Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (23 page)

“Not at all. It was just stuffy old wizards
with money, looking for young wizards with money to take under
their wing. Pointless night away from my girlfriend.”

“Aw,” I said.

“I convinced Sophia that you were sleeping
so I didn’t have to wait to kiss you. She’s gone. I hope you don’t
mind that,” he said. He lowered me down to the sofa, hovering over
me in his fancy clothes. Of course I didn’t mind. I kissed him to
show him I didn’t. “What were you doing?”

I ran my fingers through his hair, making
him look a little less groomed. “Reading,” I said.

“Do you want me to help you with your
literature homework again?” He puckered his lips, and I shook my
head. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t reading that. I needed to know
more about my mother before I brought anything up. “Did you draw me
something?”

“I forgot. Maybe tomorrow.”

I was too busy talking to my mother.

He flipped us over in a blur, and I rested
on his chest. It was comfortable and natural. Like we’d lived like
this for years, not hours. I kissed him softly under his ear,
trying to prove to myself that I could be gentle and loving and
remotely worthy of him.

He sighed just loud enough for me to hear.
“Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“This.”

He didn’t have to say anything else. I knew
what he meant. Today was the first day he’d had someone to be this
close to. Someone to kiss under his ear, to notice and appreciate
how remarkable and perfect he was. God, I hoped that would matter
when I told him the truth.

He recapped every detail of the ball. He’d
danced with Sophia and stepped on her toes. Paul and Emma
befriended a wizard who knew Sophia well. He and Remi weren’t
approached.

He couldn’t resist the TV for long. I
wondered if it was because he didn’t have one in his room
downstairs, or that he’d been living on the streets without one for
a year.

We both jumped when Lydia Shaw’s face
flashed as he flipped through the channels. He went back, and I
groaned. The world hadn’t moved on from me.

She was in the middle of assuring the world
of its safety. The bottom of the screen indicated that it was
previously recorded.

“We are doing everything we can. We have
many leads to go on at this point. She will be back at her home
very soon. And according to her file, she will be turning seventeen
tomorrow. So on behalf of everyone, Happy Birthday, Christine. I
know
you are somewhere watching. Alive and well.”

Christine? She’d called me Leah before. And
she said she
knew
. My heart fell to my ankles. She was
psychic. Of course she
knew
. Where I was. What I was.

Nathan lifted my face from his chest and
forced me to look at him.

“What’s today?” I asked, instead of
screaming that we needed to get the hell out of here.

“March 1
^st
,” he said. “For a few
more hours.”

The air in my lungs came out in an
unexpected huff. With everything going on, I’d forgotten March
2
^nd
was so close. I shivered. My first
Happy
Birthday
in years came from Lydia Shaw after a promise to ruin
my new life. Right before she deepened her voice on the word
know
.

“What do you think she knows? How long do
you think we have?” I asked.

“Baby! It’s your birthday!” he said. “If she
knew, she’d be here. I refuse to let us worry about her right now.”
He tickled me back into the room, away from Lydia Shaw. Then he
kissed me hard, switching between his two selves so fast that it
dazed me. “Seventeen! I can’t believe I didn’t ask you when your
birthday was. Did you forget?”

I nodded. “It’s not a big deal, Nate.”

“This is a very big deal,” he said. “It’s
your birthday!”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“It’s in a few hours,” he said. He kissed me
and stood. “That means I only have a few hours to get you
something. I’ll see you tomorrow. Lots to do.” I whined and pulled
him back. He kissed me and pulled away again. “Goodnight, birthday
girl.”

I ran to the closet after I locked the door
behind him. There was something infinitely more interesting than my
birthday right now. I brought the diary to bed, and I picked up
where I’d left off.

In case Mona or her stupid maid ever finds
this diary, which is why I told my mother it was a dumb idea to get
it for me, I am doing my best not to mention names anymore.
Especially now that I know a name that I never want to forget. A
name I want to say over and over again. His name.

