Cursed (12 page)

Chapter 14

S
ometime later, I sat surrounded by kids who looked familiar from the hallways at school and a few with whom I may’ve exchanged an entire sentence. Someone had shoved a red plastic cup in my hand as we’d arrived—cheap keg beer that tasted as bad as it smelled—but I drank it, anyway. Slowly.

Cory appeared thrilled to see me when he arrived from the dance, dressed in a full-out tux. He looked so silly, dressed so formally among the corn and battered lawn chairs. Thankfully, Hayden had thought ahead and grabbed a blanket. That’s where I stayed, my legs curled under me and a cup of crappy beer in my hand.

And I was having fun.

Once the kids grew bored with the dance, they arrived by truckloads. Girls still wore their pretty dresses, but most of the boys had changed. When I’d downed my first cup of beer, I refused a second. I was such a lightweight, and I was content watching Hayden interact with other people—outsiders. It fascinated me.

He was a natural. Charming and funny, and God, all the half-naked girls flocked to him, just wanting to talk to him, be next to him. The guys, well, that seemed a totally different story. They kept their distance, treating him with the kind of esteem that usually resulted from an innate fear. Even though Hayden mingled, he never roamed too far from where I sat, almost like he’d appointed himself my guardian or something. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel flattered, but I also felt sort of bad. Was I keeping him from his friends?

Apparently, Gabe thought so.

“It’s good to see him out,” He dropped down on my blanket out of nowhere, still wearing his dress shirt, although he’d changed into jeans. A girl with brown hair and a god-awful purple dress that clung to her body waited nearby. “He’s been up your butt since you got here.”

I frowned.

“Not that it’s not a nice butt to be up, but I mean, come on! What’s he getting from spending so much time with you?”

My frown slipped into a scowl.

“Definitely not getting some, so what’s the deal, Ember? What have you guys been up to?”

“Nothing that’s any of your business.”

Gabe tipped his head back and laughed. “You don’t like me, do you?”

I thought that was a stupid question. “You don’t like me.”

“True.” He laughed again, and then stood. A second later, Phoebe stood in his place. I sighed.

“Nice gloves,” she said.

I glanced down at them. “Sorry. Hayden grabbed them.”

“Did he?” She swayed to the left, a plastic cup dangling from her fingertips. “How nice of him, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Phoebe took a step to the right, stopped, and then giggled as she bent at the waist. God only knows what the group of guys saw from their vantage point behind her.

I rolled my eyes, but Phoebe just shrugged. “Anyway, like I was saying. How nice of Hayden. You think he’s like some great white knight, huh? But he’s more like the black knight. Boy got damages. Yeah, he does.”

My brows slowly inched up my forehead, the longer she talked. I wondered how many times she’d refilled her plastic cup.

“I bet he hasn’t told you why he got kicked out of his parent’s house, has he? Of course not,” she slurred. “You don’t know him like I do.”

“Maybe you should stop drinking,” I suggested.

“I have to pee,” she announced to no one in particular.

“Good for you.”

“You’re supposed to come with, Ember. Girls don’t let girls pee in the cornfield alone.” She laughed and pointed the cup at me. I jerked back, narrowly missing a waterfall of beer. “Not that you’d know. I bet you didn’t get invited to a lot of parties.”

I looked around for Hayden, finding him with Gabe and a couple guys I didn’t know. I noted he kept glancing over at us, but I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard Phoebe. And I didn’t want to bother him.

“Are you coming or not?” She hiccupped and covered her mouth. “Ugh, I think I just puked in my mouth a little.”

“Oh, that’s gross.”

She giggled. “Yeah, it is.”

I’d rather run around the party naked than take her to go pee, but a sense of girl-duty rose inside me. I shoved it down. It came back hard. The girl could barely walk straight. There was a good chance she’d get lost.

Not such a bad outcome.

“Ember…?”

Groaning, I stood. “Let’s go.”

Phoebe stumbled in front of me, but she made it to the edge of the cornfield. The further we ventured, the more the shadows consumed the fiery glow from the bonfire. I looked around, only able to make out the shapes of trees and bushes.

I shivered. “Is this good enough for you?”

“Sure. Whatever.” Phoebe sat back. Well, she fell backwards, but managed to carry it off with the kind of grace I’d never have. Her dress rode up her legs, revealing several thin slices cut across her inner thighs. They were perfect straight lines, three of them, one after the other. Fresh wounds.

