A Deep and Dark December(86)

“I need him to…to release my dad and my aunt,” she said.

“Do it,” he ordered Ham. “Now.”

Ham gasped like a landed fish, his face mottled and strained. “No.”

He yanked on Ham’s shirt. “I said, do it!”

Ham glared at him for a moment and then sagged, his eyes rolling back into his head. Graham scrambled to catch him before they both went down, dropping his gun to catch the back of Ham’s head. He lowered Ham to the ground.

Erin knelt beside him. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at her.

“He can’t die,” she said on a sob. “He has to release my aunt and my dad.”

Graham checked Ham’s pulse, his own battering out a hard rhythm. It was weak, but there. He let out a relieved breath. It was sick, but no matter what the man had done Graham couldn’t bring himself to wish for his death. He pulled out his cell phone to call an ambulance. Erin put a hand on his arm. Her touch felt wrong. He stood and moved away to make the call, not wanting her to see how much it killed him to have her near and not be able to touch her.

Ending the call, he looked out over the ocean, everything in him churning and crashing like the waves below. He bent over, gripping his knees, trying to catch his breath. He’d pulled his gun on his own father, so close to pulling the trigger, he could almost hear the gunshot, imagine Ham’s head jerking back, and the acrid smell of gunpowder and death.

Erin laid her hand on his back. He shrugged her off and moved away, out of reach. He wished she’d stop doing that. It hurt too much.

*

Erin didn’t know how to reach Graham. Every attempt she made, he rejected. She knew a little something about what he was going through. She’d been through it herself when she’d first come into her ability and her father explained how everyone in their family had some kind of ability. She’d never imagined there could be another family like hers in San Rey.

Graham kept his distance, his gaze moving past her to his father, then back out at the ocean. He wouldn’t look at her or acknowledge her. She ached for him.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, trying to reach him. “He fooled all of us.”

“Go home, Erin.”

His rejection stung. She reached out to touch him, then pulled the gesture. He’d only shrug it off. Again.

“I’m not leaving you like this.”

“Go home. I don’t want you here.” His words didn’t match his tone.

She moved in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “I’m not leaving you. You need me.”

“What I need is for you to go home. Now.”

“I’m not leaving. I care about you, Graham.”

“Do you? How can you be sure?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How can you be sure about anything with me?”

“What?” Her confusion slowly morphed into understanding. His ability. He thought… Oh, my god.

He broke into her thoughts. “Did you want to tell me about your ability?”

“No, not at first, but you convinced—”

“I convinced you to tell me,” he finished for her. “And when you kissed me that first time, was it because you wanted to?”

“Of course.”

“Really? Because I really wanted you to kiss me. That’s all I could think about that night when I came up here and found you. You kissing me. And then you did.”

“Graham—”

“And when we had sex—” he broke off and rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. “Did you really want to?”

“You can’t… Yes. God, yes. I wanted you so bad.”

“Really? Because I wanted you. I really, really wanted you. But most of all, I wanted you to want me. More than Keith, more than anyone you’d ever been with.”

The anguish in his voice broke her heart. She couldn’t help the tears that fell, couldn’t stop the need to go to him and wrap her arms around him. He stiffened in her embrace, turning his head away, his jaw clenched.

“I wanted you more than anything,” she whispered fiercely, clinging harder to him even as he held his arms tight at his sides. “I want you now. I can’t imagine a day going by when I wouldn’t want you, when I wouldn’t love you.”

He finally looked at her, his gaze hot and searching. He started to say something.

Her body jolted.

A sharp pain punctured her shoulder, spinning her away from him.

The firecracker sound came late, just as he reached for her. The pain hit again, this time in her hip. The ground flew up towards her. Graham caught her, hanging her back over his arm. She heard another shot, this one not for her.

“Graham!” she shouted as the sky went black.





Graham expected to feel something. Anything. But the void that had punctured his chest when Erin was shot radiated out, spreading through every cell in his body, as though he could not only feel nothing, he was nothing. Watching the medical team work over Ham’s body, making a valiant effort at keeping the old man alive, he stood at the foot of the hospital bed and tried with every part of him to think nothing.

If Ham died, it would be from the bullets Graham had put in him and not because Graham had inadvertently used his ability wishing for Ham’s heart to just…stop.