Blog Tour: The Healer by J.L. Bowen

Buy the book: Amazon US

Story: Thirteen-year-old Armond Costa heals in three days, no matter what abuse his uncle and aunt inflict upon him. On his fourteenth birthday, he sprouts wings and discovers his aunt and uncle had lied to him. He's the lost Golden Demon's Healer. His father, King of the Golden Demons, insists he return with him and save his people from being persecuted by their mortal enemies, the Dark Demons. Now, Armond must choose between the Ellis brothers and seventeen-year-old Rusty Owens -- the only family he's ever known -- or condemn the Golden Demons to extinction.

Thoughts and impressions: Though intrigued by the concept behind the book, I have to admit that I found the first third-to-half of this book fairly hard going. This is due to the fact that things felt a bit all over the place, which resulted in me having a hard time building up a clear picture in my head of the events taking place. By the second half, it felt like the author had found her voice and her focus and I was able to settle into the story much better. This obviously resulted in me enjoying the story much more!

There were certain things that worked in this story’s favour, such: as a very well-drawn main character who was far from perfect; the fact that the author was not afraid to put her character through the ringer in such a way that you rarely see in fiction aimed at teens / YA; the struggle with burgeoning sexuality and having to face the question of whether homosexual urges are natural and acceptable.

There were other things that worked against it, such as: a plethora of characters who are all named but often don’t play a pivotal role. I’m a big fan of the rule of not introducing a character if you can make the story work without them – the human brain just can’t juggle that many names and it’s very frustrating to read about “John” and “Peter” doing something that puts a big question mark on their motives when I can’t even remember who “John” and “Peter” are! What´s more, the character descriptions were often fairly generic. All the characters seemed to look the same.

 Beyond this, there’s also the fact that the struggle with sexuality was made redundant by the introduction of a love-at-first-sight (kill it with fire!!) very plain Jane female character who had nothing really special going for her when the male romantic interest had been built up so well.

Despite a rocky start, I came to enjoy the characters and world built up in The Healer and will be looking for more by this author.

Style: Some big problems in the first half of the book that would occasionally drag me out of my reading zone.

Final verdict: All in all, the story fairly comes out at a balance of the bad versus the good. For each bad point, there’s a good point to counter it.

Get a sneak peek:

Chapter One

I grabbed the wobbly banister and climbed the stairs two at a time to the attic.

A small stampede barged after me. “Going somewhere boy?” Uncle Peter’s heavy footsteps trailed me. “You’ll never get the chance to heal.” His heavy panting echoed in the cramped stairwell. “Not…after…I… get…through…with…you.”

“Not in three days, you won’t,” Aunt Janet gritted her teeth. “I promise you that.”

Great, more pain. They could at least tell me what I did.

My hand shook as I whipped open my door. I charged towards the window. Freedom was only six feet away. Out the corner of my eye, an elephant size blur barreled right for me. I shrank, but Uncle Peter grabbed my arm and threw me.

As the room swirled, I crashed into the wall, knocking the wind out of me. Sweet Aunt Janet stormed over to me and backed me against the wall. “This. Is. Your. Fault.” With each word, she slapped me across the face and slammed my head like a ping-pong ball into the hard wood paneling. She wheezed and stopped. “Since it’s your damn fourteenth birthday tomorrow, they’re hunting you, putting us all in danger.”

God, her breathe stank of peppermint gum. Her hands reeked of her gawd, awful rose perfume. A metallic taste swirled in my mouth. Blood again. My cheeks throbbed.

“I don’t understand.” I rubbed my face. “Who can’t find me?”

“Shut up.” Aunt Janet folded her skinny arms across her flat chest. “I never should have agreed to raise you.”

Wiping my bloody mouth on my arm, I kept silent. That’s a laugh. Yeah, I was real grateful. Nothing like getting the crap beat out of you because you’re not a Martin. My last’s name’s Costa, my mother’s maiden name.

A motorcycle roared outside my window. Aunt Janet’s thin face paled. Her thin lips, smeared with red lipstick, pinched together. She dropped her arms. “It’s them. I know it’s them.”

