Deception (14 page)

Kai caught it before it fell over the edge and gagged when he saw what was inside. He shoved the box to the middle of the table, stood up, and began pacing the room. “That is just sick, man.”

“What’s in it?” everyone in the room, including me, asked at the same time.

Dave covered his face with his hands and breathed in and out a few times before answering all of us. “I don’t know how to say this, Jade, so I’m just going to have to come out and say it.”

Aiden tightened his grip around my waist as my head began to swirl in fear of what could make a grown man practically turn into to a little girl.

“There’s a human kidney inside the box,” Dave said.

The voices surrounding me were drowned out by the fear that gripped every fibre of my being. Someone was lying somewhere with only one kidney because of me. I was like some plague that touched everyone and anyone I had ever cared about.

“Jade?” I could hear someone’s voice faintly calling my name.

“Jade?”
Aiden spoke inside my mind, snapping me out of the delirium I’d slipped into.

“What was on the card?” I asked Aiden.

“It said something like it wasn’t fair that I get all the presents tonight, so he thought he would give you an early birthday present.”

“That’s a pretty sick present,” Chelsea said. She was unconsciously clinging to the back of Lucas’s shirt as if that were going to protect her.

I strained a laugh. Sick didn’t even begin to describe it. I was terrified of seeing what was inside, but I knew it was meant for me. And like the rest of the messages, I was the only one who might be able to figure it out. “I’ve got to see it,” I said, my voice shaking with fear as I stepped towards the box.

“No, you don’t,” Aiden said, catching me by the wrist.

I turned to him. “I know you want to protect me, but this was meant for me. And for all we know, someone could be out there dying while we’re all too freaked out to figure this out.”

He seemed to be wrestling with the idea of letting me go, and eventually, he did. The room fell eerily quite as I slowly walked towards the box.

With my heart hammering, I lifted the lid slightly and peered inside. Maybe because I knew what to expect, I managed to not throw up at the sight of the human kidney. I was glad I could focus. The slightest bit of heat still radiated from the kidney, which confirmed my suspicion that it had been removed from its owner only a short time before.

I sank to the floor as I removed the lid completely, and something caught my eye. I turned the lid over in my hand and saw a note stuck to the inside.

Life or death is in your hands.

It’s up to you how this ends…

DD

“What does it say?” Lucas asked.

I handed the lid to him so he could read it to everyone. There was no point for me to read it again. It didn’t offer any information. The only real clue was inside the box, and unfortunately, that was where I had to focus my attention.

I looked up at Nathan. He was the only one in this room who had any medical knowledge. “How long do you think we have?”

“I can’t say. I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t know how long the person has been lying there, and we don’t know what condition they are in. We’re just going to have to try to figure it out as quickly as possible.”

I picked up the box to inspect it closer. The clue must be inside, but I wasn’t sure I would figure it out in time. The kidney was the only thing inside the box. “How the hell am I supposed to figure this out?” I said to no one and everyone at the same time.

Aiden came over and sat down on the floor beside me. He put his hand on my leg as he leaned over to peek inside. He closed his eyes and shook his head.

Ignoring everyone in the room, I focused only on what was inside the box. I had to be missing something, but I didn’t have a clue what it could’ve been.

I took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Then it hit me. I got more of a feeling than the name of a person. I continued to breathe in and out and realised that with every breath, the feeling washed over me. And with every exhale, the feeling left me.

I remembered the morning when I woke up in Aiden’s bed on the Gold Coast, having vivid memories of my birthday when my mother had taken me to Disneyland without me knowing we’d ever left the Coast. When I was fully awake, I found my mother’s blood leaking from the bag Adam had left for me. Her smell had triggered the memory, and something similar was happening with the kidney in the box.

“What are you doing?” Aiden asked when I stuck my nose inside the box and took a deep breath.

I was right. I knew the smell, but I didn’t know who it belonged to. Obviously, it wasn’t someone close to me; otherwise, I probably would have picked it up straight away.

