Page 20 of Following Their Heart

“He doesn’t feel good,” Shep says. “I think being controlled by Raptor is like a sickness for them. He has seen birds drop from the sky because they were controlled for too long.”

Shit. That sucks.

I hum in thought while I smooth my hand down Bernard’s neck to his bulbous body. His wings seem small tucked against his body, but I know from seeing pelicans in the wild that their wingspan is no joke. It’s like he has some secret compartment where he folds their bulk away. It’s cool. He’s cool. “You’re a cool bird,” I tell him. “Thanks for standing still.”

I run my hand over his wing, taking care to be gentle. I feel his chest, his back. I let my fingers trace the scabby-feeling skin of his legs and feet. I’m exploring right now, figuring out what feels normal and what doesn’t. This is as new to me as it must be to Bernard. I wonder if I’ll be able to use this addition to my Gift on people, like, to diagnose problems before they cause symptoms. That would sure be useful.

Yeah. I feel sickness beneath Bernard’s skin. It’s like an out-of-tune guitar. It grates on me like nails on a chalkboard. Where I feel that discord, I concentrate on the imaginary light I associate with my healing. It’s like a shimmer I picture surrounding me and flowing into my patient. I saw it in my mind’s eye the first time I healed someone. That someone happened to be Jud.

After the guard, Remy, let us out of Angola, we headed north. It was slow going. Every time we got to a tangle of cars abandoned on the freeway—or serving as tombs for deceased drivers—we left the previous vehicle and took a new one from the front of the jam. That meant a lot of walking in urban areas.

We were hiking through tall grass alongside a mass of vehicles blocking Route 49 in Texarkana when Jud hissed in pain. “Damn rattler,” he said. I looked down and saw the big snake slither away, and I thought,Shit. He made it through the Virus only to die from a friggin’ snake bite. Hell, not on my watch.

To save him, I needed to find the nearest hospital and hope I could locate some antivenom before the poison killed him. I dug a map out of the glovebox of a big rig on the shoulder and saw there was a medical center less than half a mile away. Hell, when I stood on the jammed-up overpass, I could see the roof of the building. I could run there and back quicker than I could find a car in this mess of a roadblock and weave it through all the frozen traffic. But getting the medicine would mean leaving Jud there on the road. I’d move much quicker without him.

My mouth had gone dry. The last time I’d left someone to try to get them medicine, I’d been an idiot and gotten arrested. Turns out, it’s not that hard to steal anti-convulsant drugs if you wave a gun around. But it’s also not that hard for the cops to track you down after, if you were dumb enough to wear your MC’s cuts and they catch you on camera.

I went to jail, and my sister died from an epileptic seizure. I’d been seventeen and stupid. I should have called 911. But Ma raised us not to trust the police or anyone else. She raised us to be independent. Then she up and drank herself to death, and I’d had to drop out of high school to work and take care of Frannie. She was fifteen when I came home from work to find her seizing. We were out of her medicine, and I was going to get some for her at the pharmacy the next day—paid for in cash, because we didn’t have insurance.

What a difference a day makes. If I’d been more responsible and hadn’t let her run out, she might still be alive...if she survived the Virus. If not, at least she would have lived into her thirties. I would have had her almost twenty more years.

All this went through my head like a gunshot, and I froze. I fucking froze. When I came back to myself, Jud was limping down the road away from me. He had his trusty map in his fist. He was heading for the hospital on his own, but he was already slurring his speech and slumping against cars as he passed them. He’d never make it.

His only hope was me. Which meant he was dead. Because I was a fuckup.

No.As soon as I had the thought, I rejected it. Jud couldn’t die. He was meant for something bigger. I didn’t know what, but I knew he was meant to lead. Not just me, but a group of some kind. He had to survive. Whatever I had to do, I would do it.

I tackled him to the ground and did the only thing that could buy us enough time for me to find some antivenom. I yanked up his pantleg and sucked the goddamned poison out of his leg. It occurred to me I’d probably just end up killing myself and him, because weren’t you supposed to coat your mouth with oil or something before you suck out snake venom? I saw that in a movie once, but there I was fresh out of extra virgin olive oil.

Strangely, I didn’t feel any effects from the poison. Not only that, but where my hands touched Jud’s leg, there was this faint, shimmering light, like someone nearby was using a mirror to direct sunlight on us. But there was no one nearby, and a thick cloud cover totally hid the sun.

While I tried to figure out how the light was possible, the swelling in Jud’s leg began to go down! The bruising around the two puncture wounds became smooth, unmarred skin. Then, right before my eyes, the punctures scabbed over and sealed up. When no sign of the bite was left except a trickle of blood, the shimmering light disappeared.

Jud stopped sweating buckets, and within a few minutes, he was sitting up, looking at his leg in wonder. “Well, shit,” he said. “That’s a fancy Gift you got.” He beamed at me. “Thanks, Doc.” And that’s how I got my name.

Two years later, I’m in a cave, using new aspects of my Gift to heal a pelican enslaved a to an asshole. Sometimes, life is funny.

Bernard’s feet are fine. There are no black spots inside. But everywhere he’s got muscles or organs, my Gift flares. I only ever saw that shimmering light the first time, with Jud. Even though I don’t see it anymore, I definitely feel it. It’s like my will and this crazy magic I’ve been given mingle together and flow from me to Bernard. And it seems to be working.

As I finish on his body and work my way back up his slender neck, Bernard lifts his chin…er, beak for me. I think he’s into this. I get the sense he’s like,“Oh, yeah, right there!”I also notice that with his beak lifted, he looks like a great, feathered quarter note on craggy, gray feet.

“We’ll get you jitterbuggin’ again, buddy,” I tell him. “Get you fixed up so you can go home.”

“And see your mate, again,” Shep says.

I finish up, feeling the last of the blackness lift away.

“Ah,” Shep says. “I understand.”

“What do you understand?” I ask.

“His mate is under Raptor’s control,” Shep answers. “His fellows are, as well. It makes him sad. He wants to return home to help them, but there is nothing he can do. When he goes, he will fall under Raptor’s spell again. Still, he must go. He must try. She is his mate. I understand, because if Cora were in the same situation, I would go, even if there was little hope.”

“Damn right. I would go, too.” The thought of anything happening to Cora makes my fists clench. “We all would. But this Raptor A-hole will never get his hands on her. I don’t care how many men he brings up our mountain. No one touches Cora.”

“Ja,”Shep says. I think he’s agreeing with my sentiment, but he’s looking at Bernard. “She is mate to all of us. Our flock is eight strong. And yes, Raptor is coming here. He wants our mate.”

“Flock?” I ask.

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