I half-hoped it was Rusty Owens, my self-appointed protector. Rusty had long dark red hair and rode a fiery crimson motorcycle, but when I peered out the window, disappointment hit me. It was just some old gray haired guy on a blue bike.

I frowned. “So, whoever is looking for me rides a motorcycle?”

Holding up her arm, she clenched her fist. “Didn’t you hear me?” She took a step towards me.

I cringed and clamped my jaw tight. With her wild green eyes and spiky blond hair, she loomed over me like an Amazon ready to rip my guts out. I turned away. Never look a rapid dog in the face.

“Get a hold of yourself.” I peeked back around. Sweat poured down Uncle Peter’s face and a lock of fuzzy orange hair stuck to his forehead. He glowered at Aunt Janet and then slammed his fist into his oversized palm. “They can’t find him.”

I swallowed. Who? A lump of fear formed in my stomach. Somebody chased me, but no one would tell me who. But the thing that terrified me more was that Aunt and Uncle were scared.

Aunt Janet ran her hand through her sonic hedge-hog cut blond hair and paced across the floor. Her high heels clicked on the hardwood floor. “What will we do?”

“Keep him locked in the cellar. If he’s beat down…”

She stopped and clapped her hands together. “You mean they can’t find him if he’s in pain?”

Nausea gripped me. My achy stomach dropped to my toes. I knew that look. Damn, my right arm just healed. Three days ago, Uncle broke it - all because I punched my sixteen-year-old cousin, Bobby, in his round red pocked face - served him right. I hid my grin. He won’t make fun of the color of my eyes for a while.

Glancing away from both of them, I caught my reflection in the cracked dresser mirror. Strands of long black hair hung in my face. Shaking, I pushed the hair behind my ears. With my silver eyes, swollen cheeks, and bloody mouth, what looked like a beaten vampire stared back at me.

Great. I took quivering breathe. At least in three days, I’d be normal again, not a scratch on me.

“Yup.”            

Uncle’s firm word got my attention. I wiped the blood on the back of my hand, turned, and bit my lip. Don’t get sick.

Uncle stretched out his flabby arms and nodded.

An evil smile spread across Aunt’s face. “Our family will be safe.”

He dropped his arms to his side. “Exactly.”

At those words, I quivered. Uncle Peter seized my arm again and threw me onto my bed. He leaped on top of me, knocking the wind out of me, and pelted his meaty hooks into my face. “They’ll. Never. Find. You.”

In one leap, Uncle jumped off the bed and chucked me on the floor. I gasped for air, but it hurt to even breathe. I never got over how enormous Uncle and Bobby were, and how fast they could move. You’d think they’d be slow and clumsy, but they weren’t. More like, mad bull elephants bent on trampling you to death.

With his steel toed cowboy boots, he kicked my ribs. At the loud crack, I sucked in my breath. Thoughts fled my mind. As I crawled, I gasped for air.

“You like that?” He kicked me again, and got my hip. “You’re like your smart mouthed mother.” I rolled into a ball, and he stomped on my lower back. My kidneys screamed with agony. I’d piss blood for three days.

“You bastard.” Uncle Peter yanked me onto my feet. He shook me. “Your mother and her boyfriend are hunting you. If they find you, we’re dead.” His fingers dug into my tender skin. “Like when they murdered your father.” He dragged me down the stairs.

My mind went blank. Did I hear him right? Blood drained from my face. My feet tripped over each other as if I was a toddler, but Uncle Peter never slowed. “Quit stalling.”

When he whipped open the basement door, the air changed from summer clean to dusty and mildewed. Not again. I beat on his arm. “No!”

“Shut up.” He shoved me, and I somersaulted down the stairs. My vision blurred until I landed splat at the bottom, gasping for air. Above me, a darkened light-bulb dangled from a string. Sunlight struggled through the windowsills, but failed to chase away dark shadows that lurked under dusty, rickety, chairs, behind old trunks and a headless mannequin. My whole body throbbed as pain consumed me.

Light peered through a dusty window. Escape. I braced my hands on the cool cement, but before I could stand, Uncle threw me against another wall again. I landed on bumpy metal. Damn, not the stupid chains again.

“No,” I whispered and darted toward the door, but he grabbed me. I pushed and slapped his hands, but I couldn’t peel off his fat handcuffs.

