COMPARED TO HEALING BRYCE, healing my father was simple. The words slipped from my lips; the energy traveled smoothly through my fingertips into his damaged flesh. Almost instantly I felt the jagged edge of the bullet wound begin to skim over.
Beginning the process was easy. Stopping it was hard. I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut and wrenched my hands away in the middle of the verse. A splitting pain sliced through my head, and my hands twitched as though I’d been electrocuted. I almost fell, but Kaz crouched beside me and put his arms around me.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What happened?”
“I’m okay,” I said hoarsely, disentangling myself from his arms and easing myself into a straight chair next to the sofa. “I just need to talk to him for a minute. Would you mind… I need to do this alone.”
Kaz hesitated, but he bent and kissed me on the forehead. “I’ll be right outside,” he whispered before stepping out onto the front porch.
Rattler was awake now, and he was watching me, his eyes narrowed and his mouth a tight line. I knew he was in a lot of pain; I could sense it in the connection between us. I also knew he would live if I left right now-if he got to a hospital quickly enough, if they took the bullet out, if he followed doctors’ orders. I had not healed him all the way. I had stopped well shy of restoring his flesh. I’d slowed the leaking of his blood and I sensed that I had fixed something critical that had been severed-that much I could tell from the exchange of energy that ran between us.
“You’ll be all right,” I muttered. I didn’t want Rattler to die; I didn’t want his death on my conscience. I wasn’t afraid of him, not really, not anymore. His gifts were strong, but so were mine. As hard as he fought for what he believed was rightfully his, I would fight harder if I needed to.
But there was Prairie to consider. And there was Chub.
I leaned closer so that our faces were only inches apart. Up close I saw how fine and unlined his skin still was. And something else: for the first time I noticed that his nose, his chin, his eyebrows-all of them were similar to mine.
He was, unquestionably, my father. But I owed him nothing.
“You can’t have her,” I said softly.
He started to speak, then grimaced with pain. When he tried again, it was through gritted teeth. “B-b-… bitch shot me.”
“She’ll do it again,” I said. “And so will I. If you ever-ever-threaten any of us again. If you so much as show your face to me or her, or Chub or Kaz or Anna. This is your one chance. Next time I let you die.”
Rattler’s eyes sparked with fury and his mouth curled with contempt. “I’d li… li… like to see you try,” he said, and then he passed out.
His words barely registered. In my mind, I was already long gone.