“Jade?” he asked again, shaking my knee to get my attention.

“Sorry.” I pulled my face away from the box. “I think I can smell something. I think that’s what this is all about. He wants to see if I can figure out a person’s scent by their organ alone.”

“That’s just sick,” Chelsea said in disgust.

I turned back to the box and inhaled once again. I picked up something eerily familiar about the smell, but at the same time, it was so foreign—as if I’d had only brief encounters with the owner.

Then it hit me. The barest of scents triggered it. I could smell my mother, but it wasn’t her. “It’s Mrs. Grey’s.”

Dave started barking orders. “Aiden, take the box. Nathan, can you go with Jade and put that
thing
back in? Kai, get on the computer and find a spare operating room just in case Nathan isn’t able to complete the procedure wherever her grandma is? Lucas, stay with Chelsea and go find Georgia to warn her about what’s happened. Ask her if she can keep an eye on the party downstairs. Anna, you can either come with us or go with Kai.”

“I’m coming with you guys,” Anna said without hesitation.

Dave, Anna, Nathan, and Aiden all stood by me, waiting for me to take them to my grandmother. I was sick to my stomach, dreading what state she was in. I didn’t know if my father had cut her open in a sterile room or if he was sick enough to do it in her bedroom.

I closed my eyes, fearing what I was about to see, then took a deep breath and transported the five of us to my grandmother. When my feet touched the ground, I was unable to open my eyes.

“Don’t look,” Aiden said, pulling me into his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and held on tight. “You don’t need to see this.”

“Is… is she… alive?” I stammered.

“Yes,” Nathan confirmed. “But she won’t be for long if I can’t stop her bleeding.”

I turned away from Nathan’s voice and slowly opened my eyes. From what I could see, we were in the same place I’d seen on the disc where Adam was drawing my mother’s blood. “Mum. I’m going to have to tell her.”

Anna stood to the side of Aiden and me. “She doesn’t need to see this, either. Why don’t you go over to your mum’s and let her know what’s happened. I can let you know when Nathan’s finished up, and then you can bring her back with you. But don’t bring her here until I give the okay, even if she begs. This is not something a daughter needs to see, especially when she hasn’t seen her mother for over thirty years.”

For some unexplainable reason, I had the sudden urge to see for myself what was so horrible. I quickly turned before I had a chance to chicken out, and I just about puked up my guts.

My grandmother was lying on a gurney with her stomach split open, bearing all her insides for everyone to see. Pooled blood was slowly dripping down the side of the gurney and onto the floor. I wondered if she still had enough blood to allow her to pull through.

Nathan noticed I was looking at her and moved to block the carnage from my view. “She’s going to need some blood.”

I gulped, knowing what that meant. He was talking to me. Because we were related, I would be the best match, but needles gave me the heebie-jeebies. “Don’t you need to run tests to see if my blood’s compatible?” I asked, hoping for an alternative.

Nathan turned to face me. “We don’t have time. I don’t even know what blood type she is, but you’re her granddaughter, which means her best chance of surviving is inside your veins.”

I gulped again. I knew I had no choice but to try to save her, but it was still freaking me out. “Okay,” I agreed. “Do you have everything you need here to do this?”

Nathan stepped towards the cupboards, and Aiden spun me so my back was facing my grandma. I’d already seen her insides, but I guessed he didn’t think I needed to keep looking.

I heard a few doors open and close. “We’re all good to go,” Nathan said. “This guy’s got everything we need and more.”

“Where do you need me?” I asked.

“Hmm…” He looked around the room. “There’s no chairs, so you’re going to have to lie on the floor.”

“Don’t worry, you can use me as a cushion,” Aiden said, stroking my hair.

He sat down next to the gurney, with his back against the wall. I sat down between his legs, careful not to get too close to the growing pool of blood on the floor, and rested my head against Aiden’s chest.

Nathan squatted next to me. As soon as I saw the gleaming needle in his hands, I turned away. He picked up my arm and tied the rubbery thing around it until my blood pressure was good to go.