I squinted. There were more across her thighs. Some were older—pink fading into thin white lines next to the three angry cuts that bruised around the edges.

Even in her drunken state, she realized I knew. Slowly, she tugged her dress down and smirked. “Judge me. I don’t care.”

“I’m not judging you. Phoebe, you—”

“You don’t know what it’s like to always feel everyone.” She slowly stood. “Being an empath sucks. Maybe not as bad as you, but sometimes I have to stop it. Okay? Pain stops it for a little while, but then it all comes back. Hate. Love. Lust.”

“I thought Cromwell taught you how to control it?”

Phoebe snorted. “Yeah, sure. You know, I used to be able to get away from it at home, but I don’t even have that anymore. Geez, it sucks. Why am I even telling you this? You don’t know anything. You’re not even
gifted
.”

Whatever sympathy I felt for her started to slip away. “Just use the damn bathroom.”

“You don’t know anything. The accident?” She tossed the thick mane of hair over her shoulder, laughing. “That wasn’t an accident.”

My stomach clenched. A strange buzzing filled my ears. “What?”

“Don’t be so dumb about it. They wanted Olivia. Not you. Not your family. So they went for it. No one knew she’d bring your ass back. I guess that screwed up their plans, huh?”

Her words hung between us. Everything else in the world came to a standstill. I felt hot, then cold. Surely I had misheard her.

She pointed at me. “You should see the look on your face.”

“How do you know this?”

“Come on, it’s obvious. None of our parents wanted us, or any of the other gifted. But yours didn’t want to give her up.” She glanced down at her drink, frowning. “My cup is, like, empty.”

I wanted to shake her. “Phoebe, do you know who caused the accident?”

Phoebe lifted her head slowly. Some of the beer-fog faded from her face. “I really have no clue what I’m talking about. I don’t even have to pee anymore.”

My mouth hit the ground. “Phoebe—”

“I’m done here.” She held up her hand. “Your freaking emotions are choking the crap out of me.”

I started toward her, but she dipped around me. “Please. You can’t tell me something like that and then walk away!”

“Look, I’m drunk. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.” She started down the dark path. Then she darted into the bushes, disappearing from view.

There was no way I was letting this drop. She obviously knew something. I rushed after her, hoping I picked the right bushes to squeeze past. Anger clawed through me. How could she say something like that, and then say she didn’t know what she was talking about?

The further I went, the more the thin branches snapped at my hair and my clothing, but I caught sight of her slender figure rounding a tree.

“Phoebe!” I yelled, knocking a branch out of my face.

Thick underbrush made it hard to follow, and I wondered how Phoebe had gotten so far ahead in heels. I tripped more than once.

And then I was lost.

I stopped, hugging my elbows as I scanned the darkness. I couldn’t even hear any of the kids anymore or see the bonfire. All that surrounded me were shadows. A shiver tip-toed over my skin. “Phoebe!” My voice cracked as my stomach hollowed.

Picking up my pace, I pushed through prickly bushes that grabbed at my tights. One of the branches snagged my hair again. I yanked to the side, losing a few strands of hair in the process. My heart tumbled over itself as I sucked in air.

“Crap,” I whispered.

The shadows seemed to laugh at me.

Shivering, I started walking again. All around me, twigs snapped as
things
scurried along in the darkness. Pretty sure I was about to be eaten by a bear, I started running. The ground suddenly sloped upward in front of me. Stumbling, I fell on my knees. Pain shot down my shins, causing me to cry out.

The noise startled whatever was in the trees. Branches shook and leaves fell around me as birds—bats?—took to the sky, wings flapping.

Heart racing, I climbed to my feet and trudged up the slight hill. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw the highway Hayden and I had come down. Now I just needed to figure out if I should go left or right. I scoured the road for a sign, finally spotting a small green one I recognized.

Wheeling around, I headed right. When I got back to the party, I was going to find Phoebe, whip off my gloves and choke her. But right now I hugged myself and barreled down the side of the road. Cold air whipped against me, and I found myself wanting to be near Hayden. He always put off such wondrous heat, warming more than just my skin. Surrounded by the night and all alone, I could admit to myself that I was attracted to Hayden—like really, ridiculously attracted to him. A pointless attraction, but it didn’t change how I felt.

Had Hayden even realized I was missing?

I forged ahead, relieved to see the shapes of cars parked at the entrance of the cornfield a ways up the road. A brutal gust of wind cut through my clothes, and once again, I pictured my hands wrapping around Phoebe’s throat.