He hurled me against the same wall. I shook my head, but he grabbed my hair and pulled me to his chin. Thrusting his giant bulbous sized gut and chest, he pinned me. I couldn’t breathe or move. His hot breath brushed over my head. He clanked the bands on each of my wrists. “There.”

I peered at him. “You said my father was killed in the line of duty. So, did grandma and grandpa.”

“We lied,” he hissed into my ear. His breath stank of buttered popcorn. “Your father went after your mother to bring her back and raise your ugly hide, but her boyfriend ambushed him and killed him in cold blood. Because of you, my brother’s dead.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve paid for that sin every day since you’ve come here. My brother was my best friend.” His fingers gripped my shoulders, and he shook me. My teeth rattled and my vision blurred. “And now, your mother is back and wants you, all of us dead. Is that plain enough for you? There only can be one healer, and she’s it.”

He released me, and I fell against the hard wall. As my head cleared, I gazed at him. Sweat trickled down his jowls and splashed onto the cement floor. He averted his hazel eyes.

“You’re a liar.” I yanked on the chains.

He stomped to the corner where a crooked metal rack leaned against the wall. Masking tape, screw drivers, hammers and pliers cluttered the other shelves. Stained turpentine jugs, and open and unopened paint cans were stacked on one metal shelf. Brushes and rollers were stuck inside a paint splattered brown and white coffee can. “I can see I’m gonna have to keep your mouth shut for you.” He jerked a smudged white rag out of a faded yellow bucket.

He waddled over to me. With a sneer on his fat face, he wrapped his fist in my hair. My head snapped back. He stuffed the rag into my mouth. Oil and dirt tinged my tongue. I gagged and shook my head. My salvia wet the cloth, and grit and turpentine ran down my throat.

I refused to show fear no matter how much it pooled in my stomach.

“Better, much, better.” He swiped his hands on his pants.

Softer footsteps thumped on the stairs. Aunt Janet emerged with a whip in her hand. All she needed was a skin tight black spandex suit and a mask, and she could be a super villain.

“I am sooo dead,” I mumbled into the rag and braced the wall with my back.

As a sharp toothy smile spread across her mouth, I quivered. She raised the whip. “This is for putting us at risk, you bastard.” She lashed my gut.

I arched my back. My hands clenched the chains.

“After this, you’d wished you had never been born.”

My heart hammering, I blinked back tears and bit the rag. Slime coated my tongue. With each swish, I counted back from a thousand. There is no pain. There is no pain. There is no pain. But a muffled groan escaped my lips and collapsing to the floor, my legs betrayed me. Aunt Janet’s laugh weakened my resolve. “There, I knew I could make you cry.”

Conan the Barbarian and Rusty Owens, I’m not.

Uncle Peter gripped my hair. “To let you know,” he hissed into my ear. His hot breath blew onto my neck. My stomach revolted. “This is your mother’s fault. Abrianna should have stayed away. She had her chance.”

My mother had a chance for what? Make up your mind, dude. Does she want to kill us or stay with your ugly ass? With his sweating face and beady wild eyes, he’d finally gone mad. Did I fall down a rabbit hole?

As the whip slashed my legs again and again, my thighs and calves pulsated with pain. At each slash, my body bumped up and down on the freezing cement floor. Sweat secreted from every pore.

“Damn it, Janet.” Uncle Peter jerked away from me. “You nearly hit me.”

“Don’t mention that woman’s name. Not ever.” Tears weld in her eyes. “The bitch will pay for her sins.”

“Fine.” Uncle Peter strolled towards the stairs. “I’m hungry. I’ll be right back. Do you want anything honey?”

“No.”

She lifted the whip and lashed me again and again. Deep cuts dug into the back of my thighs, buttock and back. Each time she hit me, my body jolted. I lost count of time. Not wanting to hear her cackle again, I pictured Rusty. His musical voice echoed in my head, “Don’t show them fear. Stay strong. Stay tough.”

Inside, I screamed with agony.

“God, I can’t stand anymore,” Aunt Janet panted. “Have..to..sit..down.”

I glanced over my shoulder. Aunt Janet’s spiky hair stuck to hear head, and the light glistened off her shiny face. She wrapped the whip around the handle and plopped next to me.

