The Girl in the Box 02 - Untouched by Robert J. Crane Page B

me and I was left staring at Scott Byerly, his hands raised as he took a step back. “Watch,” he said.
    I did. Sessions was still crying out—in pain, I thought—until I looked back and saw that around her hands, fresh skin was springing up on his face, replacing the cracked and blackened with new, pink flesh. It spread out in an effect that rippled over his visible skin. New hairs sprang from his once bald head and his shrieks became a low moan then ceased. His head dropped to the ground and he let out a long, deep exhalation.
    “Pulse returning to normal,” Dr. Perugini said, her stethoscope on his chest. “He’s in stable condition.” She snapped her fingers and someone slid a stretcher and a backboard into the snow next to Sessions and they started to load him onto it.
    “How did she do that?” I asked, low, but loud enough to be heard.
    Scott Byerly was the one who answered. “She’s a Persephone-type. She can give life with a touch.”
    “Give life?” I stared at the girl, still on her knees in the snow, which had indeed melted around her legs, brown grass visible against the tan skin of her thighs. I looked closer; blades of grass were turning green and waving against her sun-kissed skin, and it wasn’t my imagination. It was almost as if they were trying to touch her. “Persephone was the Greek goddess of seasons. She couldn’t give life to people, just to plants.”
    He shrugged. “I said Persephone-type, not Persephone herself. It’s based on myth and legend, after all.” He stared me down, and I saw a hint of a smile poke at the corners of his lips. “What are you?”
    I looked away, back to Kat, who was sitting on the ground, resting, her eyes closed, gold hair flowing around her face, which was red from exertion. She looked at peace, and she sank back, laying flat on the ground, embraced by the patch of green in the midst of all the snow. Her breath was still coming in and out with regular certainty, the steaming heat of it boldly visible against the bright lights surrounding us. I saw the calm around her, watched the grass play at her fingers, touching it, tickling it, and I felt a surge of envy.
    They were carrying Dr. Sessions away now, away from her, the girl who had given him life, returned it to him with her very hands. I looked back at Scott Byerly, and his eyebrow was raised in expectation. “Me?” I asked, and I felt hollow inside, empty of everything, even Wolfe. “I’m her opposite—everything that she isn’t.” My jaw hardened. “I’m death.”
     

 
    Chapter 12
     
    I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night. I’d left Scott Byerly and his stupid question behind with my cryptic answer, not even bothering to gauge his reaction. Well, maybe just a little. His face scrunched up as I was turning from him. I can’t say that was satisfying, but it was better than stopping to explain the literal truth I had told him.
    I am death. My touch brings it. Where Kat Forrest was a tanned, lovely, blond-haired princess of life, I was a dark-haired, pale-skinned angel of death. Her green eyes represented life; my bluer ones represented winter and the end of that life.
    Worse than the nasty comparisons that witnessing Kat’s power had spawned in me were the questions. What was I doing outside when the building had exploded? Why couldn’t I remember it? Why was the flaming lunatic so thankful to me?
    When I returned to my dorm room, I had to take another shower. The fall and the fire had done a number on me. No one had asked, probably because they hadn’t seen, but my leather gloves had burned to my skin on the back of my hands. I ripped them off, the leather shredding and pulling the flesh in patches. I let them bleed out in the shower, the diluted red standing out against the cream-colored tiles that surrounded the drain. I watched the little stream of maroon as it came in streaks, circling the inevitable.
    My hands still itched by the time I was done, along with a few places on