"Given what we have going on, that's not a moniker I'd stick on anyone but ourselves."

Ian shifted against her, his breath tickling her neck. "Point taken." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, sending a tingle through her body.

"You two look so sweet together," Missy called from the balcony above.

Taylor lifted her chin. Joyce, Randy and Missy paused together, their arms resting on the wooden banister, a front row, center stage spot to the Ian-and-Taylor show.

Joyce smiled. Missy giggled. Randy grinned.

The barrier gave way.

a a a Their screams filled the s.p.a.ce as the railing fell toward Taylor. Her arms flew up and, with them, an unseen wind.

Bodies stopped falling.

They hovered, midair, hands clenching and releasing, flailing and moving as if there might be a bar, a plank, a rail to grab on to-some way to swim toward the floor.

Taylor lowered her arms a little at a time.

The three people floated their way down toward the first level, hands and feet reaching the beaten planks just before a screech of wood against wood somewhere in the rafters jostled in a way it shouldn't, and a low rumble began somewhere beneath where Taylor and Ian stood.

"Get outta here!" Ian's yell coincided with a shake of the whole structure.

Gla.s.s burst from an upper story window, cascaded down from the ceiling, and rained upon them as they jolted forward. Ian pushed Taylor toward the front door.

A long yawn sounded around them.

"The roof!" Missy yelled as she bolted through the opening.

Joyce followed.

Randy behind her.

Taylor stopped. As if entranced, she stood and stared at the crumbling wood all around her.

"Go! Go! Go!" Ian's voice reached her, but Taylor envisioned herself covered by it all.

Buried in the rubble.

Not wood. Soil. Filling a grave.

The roof shuddered. A beam landed just in front of her, rocking the floor and throwing her backward. She landed on her b.u.t.t, braced with her arm behind her and jarring her rib.

Yet, still, she stared.

It's going to bury me.

Alive.

Again.

Her body flung rearward, pressure at her gut dragging her through debris until she landed on her back, staring up at sunlight all around her.

As if torn from a vision, the house came back into view.

Two feet away, the porch bowed inward; slats popped up with deadly sharpness.

Hands slid under her armpits and pulled. The force yanked at her shoulders, sending stabbing pain through her arm and her chest, taking her farther away, into the gra.s.s.

The house's front facade began a slow slide until it fell inward, a cloud of dust shooting up into the air, and the remainder of the four sides collapsed in upon themselves.

Beside her, Ian knelt, his chest heaving. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h." He turned to Taylor, ran his hands down her cheeks. "You're okay. We're all okay. What was-"

"I made it fall." She braced a hand on her knee and managed to get to her feet, wobbling and trembling. "I made it fall! How could I do that?" Bile rose up her throat. This is all my fault. I made that fall. I broke an entire house!

Yellow-geared men jogged up to her. "Ma'am, are you okay?"

I made it fall. I made it fall. I made it fall.

If she hadn't used the air to save them, the house wouldn't have crumbled. If she hadn't saved them, she'd have been responsible for their deaths-or at least their injuries.

Both churned her stomach.

Her body swayed. The ground rushed up to her, or she to it, and she hit the gra.s.s again.

"Taylor!" Ian broke through the jumble. "Get an EMT over here!"

The voice mixed in her mind but didn't stop the onslaught of emotion or the fazed view of life around her.

"We need to get this woman to a hospital."

Her head lolled to the side, though she knew Ian cradled her.

"You're bleeding." He gripped her arm, sliding it back.

Panic kicked in. My hands! Her breath hitched. Please let me go. I can't breathe.

"I'm right here. You're okay." As soothing as he might have thought his voice, her constrained arm did her in.

It always did.

"Can't-" Her head shook as consciousness reclaimed her. "Can-"

Ian let go. "Taylor." He said her name right at her ear. "You've been hurt." His fingertip stroked her shoulder.

"It's not you." She turned her face away from Ian's gaze.

"I know, but you've got a gash running from your shoulder to your elbow."

A quick check to her right showed blood pooling through her shirt and down her arm. "No hospitals. I can't-no, I just won't."

"May I?" Joyce knelt at Ian's side.

Remorse and guilt flooded Taylor. She pushed up to sit, the effects of manipulating the air wearing off. "I'm so sorry, Joyce. I-"

"You're sorry for what? Saving our lives?" Confusion coated her question.

"But ... your ... house." A pulsing throb marched up and down Taylor's arm.