Burying my face in my arms, I held my breath. She seized the bottom of my ankle. Her nails dug into my ankle. She smacked the bottom of my foot. I kicked.

“Don’t you dare kick me.” She sat on my calves. I squirmed. She swatted my feet again and again. If you don’t think, that hurts, you’re crazy. Pain, God, I was dizzy from it.

The smell of fish filled the basement. Aunt Janet stopped. “Peter, what are you eating?”

Through my swollen eyes and matted hair, I watched him lean against the wall, holding a sandwich in his hand. He sat a glass of milk on a wooden, splintered chair.

“Tuna fish sandwich,” he smacked his lips together.

The smell of tuna, mixed with the damp and mustiness of the basement, mimicked the scent of a tackle box. I wrinkled my nose. I’d never eat tuna again.

“There,” she gasped. “No one will find him now, especially his slut mother.”

“Janet, shut up.”

             Uncle Peter narrowed his eyes at me. Walking over to me, he licked his fingers. With a malicious smile, he kicked me hard in the side, and my rib cracked again or maybe it was already broken. Hard to know. I groaned. My side throbbed each time I breathed, and blood swirled in my mouth. I wanted to pass out, but sweet relief eluded me.  Concentrating on anything but the pain, my mother came to mind. Had she been at the game? Awesome, she knew what I looked like, but I wouldn’t know her until I had a bullet in my brain or worse.

Standing, Aunt Janet wiped the sweat from her brow. “So, do you think this is good enough?”

Gee, didn’t know mangling me was such hard work.

Uncle Peter kicked me twice, and I doubled into a tight ball. I moaned. He knelt and stared at me. “Yeah, they won’t be able to find him.” He shook his head. “Damn, I never knew they were this close.” He gritted his teeth. “If they think I’m giving up our chance for immortality, they’ve got their heads up their ass.”

Immortality? What the hell is he talking about?

Aunt stared at me. “So, now what?”

“Wait until tonight. He’s not going anywhere. Hey, honey, is there anymore pie left?”

She tossed the whip across the room. “Yes, dear, I think so. You know, I’m starving.”

I hope the skinny bitch chokes on her own cooking. When they left and shut the basement door, I sat numb. Each time my heart beat, pain pulsed through me.

All this time, Uncle Peter knew my mother could heal like me, but never told me. So, did he think she would keep healing him so he’d never die? Or maybe he had started eating one too many brownies laced with weed. It slipped his addle mind that my mom had my father murder.

My world had turned upside down. First, they told me my father had been shot in a robbery gone bad. I even read the newspaper article - “Cop Gunned Down At 7-11.” Nowhere did it mention that Brian Martin’s ex-wife and her stupid boyfriend murdered him. So what, mom and her putzy boyfriend stopped off to buy some cupcakes, and my father confronted them so they blew him away? Or did the boyfriend not want to share his Twinkies with my dad?

I licked my bloody lip. Every day I passed my dad’s graduation picture from the police academy and the framed newspaper article on the mantel – only to know it was all lie. Why the cover up? My mind spun, not able to piece the puzzle together.

I frowned. “How come my mother can’t find me if I’m in pain?” No answer came forth from the damp walls or the spiders too busy spinning their webs.

But then who cares. My life sucked anyway. More lethal lies told from the two people who were supposed to love me. What did I expect? I needed the truth. I wanted to go someplace where there was no pain, no fear and no sadness – I wanted to be treated like a person. Pent up tears were released. I hadn’t cried for so long, but to know my mother killed my father. With each sob, my body shook. I never expected that. It hurt more than Aunt Janet’s torture. Now, my mother wanted me dead, but she had the all the answers. Great. Exhausted, sleep finally stopped the agony.

When I woke, the moon shone through the barred basement window. I could barely see through my swollen eyes. Raw torment gripped me. The pale light shined on a brown spider crawling on the cement floor. The spider darted over my lifeless arm. The feel of its long legs sent shivers through me. A sharp prick pierced my arm. The spider fled, and ran across the floor. I ignored the pain. I hurt too much to move.

The damn rag gagged me. I tried spitting it out again, but only licked more blood, dirt, or oil, or whatever nasty metallic stuff stained it. Better to not know.

