Harmful Rush

By Debra Doxer

Skylark Samuels has a secret.

She’s not a normal teenager, although she plays one in real life. Pretending to be something you’re not isn’t easy, especially in high school where gossip is gold. For years, Sky manages to hide her uniqueness, until one fateful day when she exposes her gift, her curse, and all her fears come to pass. Now instead of going to college near home like she planned, she has to leave town and go someplace where the rumors can’t follow. The plan when she gets there: keep to herself and stay under the radar.

But blending into the background is impossible when local heartthrob Dylan Parks notices her. Even though Sky keeps her distance and doesn’t act like one of Dylan’s adoring fans, he goes out of his way to talk to her. Her. The girl who wants to be invisible.

Sky isn’t immune to Dylan’s charm, but getting close to him is a bad idea. It goes against the promise she made to herself. Besides, if Dylan knew the truth, he wouldn’t want her. If he discovered her secret, he’d treat her differently and possibly fear her. It’s happened before. But the more Sky gets to know Dylan, the harder it is to resist him, until fate intervenes.

A tragic event forces Sky to reveal herself to the one person she’s come to care for, and his reaction is unexpected. For the first time, she doesn’t feel so alone. But what she doesn’t realize is that she’s never been alone. When she finally lets her guard down, someone comes along who threatens to unravel everything, because being normal was never Sky’s destiny.

**Harmful Rush is a standalone, full-length novel set in the Remedy world. You do not have to read the first two books (Keep You from Harm and To Have and to Harm) to read this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debra Doxer
• Release date: Apr 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370137312

Debra Doxer

Debra Doxer was born in Boston, and other than a few lost years in the California sunshine, she has always resided in the Boston area. She writes fiction, technical software documents, illegible scribbles on sticky notes, and texts that get mangled by AutoCorrect. She writes for a living, and she writes for fun. When not writing, she's walking her Havanese puppy and forcing her daughter to listen to New Wave 80s music. Connect with Debra: www.facebook.com/AuthorDebraDoxer www.instagram.com/debradoxer www.twitter.com/debradoxer [e-mail]

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Harmful Rush

Copyright © 2017

All Rights Reserved

Edited by Pam Berehulke of Bulletproof Editing

Cover Design by ©Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations, LLC

Interior design and formatting by:

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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Debra Doxer.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite e-book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Books by Debra Doxer

Dedication

Quote

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Thank you

Acknowledgements

Connect with the Author

Copyright Notice

Contemporary Romance

Breaking Skin

Play of Light

Paranormal Romance

Keep You from Harm (Remedy #1)

To Have and to Harm (Remedy #2)

Harmful Rush (A Remedy Stand-Alone)

Young Adult

Like Candy (Candy #1)

Sweet Liar (Candy #2)

For anyone who has watched a loved one suffer and felt helpless to do anything about it.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

— Saint Augustine

ZOEY AND I walk through the classroom door together, both dragging our feet and wearing similar expressions of dread.

I know I failed, Sky, Zoey says, sliding into the desk across the aisle from mine.

For the tenth time, you didn’t fail.

I pull my Calculus notebook and pen from my bag, confident we both passed the spring midterm but nervous just the same. Our teacher, Mr. Tucker, is nicknamed Terminator Tucker because he’s killed so many grade-point averages. At a time when most of us are sending our transcripts to colleges, Mr. Tucker seems to relish the way he controls our futures with the tip of his red pen. That’s why Zoey and I spent most of the night before the exam studying instead of watching a Teen Mom marathon. And we never miss Teen Mom.

The classroom is unusually quiet as everyone settles in. Zoey and I are seated in front, which means I have to turn and look over my shoulder to see the fear in everyone’s eyes, but I can feel the weight of nervous expectation in the air even without looking.

Needing a distraction, I pull my Cosmo list from my bag and try to think of more things to add to it.

Zoey and I were reading Cosmopolitan magazine at her house last week, and in the back we found an exercise claiming it could improve our lives in three simple steps. All we had to do was write down three non-materialistic wishes for the future, and work toward making them come true using something called self-actualization. Despite how ridiculous it sounded, we had nothing better to do at the time.