Aiden wrapped his arms around my waist and sent calming endorphins pulsating through my veins.

I barely felt the prick of the needle, but I still couldn’t bear to look at the thing. Ever since that guy had tried to carve me up, I couldn’t handle any sharp object going near my skin.

“It will all be over soon,” Aiden said in a soothing tone.

I tried to ignore where I was and what was happening and just concentrated on breathing in and out, in and out. God, I was a freaking idiot.

Before long, Nathan came back to remove the needle. He pressed a cotton ball against my arm and told me to hold it there.

“Aiden?” Anna said.

“Mmm?” he murmured into my hair.

“Take Jade to her mother’s.”

Before I had time to object, Aiden began to phase out, taking me with him.

Chapter 13

Aiden landed us beside the couch my mother had been sitting on the last time we’d seen her. No one was there. He fetched his iPhone out of his pocket.

“What are you doing?” I asked, sitting down.

“Sending a message to your mum,” he said as he typed on the screen. When he was finished, he put his phone back into his pocket and sat down on the couch beside me.

He draped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side. “How’s the arm?”

I pulled my feet up onto the lounge with my legs bent at the knees. I took the cotton ball away from my arm. “It’s stopped bleeding.”

“Of course it has. You heal quickly, remember?”

I pulled my eyebrows together as I thought about how that might affect the transfusion. “What will happen when Nathan puts my blood into her?”

“What do you mean?”

“My blood is different from a normal human’s, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said, then the penny sank. He realised what I was talking about. “I’ve no idea what the effects will be like. I’m not sure if anyone’s ever done anything like that before.”

“So you think that my blood could change something in her?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?” Mum asked.

I whipped my head around to find her standing beside the couch.

“Mum,” I said, my voice wavering, giving away that something was seriously wrong.

She phased out and reappeared on the couch beside me. “Is everything okay?” She placed her hand on my foot.

I sat up and put my feet on the ground. The worried look in her eyes made what I needed to say that much harder. I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her mother had been sliced open and left for dead by the man she’d probably once loved. But I had no choice. I needed to be the one who told her. I owed it to her after what had happened the last time I was with her.

Mum tucked a piece of her golden-brown hair behind her ear as she waited for me to say something. I was so glad that I couldn’t hear her thoughts; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell her.

“Something’s happened,” I finally said.

“Yeah, I think I’ve worked that one out already,” she replied.

I took a deep breath, then spat out the words. “I haven’t told you this before, but I’ve met your mum. And now she is somehow caught up in this sick game Adam is playing with me.”

She sucked in her breath and held onto it for way too long before she finally exhaled. “Is she okay?”

“Adam had a present for me in amongst Aiden’s birthday presents… There was a kidney inside.”

“No, no, please, God, no.” Her eyes filled with tears.

I put my hand on hers. “She was still alive when I saw her.”

Mum edged closer to me. “Take me to her.”

I shook my head. “Nathan—one of Anna and Dave’s friends—is working on her now. Anna said she would let us know once she was okay and to not bring you to her until she gives me the okay.”

“Who is she to tell—” Mum cut herself off. After taking another deep breath, she said, “I’m sorry. I know she’s just trying to look out for me.”

“Yeah, she is, Mum.”

“But—”

“You don’t want to see it, Nikki.” Aiden said what I was afraid to say.

She put her head in her hands, her hair covering her face as she shed silent tears.

I crawled away from Aiden’s side and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Mum,” I whispered into her ear.

Aiden placed his hand on my back, letting me know he was there for me.

Mum’s tears slowly began to ease, and she lifted her head from her hands. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I don’t know what got into me. I’m usually much better at adjusting my feelings sooner.”

“Huh?” I asked, scrunching up my face.

“You do know we can control our emotions, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant. I don’t get why you would apologise for reacting that way.” I felt really bad for blowing all the small things I’d been upset with her about out of proportion.