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I hadn’t slept very well since the whole final confrontation-with-evil-super-powered-villains thing happened.
I had to keep using those words. Evil. Villains. I had to use them to stop myself feeling awful for what I'd done to them. It didn’t really work.
I’d spent almost every minute by Dean’s side since we were admitted to hospital. Our little romance and bizarre brush with death was the gossip of the staff and came with a mix of sweet sympathy, coos of cuteness, and tuts of “just a silly teenage thing.”
They didn’t understand that I really might die without Dean by my side. After whatever I did to Jake, Donny, and Jamie, everything I sensed, every emotion of the people around me, hammered into my brain like the drummer of a death-metal band thrashing his skins.
There had been other changes as well. Everything was strange and different and painful. It was only near Dean that I found solace. The hospital staff didn’t know; they just saw my puppy-dog eyes for him and, as long as I didn’t interrupt his care, let me camp out in the armchair in his room.
My parents were great about it all. I knew there would be a big talk with them down the road, but for now, they were just being here for me, and letting me be here with Dean. Mom and Dad took shifts so at least one of them was with us during daylight hours, but often they had to duck away to get back to the contractors repairing the house and Mom’s shop after the quake. We were still in Dean’s hometown, and since we didn’t own a car they’d had to hire one, and had been driving two hours each way to be with me.
I felt guilty as all get-out about it. But it made me love them even more.
On top of that, I wasn’t sure what was happening with health insurance, or what the extended stay in hospital and all the tests were costing, or whether Dad’s leave from work was paid or unpaid, but they were being good adults and organizing everything so I was oblivious to the details.
I even had a visit from Terry, my parents’ cop friend. I was sure he was more curious about the case than my wellbeing because he asked a bunch of questions about Jake’s team and what had happened in the park. Apparently, he’d recently been promoted, so maybe he was practicing his detective skills. Maybe he thought he was helping my parents out with answers. I don’t know, but it was beyond awkward so I was glad when he left.
The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me, which made them hesitant to discharge me. To them, five kids came in bloodied and unconscious and only two had woken up, and I’d woken up as a gibbering mess. I tried to act as normal as possible and not let on anything to do with the whole super-powers thing, but it was hard with my mind so messy. Not sleeping wasn’t helping the issue.
I’d like to say I was getting used to the lumpy vinyl armchair in the corner of Dean’s hospital room, but it was just as much of a torture device as it had been three days ago. Still, I slept—or tried to—in there beside him rather than go back to my room down in a different ward.
I needed to be by his side.
I wanted to be by his side.
Daylight streamed in through the blinds despite them being drawn, but I was exhausted from another night of broken sleep and stubbornly kept trying to snooze. Dean’s cocktail of heavy-duty medication meant he slept easily and often, his body working hard to mend the damage from Jake’s bullet.
“Mumble, mumble, tests, mumble, mumble.” A voice reached my sleeping mind.
“Huh?” I tried to swallow, my mouth dry and tasting like hospital. My eyes didn’t want to open. Maybe I’d dreamed it. I tried to let sleep take me again.
“Wake, mumble, mumble, time, mumble, mumble.”
I groaned, exhausted.
I thought it was a nurse. I remembered something mentioned yesterday about tests. Right. I had to have some scans done. The doctors were still trying to work out what had happened to me and the others, what with the weird comas and all. Sure, I tried to say, but just flopped my head forward in a vague nod and tried to stand up.
“Poor girl, mumble, happened, mumble, recover, mumble.”
A soft squeaking sound approached me. I was barely conscious, yawning and trying to get my stuck eyelids to open as Tara, the petite nurse who’d been looking after me, put an arm around my shoulder and helped me into a wheelchair. The one that had been sitting nearby for Dean’s use since he was under strict no-walking orders.
I wanted to argue I didn’t need the wheelchair, and something else, there was something else I needed to argue. But I was already being wheeled down the hall.