One of the cars parked on the side of the road flipped on their high beams, momentarily blinding me. I stumbled back a step, shielding my eyes against the intense light. Over the rushing wind, I heard the engine kick on, purring to life. It sounded nothing like the hunk of metal I used to drive.

I lowered my arm as the car pulled onto the road. A sliver of moonlight snuck out from the clouds, glittering off the car’s black, glossy surface. Something about the vehicle triggered a memory, but it was too dark to really make out anything other than it was a coupe of some sort.

The car slowed down as I started walking faster. Watching it out of the corner of my eye, I realized the windows must’ve been tinted, like the Porsches in the Cromwell’s garage. Black, two-door cars…

Without warning, the car sped up and veered to the right—toward
me
. Panic rooted me to the spot. I couldn’t move—couldn’t breathe as the car bore down on me.

Chapter 15

I
nstinct propelled me into action. I sprang to the side, narrowly avoiding the bumper as the car flew past me, kicking up loose gravel. My footing felt off. I toppled backward, sliding down the incline. There was a screech as the car swerved back onto the road and roared down the highway.

I lay there, sprawled in the itchy grass, my heart pounding as I stared up at the cloudy, dark sky. It took several deep breaths to drag air into my lungs.

Numbly, I sat up and checked myself over. My legs curled inward, still working. I climbed to my knees and stood. The car was long gone, but my heart still thundered against my ribs.

I started walking toward the parked cars, reeling from what’d just happened.
It could’ve been accident. Kids were drinking. It was dark and they probably hadn’t expected anyone to be walking along the highway
.

It couldn’t be that someone had intentionally tried to run me over.

Every part of my body was shaking by the time I rounded the cars and spotted the glow of the bonfire. I hugged my arms close, but shudders racked my body.

Small clusters of kids hung out around the cars, laughing and having a good time. They were completely oblivious to me stumbling past them, didn’t know what’d happened on the highway.

“Ember!”

I turned at the sound of Hayden’s voice. He came out of the thick shadows surrounding the cornfield, the baseball hat sitting low on his forehead. I stared, unable to respond.

He grasped my arms. “Ember, where’ve you been? I saw you leave with Phoebe, but then she came back without you. Are you okay?”

“She left me in the woods.” My voice was hoarse, shaky. “I got lost.”

His grip tightened. “She did
what
?”

Suddenly, the whole incident with the car on the road wasn’t important anymore. I remembered what Phoebe had said before she disappeared. I pulled out of Hayden’s grasp. “Where is she? I need to talk to her.”

Hayden grabbed my arm again, stopping me. “What’s going on?”

“She said the car accident wasn’t an accident.” I wish I could read his expression. “I have to talk to her. Hayden, you don’t understand. I have to talk to her!”

He leaned in, the hat casting deep shadows across his cheeks and eyes. “No. We need to talk.”

Dread inched its way down my spine. “You know, don’t you?” My voice had dropped to a whisper. “Oh, God… you already know.”

Hayden studied me a moment, then his hand slid from my arm. Instead of letting me go, he threaded his fingers through mine. Even through the gloves, I could feel their warmth. “I don’t know how Phoebe knew or why she said it like that.”

I tried to pull my hand free, but his grip tightened. “Hayden…?”

Approaching footsteps and high-pitched laughter cut through the night. Without saying a word, Hayden pulled me toward the spot where we’d parked. “What are we doing?”

“We’re going where we can talk in private.”

I dug in my feet. “I want to talk now.”

Hayden stopped, his hand squeezed my gently. “I know this is important to you, but I don’t want to stand out here in the open and talk about it.” He lowered his voice. “We need to go somewhere private. Just trust me, Ember. You’re not going to want to be around people… after this.”

“All right,” I whispered, “but I don’t want to go back to the house.”

“Why? It’s the safest place to talk about this.”

I thought about the car. It had been too dark to tell, but it could’ve been one of the Porsches. “I don’t think so.”

Hayden made an exasperated sound. “Okay. There’s another place. We can go to the cabin.”

“How are we going to get there in the middle of the night and still hit curfew?”

“You just need to trust me, Ember.”

I did trust him. And I was probably stupid for doing so, especially when he’d followed me for years and I really didn’t know a lot about him. But it didn’t change that I felt safe around him. We didn’t speak until we got in the car. He took off his hat and tossed it into the backseat.

