

“Juice would be great. Olivia—” She was already off the bed and at the door. “Olivia, I love you.”

“I love you, Emmie!” Then she took off flying from my room. I could hear her little footsteps all the way down the stairs.

Slowly, I tried to push myself back up again. It didn’t work. I stared at the ceiling until my eyes started to drift shut. The next thing I knew, Cromwell was pulling my desk chair across the room and sitting by the bed.

“Where’s Olivia?”

“You were asleep when she brought the juice up.” He motioned at the bed stand. There my juice sat.

My mouth watered. “She’s with Liz. Do you think you can sit up?”

With his careful help, I was able to sit up long enough. My throat burned, but I downed the entire glass before lying back down. “I feel… weird.”

“You were given some pain medication at the hospital, and again this morning. You don’t remember that?”

I frowned. “No.” All I remembered from the hospital was floating through the rafters. I must’ve been really high.

“I need to talk to you. Do you feel up to it?”

“Okay,” I said, but there was something about the hospital I thought I should remember. It was there, on the very edge of my memories, hazy and out of reach.

“Parker and Hayden filled me in on most of what happened. I can understand your distrust of me and my intentions, but I hope you have learned that’s not the case.”

I thought that was a very smooth way of asking if I’d learned my lesson. “Parker was in my head again?”

“We thought it would be easier than making you relive everything.”

I guess that made it okay—sort of. “So, you worked with his sister.”

Cromwell let out a soft breath and nodded. “It was a very long time ago, before Hayden and the others. Theo was a child, and I had no idea his gift was like Olivia’s. His sister had a remarkable gift.”

“Remarkable?”

“She was the first, Ember. No one before her had ever showed that type of gift, and no one after her—

until you. With what happened to her, I didn’t want to attempt the same thing.” He paused, a small smile appeared. “I never intended to send you to the Facility. I didn’t want you to have the same fate she did. I don’t expect you to believe me, but you have no idea how her death ate away at me. She was why I started searching for others, hoping to get to them before the gifts became too much to control.”

“But… you worked with her? In the program?”

“I did,” he admitted. “It was a long time ago, Ember.” And that was all he would say about that. His next words distracted me, anyway. “From what I could gather, it appears that Theo did tell you the truth about your father. He was going to transfer guardianship of Olivia to one of the doctors at the Facility. I’m sorry. I know that isn’t what you wanted to hear.”

No. It wasn’t. I didn’t even know how to deal with that—what to think or where to begin. All I could acknowledge right now was the sick twisting of my heart.

“I’m really sorry.”

It could’ve been the drugs, but he actually looked sympathetic. “Isn’t someone going to do something to stop them? They can’t do this to people, let parents sell their children.”

“The Facility never used to be like this, and trust me, something is being done about them,” Cromwell said, anger sparking deep in his eyes. “But it’s not something you need to worry about right now. I know it’s hard for you not to focus on it, but you need to get better.”

What I needed… I didn’t even know what I needed.

“There’s one other thing I want to talk to you about.” He took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been working with my son. We had a very long talk last night.”

“Oh,” I whispered.

“I always knew he wouldn’t listen to me when it came to you. I’m just surprised by how far he disobeyed my wishes.”

“He… he just wanted to help me.”

Cromwell raised one brow, and the bland expression on his face slipped a degree. “It appears Hayden had his own motives.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Ember, I know you and Hayden are… involved with one another. I’m going to be honest with you; I’m not thrilled. Among other concerns, you both live under my roof, but I suppose it’s a good thing he didn’t listen to me.”

“It is?”

“Kurt told me you grabbed him in the cellar, and that your touch didn’t hurt him. It seems I should’ve supported Hayden when he first asked to work with you.”

“I can’t touch… for a long period of time. Maybe a minute.”

“But that is miraculous, considering where you were before.”

That same word from Olivia’s file popped in my head, but I decided to let it go. “I guess so.”

Cromwell leaned forward and held out one hand. “I need to see if it’s true.”

“Are you serious?” The look that he gave me said he was. I sighed, too tired to argue. “If it doesn’t work, well, I guess you’ll know.” Then I touched my hand to his. His fingers felt smooth to me, like the man never used his hands for anything other than pushing a pen. A couple of seconds passed, maybe about thirty, when he seemed satisfied.

“Miraculous,” he murmured again. He stood. “We’ll talk more later. Get some rest.”

“Cromwell?”

He stepped at the door, twisting back. “Yes?”

“Is… is Theo dead?”

“Yes.”

I let out an unsteady breath. “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

Cromwell came back to the bed, studying me a moment. “Do not think for one second that Theo wasn’t going to kill you. He saw you as having the future his sister should’ve had. And you defended yourself, but you did more than that.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and smiled.

