Double-life: Consumed from the inside.

Josh arm was bleeding, though the bullet hadn’t hit him directly it had still hurt him. He was on the ground but he had seen, despite the dark, how Nichole had pounced over the man, grabbing his face with both hands, pushing him hard, apparently, for he fell to his side. As quickly as she pounced on him she jumped off of him, rushing towards the other man, who was still on the ground. Once she got close to him, he sat disoriented, she made a motion as if to check his pulse even though he was clearly alive and right after she did that, the man fell to the ground again. She searched through the man´s jacket pockets to grab the money she and Josh gave him. Then she moved towards Josh.

“Are you ok?”
“I...-he saw his arm- I thought I was going to die” he sighed relieved, somehow dizzy and confused.
“Let me take a look at that” even though she said that she didn´t immediately looked at him, instead she went to grab her bag that was on the side of the road where she had thrown it in order to pounce to the thief. She came back with it, turned on the flashlight and grabbed a bandage and quickly started to put it on her hand. Josh blinked, he hadn’t noticed when she had taken that off, he was sure her hand was bandaged when the men first approach them and when she handed them money. He was staring at her.

“Let me see your arm” She examined it using the flashlight “The bullet only grazed your arm, we need to move out of here, can you get up?” she moved again to light the road in search for something, when she found it, she grabbed it and shove it on the bag. Josh was on his feet.
“Are you ok?” he asked
“Let´s go” right after saying that she took her phone out and dialed, she was starting to walk when she talked “two guys attacked me on the road to the town near Burgeoys” She listened and then answered “ten minutes coming from the town to the school” she listened again “no, just a bullet graze on my arm. Make Nat call me about that, please” she looked at Josh. She hung up after that. His thoughts were all over the place and he couldn´t make a coherent thought, therefore he just stay silent trying to ignore the pain that was starting to burn his arm and trying to order his thoughts as well. They had walked in silence for ten minutes when she stopped.

“Let me see your arm” she asked again, for the third time. Josh stared at her
“I´ll clean it and put a bandage on it”
“I think I´ll go to the infirmary”
“And you´ll say that you were shoot while you were out of school grounds when you know that´s not allowed?” after that he took his jacket off. She cleaned the wound using the supplies she had bought and used one of the many bandages she had gotten. It stung a lot. They walked in silence the whole path in the woods. Josh arm hurt when he climbed the stone wall to enter the school again. This time she walked next to him. It had gotten late, the thieves had taken their time and after that they had walked slow. It was almost midnight.

“I think you should stay in my room tonight” Nichole said and sighed “you´d get in trouble if anybody sees you coming in at midnight”
 “But your building supervisor...”
“She´s fasten asleep by now, specially on Saturdays when she drinks a little too much wine, but be silent ok?”

 As she had said, it had been easy to walk in her building. Once they were in her bedroom she gave him some painkillers and her phone rang, though vibrate is the most accurate word. As usual she didn’t say a word. “I already cleaned the wound and put a bandage on it, I took some pain killer as well, but I’m wondering if I should take some antibiotics?” She heard again in silence “I see” more silence “no, I´ll call you if I need you to come” a small pause “I’m sure Natasha” she said firmly and hung up.

“All right, apparently you should put some antibiotic ointment for that” she went to her first aid kit. While she was applying it to his arm she spoke “I’m sorry that this happened to you”
“It´s not your fault” he said despite the pain.
“It feels like it”

 They stayed quiet for a while.
“That bed´s empty so, you take that one -he nodded- I’m taking a shower now” she announced and grabbed her towel and clothes and went in the bathroom. In the meantime he lay down feeling his arm on fire, it hurt, sting, he couldn´t name the feeling, the pain killers didn’t seem to be working but he had just taken them so that could be the reason. He was re-playing in his head the incident with the thieves. What had happened? how could she topple a man more than twice her size? and then why did she checked the other man´s pulse when he was already awake? he had so many questions. Was she that good with all her training that she could fight the men without even fighting them and why did she called to report she was attacked, who had she called? clearly not the police since that would´ve been as him going to the infirmary or worst.

It took her a long time to get out of the shower but when she did he was still awake. When he heard her coming out he put one arm over his face. She smiled at his courtesy.
“I’m dressed”
“Oh” he said and turned to see her.
“Are the pain killers working?” she seemed somewhat worried but maybe it was because she, too, had been attacked.
“Not much” she made a sad face at that.
“Try to sleep... and please do not get close to me ok?” she said in a small voice.
“Come on! Nichole, I´m not going to try anything while you´re asleep” he said angry, the pain making him crankier.
“I usually have nightmares as you have seen once so.. I what I meant was do not try to wake me up” she placed a glass with water on the nightstand next to him.
“I’m sorry.I...” he started to appologize.
“It´s ok, pain makes us angry” she smiled bitterly and turn off the lights. Josh couldn’t sleep, mostly due to the pain but also to the events that had happened that evening.

