Intangible (2 page)

S
eraphina Raine ducked behind a padded purple chair and held her breath as a nurse walked by. The wall of windows that opened to the sterile white hallway wasn’t much help in keeping her hidden. But she figured that glass walls were probably a necessity in the intensive care unit.

Still, it wasn’t making her mission easy tonight.

Peeking out from behind the chair, she watched the nurse walk back to her desk and disappear behind the counter. The room was not in direct view of the nurses’ station. Thankfully. And the lights were turned off. That helped. Fluorescent light spilled into the room through the windows, but at least the room was darkened. She just needed to make sure she kept her eyes on the hallway so she wouldn’t be seen. Caught.

It was one o’clock in the morning. Thursday morning, to be exact. And as far as anyone knew, she was asleep in her bed at home, quite a few blocks away.

But here’s the thing. Lying here in this ICU hospital bed was Josh Whitman’s mom. Josh with the puppy-dog brown eyes. Josh with the sweet smile that gave her pause every time he aimed it at her. And he was just about the nicest guy around. He really didn’t deserve this. His family
was
his mom—he didn’t have anyone else since his dad had died when he was little. It just wasn’t right, Sera thought, for him to lose his mom, too. For him to lose his whole family.

She couldn’t let that happen.

She wasn’t going to.

His mom—Sera squinted at the chart hanging at the foot of the bed, Anne was her name—had gotten sick about a week ago. Something respiratory, with a bad cough. It had been going around lately, everyone coming down with it at school. Anne had been so busy taking care of everyone else—Josh, of course, and the kids in the pediatric unit of the hospital where she was a nurse—that she hadn’t taken very good care of herself, working when she shouldn’t have, not getting enough sleep, telling herself she could catch up on the weekend. But during her days off she’d gone from being simply sick to serious.

Josh had driven her to the ER two nights ago, where she was immediately admitted. Two hours later she was unconscious, sedated, intubated, and breathing with the help of a ventilator. Lying in a bed in the ICU hooked up to a myriad of machines, the doctors looked grave, saying things like “She’s a very sick woman.” They hadn’t had any positive words to comfort Josh—they wouldn’t offer false hope.

Word had spread around school the next day, everyone talking about how Josh was in shock, had stayed at his mom’s side, watching, waiting. Sera looked over at him now, snoring softly in a semi-reclining chair, close by if his mom woke up.

No, Sera thought, not
if
.
When.
That’s why Sera was here in this room. To be sure his mom
would
wake up.

Of course his presence complicated things. The wall of windows to the hallway, and a sleeping person here in the room with her. Not what she’d call ideal.

Machines beeped, the ventilator shushed, but it didn’t appear to affect Josh. Though he didn’t look like he was going to wake up any time soon, he did look worried, stressed. Even in his sleep.

Sera sighed looking at him sprawled across that uncomfortable chair. That’s exactly where she would be if this were her mom, she thought. She and Luke both. With her gifts, though, her mom would never be in this state. She felt lucky for that.

She didn’t want to leave him as he was, and though she knew it wasn’t the brightest idea to touch him and risk waking him up, she simply couldn’t help herself. With a glance down the hall again to be sure it was clear, she stole silently over to his chair. She reached out, then hesitated, her hand hovering above his body, and wondered where she might touch without waking him. His shin seemed the best spot, she decided, and slowly lowered her hand to rest it there.

He didn’t move. Sera exhaled silently, suddenly aware that she’d been holding her breath. She opened herself to the flow of energy she always felt when she was healing. She could feel warmth spread down her arm and into Josh’s leg. His breathing slowed, his body sank lower into the recliner. She watched his face as his forehead smoothed out, his mouth relaxed, his jaw released, his eyes slowed in their sleep dance. It even sounded as if he breathed a sigh of relief.

She gazed at his mop of brown curls, the angles of his face, his soft lips. He was a beautiful boy. If only she could date someone, she might choose him.

But, she reminded herself, she wasn’t here for a boyfriend. She was here to save someone’s life. Sera reluctantly removed her hand and turned to his mom.

She moved toward Anne’s bed, but froze when she saw a hint of movement beyond the glass wall. Her eyes flicked to the hallway—a nurse was headed this way. Never taking her eyes off the nurse, she smoothly stepped backwards to the corner and sank down to the cold hard floor behind Josh’s chair, hoping she’d be well hidden in the tangle of blankets hanging off of it.

Sera didn’t dare breathe as the nurse quietly entered the room, picked up the chart, looked at the array of machinery, and made some notes. She moved to the other side of the bed—perilously close to where Sera squatted behind Josh—to check on the bags of various fluids hanging from the IV poles.

“Any change?” Josh’s voice was like quiet gravel. Sera ducked her head farther down.

“No. But she’s still fighting,” the nurse said. “You get some rest, yourself, now.” She patted his arm, replaced the chart, took one last look at the various machines, and brisked out of the room, back down to the nurses’ station.

Sera could hear Josh breathing. He moved in the chair and for a moment she was certain he was about to get up and catch her crouching there. She couldn’t imagine what she would say to him. How she would explain what she was doing there. Panic froze her in place. But Josh just adjusted his position in the chair.

“C’mon, Mom,” he said softly. Even in a whisper, she could hear his voice shake. His breath came in short gasps, and then finally one long exhale as he won the battle for control. “Please be okay.”

I’ll make her okay, Josh,
Sera thought. She wished she could just pop up and tell him. Show him what she could do. Relieve his pain and worry. But that wasn’t possible. There was no way she could reveal her secret to him. Nor to anyone else. Anyone.
Go back to sleep so I can heal her,
she thought at him. And almost as if he’d heard, she saw his body relax, heard his breathing slow and the soft snores start again.

