The Vengeance (17 page)

He threw his hands to his face in an attempt to rub away the frustration. Walking back towards her, he turned his back to her again and leaned back against the counter.

“Addie, I killed your mother.”

Silence.

“You what?” she said, walking around the counter to stand in front of him. “You
what
?” She slapped him hard, the sound echoing against the walls in the house.

“I killed your mother.”

“How? I mean, why? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I went to see her
the day Rose was born. I don’t know what happened. I was telling her about you and Rose. I wanted her to find a reason to snap out of whatever was wrong with her. I wanted all of us to be a family. I wanted you to have your mother back. And I don’t know. She started screaming at me and when I touched her, I don’t know. She just had a heart attack or something. She told me to stay away from you and Rose and then she was gone. I don’t know what I did, but I killed her.”

Addie reached out and slapped him
again hard, directly across the cheek. The sound echoed through the farm house yet he didn’t move. Both of them had tears streaking down their cheeks. She slapped him again and then again for good measure until he pulled her into his arms.

“Addie, I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, I love you so much. I had to leave. I don’t know what I did or how, but I couldn’t face you knowing what I had done and worrying if I would do it to you. I had to go get my life together. I couldn’t hurt you and Rose.”

“Just shut up,” she said, pushing back from his grip although she didn’t want to. “That’s for lying to me again! You didn’t kill my mother!”

“I did! I don’t know how Addie but I did!”

“You didn’t! She didn’t die the week Rose was born, you jerk. She died about a year after. Why are you lying to me? Why did you leave?”

She wrestled herself out of his grip and backed up a few steps.  She hadn’t noticed but in the midst of their exchange, AJ had shown up outside the screen door after having sensed Robert’s anger.

“Everything okay?” he called in gently.

“You’ve got
to be kidding me,” Robert half laughed. “This is a private discussion, AJ.”

“I wasn’t talking to you Robert. Addie, you okay?”

“I’m fine AJ, everything’s fine.”

“You sure?”

She walked towards the door, resting her hand on the handle and leaning in towards the screen. Her voice came out a whisper.

“Everything’s okay. I promise you. Just go home, please. Please AJ, just go home.”

She put her hand up to the screen and he placed his against it momentarily before turning down the stairs. As she turned around, Robert reached out to grab her hand.

“Seriously? In front of me?”

“Let me go. There is nothing between AJ and me!” 

She turned to walk away as Robert tried to pull her into his arms to explain.

“Let me go!” she yelled before falling in a crumpled ball to the floor.

Mid-stride
, AJ’s back arched and he nearly dropped to the sidewalk below. A bolt of intense pain shot through his body. In an instant he was back up the stairs and into the house.

“Let her GO!” he screamed, avoiding the urge to destroy Robert in favor of dropping to the ground near Addie. She was more important to him at the moment. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! AJ, I swear, I love her! I didn’t do anything!”

AJ lifted her body into his arms and his mind filled with images racing at high speed through his consciousness: Addie on a ventilator; visitors fluctuating in and out of the room; Rose crying at her mother’s bedside and placing a rose on a coffin as she held Gram’s hand.

He couldn’t heal her. She wasn’t meant to live.

“Look what you’ve done,” he said, both men now endowed with the realization that neither would ever have her.

“Do something!” Robert yelled back at the Healer.

“I can’t!”

“You’ve done it before. Broken the rules before. Why won’t you do it now? Why won’t you do it for her?”

“I can’t Robert! I’ve broken the rules once and I can’t do it again! You think the choice is easy? You think letting her die is easy? I have to think about the thousands in the future that will die if I heal her right now! Thousands! Max already lost his gift for me. And someone else has to suffer in her place if I heal her! What if it’s Rose? I don’t have a choice anymore Robert. I don’t have a choice!”

AJ cradled her limp body close to him as Robert stood nearby watching.

“I did it again,” Robert stammered.

“Is she breathing?” Robert asked, dropping down next to her.

“Don’t touch her!” AJ growled.

While he could feel the threat recede from Robert and watched the Grim’s face retreat into one of sadness and remorse, he remained untrusting.

“We have to get her to a hospital.”

“I didn’t mean to! I stopped focusing for just a second. It was only a second!”

“I thought you were letting go of your gift,” AJ barked at him, knowing full well that the Grim hadn’t because he’d never felt the threat disappear. “You were supposed to give it up for them.”

“I was going to. I
am
going to.”

“What use is that now?” 

The fury surged through AJ’s veins, boiling over and creating brute strength within him. He ran his hand through Addie’s hair, her body eerily still as she lay coddled in his arms.

“Is she alive?” Robert’s voice seemed small and contrite, agonized even.

“She’s alive. I’m not sure how long though.”

“What did you see?” Robert understood the meaning behind AJ’s words. Healers were never mistaken.

“Let’s just get her to the hospital.”

Robert reached for the phone before AJ barked out another order at him.

“No, we’re not calling 9-1-1. We’ll take her there ourselves. I don’t want to draw any more attention to this block. We’ve had enough reasons to raise suspicion the last six months.”

AJ scooped her up while Robert opened the door and started up the truck.

“You drive,” AJ said, handing him the keys.

He wasn’t about to let Robert touch Addie again until he was sure the Grim was under control. Gram pulled up and bolted from the car to AJ’s door as her sixth sense kicked into high gear.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

She searched their eyes for an answer
; both told her the situation wasn’t good.