Zoey finished her list in under five minutes. She wanted to lose ten pounds, find a boyfriend who would appreciate her, and win the lottery. I explained that winning the lottery is materialistic, but she didn’t care. She kept it on her list.

For some reason, I took it more seriously, but I could only think of one thing.

To live in the same moment I’m breathing in.

Lame, Zoey declared.

Maybe it is lame, but she doesn’t understand. My whole life has been spent waiting for something more. Answers. Reasons. Truths. Sometimes I feel like I’m waiting instead of living. Other times I feel like I’m not living at all. I’m a mystery waiting to be solved, wondering what to do in the meantime, and afraid the meantime is all there is.

The classroom door closes, and I put my Cosmo list away as Mr. Tucker walks in and sets his heavy briefcase on his desk. We’ve all joked about his appearance and wondered what Mr. Tucker’s wife looks like, since he wears a wedding ring. With his terrible comb-over, doughy skin, and clothes from a decade that passed long ago, Terminator Tucker isn’t exactly a catch.

I feel a pang of guilt when I join in on the jokes, but his penchant for embarrassing students—often humiliating those who get answers wrong—makes it easy to push my guilt aside.

Mr. Tucker reaches into his briefcase and withdraws a thick folder filled with papers. The whole room audibly groans, assuming he’s holding our tests.

Without a word, he opens the folder, glances up at us for the first time, and clears his throat. I have your grades from yesterday.

My stomach does an uneasy flip. My plan is to attend the local state college next fall, but even that will be out of reach if I fail this class.

One by one, Mr. Tucker calls out names, and students walk up to the front to receive their graded exams. When he calls Zoey, because we’re up front, he only has to reach out and place the test facedown on her desk. Her panicked eyes briefly meet mine before she turns it over and peeks at her grade. Then she releases a long breath.

B minus, she mouths.

I grin at her as my own test is set down in front of me. Ignoring a wave of nausea, I turn the paper over and see a bold B written on top. Normally, a B would be disappointing after how hard I studied, but not in this class where it deserves trumpets and confetti. I sink down into my seat, relieved.

When I tell Zoey, she does a little dance at her desk for me, and we both laugh softly. Around us, there aren’t many happy dances going on. Instead, I hear pained groans and the sound of tests being shoved into bags.

Mr. Tucker passes out the last exam and places the empty folder on his desk just as a loud gasp comes from the back of the room.

I turn to see Conner Doherty walk up the aisle, but it isn’t until he raises his hand that I understand the reason for the gasps, which have now turned into screams.

Conner has a gun.

All I can do is stare at first. The only guns I’ve ever seen have been on television, and for a moment, I wonder if it’s real. Then I notice how Conner’s hand trembles, and I know it must be real.

The kids sitting in the last rows bolt for the back door. Those of us in front hit the floor and scramble beneath our desks.

We crouch across the aisle from each other, and Zoey’s fearful eyes meet mine as Conner comes to a stop between our desks. As I stare at his scuffed sneakers and the frayed hem of his jeans, my breakfast pushes up into my throat.

I hear Mr. Tucker beg for his life, his bold, arrogant voice reduced to a thready plea, but Conner is as silent as a stone. With Conner’s attention on the teacher, I signal to Zoey by pointing toward the back door that we should try to leave.

She bites her lip and looks up at Conner as tears stream down her cheeks. Zoey and Conner dated earlier in the year. It didn’t work out, but she never said anything to make me believe he could do something like this.

The principal appears in the doorway at the back of the room and quietly tells the rest of us who are crouched beneath our desks to file out into the hallway with the other students. Then he steps into the room and says Conner’s name in a quiet, even tone, meant to keep everyone calm, but Conner doesn’t turn around or lower the gun.

Adrenaline courses through my veins, and the need to flee is overwhelming. I could probably make it to the door, but Zoey isn’t moving, and I can’t leave without her.