Dad taught me to block my thoughts when I
was nine years old, so I’ll be okay if I can keep this diary
hidden. If Julian ever saw this, after what I am about to write,
he’d want to find him and … I can’t even think about what he’d do
to him. Because he can’t pay Julian three million dollars for
me.

But after he asked me to get him a cup of
coffee, I promptly told him that I didn’t work there. I left out
that I never needed to work anywhere, probably ever. I didn’t even
want to be an agent for the money. The idea of being stronger than
the creatures was always enough. Now, I don’t know why I care.
After living with a hunter, I should’ve changed my mind. Agents are
different, though. I’d be different, but now … that apron isn’t
looking so bad.

She didn’t want to be a hunter. At least she
didn’t when she was fifteen. I smiled, hopefully not too soon, and
turned the page.

So he actually got up to get me a cup. I
hadn’t had coffee before. Julian … would DIE if he saw me put that
in my body, the body he wanted to keep in tip-top shape. He left
his guitar there next to me. I plucked at the strings without my
hands on accident. I hadn’t been around average humans before him,
other than Mom, and she was used to me moving things without
touching it. He would probably think I’m a witch since everyone’s
seen one now.

“CC?” I called. I peaked my head into the
sitting room and beckoned my laptop. It moved to me sluggishly. I
was beyond tired, and my weak powers reflected that. I had to get
under the covers to sit so close to her. “Is he my dad? The guitar
guy?” I asked, opening a new document.

Yes
.

“He didn’t train to be a hunter on an
agent?”

No
.

“Mom, just tell me all of it. Type it.
Please.” She reminded me to call her CC again, and I slammed the
laptop shut. “I’m not going to call you anymore. It’s obvious that
you hate me. You didn’t even want kids.” The temperature dropped
around my face, and I turned away. Her kiss ruffled my hair
instead.

She left again, and I opened her diary.

He didn’t notice the strings. He’s unaware
of so much. Especially of how gorgeous he is. I didn’t have a phone
number to give him. I can’t have him calling the house. If Mona or
her stupid maid picked up, I’d be in loads of trouble. And I don’t
want anything to stop my first date tomorrow.

Catherine was more endearing in her diary
than she was in death. As the ghost of my mother, she was annoying.
As the fifteen-year-old coming alive on the pages, she was
interesting, so interesting that I couldn’t stop reading.

We met at the coffee shop. He had a set to
play. He sang a little. It was beautiful. His voice was perfect,
almost hypnotizing, enough to steal someone’s soul. I didn’t care
for music until that moment. After, we went to a little shop for
ice cream. The place had so many toppings, I couldn’t choose. Ice
cream! I hadn’t had that in years. Then we went to a place down the
street for pizza. I was stuffed. I’m going to throw up on Mona
tomorrow during our lesson.

On to the bad part. I’m a good liar, I’ve
always known that, but the lie I told him today burned my chest.
He’s eighteen. Just turned it, but still. I am three weeks away
from my sixteenth birthday. I told him I couldn’t wait to turn
eighteen, knowing he’d think that was soon. I was too afraid to
tell him after we kissed in the empty park under the stars, knowing
he’d have a problem with kissing someone so young.

Maybe it won’t ever be an issue. Maybe I
won’t ever see him again. I know I want to, but he is a luxury I
can’t afford. I can’t date. Dad warned me that I’d given up that
right when I decided to train so intensely. Because I’m a girl,
this can’t end well. I’ll never be normal. Even if I don’t train
another day, there is a chance that the kids he says he wants to
have, the kids I am now imagining could also be mine, wouldn’t be
normal either. I should leave him alone. I should forget about him.
But I can’t. And foolishly, I checked the future, and I saw him
there kissing me.

“Well … you were right about me,” I said. I
wasn’t normal, and according to her, she didn’t have to dope up on
psychic powers while she was pregnant to pass them to me. Good
news. No, great news! I folded down the corner of that page. It
would be the first one I’d show to Nate.

Four words to describe our second
date
, she wrote on the next page.
OH. MY. DEAR. GOD. I love
his apartment and that he has no furniture but a little mattress on
the floor. I fell in love with him on that little mattress. I cried
when it was time for me to leave.