“Are you awake” he said softly not wanting an answer
“What is it?”
 “Thought you were asleep. Did I woke you up?”
“Same here and no” there was silence. “Talk” she said guessing he had questions for what he had seen. She had been fearing that since what seemed forever.
“What happened to your bandage when those thieves attacked us? -of all the questions he had, he didn´t know why he had chosen that one to be his first question- I know you had it when you gave them the money but then when you checked my arm you didn’t have it, why would you take if off? moreover, why did you put another one before touching me and checked the man´s pulse with your bare hand?”

She sighed and stay silent for a moment. What could she do? fake she had fallen asleep? lie? but she knew that lies pile up until they fall apart and then it´s all worst. There was no way she could just ignore it, he would just want to get closet to her and she couldn’t run away from him or leave Burgeoy’s school since that would mean telling her father to let her transfer to another school, it sucked being 17 since she needed his permission for legal stuff, he wouldn’t want to move her, her being there was convenient for him and he´d want to know why she wanted to leave and if she told him that it was for Josh he´d ask her to make him go or worst, he could do that himself. He forgave no obstacles even if they were human lives. Maybe if she told him the truth he´d go but what if he decided to tell someone, it could end up bad. Against her better judgement she had let him tag along and now there were the consequences to face. They came fast, so fast.

“Nic?”
“mh?”
“Won’t you answer me?” he sounded a bit irritated and Nichole guessed it was mostly because of the pain, after all she knew very well those injuries hurt a lot.
“I took it off and I didn’t want to hurt you that´s why I wore a bandage before touching you”
“Why did you took it off?” he sounded genuinely interested.
“He was about to shoot you”
“What that had to do with your bandage”
 “In order to stop him I had to take it off” she sighed. She was telling the truth but she wanted to tell as little as possible.
“Why is that?”
She sighed heavily before answering “So that I could make him go”
“Make him go?” he echoed thinking that he had heard her say something similar before
“Yes”
 “Do you mean die?” it took a while for that information to be processed for his brain, he just couldn’t believe that could happen. She didn’t say a thing. “and the other man, when you checked his pulse, you were not checking it but... taking it away?”
“Yes” she said in a small voice. He sat and turned on the lights. “How´s that possible?”  at that question she stared at her, her eyes were watery.
“I don’t know”

“So, it is true, it is true that you killed your roommate” The words seemed to came out on their own, maybe it was due to him wanting to ask her that ever since he had heard it from the boys and shortly after looking at old papers in the library covering the news of a little girl´s death on Burgeoys school. Her eyes went wide and a stream of tears came down her eyes. She wasn´t prepared for him mentioning that. She couldn´t believe he had heard already about the rumors, and he hadn´t asked, he had stated it as a fact. She was feeling guilty for what happened to him and now he was talking about that horrible incident.

“So it´s true?” he couldn’t believe it, she had saved him how could she had done that. No it couldn’t be.
“It was an accident, it was an accident” she sounded as if she was pleading. His jaw dropped open
 “What did you do? How is it possible that you can you kill someone by touching them? what happened?” “Don’t you believe me?” her voice pleading again, he thought he had seen her fragile before at her house but now, she seemed lost and broken.
“You saved me from falling, you can’t be bad, I believe you” he reasoned out loud making himself believe in his own words and then years of guilt rained through her eyes, years of guilt made her talk.

“What happened? tell me what happened tonight” he prompted her. She nodded, drank some water and stared at her hands for a while, she closed her eyes and stopped her tears.
“I gave them the money so that they go, I thought that was what they wanted. When the other hit you I didn’t expect them to try anything else. Thank you for standing up for me -she looked at him and half smiled- When the other pointed his gun to me I started to loosen my bandage for I was going to plead him even cry if necessary so that he got closer to me, so that I could touch him, so that you didn’t notice”
“And I ruined that...”
“You didn’t know and I couldn’t let him shoot you” her voice was barely audible
“Meaning that you´ve saved me once more”
“Not really, I let you come, I put you in danger”
“They would have attacked you alone”
“I would´ve ran to the woods”
“They would´ve shot you”
“Probably...” she said and he wondered why it didn´t seem to worry her.
“What about the other...?” he asked and she lowered her head again
“He saw everything”
“I did too” he said quick, she winced as if she had been punched, in a way she had.
“If I wanted I could´ve let him shoot you or touch you with my bare skin at any point between that time and now. Why would I do that to you?”