I take a chance and whisper her name louder than I should, nervously glancing up at Conner. But he’s in his own world, and only Mr. Tucker exists there with him.

Zoey nods, her eyes wide with terror. Once I know she’ll follow, I move on my hands and knees toward the other students crawling across the floor to the exit, but Zoey has farther to go since she’s on the other side of the aisle. I see her start to move, but then she stops and slowly gets to her feet.

No, I call out, sure she’s lost her mind.

She pleads to Conner, Please don’t do this.

Slowly, he turns to look at her.

You don’t want to do this, Zoey says, and in that moment I think she’s either the bravest or the dumbest person I know.

What happens next is pandemonium. Mr. Tucker lunges at Conner while his attention is diverted by Zoey. At the same time the principal comes running toward them, an earsplitting pop echoes through the air and both Conner and Mr. Tucker fall to the floor.

The classroom fills with screams as people scramble to flee. I stay crouched where I am, trying to spot Zoey, who disappeared from view in all the chaos. Only moments after going down, Mr. Tucker stands and holds the gun in front of him as the principal restrains Conner, who struggles to push up off the floor.

Is everyone okay? the principal asks breathlessly, looking around as some of the football players come to help him hold Conner.

I’m finally able to take a breath as I scan the room for Zoey. It isn’t until I look down at the floor that I spot her favorite boots with the soles facing up. I rush to her and fall to my knees, whispering her name, but her eyes are closed and her curls fan across the floor behind her head.

Zoey. I say it louder.

At the sound of my voice, her eyes flutter open, only to squint in pain. It’s then that I notice the circle of red spreading across the white of her shirt above her stomach.

Panicked, I look around for help and see the principal and Mr. Tucker still focused on Conner, who continues to struggle. Students hover in the doorway, afraid to come inside, but no one seems to realize Zoey’s been shot.

When I look back at her, there’s a sharp tug inside my chest. My stomach dips and my eyes fall closed as my panic fades away. There’s a brief moment of hesitation as a warning sounds in my head, but this is Zoey. No matter how many times I’ve been told not to give in to this feeling, I can’t let my friend die.

I place my hand over her wound and have the sensation of falling as it grabs hold and pulls me in. It’s strong this time, stronger than I’ve felt it before, but I’ve never tried to heal damage this devastating until now.

A rush sweeps through me as the wound closes beneath the palm of my hand. Blood stops pouring from her skin and resumes its normal path inside her body, while my own belly hollows out and my chest fills with a strange euphoria that both frightens and mesmerizes me. But just as I acknowledge the feeling, it subsides, slipping away as the energy flowing between Zoey and me dissipates.

When I close my fingers around the bullet that used to be inside Zoey, her eyes widen. She’s seen and felt everything.

It’s only then that the chatter of the people who surround us filters into my consciousness. They’ve noticed Zoey and me, and their voices are panicked at the blood on Zoey’s shirt.

In the midst of it all, I stand up and back away, still gripping the bullet, warm and slippery with blood. Someone asks me if I’m okay, but I don’t answer as I take one step back and then another, my gaze darting around the room as I wonder who saw.

The paramedics are on their way, someone says, and Zoey sits up, ignoring the voices that tell her to lie down again.

With a trembling hand, Zoey lightly touches the dark circle of blood that stains her shirt. Gripping the bottom of it, she lifts her shirt higher to reveal the smooth, unmarred skin of her abdomen. When she sees no wound, she lifts the shirt higher still, revealing her bloodstained bra to the room.

Her shocked gaze meets mine as someone takes her hand away and pulls her shirt down. Someone else gently touches other parts of Zoey’s body, searching for the source of the blood, but there’s nothing to be found. While concerned voices ask Zoey where she’s hurt, her eyes remain locked with mine, neither of us able to look away as building panic tightens her expression and fear drains the color from her skin.

Warning bells sound in my head and I step back, stumbling over my own feet. The sound of heavy boots coming down the hall rips me from my stupor, and with my head down, I flee the classroom, passing the paramedics who jog past, and the police who follow behind them.

The police are needed here, but the paramedics aren’t, not for Zoey.