Sera slowly lifted her head to look at Josh’s face. Oh, thank goodness, he really was asleep again. She let go of her breath, relieved. And excited. The nurse probably wouldn’t be coming back for a while now that she’d just checked on Anne, and Josh was out cold.

It was time to get to work.

Sera crawled out from behind the chair, and stepped over to Anne’s bedside, the slight squeak of her sneakers on the shiny floor making her wince. She spared a quick glance down the hall—she was standing in full view now if anyone looked into this room—no one was around. She exhaled and turned her focus on Anne.

She’d never seen so many tubes going in and out of one person before. There were four bags of IV fluids hanging from the pole next to where Sera stood, and a tangle of tubes and cords in and around her body. Anne’s chest moved up and down in time with the whooshing ventilator. Sera was surprised at how fast she was breathing—or, really, how fast the ventilator was breathing for her. There was a heart monitor beeping, too. Sera looked over at Josh again, wondering how he was actually able to sleep with all this noise.

Anne’s forearms and hands were supported by pillows, with several more behind her head as well as some at the end of the bed to cushion her feet. The bed was tilted up to keep her in a reclining position. Her whole body was eerily slack, as if there was no life in it. Disturbing. A person, but no sign of someone in there. Her dark hair fanned out around her face. Her whole body was swollen, and when Sera reached out to place her hand on Anne’s arm, her skin felt hot, sweaty, and stretched tight.

It was scary, seeing someone like this. Alive, but not living
.
Machines doing all the work. Sera shuddered. It must be so much worse when it was someone you loved. Her eyes darted to Josh again for a moment, then she tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear, and turned back to Anne to get started.

Sera reached up to her own neck where her fingers sought and found an old silver necklace that she’d worn for as long as she could remember. The pendant was in the shape of a hand with a spiral swirl in the palm. She always had it on, as if it was a part of her. She touched it now as she looked at Anne, and then reached down to place her palms on either side of Anne’s head. Heat streamed out of her hands and filled Anne’s head with a bright white light that only Sera could see.

Every time it filled her with wonder. This power she had. This gift. The light spread into Anne’s torso, down the length of her arms to her fingertips, through her hips and her legs, all the way to her toes. Her whole body was glowing, light streaming out of her fingers and toes.

For Sera, it was bright enough to light up the whole room, which told her how very sick Anne was. The brighter the glow, the stronger the healing. Sera breathed slowly, feeling the warmth of the healing light resonate through her own body. She watched as Anne appeared to relax, noticed her heart rate slow on the monitor. The glow was fading, only the lungs were still lit with the healing light, still soaking in the energy. The infection must have been strong to have needed so much.

As the glow faded away and she felt the flow of energy ebb, Sera lifted her hands from Anne’s head. “You’re going to be okay,” she said, and smoothed her hair.

Anne’s eyelids fluttered lightly, and began to open. Her brow wrinkled, and Sera realized she didn’t know where she was or why she had a tube down her throat. Anne searched Sera’s eyes for answers.

“You’ve been really sick.” She paused, not sure what else to say. Anne was staring at her, and she was suddenly very aware of the fact that she wasn’t supposed to be here. Anne might recognize her later. Sera knew that she shouldn’t stay, shouldn’t talk to her. She glanced around the room in hopes of finding some sort of distraction.

Josh!

“Josh is here. He’s been waiting for you to wake up.”

Anne looked over to where he was sleeping, then back again at Sera.

“Don’t worry,” Sera said as she moved toward the door. “I’m not really here. I’m just…” She paused at the door, not sure what to say, turned back to look at Anne once more and smiled as inspiration struck. “I’m just an angel.”

With one last glance at Josh, Sera ducked out of the room and hurried for the double doors to get out of the ICU before anyone saw her. As she pushed the heavy door open, she heard an alarm going off in Anne’s room, footsteps running down the hall, and Josh’s voice saying, “Mom?”

With a quiet swoosh behind Sera, the huge doors shut out the sounds of the ICU.

A
s the doors slid open on the first floor, Sera practically skipped out of the elevator and down the deserted hall toward the lobby. Like a deliriously happy little kid. God, she loved this feeling—this high she got from healing people. Josh had his mom back. He’d be happy again. He’d never know it was Sera who’d saved her, but so what? He didn’t need to know. She felt like a five-year-old with the best secret ever.

Banners proclaiming “We Center on You!” from the medical center’s latest ad campaign lined the long hallway over poster-sized seasonal photographs of Vermont’s countryside. Sera could feel the excess energy ricocheting throughout her body and felt like running up and down the hall, bouncing off the walls. She was practically giddy with joy, but she needed to rein herself in soon before anyone saw her—she didn’t want to attract attention.

When she got to the lobby, Sera wrapped her arms around herself and ducked her head down to hide her exhilaration. She hurried past the few people around at this time of night, doing her best to look non-descript. Not too difficult, she thought. After all, who would really take much notice of a dark-haired girl in jeans and a black and brown hooded sweater? No one. And in a city as small as Burlington there just weren’t that many people in the hospital lobby in the middle of the night. Luckily.

“Sera!” A voice from behind halted her.

She cringed, felt herself flushing red while her brain scrambled for a realistic reason for being there in the middle of the night. Because she knew that voice well, and fully expected she’d have some explaining to do.

Sera turned around and looked up into the approaching beauty of her best friend, Fey, who, much to Sera’s momentary dismay, was extremely noticeable. Tall and lithe, she moved with an almost inhuman grace. She had deep green eyes and long blonde hair that hung in waves to the middle of her back. In fact, there was nothing unnoticeable about her—as the three other people in the lobby proved as they gawked at her. And now at Sera as well, thanks to Fey.

It wasn’t much of a stealth mission if everyone saw you.