Contained (Evolution Series Book 5) (13 page)

“You can’t keep this from Lucas. He won’t think any less of you. The guy lo—” I snapped my mouth shut.

She stopped breathing. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” I shook my head as Aiden sat back down. “I just said that he wouldn’t think any less of you.”

Chelsea shook her head. “No, you didn’t,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

“Yes, I did,” I said adding a bit of mind screwing to the mixture to make her accept my word as the truth. Usually, I wouldn’t dare touch her memories without her knowing first, but this time was an exception. It was not my right to steal that precious moment from either her or Lucas. She deserved to hear it from him and she deserved to be blown away with surprise, like I knew she would be.

I twisted in my seat to look her in the eye. “If you plan on giving your relationship a proper go, then you need to start off on the right foot, which means no lies.”

“It’s technically not a lie, if I don’t tell him,” she said trying to find a plausible reason.

I raised an eyebrow.

Lucas opened the door and stepped inside. “What’s technically not a lie?” His smile dropped for a second, his whole body tensing. Rage coursed through his veins as he heard for himself what conversation she was trying to avoid.

For the first time since I’d met Lucas, he’d let his guard down. “Where is he?”

Aiden got to his feet and put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “He’s gone.”

Chelsea scrunched up her face in confusion. “Wait, how did you know about the guy?” For a second she considered that I wasn’t the only person who could hear her thoughts; but quickly dismissed the idea because she didn’t believe that Lucas would have been able to keep a straight face if he had been able to hear her thoughts from the time they first met. Chelsea concluded that I must’ve quickly filled him in as soon as he entered the room.”

Exhaling loudly, Lucas nodded. He realised what a huge mistake he’d almost made.

Once again his usual calm self, Lucas walked over to Chelsea and pulled her to her feet. “I’m getting you away from all this.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not going to let you hide me away forever, if that’s what you think. I am not some little vulnerable person who can’t look after herself.”

The corner of Lucas’s lips twitched as he tried to hide his smile when she insinuated they’d be together for the foreseeable future. Chelsea had noticed that trait but just put it down to an English thing, as if it was something that the Scotts had always done.

She sighed. “Okay, so technically I can’t really look after myself when I’m up against a next gen but that’s beside the point.”

Lucas placed his finger over her lips. “Shh,” he said. “I was just meaning for today. I don’t think you should be around so many other next gens.” When she was about to object, he quickly added, “Besides, I think they’re wrapping things up as we speak.”

Chelsea glared at him. “No, they’re not.”

Lucas moved on to his next strategy. He snaked his arm around her waist and drew her against his body. “Well, I was thinking that they’ve got it handled in there and we’re really not needed, so, why not make use of this extra time we have.” He grinned.

Chelsea’s heart skipped a beat. She glanced over to me. “Seeya.”

I laughed. Only Chelsea could go from being so headstrong about something to giving in on the whim of his suggestion. The fact that I felt physically ill by the thought made having to listen to her thoughts that much worse.

Lucas smiled, passing an unspoken understanding between us. He was doing as I’d asked him. He was taking care of her.

“Oh, yeah,” Chelsea said, to me. “I still want to know what happened between you and Georgia, but…” she looked into Lucas’s eyes and smirked, “…that can wait ’til later.”

Lucas transported away with Chelsea in his arms, leaving me to have a conversation I so didn’t want to think about.

“You’ll never guess what Georgia asked me to do,” I said when we were alone.

Aiden gave me a heavy smile. “I don’t care what she wanted, what I care about is what happened here with you.”

“Nothing. There was just some guy and…”

Aiden bent down and picked up the knife. My heart sank as he inspected the blood on the tip. “This doesn’t look like nothing.”

Sighing, I sank back into the sofa.
“I…”
Tears welled in my eyes and I tried blinking them away but more came instead. Pretty soon I was looking through a puddles of tears that I was only just able to hold back by tilting my face toward the ceiling.

“You saw this didn’t you?”

He didn’t need me to say anything, Aiden already knew. I didn’t understand the connection we had with one another, but I didn’t care to give the thought more than a second before turning that wonder into gratefulness.

Aiden sat beside me and pulled me into his embrace. I closed my eyes and buried my head against his chest. When I realised we’d changed locations, I opened my eyes and saw that we were back in the little room that was supposed to be our new home. It no longer felt warm and cosy, like it had done the last time I was there. Something was different—I was different. And no matter how much I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to end up like Nathan, ultimately, it seemed, that I didn’t have a choice. I was turning into the monster from my vision but I didn’t understand how.

“Let me in,”
Aiden said, his voice soothing me just as much as if his words were spoken aloud.
“Please,”
he asked when I didn’t budge.