Not anymore.

Five months later . . .

WHEN I leave here, who will dry my tears? Who will share my smiles and quell my frustrations? Who will listen to my silly teenage dramas with rapt attention? When I look around, who will be there?

Strangers.

I scan my bedroom for forgotten items, but there’s nothing else I want to pack, not when I’ll be home again soon. This is only temporary.

Before I close the zipper on my suitcase, I reach inside and lightly brush my fingers over the one thing I can’t leave behind, a macabre memento of that day—the bullet stained with Zoey’s blood. I kept it.

It used to be stored in my dresser drawer but now it’s in my suitcase, on its way to Rosemore College with me. This bullet has a hold over me I can’t explain, especially the bloodstains, which look like they could have been colored on with a marker, but I know they’re real. It’s seeing the bullet that keeps my memory of that moment sharp and clear. Every so often, I touch it, curl my fingers around the unyielding metal and try to relive the feeling of healing Zoey. It’s a feeling I want to experience again, but Owen strongly disagrees.

Owen Samuels is my adoptive father, although not in any legal or official way. Eighteen years ago, drunk and homeless, Owen sat in a junkyard and watched a woman place something in the backseat of a rusted abandoned car. Then he passed out drunk. Sometime later, he awoke to the sound of a crying baby. The woman had left a baby in the backseat of that car, wrapped in nothing but a dirty old blanket.

That baby was me.

Owen picked me up, cradled me in his arms, and from that moment on, he never took a drink again. He says a strange feeling came over him once he held me, and his craving for alcohol disappeared. There were no withdrawal symptoms. He simply stopped drinking, cleaned himself up, got a job and an apartment, and started his new life as a father. My father.

He named me Skylark because the car he found me in was a Buick Skylark. Thank goodness I wasn’t left inside a Subaru Brat.

On that day, I became Skylark Samuels, the daughter of Owen Samuels. No one ever came looking for me. No one reported a baby missing. I was his and he was mine. But I wasn’t his first child. She died in a car accident along with his wife, which was why he happened to be in that junkyard trying to drink himself to death. Owen thinks the angels sent me to him. I think the opposite is true, that the angels sent him to me, because I surely would have died in that car if it hadn’t been for him.

Owen has been a good father, but an overprotective one who kept me sheltered all my life, and a man with no answers to my many questions. Who left me in that car? Where do I come from? Why am I like this? Owen doesn’t know the answers any more than I do, but he’s fond of issuing warnings.

Don’t tell a soul what you can do. If they find out, they’ll take you. They’ll want to study you and make you do things for them. They’ll use you. Your life will never be your own again.

For the most part, I listened. I was too afraid not to. I know he was only trying to protect me, but I couldn’t hold back completely. Owen doesn’t know that when I volunteer at the homeless shelter, I heal the battered women who come in there, and sometimes I heal the bruises on their children too. But those are small things, and the people don’t know I’ve healed them. They only know that after meeting me, the soreness disappears and the bruises go away faster than expected.

But I’ve never done anything like what I did at school that day, and I don’t know what to make of the rush it gave me. It feels so incredibly good, so I must be meant to heal. But Owen explained that’s how drinking feels, and how doing drugs feels, and there’s nothing good about those things. He has enough of a point to make me doubt myself.

In the meantime, Owen’s greatest fear has come to pass. Someone knows what I can do, and she’s telling everyone.

I never thought Zoey would betray me this way. Because I have to hide so much of myself, I don’t make friends easily, but this girl who was once my closest friend now avoids me like she’s afraid of me, like I’m some kind of monster. But she talks to reporters and seems to like the attention she gets from them.

Because of Zoey, two kinds of articles were written about the events of that terrible day. Those published by reputable sources reported that Conner was a troubled boy who snapped, and due to the heroics of the principal and the teacher, no one was injured. Other articles from less reputable sources reported that a miracle happened, and I performed it.

Zoey’s only proof was the blood on her shirt. When no one could find any injuries, paramedics thought Zoey vomited it up from internal damage, possibly caused by being trampled, but later decided the blood could not be explained.

