Cursed

Because if it was hereditary, then Cromwell wouldn’t need to intervene with parents as often. My stomach twisted.

“Any more questions? If not, I’d like to see what we can get done tonight.”

“Sure. Let’s do this.”

“Touch the plant, Ember.”

I wasn’t sure what the purpose of this was, but oh, well. I brushed my fingertips across the velvety leaf.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the leaf shuddered. The outer ridges curled inward as the vibrant green faded to a dull, crispy brown. Death flowed through the rest of the plant, and within seconds, nothing was left but a dried-up stem hanging limply to the side.

There was a sharp intake of breath, and at once, I felt ashamed. Awful. Monstrous. “Okay,” he said a few moments later. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I really wasn’t thinking anything.”

“You had to be thinking something, Ember.”

I shifted down, feeling for the coin in my pocket. Holding it my hand was kind of comforting. “I guess I was thinking about what you wanted me to do.”

“Okay. What else?”

“That’s all. I mean, I could’ve been thinking about other things, I guess.”

“Like what?” Hayden stood and walked toward the little kitchen area. In front of a large picture window, several plants basked in the fading sunlight. He picked a flower, one blooming with pretty, white and pink petals.

Closing my eyes, I forced myself to concentrate. “School. Olivia. The dead rabbit. Why Cromwell really has everyone here. Mom and Dad.” I paused, sliding a look at the bed. Never being able to touch someone. Dying a virgin. Was the pimple on my forehead still the size of a village? “All kinds of stuff.”

“Okay.” Hayden sat back down, and his knees once again pressed mine. “That’s a lot going on.”

I snorted. “Sorry.”

He grinned. “Try to empty all of that out. Get rid of it. When you aren’t thinking about anything, touch the plant again.”

I sighed. “It’s such a pretty flower.”

His lips twitched as if he fought a smile. “You ready?”

I shook my shoulders and tried not thinking about anything, but it was really hard. My brain spewed stuff out randomly, but I tried. When I thought my brain seemed appropriately empty, I leaned forward. The movement pressed our knees together even more. Crazy as it sounded, I swore I could feel the heat of his skin through the clothing, warming me.

“Ember?”

I ran my fingers over the plant. Like it was laughing in my face, the colorful blossoms went first. Pink and white petals broke off, and by the time they hit the soil, they’d turned brown. Ugh. I really was Death in sneakers.

“What were you thinking?” Hayden asked.

“Nothing.”

“We always have something running in the back of our thoughts. What’s running behind yours?”

Right now I was thinking about how nice his eyes looked, but I’d shave my head before I admitted that. “I don’t know. Nothing’s running in the background.”

Hayden placed the plant on the floor. His knee slipped from mine and ended up against my thigh. Fine shivers coursed down my legs.

“Try to concentrate, Ember. There is always a thought to every action. Like something on repeat.”

I really didn’t want to share the thought I had on repeat right now. My cheeks felt on fire. I don’t even know what was wrong with me, why I continued to think about him.

Hayden straightened, his knee sliding back. His eyes caught mine and sparked. “Let’s do this again.”

“Sure,” I stuttered.

We went on like this for a while. I’d kill another innocent plant. Hayden would ask what I was thinking. His leg would flirt with mine. I’d tell him I wasn’t thinking anything, and he would say something impossibly motivational.

A plant holocaust later, Hayden called it quits. “We’ll try again tomorrow. You’re doing really well.”

From my slumped position, I raised my brows. “Oh, really?”

He smiled back at me, nodding. “You look tired.”

Tired? More like exhausted, and I still had homework to do. Letting my head fall back, I closed my eyes. Minutes went by like this, and I only knew Hayden was still there because his legs pressed against mine. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t jumping to do homework.

“I really did try, you know?” I said.

“I know.”

“I’m one giant fail. Maybe there isn’t anything you can do. This is just how I’m gonna be, like, a ‘you break, you buy’ kind of thing.”

Hayden’s laugh rumbled all the way through me. “What?”

I opened my eyes and tipped my head forward. His smile was a big one—the one that reached his eyes, warming them into pools of liquid chocolate. Suddenly, it was like waking up or just realizing something huge.

But I had no idea what I’d realized.

He leaned forward and propped his elbows on his knees. Several locks of hair fell forward as he rested his chin in his hands. “You have to explain that one to me.”

“You know how you go into stores and they have those signs that say ‘If you break it, you buy it’? I kinda live by that. If I touch someone, I kill them. So it’s kind of the same thing.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You think the strangest things.”

“You think so?” Out of curiosity, I mimicked his earlier movements. Our faces were merely inches apart. Anyone in their right mind would move.

