did the way the main negotiator was pretty much fidgeting like he had an itch he couldn’t scratch. The guy was called Charles Linden—Thea had tensed at the mention of his surname, and I knew why. Our chauffer had been called Linden. They’d been close before he died. This Linden wore a too small suit that made him look like he was bursting out of the seams, and his cheeks were a ruddy red. Thea was also looking at him, and her eyes were narrowed in a way that had me wondering what she saw.
She said she saw auras. Not as many now as when she was a kid, thanks to a healing that had gone wrong. Anyone else, I’d call it bullshit, but Thea? She had no reason to lie to me, and we both knew it.
It didn’t take her skillset to recognize that Linden was unhealthy, but the way she kept watching him from the corner of her eye interested me. She started gnawing on her bottom lip as Linden spoke, trying to convince my father he was asking for too much, when suddenly, her eyes flared wide and she stiffened.
I tensed too, because I knew something was wrong.
And like that, the house of cards started to tumble.
Linden tugged at his shirt collar and plucked at it, pulling it from his throat like it was choking him, and a sharp gasp escaped him as he stopped plucking and started clutching at his chest. Even as he jerked forward with the force of whatever was happening to him, Thea was rushing over.
I understood her intent.
Dad grabbed his phone, but I had a feeling, from Thea’s urgency, that no EMTs would get here in time. I stood too, darting over to her side as Linden’s colleagues jolted upright and away from him like they could distance themselves from whatever was making him sick.
“I know first aid!” she cried, before she rubbed her hands together a few times, managing to make it look like she was just nervous, but I knew otherwise.
The second she touched him, something happened.
I couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it, but Thea did. So could Linden.
They both jolted like they’d been tazered, but even though she tensed up and stayed silent, Linden let out a low groan that sounded both confused and pained.
Within seconds, she was pulling back, and Linden was blinking at her like he’d never seen her before.
“What is it?” she questioned, her tone still urgent. And I got the need for playacting. People would think she was nuts if she admitted what she could do. “Are you okay?”
Linden frowned at her. “T-The pain. It’s gone.”
“It has?” She frowned back, then quickly smiled. “That’s brilliant. You looked like you were hurting.”
Hurting was an understatement. He’d looked like he’d had a heart attack.
Linden knew it too.
His gaze was glued to hers, but it was uneasy. Troubled. And he rubbed at his chest, until, like he knew something had happened with his hands when they’d connected with hers, he stopped touching it and eyed his fingers like they held the answer.
They didn’t.
Thea’s did.
I plucked at my bottom lip, wondering if he was going to say something… but he didn’t. Instead, he muttered, “I-I think we need to postpone this meeting for another time. I think I need to see a doctor.”
As lead negotiator, Linden’s presence was required, but I could see from the other guys’ faces they were disappointed not to be walking away with a deal.
Linden was a little wooden as he got to his feet, and when the others shook our hands and Thea’s, he was hesitant to take hers, but he did. For a second. Before swiftly pulling back.
Dad, shooting me a quizzical glance, hustled them out, and the moment he did, I turned to her side and hauled her into my arms.
Feelings and hurt and rejection be damned.
I knew she’d need me.
She always needed me after she healed.
In my grasp, she started shivering and her knees wobbled, buckling out from under her slight weight. I managed to hold her to me, but looked over my shoulder and saw Dad was still talking, then hustled her over to the bathroom.
“W-W-W-Where are we going?” she stuttered, her arms slipping around my waist, but her palms slid under the hem of my shirt so her fingers could touch bare skin.
The connection was both a blessing and a curse.
Fuck.
It felt good. Like exquisite torture. But she was freezing. I’d never known anything like this before—the way her