When the basement door creaked and footsteps shuffled down the stairs, I shuttered and cowered against the wall.

A voice whispered, “My God, what have they done to you? It’s never been this bad.”

Out of the shadows, Larry Martin, who was a few weeks older than me, stood there, holding a bowl and wash rag in his hands. Aunt and Uncle’s second son. With wide eyes, he gawked at me. Two heads shorter than me, Larry passed more for a scared, fat third grader than a seventh grader.

I exhaled and relaxed.

He rushed over to me. Already sunburned, his dark pink face matched the stains of a strawberry slurpee on his white tee-shirt. Gasping for air, he put the bowl onto the floor, reached into pocket and pulled out his inhaler. Blood rushed to his face and changed him into a cherry head.

My hair was plastered to my forehead and cheeks. With his other hand, he swept it off of my face. He stuffed the inhaler into his pocket and then untied the rag and clean air rushed into my mouth.

I spat on the ground. “God, that tasted like crap.”

“I-I-I brought warm water. I-I-I thought you’d want me to wash you up. I-I-I’ve looked for the key to the shackles, but they’ve hidden it this time, and I don’t know where it is. I’m sorry.”

“Thanks for looking.” He’d helped me more than once in this hell house.

Larry dipped the washcloth into the warm water and rung it out. When he put it on a cut, I winced.

He snatched his hand away. “I put hydrogen-peroxide in it. It says it’s supposed to help disinfect and heal cuts. They don’t want you to heal, Armond. It’s like they’re afraid to let you.”

“No kidding.”

He stared at the bowl. “I’ll go and empty this. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Immediately, I regretted being a smart ass. In a sincere voice, I said, “Go ahead and finish.”

“Okay, this will sting a bit.”

I hated those words. Whenever someone said that, it meant it would hurt like hell. I tensed. With his shaking hand, Larry patted my open cuts. I muffled a groan.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

He gently brushed the rag along my torso, down my legs and across my arms, and after a while, his soft touched soothed the smarts. He shoved my hair away again and dabbed my face. “Can you even see?”

Despite the torment of forcing those tiny muscles to move, I smiled. “As bad as I must look, yeah, I can.”

“God, I don’t even recognize your face.”

My smile vanished. “They’ll know you helped me again.”

“I know, but they won’t do anything. Well, they might lock the basement door.” He glanced over his shoulder and then at me. He half grinned. “But I’ve figured out how to pick the lock.”

“What time is it?”

“About quarter to twelve.” He twisted the wash rag, and pink water dripped into the bowl. “Um, they’ll be back at midnight.”

“Great. Did they tell you my mother is the one after us?”

Larry’s green eyes widened. “Nooo waaaay.” He smiled. Well that’s good. She’ll-“

“Actually, she wants to kill me.”

He blinked. “What?” He dropped the rag into the bowl. “Oops. Sorry. But why?”

“Apparently, there can only be one of us. Oh and by the way, she helped murder my father.” I studied him. “Did you know that?”

“What?” He shook his head. “Uh uh. The Rocky Mountain Newspaper said he was killed during a robbery at Mom and Pop’s Grocery store at 72^nd Avenue and Lowel by an unknown assailant.”  He had read those words over and over throughout the years.

“According to good ole Uncle Peter, my dad knew his killers. My mother’s dumb boyfriend shot him.” I frowned. “I don’t understand why Uncle lied.”

“I don’t know.” His face turned pensive. “Wait a minute, you mean your mom can heal herself too?”

“Yeah and she wants to be the only one. It’s like she wants to be worshipped as some kind of god or something. I guess with me around, she’d lose some of her supposed followers.”

“That sucks.”

“Tell me about it, but I don’t care.” My voice hardened. “I’ve got to find her.”

“Why?”

“I can’t stand this. It sucks. I want to find out who I am.”

He gripped my shoulders. “No, you can’t. Not if she’s gonna kill you. You’re my brother. I can’t let you die.”

I studied his plump serious face. “I know.”

He released me and looked into the bowl. “God, I can’t believe how much blood is in here. I gotta go.” He stood and then hurried out of the basement.