What I knew about CC so far: she painted,
ran away from a hunter, and was severely dramatic. I turned the
page, and it got much worse. I groaned. She’d written a poem
titled:
Without him, death is certain
. In it, she described
the ways she’d die if she ever lost him. Drowning herself and
jumping from a bridge were the least graphic.

“You’re the reason I’m a basket case,
Catherine!” I said. “I can’t show Nate this! And you just met him.
You can’t be this in love.” She didn’t come back to defend
herself.

The next several pages were more poems about
him, crazy and obsessive ones. I thought she was in it alone until
I read the next entry.

I told him the truth. I told him I would be
sixteen in one week. I told him about the powers and training and
everything. He broke up with me. And because he’s never mad and
never raises his voice, I was so confused. I didn’t know it was
happening. Breakups aren’t supposed to be calm. He kissed me on the
cheek and told me he loved me but he couldn’t see me anymore. He
said I was too young for something like this and opened his door
for me to leave. He was crying. My heart was bleeding because I’d
hurt him.

I fell on my knees and begged him, right
there in the middle of his living room. I screamed and cried, and
because he’s an angel, he forgave me. Then he made me tell him
every horrible detail about training and Julian. He cringed when I
told him I learned to kill at twelve. He didn’t believe for one
second that those creatures were criminals like Julian said they
were. Now that he knows everything and understands why we can’t be
a normal couple right now, my life is perfect.

“So … you guys were really in love,” I said.
“Surprising. Good, but surprising.”

Catherine was in love with a normal guy.
She’d killed creatures, but because she’d been ordered to long
before I came along … I hoped. I wanted to ask her to come back and
explain, but I knew she’d only piss me off with her rules. His
rules.

I flipped through more pages. I didn’t think
she could fall more in love with him, but she did. She’d sketched
flowers around the edges of most of the pages I came to after he’d
broken up with her for thirty seconds. She wrote three whole pages
about his eyes, describing every detail. I didn’t need to see a
picture to know I had the same ones.

The next five pages were about his lips. I
didn’t read much of it. She was obsessed and far too descriptive,
and I didn’t care to know what my dead father’s mouth tasted
like.

We spent twelve hours staring at each other
today.

“Really?” I said, rolling my eyes. “Both of
you were crazy.”

We didn’t say much. We just stayed in bed
and stared, falling deeper in love. I’m so glad I pretended to be
sick. It was the best day of my life so far.

She went on for ten more pages about that
day and how wonderful it was to gaze into his eyes. I skimmed it as
I shook my head.

I read the next entry closely because of the
first sentence:
I love being a girl, every single thing about
it.
She was so different, so soon. I folded the corner down.
This page showed that hunters could change and added some clout to
my efforts to be different.

He watches me when I walk by, at the coffee
shop, at his house, everywhere. He’s always watching me. And his
thoughts, when I can’t ignore them, are always about me and the
curves he somehow finds on my skinny frame. I could make him do
whatever I wanted. I could control his mind and he knows that. I
could make him stop being ridiculous about waiting a year to make
love, but I promised him I wouldn’t use my powers on him. He made
me swear when we got back together. So now I have to rely on God
given parts to change his mind. And that’s where being a girl comes
in handy.

She started to describe her methods of
seduction, and I turned the page. She was my mother, and I wasn’t
in the mood to throw up tonight.

On the top of the next page she wrote,
If
I died today, the last three weeks have made the last sixteen years
worth living. He is my life. He is all that I want
. She
enclosed that in a string of flowers. It made me think of the
painting outside of the locked room.

She started the actual entry under her
doodle.

We celebrated my birthday and our
almost-one-monthiversary today. It feels like a year. He wrote me a
song and played it on the new guitar I bought him. I cried. Today
he finally commented on how tired I looked. I told him the truth. I
couldn’t sleep without him. So he asked me to move in. I said yes.
Now I have to figure out a way to tell Dad I’m quitting. Or more
realistically, since I can’t imagine saying those words to my
father, I’ll have to trick Mona into thinking I still live with
her.