Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(31)

I shrugged. I’d never so much as flirted with the law for all of my eighteen years. I was never a rule breaker or a thrill seeker as a human, but there was something exhilarating about this. Maybe it was because I couldn’t get caught; maybe it was because I couldn’t be punished. Or maybe it was just in my new nature to do risky, bad things.

That thought wiped the grin clear off my face.

“Come on.”

It was at the stairs that I felt the first soft thrum of a heartbeat. Slow and steady. Asleep. I sensed another one soon after that. And then another. As we climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms over the back of the house, I counted five people sleeping soundly, unaware that intruders lurked just outside their door.

I peered back at Julian. “You’ll be fine.” I wasn’t sure if I was assuring him or myself. “You won’t hurt anyone.” The fact that he hadn’t already bolted past me and attacked was a great sign.

When we reached the landing, I stopped in front of the first door on the left, covered with a poster of a snowboarder. One of the boys, obviously. A hint of wariness crept in now. What if Julian attacked a kid? I’d never forgive myself. But if he didn’t—if I proved to myself that I could compel a fledgling not to kill a human—then … this was something I needed to confirm. Just in case, I grabbed his hand before pushing the door open.

The light from a muted flat screen television flickered within the small bedroom, illuminating a wall of band posters and shelves of sports trophies. A boy of perhaps fifteen lay in his bed, one of his legs bound from thigh to ankle in a cast and propped on a pillow. Half a dozen pill bottles and a tall glass of water sat on his nightstand.

And he was watching us.

In the time that it took his heart to accelerate from relaxed to frightened and his jaw to drop open, I was across the room and gripping his mouth shut, drawing his baby blue eyes into mine. “You will not scream. You will not fight back. Stay exactly as you are.” Just as with that nurse at the hospital, the cloudy look filled his eyes. He nodded slowly.

I glanced over my shoulder to confirm that Julian was fine, his back pressed up against the wall, and then I focused my attention on the boy again. “What’s your name?”

“Dixon,” he said, his eyelids fluttering.

“You were supposed to be asleep, Dixon,” I said softly. I guess I’d have to learn the difference between a relaxed and unconscious heart rate. There was no mistaking it now, though. He was wide awake, and trembling. Despite being compelled, he was terrified.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Dixon said, his voice cracking. “My leg hurts.”

I looked down at the cast, my fingertip sliding over the top. “What happened?” I asked, sensing the weakness beneath my hand, like a sudden cold spot amidst warmth. “Your femur is broken,” I stated, the urge to wrap my hand around it sudden and irresistible.

“Yeah, a ski accident. I just got out of the hospital.”

“That sure does sound painful.”

One side of his face lifted in a boyish smirk as his eyes flickered on my hand. “I haven’t slept in days.” Deep bags hung beneath Dixon’s eyes.

My fascination with the boy’s injury had taken over my other reason for being here. The harder I focused on the break, the more I learned, the more I could imagine. But, was I imagining? “There are pins as well, aren’t there?” My fingers tingled with the cool touch of thin, sharp metal.

“Yeah.” His head dipped. “I’ll probably never ski again.” The air shifted, and an overwhelming sense of sadness slammed into me. His emotions. I was reading his emotions! This is what it felt like? Sofie had always said I was an open book as a human. Was this what it felt like to feel my pain, my sorrow, my happiness along with me? Because I was certain that it was my sadness overwhelming me, so acute.

The deep need to make this bone whole again consumed me, and I couldn’t ignore it.

Because somehow, intrinsically, I knew that I could fix it.

I stopped for a moment to consider the logic. I knew that I could likely bite him and inject him with venom. If I did, he could ski for the rest of his life. He could fall off a cliff and walk away, unscathed. There would be no “never” for him again.

I closed my eyes as need bubbled inside me, spurning my body forward. That energy I’d been carrying deep inside from the moment I woke up now pushed against its walls, as if ready to combust. I fought it. As it grew and expanded and absorbed, I fought to keep it down. Was this the unstoppable urge that Sofie warned me about? Was I about to do the very thing I had compelled Julian not to?

Maybe I couldn’t control myself at all.

Maybe I was different, but not that different.

Even with my eyes closed, I sensed the television flickering and heard the windowpane rattle. The entire time, I could not escape the need to mend this boy, to fix that which should not be broken.

Like a blown-up but untied balloon released into the air, the urge suddenly deflated from me. I opened my eyes, praying that they were normal—as normal as yellow eyes could be—to find Dixon’s faced flushed.

He peered down at his cast. Turning it this way and that, his frown deepened. “It stopped hurting.” The cloudy swirl in his eyes had vanished, leaving awe behind. “What did you do?” he whispered.

I hadn’t bitten him, that much I knew. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. I turned back to look at Julian, his brows high on his forehead. “What happened?” I mouthed.