It’s the could not be explained part that persuaded some to believe Zoey, and those articles have been bringing people to my doorstep for months.

Every day, people beg me to heal them or their loved ones who are sick or dying. I want to help them but there are too many, and their aggressive desperation is frightening. Some have threatened to harm me if I refuse them. Others have broken into our house, looking for me. On more than one occasion, Owen had to call the police while I locked myself in my room. The past five months have been unsettling at times and terrifying at others, just like Owen predicted it would be if my secret was discovered.

That’s why I’m on my way to a college over two hundred miles away instead of attending the local school where I planned to go. I wanted to stay local because I’m worried how Owen will do without me, but that’s no longer an option. Zoey’s claims have attracted too much attention and too many desperate people willing to hurt me or Owen to get what they want.

I’m not sorry for saving Zoey, and I never will be. But I didn’t want this—losing my best friend, and putting Owen and myself in danger.

Owen says getting close to people is risky for someone like me, because I’ll always want to heal a person I care about. He’s right. He also says people are afraid of what they don’t understand. He’s right about that too.

I GLANCE at my watch as we pull into the bus station. My backpack and one suitcase are all I have with me. The rest of my things were shipped to my dorm.

Owen has always given me mixed messages. I know he loves me and wants what’s best, but he also wants to protect me. He encourages me to be a regular kid, but at the same time he keeps me so sheltered and so protected that leaving now feels wrong, like he’s trying to push me out of the nest too soon and I’ll undoubtedly fall to the ground.

Don’t cry, Owen whispers as tears stream down his own weathered cheeks.

I won’t if you won’t. I sniffle and try to ignore the way my heart is fracturing. Owen is all I have, and I’m all he has. As far back as I can remember, we’ve never been apart before.

Sky, going away to college is an important milestone in life. We’re acting like the only two people in the world who have ever gone through this. It’s a normal part of growing up.

You know there’s nothing normal about us.

Owen gives me that look I know so well, his head slightly tilted, his eyes searching mine with words of denial forming on his lips. I’m normal. You’re extraordinary.

You’re so much more than normal, Owen. I avert my gaze and fiddle with my backpack strap. Can I ask you a question?

When I glance at him again, he gives me a curious smile.

Why were you so insistent that I have a normal life? Maybe I’m not meant to be normal. Maybe I’m supposed to be in a lab, being studied by scientists, or traveling around the world helping people.

His expression turns serious. All I ever wanted was for you to have choices. You can always choose to do any of those things after you finish college. I was worried that if anyone discovered your abilities too soon, when you were too young to know what else is out there for you, all your choices would be gone. You’ve already lost one choice, where you wanted to go to college. If you leave now, maybe you won’t lose anything else.

I blink and more tears spill down my cheeks. He’s always thinking of me, before himself.

Thank you, I whisper, reaching for another tissue in my pocket. He’s given me choices, and after witnessing firsthand the consequences of healing Zoey, I realize how great a gift that is.

He hugs me for a long time, as if he doesn’t want to let go. When I finally step out of his embrace, he nods, silently saying it’s okay to leave now.

With heavy steps, I climb onto the bus and take a seat by the window. I look out at Owen and he looks back at me. Even though this is a hard good-bye, it’s not a final one. I’ll be home for the holidays.

But as the bus pulls out of the station with a harsh jerk and a loud groan from the engine, I suddenly feel breathless, like something precious is slipping away, like my life will never be the same. I reach into my bag and take out that Cosmo list, which isn’t a list at all. It feels like it was written a lifetime ago, and I never got past the one item.

To live in the same moment I’m breathing in.

Swallowing hard, I stare at the words and wonder if that’s what I’m doing now. Is this what living in the moment feels like? Strange, because I thought it would be easier to breathe.

THE CAMPUS of Rosemore College is made up of rolling green lawns dotted with stately brick buildings and modern, nondescript concrete ones. Tucked away as it is in rural Pennsylvania, other than the college campus, there isn’t much around.

Before I left home, I printed out a map of the school, and I