Hayden didn’t.

“What is it with you?” I asked. “You don’t seem afraid to get close to me. Even people who don’t know what I can do—outsiders—are afraid to be close to me. Like they can somehow sense I’m Death.” I paused. “Or maybe it’s my eyes. They freak people out.”

The smile faded from his lips. “Why would I be afraid? I know you aren’t going to hurt me, and if you did touch me, I could always stop it.”

I made a face. “You said you wouldn’t do that again.”

He inched closer. “Yeah, I did say that.”

“So you wouldn’t flip it on me if I touched you right now?”

“No.”

“For real?”

“Yup.”

I moved one hand and brought it to his cheek. I didn’t touch him, because seriously, I wasn’t psycho or anything. I wanted to call his bluff. Any second now he’d jerk back, but for just a moment, I got to see his eyes do the color thing, and then he closed them. His face impossibly relaxed.

“Are you going to do it or not?” he asked me.

Dumbfounded, I dropped my hand. “You’re nuts.”

He opened one eye. “No. It would hurt eventually, if you held on. But you wouldn’t hold on.”

“You don’t know that. Look at what happened to—”

“That wasn’t your fault.” Hayden shifted forward, wrapping his hands around my arms. “You know, I could say the same thing about you.”

My gaze dropped to his hands. The brief moments that his skin had touched mine were too easy to recall, and now, his hands were so close to my bare wrists. “How so?”

“My gift will knock you off your feet, but I don’t see you running for the door.” His hands moved to cup my elbows. “You’re not afraid of me.”

“But… you wouldn’t do that to me.”

A small grin tugged his lips. “Ember, you don’t know me as well as I know you.” His hands drifted up to my shoulders before sliding back down to the cuffs of my sweater, as if he was trying to warm me up.

He was.

His touch, even though it wasn’t against my skin, was doing strange things to me—affecting me in a way that created a warm flush all over my body. I struggled to find something intelligent to say. I came up with zilch. So I settled on a question that had been bugging me. “Why did you keep coming back to see me, Hayden?”

“You interested me.”

“That’s all? You traveled how many hours because I interested you?”

His lips pursed. “Because I knew what it’s like to be an outcast. There was a long time when I was… alone. So I know how it feels.”

To be lonely, I guessed. Something we had in common.

“And it was more than that.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “And I know it sounds creepy—”

“Yeah, total creeper.”

He frowned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They seemed to dance. “You’re not helping. I’m trying to admit something embarrassing here.”

“All right, go ahead,” I said, fighting a smile.

“Well, I was worried about you. I… wanted to make sure you were okay. There was just so much you were dealing with. I wanted to help.”

Impulsively, I closed my eyes while he talked and allowed myself to enjoy the feeling of his hands running over my arms. There was no harm with this. A sweater separated our skin and I wasn’t breaking my no-touch policy.

“Looking back, I’m sure there was something I could have done. Money or…”

“Or what?”

Hayden was quiet for what seemed like an eternity. “Find a way to make those kids pay for being so mean to you.”

I shivered. Not because of what he said, but because, well, I was pretty sure there was something he’d wanted to do. Like, say, blow up their houses—or them. “Why did you finally talk to me the day in the library?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “You just looked so sad each time I saw you. And I knew you’d seen me in the school. I just wanted to talk to you after that.”

“You quoted Oscar Wilde.” I smiled.

Hayden laughed. “Yeah, that was, like, the height of geekdom.”

“No. It was kind of cool.”

We lapsed into silence. He kept up the thing with his hands, repeatedly coming dangerously close to my skin. After a while, my arms tingled, kind of like when our skin had touched before, but not as overwhelming. When I finally reopened my eyes, Hayden had this serious look on his face. “What?” I murmured.

Shaking his head, he dropped his hands and stood. I felt the loss of him. “You know what the sad thing is? You trust me, and you don’t even trust yourself.”

I stared up at him. He was so right. “I don’t trust your father.”

“I know.” A glimmer of a smile appeared. “But maybe one day you can learn to trust him… and yourself.”

“Probably ain’t going to happen.” Hayden crossed his arms. “Why?”

I shrugged. The dude was his dad, so it wasn’t like I could tell him that I thought Cromwell was skeevy. So I said nothing.

“You ready?” he asked, letting the subject fall to the side.

I nodded, and we made our way back through the dark woods in silence. At night, the forest took on an almost surreal atmosphere, one where all kinds of critters waited in the bushes. Needless to say, I felt ecstatic when we stepped into the house.

Hayden headed off to his room, but I stopped him with two words. “I’m sorry.”