After he left, I forced myself to sit and leaned against the wall. So, the Reverend Peter Martin of Our Rising Savior Lutheran Church, and his lovely wife not only hated my mother, but were afraid of her. Oh, and blamed me for my father’s death. What ever happened, I got blasted for it. Terrorists invaded Arvada, my fault. Collections go down at Uncle’s church, my fault. My mom killed my dad, my fault. The power I had.

I racked my brain. We were at my baseball game this morning, and I didn’t remember any woman stalking me or trying to cut my head off or shoot me between the eyes, but then again, I wasn’t exactly looking either, not with my team losing. Maybe I could find her first. Gee, that will be easy since I don’t know what she looks like.

I stared at the same biting spider crawling across the floor. So, how come all the grown-ups in my life wanted to hurt me? No wonder I never trusted anyone over twenty.

What did Uncle mean by wanting to keep his immortality? He couldn’t heal himself and the only person I could heal was me. Did he mean my mom? Maybe her powers were stronger than mine.

When heavy, fast footsteps came down the stairs, I huddled in the corner. My chains scrapped the floor. I buried my face in my arm, and pretended I was asleep. The light turned on, and I trembled.

“I know you’re a wake boy,” Uncle Peter said. He nudged me with his foot. “Look at me. Or I’ll kick the crap out of you.”

I lifted my head and froze. Uncle Peter held a chain saw in his hand. The blood drained from my face.

Aunt Janet flashed her eyes over me. “God, look at him, Larry’s been down here.”

Uncle Peter shrugged. “So?”

“It’s five minutes to midnight, Peter. Do you think he’ll change?”

“They always do. Fourteen. At the witching hour.”

Change?

I clutched the iron chain and flung it at them, but it clunked short of their feet, clanging on the cement floor.

Uncle Peter narrowed his eyes at me. “You better stop right now.”

I flicked it at them again. “Stay away from me.” My voice sounded funny. What would he do if someone planned to cut his fat ass into tiny pieces?

A splintering pain burned in my back, but Uncle and Aunt stood still. The force of the pain threw me onto my stomach and took my breath away. Stop, make it stop. Something moved inside me like a knife moving through my flesh. I screamed.

Uncle ran over and held my right arm. “Janet, grab his other arm. They’re forming.”

Aunt clawed her nails into my left arm and Uncle held my right. He covered my mouth. I tasted dead fish. Did he ever wash his hands? As something poked through my spine, I withered. My stomach swirled from the agony, and I spewed into his hand. “Please, stop.”

They released my arms, and I collapsed, face first into my own vomit. Slime went up my nose, and I sneezed. With my arms trembling, I pushed myself away from the putrid smell. The pain ceased, and I caught my breath. Cool air hit my back and moved my hair.

Glimpsing over my shoulder, I blinked. It couldn’t be. I had black wings. Not with feathers like a bird or an angel, but shiny and smooth like patent leather. Cobwebs flew overhead and landed on Aunt’s arm.

“Eeww, get it off me,” she said.

I shook my head again, but my wings were still there.

“Janet, quit whining. Grab his other arm and let’s move him away from here before I get sick.”

As they dragged me, the chains hung down my arms like vines. When they came to the far corner of the room, they threw me down on my stomach, and Uncle plopped on my buttock.

I groaned.

“Go get the chain saw,” he ordered. “And plug it into the outlet.”

“Please don’t kill me,” I said in a puny whisper.

He anchored his boots on the iron bands of my wrists. As he moved his boots, my wrists snapped. “Ack,” I shrieked.

“Here.” Aunt Janet panted. “It’s heavy.”

“I’ve broken both of his wrists, so he won’t be able to yank them from you.”

Aunt Janet seized both of my hands. Pain jolted through me.

As Uncle Peter stood on my thighs, his boots crushed me to the ground. His heavy weight bore his boots deep into my skin and muscle. Too weak to move, I waited, but managed to mumble, “Get off of me.”

The roar of the chain saw blocked out my words. As the jagged blade cut into me, I lurched. Bones cracked and shattered. My teeth chattered. I screamed. Not even getting beaten with a baseball bat hurt this bad. Blood and gore splattered on Aunt’s face. At her blood-sucking-vampire smile, I passed out.