I think it was the first time he ever truly smiled at me like he meant it.

“Hayden may not be my biological son, but he means the world to me. If you hadn’t stopped Theo, he would’ve shot my son. You saved Hayden’s life.”

Something awful shifted in my stomach. “But I killed someone. Again.”

“The first was an accident, Ember. And this? Well, it’s not something you will ever get used to.

However, in time, you will come to accept what you have done. Get some rest, Ember.” He left without so much as a look back.

I thought he sounded like someone who knew what it felt like to kill. Then again, that could’ve been the pain meds. I couldn’t be sure.

Silence settled in around me and I shifted uncomfortably. That awful feeling kept worrying me. Yes, Theo had planned on putting a bullet in my head—Hayden’s, too—but I’d killed him. And I was pretty sure I’d smiled while doing it.

That couldn’t be good.

What would Olivia say if she knew? What would my mom say? I’d killed twice now, but this one—

this kill was different. I’d wanted to do it. I squeezed my eyes shut. I already knew what Hayden would think. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t checked in on me yet. He had once said I was good inside, better than all of them. I doubted he thought that now.

I lay there for a little while, trying not to think about anything, and eventually slipped back into sleep.

When I opened my eyes again, night had fallen.

“Ember.”

My heart skipped a beat or two at the sound of his voice. The bed dipped. Fingers brushed my hair back, lingering as long as possible. Hayden.

“Hey there,” I whispered.

“How are you feeling?”

I tested sitting up. “Not so woozy. Better.”

“Good. I’ve checked on you several times, but you’ve been sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I wish you had.” Hayden smiled. “Miss my face?”

My eyes fell over him, checking for wounds. “Are you okay?”

“I’m a hundred percent.”

I stared at him, wanting to memorize every inch of his face. “You’re really here, right? I’m not having a drug-induced dream, am I?”

His brows furrowed. “No. I’m here.”

“I… I didn’t think you’d want to see me after everything.”

“Em, sometimes you think the weirdest crap.”

My lips twitched, but I sobered up pretty quickly. “I’m sorry for everything. For the thing with the files and… and what I did. I never wanted to kill someone. And I’ve done it twice.” I wiped under my eyes, feeling on the verge of coming apart. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want him to hurt you. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Shh, don’t.” He pulled me to him, cradling me against his chest so gently. “I don’t care about the file thing anymore. Do you think that’s even important to me now? After all you’ve been through?”

“But… what I did to Theo.”

“You did what you had to do. It doesn’t change anything about you. How beautiful you are inside.

How good you are. Or what I think of you.”

Heavy tears rolled down my cheeks. Hayden held on until the panic and fear slowly eased off. My grip on his sweater loosened and when I lifted my head, he swooped in and dropped a sweet kiss on my lips, silencing my worries and doubts. With that one simple touch, I knew I was going to be all right.

“Do you remember telling me what you loved most about winter?” he asked me.

“Yeah, I think so.”

His smile turned beautiful. “Let me help you stand.”

Hayden also helped me limp to the door. There, he grabbed a quilt and wrapped it around me. “Close your eyes.”

I raised my brows, but did as he asked. I heard the door open and cold air washed over me. Then, without any warning, I was swinging off my feet.

“Keep your eyes closed, Em.”

“Hayden, what are you doing?”

“Carrying you,” he said, laughter in his voice.

“Yeah, I gathered that.”

He held me close to his chest as he carried me out onto the balcony. I felt his lips brush my forehead.

“All right, open your eyes.”

I did, and in that moment, I was blown away by the beauty of the place I had once found terrifying.

Flakes of falling snow glistened in the moonlight like a thousand glittering stars. They came down fat and thick, placing a heavy blanket of white over the branches of elm trees, already softening the sharp peaks of Seneca Rocks.

“It’s… it’s beautiful.”

“I thought you’d like it.” His arms tightened. “I love it.” I tipped my head back. “Hayden.”

“Hmm?” He lowered his head, the edges of his hair brushing over my forehead.

It felt like silk on my skin—like his voice, his gaze. I felt close to tears again, but the happy kind, and even though I thought it would be hard to say these words, they came out easily. “I love you.”

Much like the look he got when he saw my sketches of him, wonder flickered across his face. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

My smile spread. “Two years, give or take a week?”

Hayden grinned, his dark eyes like pools of the night sky. “Yeah, that sounds about right. Do you know what I want to do now?”

“Kiss?”

And we did. Our lips touched. The world simply faded away, and it was just Hayden and me. We parted only after we had to, at the very last second.

“I love you, Ember.”

Resting my head against his chest, I smiled and sighed a little. Beyond the edge of the balcony, through the snow-touched trees, and over the rising slope of the mountains, a star broke away from the sky and fell to the earth.

THE END