Stripping down my mind barrier was harder than I ever imagined. Once again, I feared he would be able to see the truth of what I was, but I couldn’t not let him in. Lying to him was worse than anything I could’ve done, and if he didn’t like what he saw, then breaking my heart would be the punishment I deserved. Slowly, I peeled back the layer blocking him.

I’d tried to keep my thoughts as brief as possible, but my mind betrayed me. Every single thing I feared raced through my thoughts. It was like an avalanche. There was no stopping it. I was destined for complete and utter destruction of my life—and, God forbid, anyone who got in my way.

Aiden cupped my face in his hands, making me look into his eyes. “You are not that person. And you are not going to turn into a Monster like Nathan. That is not in your DNA.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “I mean, what do we really know about what was put into us. Nathan could’ve made me into his protégé—whether I want to be, or not.”

He led me over to bed, sat down and eased me onto his lap. “Each time you were reacting to something the person had done. You didn’t pick out two innocent men and use them to feed off your own power. What that first guy did… That was just plain sick.” He shook his head in disgust. “And this other guy, well he was threatening your best friend with a knife. Your first instinct with Chels is always to protect—no matter the consequence.”

I strained a laugh. “Slicing the guys neck was not necessary to protect Chelsea. I could’ve just made him drop his knife, remove his desire to get my blood from her and walk out of there without going to those extremes.”

“You were already upset.”

“Georgia,” I said, remembering how pissed I was with her. “That doesn’t excuse what I did.”

“Jade…” he sighed. “The fact you’re reacting like this every time something happens, whether it be a vision or…. Well, it just goes to prove that you don’t have it in you. You can’t hurt someone without feeling guilt or questioning yourself to see if there could’ve been another way. A monster doesn’t do that.”

“But I killed someone!”

“I’ve killed someone, too. Or have you forgotten that already?”

Memories of that day flashed through my mind. I doubted a day would go by that I wouldn’t think of the moment Aiden had come to my rescue. The fierce, unrelenting look in Aiden’s eyes still haunted me. I had never seen him so angry. “That was different.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

I didn’t know what I could say. There was no way I could’ve explained what I was going to do to that guy I’d seen in the helicopter. There wasn’t a reason on earth that could explain decapitating someone with such joy.

My eyes went wide when I heard Aiden’s thoughts. I’d forgotten to put up my barrier and he’d just seen the worst of what was to come. And his reaction this time around was nothing like the first. I wished I could’ve gone back in time and put back his memory but I couldn’t. What was done was done and I had to live with the consequences because he needed to know what I was becoming. I couldn’t hide it anymore.

Aiden sat there stunned. He didn’t understand how I could possibly do that to someone, and the evil smirk I wore while carrying out the act was unexplainable.

My stomach twisted in knots and I thought I was going to be sick. I pushed off Aiden, made a dash for the bathroom, and only just managed to lift the toilet seat before I emptied my stomach’s contents. When I thought there couldn’t possibly be any more to come up, I stepped away from the bowl and found another onslaught coming up my throat. Missing the inside of the toilet bowl, I vomited all over the floor and up the sides of the toilet as I tried desperately to take a breath. Eventually, I ran dry and collapsed to the floor, landing in my spew.

I didn’t care. All I could think about was the fact that Aiden hadn’t come to see if I was okay. He was still sitting on the bed, trying to make sense of how I could possibly take off someone’s head and place it in their lap.

Slowly, I got to my feet and went over to the door. Aiden looked up at me, the question still looming in his mind. He barely even registered that I had gone into the bathroom, let alone almost suffocated from the vomiting attack. I closed the door on what may have been the final moment between us. Once I was cleaned up, I was probably going to walk out to find my vision of Aiden leaving me come true.

Not wanting to hear any more of his thoughts, I shut down the connection between us. I looked at the spew on the bathroom floor and dreaded how I was going to clean it up. I didn’t want to go downstairs in search of a mop and bucket because I hadn’t been there before and would’ve needed to walk past Aiden to get there. So I imagined the laundry in my home back in Australia and a second later I was looking at the washing machine that hadn’t been used for months. I opened the cupboard, pulled out the mop and bucket then grabbed the detergent, filled the bucket and got ready to transport back when I heard Tyson bark.

I wanted to run outside and see that he was okay but I was afraid I was going to make that vision come true and Aiden wasn’t there to stop me.

Knowing the best view into Mrs. Carson’s backyard, I transported to my bedroom, peeled back the blinds and peered outside. Tyson’s head was bobbing up and down above the fence line. He knew that I was there. I wanted so badly to give him a rub behind his ears, but I probably would’ve just ended up changing the way I killed him. A shiver ran up my spine when I imagined what the alternative could’ve been. I couldn’t take the risk and I half-wondered if the image I’d just seen of me ripping his head off was a vision or just a fear. Either way, I never planned on finding out.