I couldn’t turn my brain on. There was too much noise in my head. I tried to wave back at the nurse but she kept pushing me along. I shook my head, trying to clear it, but the pressure was building too quickly.
“You okay, love?” Tara slowed down to check on me, but it was too late. I wasn’t sure how far we’d walked, but I knew it was too far.
I was awake now. And I was too far from Dean. Too far from his blocking powers, and my head felt like it was going to explode.
Because of this place, this hospital, full of people who were sick and dying, and the loved ones of people who were sick and dying. People who were angry at the world for their prognoses. Women in the pain of labor and experiencing the elation of meeting their babies for the first time. People about to go into surgery, or even simply preparing to receive an injection. And without Dean to block my powers, every one of those scared, sad, angry, or elated emotions came flooding into me at four times the strength it should have.
I wasn't just an empath anymore; I was four empaths.
And it was too much.
Not only did the power from the emotions rampage through me, but now I could see them. Flowing streams of shimmering and juddering colors. Auras that haloed bodies and reached out to me like iron filings to a magnet when I passed by.
Wincing in pain, I reached back and clutched at Tara’s hand. “Go back.” I pleaded the words out, and they were followed by a rough cry.
My vision blurred and my head lolled back. The nurse crouched beside me, flashing a light in my eyes. She spoke, but I couldn’t hear past the pounding sound in my ears. With a concerned look, she started pushing the wheelchair again. Faster. In the wrong direction. No. No, wrong way.
The world spun around me and my veins and muscles felt like they were about to burst. I grabbed onto the arms of the wheelchair and felt the plastic split and crumble, the metal bending like butter in my fingers.
In the swirling faces around me, I saw a familiar one. Dad. The expression on his face said everything about how I must have looked. He ran down the corridor towards me.
“Take me to... Dean!” I tried to hold eye contact with him but kept wincing from the waves of emotion. I needed him to understand. I used every last bit of my focus to get the words out. “Must. Be. With. Dean.”
Dad turned away from me, looking to the nurse for answers as she continued to push me along. She didn’t have the answers. Dad, listen to me!
I pushed myself out of the chair as it was still moving. The force of my action knocked Tara and the wheelchair across the corridor. The momentum was too much for me too, and I landed facedown on the ground. I could feel myself losing control of my body, my muscles jerking and seizing from the uncontainable influx of energy.
Dad knelt on the floor with me, cradling my head as my body shook and I slipped into unconsciousness.
I didn’t know how long I was out for, but I slowly came to. The first thing I saw was Dean, his body bent with pain, supporting himself on his IV stand. He was so far away, but I saw him like a beacon, the lighthouse to the storm of emotion raging through me.
I blinked, the rest of the world coming into focus. There were nurses all around, checking on me, on him, and on Tara where I’d sent her flying.
“So sorry,” I whispered to her through clenched teeth. She looked embarrassed more than anything, as though she’d somehow caused this with a self-destructing wheelchair. Everyone seemed at a loss to explain what had happened. I guessed ‘that girl’s got superpowers’ was pretty low down on what most people would believe.
Dad looked down at me, frowning, but he sighed with relief when I looked back. He glanced across at Dean, then back to me, then to Dean again. Dean was pushing through the chaos to get closer to me. His nurse was following behind, scolding him for being out of bed, but he didn’t listen.
He knelt on the ground next to me, those blue-gray eyes calm yet intense. “I woke up and you weren’t there. Came to find you. Figured I should just follow the signs of chaos.”
“Thanks,” I replied. “I hope you didn’t bust your stitches.”
“I’ll survive. Looks like you needed, well...” His sentence faded out.
Him. I needed him.
I smiled my thanks. I swallowed my guilt at being so dependent on him.
Dad was halfway through a discussion with the nurse about my seizure.
“This is exactly why we need to do the tests,” she said.
“She needs to recover first,” Dad argued.
“I’m fine. I’ll be okay, really. I can do the tests. But ...” I looked to Dad, hoping he’d understand, “... can you and Dean both stay with me?”