Hayden ran a hand through his hair, glancing at me and frowning. “What is all over you?” He reached over, picking a crushed leaf off my arm and shoulder. His gaze met mine. “Were you rolling around in the woods? Something you want to tell me?”

“I was lost.” I bit my lip, looking away. It seemed foolish to claim that it’d been on purpose. “I found the road and it was really dark. A car… almost hit me. I dove out of the way.”

He went incredibly still in the seat beside me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it just scared me,” I swallowed hard. “I’m fine, though.”

“I’m going to kill Phoebe.”

My lips twitched. “Not before I do. Please?”

Hayden didn’t respond. We drove in silence, his hands clenching the steering wheel until his knuckles turned a ghostly white. I stared out the window, unable to quell the storm building inside me. I knew, beyond a doubt, that tonight would change everything.

* * *

We made it back to the house with time to spare. Cromwell had been waiting up, and I thought he looked seriously disappointed when he realized he couldn’t bust us for being late. It took everything in my power not to rush him and demand answers, but I’d promised Hayden that I’d let him explain before I went to Cromwell.

Like Hayden had instructed in the car, I went straight to my bedroom and changed into heavy sweats and a hoodie. I put the boots back on even though I looked like a hot mess, but I figured the walk would be a cold one.

My stomach twisted and churned the entire time I waited for him.
That wasn’t an accident
. Those words cut through me. I couldn’t sit still and when I stood, dizziness and nausea swamped me. In the midst of all of this, Kurt’s words came back to haunt me, as if he’d known something would happen that would irrevocably change everything.
Don’t do anything you’ll regret
.

Had he been the one driving the car?

As soon as that thought surfaced, I felt cold. There was no way to know whether it had been an accident or if someone had tried to run me down. And right now, I couldn’t focus on that—not when I was about to find out if the accident that’d killed my father and me hadn’t been an accident.

About an hour later, Hayden knocked softly on my door and I slipped the gloves back on. We snuck out of the silent house. Walking to the cabin in the dead of night wasn’t my idea of fun. Every snapping twig or moving shadow caused my heart to race.

“This is so creepy.” I scanned the surrounding dark for danger.

He grabbed my hand with his free one, giving it a little squeeze as the beam from his flashlight bounced over the terrain ahead. “Come on.”

I did feel better with his hand wrapped around mine. About halfway there, something crashed through the bushes behind us, and my hand clenched his. “What was that?”

“Just a deer.” By the time we arrived at the cabin, I’d about had five heart attacks and was already dreading the walk back. I waited by the table while Hayden drew the blinds closed and lit a few candles. Soft color glowed through the room.

Hayden slid past me, the scent of soap and fresh air momentarily enveloping me. I watched as he sat down on the edge of the bed. The cabin idea had been great back at the bonfire, but now I seriously wanted to kick myself.

What the hell had I been thinking? Sneaking out with Hayden and holing up in a cozy, little love-cabin? The spontaneous part of my brain spewed out all kinds of images, none of them even remotely possible in reality. He wouldn’t have brought me out here for something like that. We couldn’t even touch.

But we could, right? For a few seconds, maybe even more. I shook my head to get rid of the image that popped up.

“Ember, are you all right?”

Summoning up my common sense and purpose, I pulled off my gloves and dropped them on the back of the couch. Even though my hormones had totally picked a bizarre time to come alive, I wasn’t here to drool over Hayden. “Tell me what you know,” I said.

“The accident wasn’t an accident, Ember.”

My heart jerked. I tried to say something, but nothing would come out.

“You weren’t supposed to know. My father thought it would be best if you didn’t. No one wanted you to worry, to be scared. He thought it would be the best thing, but now…”

“What happened to my dad, to me? None of it was an accident?”

“All that we know tells us it was on purpose.”

I lost it. “You knew this! Didn’t you think I had a right to know?” My whole body tensed with emotions I couldn’t even begin to name. “Someone killed my father? Killed me? And none of you thought you should tell me?”

Hayden shook his head. “You already had so much pain, I—we wanted to protect you.”

“You don’t know what’s best for me, Hayden!” I paced to the side of the bed and stopped in front of him. “I can take care of myself.”

He looked away. “What good does knowing do you, Ember? Doesn’t it make it all the more painful? Does it change anything for you?”

“It changes everything!” I shouted. I was close to tears, close to breaking down. “Do you know who did this—did you have something to do with it?” As soon as the words left my mouth I wanted to take them back. The idea of living with my dad’s murderers—my own murderers—was too much to consider.