Shaking my thoughts away, I went back to the laundry, picked up the mop and bucket and transported back to the bathroom in our new home. I could still feel Aiden in the bedroom but I didn’t dare open our connection. It was probably only time before he came to his senses and got the hell away from his psychopathic girlfriend, like any normal boyfriend would.

I set the bucket on the floor and got busy cleaning up the mess then jumped in the shower hoping to wash the filth from my soul. Of course, that didn’t happen, and I knew I was being melodramatic, but I didn’t care. I was wallowing in my own self-pity and I deserved to do so. I was dangerous and I had to fight with everything I had, to contain that monster inside of me.

Wrapped in a towel I ventured out into the bedroom. Aiden wasn’t there. He’d disappeared just before I turned off the tap in the shower. But he’d left me a parting gift, a steaming cup of coffee sitting on the bedside table. I picked it up and smiled when I saw a message scrawled across the mug in black Nikko. It read, ‘I still love you.’

My phone buzzed with a new message. I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and read the text from Chelsea.
What did she want? Is everything okay?

I had no idea what Chelsea was on about. I figured I’d get dressed and go see how she was doing while I prayed Aiden returned and the coffee hadn’t been a parting gift and his way of saying that he did love me but he couldn’t be with me anymore.

Going back to the message home screen, I saw I’d received a message from my mother.
I heard what happened. We need to talk. Can you come now?

“Two guesses where Aiden went,” I mumbled to myself. There was no reply to my mother’s message but I knew Aiden and I knew that he couldn’t leave anything alone. He had an unrelenting need to be there for me. And although I loved him for it, I sometimes wondered why? I’d given him more than enough reasons for any other guy to walk away. Actually, that would be a lie, most guys would’ve run as fast as they could, looking over their shoulder, praying I wasn’t going to come after them.

Putting down my phone, I grabbed my bag and pulled out a pair of jeans and a top. I quickly got changed and transported to my mother. She was standing with her back to the wall and Aiden was standing beside her. They’d been deep in conversation while Harry was out on stage.

None of that mattered though. My breath was knocked out of me the moment my gaze locked with Aiden’s. It was amazing how much detail you saw in someone when you feared it would be the last. So many times in the past few weeks I had taken him for granted and overlooked the beauty not just in his soul, but in his features as well. His bright green eyes were sucking me under and I felt as if I couldn’t breath while I waited for his reaction to me.

He drew his eyebrows together making my heart pummel against my chest.
“You’ve blocked me out again, haven’t you?”

I nodded ever so slightly.

“Open.”

Taking a deep breath while ignoring my mother’s scrutiny, I reconnected to his mind and saw myself through his eyes. I looked like a deer caught in headlights, the blood drained from my cheeks and fear in my eyes.

Aiden reached for my hand and pulled me toward him as he turned to my mum. “We need a moment.”

Even though she couldn’t hear my thoughts, she knew that something was going on with me and she also knew that she wasn’t the person to help me. She’d surrendered that job to Aiden a long time ago.

Mum nodded. “Bring me back when you’re ready,” she said then disappeared.

He put his hands on my hips.
“You have got to stop shutting me out.”

“How can I not? You were just sitting there, thinking the worst of me.”

“I was sitting there trying to work out how you could possibly do that.”

I raised an eyebrow.
“I can hear your thoughts. You weren’t thinking that. You were in shock at seeing what I’d done.”

“Yeah, I was in shock. Who wouldn’t be? But as usual, you blocked me out before you heard my conclusion.”

I looked into his eyes, all the fear I’d had of loosing him, resurfacing in an instant.
“I couldn’t handle hearing you come to the opposite conclusion. The idea of losing you…”

Aiden wiped away the tear that had escaped from my eyes. He wasn’t leaving me, but the fear was still in my heart that it would only be a matter of time.

He pressed a kiss on my forehead. “You better get your mum back here so we can get all of this over with and I can take you home and show you just how much I love you.”

I bit down on my grin and tried to focus on my mother. “Is she mad.”

The corner of his lip turned up. “Did she seem mad?”

I shook my head, feeling stupid. All my mother had shown was worry. It was my guilt that was making me think the worst. Others may have had faith in me, but I had already convicted myself.

Leaning my back against his chest, I transported my mum to us.

She brushed her hair away from her eyes. “All good now?”

“Yep,” Aiden said, his chin resting on the top of my head.

“Good,” she said.
“Now, I wanted to discuss what you did to that man—”

Not wanting a repeat of the conversation with Anna, I quickly sent her the images of what he’d done to those women.

Mum stepped back with a horrified expression. “Whoa.” She shook her head as she tried to get rid of the images. “That was one seriously disturbed fuck. I’m surprised you didn’t rip his head off.”