“What did you do?”

“We’ve got to get her to the hospital. I was going to grab Helen to look after Rose, but can you? She’s out in the barn. Addie’s had an accident Gram,” AJ choked out, hating every bit of the lie. “She’s going to be okay, we just need to get her some help.”

“We’ll follow you.”

Gram was off in a haste to scoop up Rose and back in her car in a heartbeat, as the men began the long trek to the hospital.

As soon as blue-clad nurses and doctors whisked Addie away, Robert and AJ stood in the waiting room avoiding all contact. AJ knew that if he started to talk, he would likely beat the man to a pulp – something he wasn’t allowed to do. No matter what the personal connection, he could not touch a Grim unless the Grim touched him first.

“What happened?” Gram called out, rushing towards AJ, Rose just inches behind.

Robert started to talk and was cut off by a wave of Gram’s hand, her gaze instead focusing in on AJ. Without looking at the Grim, she let the words slide out of her mouth.

“What happened, AJ?”

Gram had been leery of Robert since his return and blamed herself for not having known during the early days of his relationship with Addie that he was a Grim. She couldn’t have known AJ reminded her recently, but she still felt as though she should.

“It was an accident. She just went down. I don’t know what happened.”

He wasn’t lying, he told himself. He didn’t know exactly what Robert had done to her.

“Do you think it’s because of Benjamin? What he did?”

“No,” AJ said, willing his strength to keep him from ratting out Robert.

While he hated to admit it, he knew Robert had not intended to hurt her. He himself had firsthand experience in not being able to control a gift when emotional.

“I don’t know what it is. Let’s just wait and find out.”

“You didn’t heal her,” Gram whispered.

“No, I didn’t. You know that I can’t, no matter how much I want to.”

“What did you see?”

AJ stood silent, unwilling to let those thoughts enter his mind.

“AJ, I asked you, what did you
see
?”

“Is the family of Addie Jenko here?”

The voice interrupted them and sent all three flocking to the waiting room entrance.

“Here,” they replied in unison.

“I’m her next of kin,” Gram replied, as she stepped through both men and took the doctor out to the hall. She had no intention of letting the boys be a part of this if they weren’t going to be honest with her.

“What happened to my mommy?” a little voice squeaked from behind.

“Your mommy is going to be fine,” Robert replied, crouching down to her level. “She’s just sleeping right now. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon so we can talk.”

She looked at him and started crying. Instead of running into her father’s extended arms, she turned and clung to AJ’s leg. The Healer stooped down and lifted her chin with his hand.

“Hey, look at me. They’re going to take good care of her here.”

His voice was gentle and Robert immediately quelled the anger starting to surface at the thought of this man playing daddy to Rose.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“They’re going to do everything they can, okay?”

It wasn’t what AJ was saying, but what he didn’t say that caught Robert’s attention. As Gram entered back into the waiting room, AJ gently tapped Rose on the shoulder and led her over to her great-grandmother.

“You didn’t promise Rose her mom would be okay,” Robert said, the fierceness returning to his eyes.

“Because I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“I didn’t think you were serious before, AJ. I thought you were saying that shit to make me hurt!”

“I meant what I said. Whatever you did, you did thoroughly. She is not coming home from this hospital.”

“I did this to her?”

“Yeah, appears that way. Want to share
what
you did to her? What illness or whatever you inflicted on her?”

“I don’t know, AJ, I swear. I wasn’t in control.”

Robert looked back over at his little girl crying in Gram’s arms and back at AJ. “I should go.”

“It’s what you do best,” AJ snarled, turning his back on the Grim as the sullen man made his way down the hall.

“Mommy is going to be okay,” she whispered to Gram as the old woman ran her wrinkled hands through the auburn curls.

“She sure is,” Gram replied gently.

One look at AJ was less than reassuring.

“She is Gram, I can feel it. I just know it,” the little girl said while wiping the tears away from her eyes.

Gram just hoped that for possibly the first time in history, a Healer was wrong.

“Why don’t you run over there and get me a soda?” Gram gently responded, bending down to give Rose some change. “And get yourself something, too.”

“Okay!” Rose smiled, skipping towards the machine as if all the evil of the day had slipped from her existence.

Gram turned to AJ and moved as close to him as possible.

“Is it as bad as I’m gathering?”

AJ stayed silent. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

She sighed as she attempted to suppress the tears from falling.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t dying inside because of what you’re saying. The truth is, AJ, whether or not you believe me
, I do understand. Not as Addie’s grandmother, but as a former Healer.”

“You might understand Gram, but you’ll never forgive me for not healing her. You’ll hate me. Rose will hate me.”

“No one’s going to hate you AJ. Your decision is not an easy one. And what would you do if it was Rose who grew ill because you broke the rules to save her mother from death? It’s not a decision that most men could make. I don’t like the choice you’ve made, but I understand it. Unfortunately, Healers often have to sacrifice one for the greater good. I just never thought it would be my granddaughter.”

She looked over to tears streaming down his face.

“There is no winning in this situation,” AJ choked out. “If I heal her, I lose everything and so will many others. And if I don’t, we lose
her
.”

“Then let’s just make the most of the time we do have, AJ.”

Gram patted his back and walked away before the real and hateful words her heart wanted to say came spewing out.