"My life." Joyce took Taylor's hands. "Tell me. Please. Confirm that I didn't fall from a second story balcony and not land flat on my face. Tell me you can manipulate the elements."

Taylor faced Ian, back to Joyce and to Ian again. She dropped her chin but bounced her head up and down.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned," Joyce said as Ian said, "Son of a b.i.t.c.h."

"But your hou-"

Black-soled work boots. .h.i.t Taylor's line of vision. "Ma'am, I'm Dave-one of the EMTs. I really need to transport you to the hospital-"

"No!"

"Can you do anything here?" Joyce asked.

Dave dropped a bag at Taylor's side. "Let me see it." He ripped her shirt the rest of the way up her arm. "It doesn't look deep, probably won't even need st.i.tches." He pulled out cleaner pads. "But ... it's our recommendation-"

"No. I'll find a doctor." The first touch of antiseptic shot arrows through Taylor's body. Should have asked for some Vicadin. Dave scrubbed so hard on the gash that Taylor cried out.

Joyce gripped Taylor's hands between her own. "Truly, my friend. What happened here was not your fault."

Dave let go, moving back to his pack. "Last teta.n.u.s shot?" He sat at Taylor's side, soaking a cotton ball in a clear liquid.

"Three years ago."

"That's good, but what with the age of that building, you should ask a Doc if you need an update. Let me get some heavier gauze to wrap this. And, you're absolutely positive I can't take-"

"I'm not going to the hospital."

"I'll be right back." Dave stood and departed.

"So, Taylor-" Joyce took Taylor's hand and with the other motioned behind her.

Shooing Ian away? Taylor checked over her shoulder.

"You'll be ... okay?" Ian pointed behind him. "I'll just go check on Missy."

Taylor nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, sure." She adjusted back to Joyce.

"I caught you off guard, I think, yes? But, given what you can do, maybe not?"

Taylor nodded. "A little. I'm not used to people-" She didn't want to say, *knowing I can control the air,' because, with few exceptions, no one knew.

Joyce's lips curved. "I understand. We, in my profession, maintain confidences as well. And, I've been wrong before, so I try not to push." She crisscrossed her legs underneath her. "Can you manipulate anything else other than air? Create fire? Move the earth? Bend water?"

Taylor shook her head. "Only the air."

"Fascinating."

Not always. "Why?"

Joyce's lips curved in a giant smile. "When I touched your hand, I sensed three lives before this one. The latest is the closest to you. She needs to talk to you ... to ... communicate as she's in pain. Those before her are silent but echo through your soul along with traces of other gifts."

Taylor glanced down at her hands, the conduit to her gift, and one she used only in emergencies. The previous lives claim, though, that interested her more. "Um ... how can you ... feel those lives?"

"Most of us have no recollection and never even engage with what or who we once were. But ... just like an alcoholic is never cured, or a smoker can still have a craving after twenty years of not touching a cigarette, we may be able to feel, breath, taste and touch part of our past whether we interact with it on a daily basis or not."

A zing of pain shot up Taylor's arm. "What am I supposed to do?"

"You have a gift for a reason. You're going to need it. I don't know how. I don't know when. But you will. It's why you have it. Listen to the echoes. Really listen to them and maybe, just maybe, she'll speak to you."

The clomp of rubber-soled feet signaled Dave's return with his satchel.

Joyce rose. "Missy has my number if you have any questions."

Taylor reached out again. "But your hou-"

"The house clearly wanted to be left alone, Taylor." Joyce took Taylor's hand and patted the top. "We aren't here to be masters of our domain, but to let what lives and breathes around us control small bits of that." She knelt at Taylor's side again. "This one said goodbye-in permanence."

"But-" Taylor cringed as Dave rubbed smelly, stingy cleaner on the ma.s.sive scratch, his deft hands making their way around her arm.

"No buts. We aren't the only ones that live in this world, that breathe and share in what the earth gives us. What we see with our eyes is only one part of what our brains comprehend. I hired Missy because of her reputation for listening to the unsaid sounds, seeing what isn't on the surface. She's told me numerous times that this house wasn't talking. Its soul had already dispersed. I didn't believe her. Now, I do." She left Taylor with the medic.

"That's one big mess, isn't it?" Dave nodded toward the house.

"Yeah."

"Crazy how stuff happens like that."

"You don't know the half of it."

17.