My eyes went wide in shock. That was exactly what I’d done to the other guy in my vision and I wondered if that was what I was destined to do. Was I going to become some sort of vigilante, seeking revenge for those who can’t? I quickly dismissed the idea when I remembered about Tyson and Mrs. Carson. They had never done anything to anyone. Well, Tyson hadn’t. And Mrs. Carson’s only crime was sticking her nose into other people’s business. I could hardly deem that a crime worthy of ending her life.

“Thanks, but I didn’t need to see that,” Mum said. “Aiden’s already told me what you showed him. I just think we need to figure out what happened back here.” She put her hand on my arm.

I flinched, fearing that she was suddenly going to get visions and see me do something horrific.

She pulled her hand back. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shifted Aiden’s arms to form a sort of barrier between her and myself.

“What are you doing?”
Aiden asked.

“She can’t touch me just in case she starts getting visions.”

He squeezed his arms tighter around me.
“This is really getting to you isn’t it?”

“Jade,” Mum said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said again. “I’m just feeling a bit sick and I’m tired and all I want to do is go home and go to bed.”

She didn’t buy that for a second but she didn’t pull me up on it either because even though she knew that wasn’t the reason why I was rejecting her touch, she knew I’d been pushing myself way too much lately, and her motherly instincts were to protect me—even from myself. “Why don’t you go home and get some rest. We can talk about this later.”

Grateful she’d given me a way out, I said, “Thanks.” I really had a bad habit of trying to avoid hard situations.

“But,” she said making my face slump. “I want to get together with Anna and Dave and try to work out what happened, whether they saw anything that you didn’t—” She cut herself off before finishing the next part of what she wanted to find out. Mum wanted to know if they’ve noticed anything different about me lately.

“On second thought, why don’t we just get this all over and done with now,” I said. “I can show you anything you want to know and then you can go back to Jack and do whatever it is that you do. Not that I want to know what you do because that’s just gross. But seriously, I don’t mind staying. I’m not really that tired anyway thanks to my super human genes and all.” Words were spewing from my mouth in a way very similar to when Chelsea would try to get out of something. “How about we just go someplace quiet to talk. The three of us can sit down over a cuppa and try to nut it out and—”

“Jade,” Mum said. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said as innocently as I could but it actually came out with a nervous laugh. I was pathetic.

She raised her eyebrow.

I sighed. The easiest way for me to get out of that situation was to make her not care but I feared that would bring me closer to crossing the line and becoming the girl who would rip someone’s head off and smile while doing so. I was not going to use my abilities for my own personal gain.

“Just go and see Anna. She’ll explain everything to you,” Aiden said.

I whipped my head up to see him; almost giving myself whiplash—if that was even a possibility. “Seriously? A little back up would be good.”

“Back up for what?” Mum asked, her thoughts going places I’d never even considered. But she had. Back when she and Nathan had grown me, he’d been talking about me becoming someone capable of absolute power. She’d just thought he meant that I was going to have the best genes from both of them. And that I was going to have enhanced abilities from all his concoctions, but then a memory of something he’d said came to the forefront of her mind, making her suck in a sharp breath. “She will never have to hide.”

A shiver ran down my spine, praying that there was still hope for me. Gulping down my fear, I said, “What does that mean?”

She shook her head as she tried to work it out but came up blank. “I have no idea.”

I did, but it wasn’t something I was willing to share. If I was able to rip someone’s head off or turn off the life inside someone’s head so effortlessly, what hope was there for me? I was incapable of being restrained…
Unless.
There was one way to stop myself, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go down that path. The idea of Aiden going through years after having lost me was something I wasn’t willing to let happen without a fight. But I promised myself I would take that option if there was no other way.

Mum moved to touch me but pulled her hand back and crossed her arms against her chest. “I think we need to pay Nathan a visit as soon as possible.”

“Anna’s speaking to Kai about that for us.”

“Good,” she said. “Well, go home and get some rest and I’ll see you after.”

“Wait,” I said. “Where’s Gemma?”

She smiled, loving how much Gemma and I had changed toward one another.

“Gemma’s with Chelsea and Lucas. Apparently we oldies aren’t as cool as we once were.”

I grinned. “And you’re only just figuring that out now?”

Mum whacked my arm and I had to force myself from making Aiden take a step back, taking me with him. “Not funny,” she said. “Anyway, I’ll see you soon.”

I nodded.

“See you,” Aiden said.

Mum transported to Harry, leaving us alone. And with her absence, and no longer the fear that she was going to touch me and get a vision of just how heinous I could be, I was able to hear what Jack and Harry were both talking about.

“At least they’re having better luck with this group of people,” Aiden said, noticing my sombre mood.

“Shit’s about to hit the fan though. There’s a few people in the crowd who have received messages from one’s who were in the other group.”

Aiden turned me around in his arms. “I know you don’t like doing this but don’t you think it would be for the best if you made those people forget so that we don’t have a shit fight here?”

I smiled wearily as someone from the crowd spoke out. “Too late.”