I kicked the edge of the bed, but that didn’t help. I threw myself at Hayden.

He must have expected it, because he caught me around the waist and flipped me onto the bed in one fluid motion. I reared up, catching him in the stomach with my elbow before he pushed my shoulders, pinning me down.

“Stop.” He made a low sound in his throat as I continued to struggle. “We had nothing to do with it, Ember. My father is not about killing innocent people or taking children away from their parents. I know you don’t trust him, but you trust me. I know you do.”

I drew in several deep breaths and stilled under him.

“Ember?” he asked softly.

“If it wasn’t your father, then who was it?”

His hands flexed on my shoulders, again and again. “We don’t know. My father even went to the Facility to see if they had any ideas, but even with all their means of finding out things, they had no answers.”

My hands curled helplessly at my sides. “Then how do you know it wasn’t an accident?”

“We didn’t. Not until we brought you guys here.” He took another deep, steadying breath and tried to smile. “Liz has a unique gift. She can sense when a gifted is born—down to the exact location and time. But my father doesn’t just swoop in and intervene. He checks it out first, and if things aren’t right, then he tries to help out.”

“I don’t get it.”

Hayden eased off me and sat. “We always knew about Olivia, because Liz sensed her. But then, two years ago, Liz felt a new gifted being born in the same location as Olivia, except she said it felt ‘off.’ She couldn’t place what it was. Of course, that made my father curious, so he wanted to check it out. Kurt and I went along.”

I made my way to the top of the bed and pulled my legs to my chin.

Hayden turned to face me. “The directions Liz gave us were to the exact intersection of the accident. We knew right off that something was very different with this. We hung around a few days. Then we saw a newspaper article about the accident that… killed a local doctor, and how one of the passengers had miraculously survived. The article listed the intersection Liz sensed. It got us curious, and we started watching, but we only ever saw you, then Olivia.”

“Never Mom.” I remembered how despondent she’d been. Mom had gone home, locked herself in the bedroom with Olivia, and shut me out. The last thing she’d ever said to me had been in the car, right before the accident.

“It took us a while to figure out what happened, that
you
were what Liz sensed. But my father thought that since your Mom was alive, we shouldn’t step in. It was the day you went to the bank that I knew something wasn’t right.”

I blinked. “You guys didn’t realize my mom…wasn’t right until then?”

“You’ve heard Kurt say it.” He looked away then, his eyes downcast. “I kept checking in, even though they’d stopped. I knew something wasn’t right, and when I told my father how you’d acted afterwards, he asked around.”

And the rest was history, but it didn’t answer one thing. “How do you know the accident wasn’t… wasn’t an accident?”

Hayden pushed off the bed and came around to where I was huddled. He placed his hands on each side of my legs. Candlelight danced across his features, softening his mouth. “After I drained your powers, Kurt found your mom. That was what he was trying to do when you came home. Once he saw her, he knew what’d happened.”

Dread from earlier resurfaced, and suddenly, I wasn’t too sure if I wanted to hear this.

“Your mom had been wiped, Ember. It had to have happened right after the accident, and it was a really bad job. It damaged her mind, destroyed her ability to process things properly. Kurt thinks whoever did it was interrupted, because she remembers Olivia, but she thinks you’ve… passed away.”

And then it hit me. The day Adam had been wiped, the blank stare he’d given me—why it’d been so heartbreakingly familiar. The look had felt like a punch in the gut, only worse. Numbness settled over me.

“Ember, I’m sorry.”

I scooted across the bed, but Hayden followed. “No.” I held up my hand, holding him off. My whole arm shook. “I need a moment.”

Hayden backed off, but I felt his gaze on me.

“Can it be undone? Can my mom get her memories back? Can someone… fix her?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” I whispered. My mind continued to spin, slow to process any of this. My dad was dead. Mom had been wiped. I was one giant freak. And all because of Olivia’s gift?

Rage, hot and sweet, swept over me. For a moment—just a moment—I hated Olivia, hated her for something so beyond her control. Guilt was immediate, but it didn’t dull the raw hurting. Or stop the rush of relief from washing over me.

My trembling hands moved through my curls, pulling them back. “I always thought she hated me, blamed me for the accident. And I’d hated
her
for it—hated that she pretended I was dead when I needed her. This whole time she couldn’t help it. Why didn’t you all tell me?”