“What about your room mate?” the implications of that question made her heart ache.
“I had just come here, I was awfully sad, I felt rejected by my father, I had felt that... for a while. I was nine. She, as you already know, was my room mate, Kat, she was a sweet kid, she was about to turn eleven. She was the one who saved me when I was lost...” she smiled, her eyes seemed to be looking at a distant image.

“She gave you the peanut butter sandwiches?”
“Yeah -she smiled- yes, she did. -she swallow hard- I´ve had nightmares for many years now. One night, on may, I had one of those and that one time I was not able to wake up, she heard me cry, she had heard me before but I always woke up, she tried to comfort me but I wouldn’t let her, I would ran to the bathroom. That one night, as I said before, I din´t woke up and she tried to awake me, sometime during my sleep I had taken off the gloves I used to wear to sleep and when she touched my face I grabbed by instinct her wrists, she withered in an instant. I started screaming and called father... rumors of me killing her started by the rest of the children who happened to dislike me since she had taken me under her wing during the months she was alive after I came here, of course they made it out of childish anger but they were right, the fact that I was given a room for myself just encouraged those rumors but I rather have rumors than what happened with Kate”

“So your father knows?”
“He does” she sighed, she seemed tired, very tired.
“and your...mom?”
 “She was the first” her features contorted in pain and she started to cry again
“Where is she now?” he thought she meant her mother had been the first to know about what her hands could do.

“At age seven I killed my mother -his eyes went wide at that information- when I turned seven I started to get sick and sicker, no one knew what was wrong with me. I was in pain all the time, mother started to stay in my room and as she did so I started to get better but she started to get sick. She asked that I would be away since maybe it was a virus and since I had just gotten better she didn’t want to make me sick again, with that she started to feel better and one day, when she was better I decided to wake her up, it had been a month or maybe more since I had last had touched her, she had been really ill, father was in the room, he slept there on a couch. I entered and hugged her tightly, father woke up, “I love you always” were her last words before her heart stopped. My father had been suspecting it was me the cause of her illness, for all the puppies he had gotten me when mom got sick died immediately after I touched them, I never realized... Father had gave me gloves to wear, pretty silky gloves, he made me wear them after what happened to my puppies and pretty much all the living things I touched but how could I´ve noticed when wearing gloves was a game for me?”

She smiled bitterly, she wasn´t sure why she kept talking since she seemed to be reliving those last days with her mother, she could felt the silky gloves, she could hear the puppies barking and she could see the flowers that withered immediately after her touch.

“And your sisters?” Josh´s voice sounded distant. It seemed that he didn´t want to give an opinion just yet, it seemed he wanted to gather all the pieces of the puzzle before saying opinions.
“God, no, I could never let Camille know even less the step-sisters or their mother”

They were silent.The night was dying away.
 “I just can’t believe it. How could you kill someone just by touching them? that´s impossible!” Josh said
“I wish it was” she got to her feet, opened the window. He thought she was going to jump but she motioned for him to come close
“Don't worry, I´ll just show you” she said. He got up.
“Look, this leaves are from that big tree, over there, not the one right in front of the window but the one to the right, you see? -he nodded confused as to why she was telling him that. She sighed and took off her bandage, grabbed a few leaves that quickly faded and fall then she grabbed a branch. Nothing seemed to happen, she let it go.

“What was that for?” as soon as he finished his question the tree made a cracking noise as if it was breaking and indeed it broke in two, all the leaves fell and when he saw the middle of the lower part that was still on the ground he noticed in disbelief that it was hollow as if consumed from the inside. His eyes went wide. “You did that?” she nodded “How?”
“I don’t know”
 “Does touching your skin makes that?”
“If that was the case you´d be dead by now for I had to grab you with both my hands when you fell off the wall, remember?”
“Only your right hand then?”
“Nowadays, yes”
“And before?”
“ Pretty much all in me...but after mom, it was only my hands and after Kate only my right hand”
“That means you can control it?”
“No, I’m not sure why it is, and I don’t want to loose another important person in my life to see if it goes away completely”

“And that´s why you run away from people” he said, she didn’t answer.
“who did you call earlier?”
“My father...”

Josh´s eyelids felt so heavy and his brain felt overflown with information. He couldn’t deny he was scared of being in that room with a person who could kill him, he wanted to run away, to leave, yet he was so tired and she had saved him twice, she had warned him not to follow her, she had kept pushing him away since they met yet there he was on her room. Is Aaron all right? he wondered and drifted to sleep.