I woke again and lay still. Warmth spread over my right side. Breathing hard, I clamped my mouth shut and turned my head towards the right. Through the window, the sun’s purple and pink rays light my naked bruised and bloody side. Spilled orange, pink, crimson, and brown paint stained the cement floor, but the red wasn’t paint. It was blood. My blood.

I’d never been in so much pain. Dying was better than living like this. More than once, I had tried to off myself - took pills, slashed my wrists, wrapped a rope around my neck, but each time, I healed. Being immortal sucked. So, why did Uncle want to be immortal? Especially since he always preached about eternity with God. Hypocrite. I shook. Alone for eternity terrified me. “Make it stop.”

So, obviously I wasn’t human. No, that wasn’t true. I was half-human. Upstairs, my dad’s pictures sat on the mantel. He had the familiar Martin orange hair, pink face, and portly body, but I had long blue-black hair, olive skin, and silver eyes. Did I get this from my murderess mother? Is this why my Uncle and Aunt hated me, because I reminded them of her?

I wished I had super powers like Superman or Hercules. Being the strongest boy on Earth would be so cool. I’d send Aunt and Uncle into orbit permanently. Or, at least heal like Wolverine, but mine doesn’t work like his. It takes three days. Now, if I could heal other people that would be bitchin’. I could cure Larry’s asthma. Maybe my mother could do it, but I sure as hell couldn’t, not even a wounded squirrel. Bobby had shot one in the head with a bee-bee. I touched the animal, but it twitched and died.

I gritted my teeth. My mom could have healed my dad but she let him die. What a bitch.

“Useless, stupid, ability.”

The power flickered inside me. Like always, my blood surged. A flutter like a butterfly moved deep within my chest, but this time, the sensation grew stronger, and intensified. I licked my lips and took a deep breath. The flutter changed to an electric pulse. The darkness faded. My skin tingled and shimmered. A white glow illuminated all over me, and the room brightened like I’d seen in Harry Potter when he conjures up his patronus charm of stag in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But unlike Harry, spasms shook me. My vision blurred. I broke out in a hot, sticky sweat as if I were strapped to a tanning bed stuck on high. Perspiration drenched me. With each heartbeat, the agony lessened.

As I panted, my vision became clearer, my teeth stopped chattering and the convulsions ceased. What the hell had caused that? I scooted against the wall. The putrid smell of vomit and blood turned my stomach upside down like a tipsy curvy rollercoaster. Another spasm gripped me. I clenched my fists and groaned. Agony tore through every muscle, and I flopped on my stomach. Cool air seeped out of a crack in the window and brushed over me. I glimpsed over my shoulder. My ebony wings glistened in the sun. Not a scratch on them. I peered at the doorway, but no sign of Aunt and Uncle. With grim determination, I flapped them. To my surprise, I rose to the ceiling and the tips rammed into the wooden beams overhead hard. “Ow!” I winced and crashed to the ground.

I got the air knocked out of me and struggled to catch my breath.  I lay motionless except for my beating wings. I frowned. So, how did this happen? Now I could grow appendages. Never knew that. Uncle Peter had never severed a limb before either, but then again, he just did. I pushed my lips together. I jerked, twisted, and pulled on the chains, but it was useless. I flopped onto the floor and wiped the sweat off of my face with my arm. I glowered at the steadfast bolted links. “Dumb wings.”

I lay on my stomach motionless on the floor. The cool air stopped. I frowned. As I reached around my back, my hand only touched smooth skin. I peered over my shoulder. Where now did they go? Wait a minute, I could twirl my wrist. It wasn’t broken. I sat up. I twisted my neck around, stretched my arms and raised my legs. I even pointed my toes. The healing usually took three days - not one night. How had I healed so quickly?

I cocked an eyebrow. Even now, the pain subsided on my arms and legs. The sun rays showed unbroken, perfect skin – no bruises, cuts, or lashes.

Footsteps clumped on the stairs. I clenched my fists waiting for more pain, more torture, more agony. The light flickered on. Aunt Janet held a handkerchief to her nose, while Uncle Peter clasped the same chain saw in his hand. I crawled away and huddled against the wall. My hands gripped the chains. “Not without a fight this time,” I promised.