Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (33 page)

Sophia grabbed my hand and kissed the tips
of my fingers. It made more sense for her to be so comfortable with
me now. I’d only known her a week, but she’d known me forever. “We
must continue, sweetheart.”

She pulled me into the hall. At the end of
it, the carpet turned into grass. My father ran out of the school
and to a black car. Lydia waved to him through the window, and she
pushed over to the passenger side to let him in. Sophia and I
joined them inside.

“What’s this?” he asked. “Why are you in a
car?”

“It’s yours,” she said.

“First day of work present?” She nodded. “I
love it, baby, but … we don’t need a car. Since you taught me how
to move myself, I didn’t think we’d ever have one.”

She clicked her seatbelt. “Let’s take it for
a spin.” He laughed and started the engine.

“How much did this cost? A fortune, I’d
bet,” he said. She kept her eyes forward. Her hands were still on
me. “So do you want me to park it close to the school and land
inside? Drive to work like everyone else?”

“Yeah.” She caught a tear under her eye. He
didn’t notice. “Turn here. Um … there’s something I want to see.”
The car turned left onto an empty, unpaved road. “Pull over,” she
said.

“Huh?” He chuckled. “Oh! Hell yes, I will.”
He pulled the car onto the roadside and pushed his seat back. “Get
over here.”

She joined him on his seat, and I covered my
eyes. The sound of them making out was as sad as it was disgusting
because I knew their love story hadn’t had a happy ending. “I love
you,” she said, crying. “Say it back.”

“I love you.”

The ruffling stopped, and I uncovered my
eyes. He was unconscious. Sobbing, she held his head firmly between
her hands.

“What is she doing?” I asked.

“Erasing his memory,” Sophia said. “She’s
already cleared the house of her things.”

She brought his limp hand to her stomach.
“Say goodbye to Daddy. Wish him a happy life. A normal life.”

She opened a bag she’d had at her feet and
pulled his wallet from his pocket. I moved closer so I could see.
She stuffed it with money and new cards, even a license with his
picture on it. She pushed him up to the steering wheel and buckled
his seatbelt.

“Almost forgot,” she said, reaching for a
chain around his neck that a wedding band dangled from. “Oh, God.”
She kissed him again. “I have to do this. I love you. I’ll miss
you, baby.”

She got out of the car, and with a flick of
a finger, she rammed it into a tree. The windshield shattered,
sending shards of glass soaring into the car, not harming me at
all. She opened the door and inspected him. Besides a few scratches
from the shattered glass, he was fine.

“She’s making it seem like he lost his
memory in an accident?” I asked. Sophia nodded. “That’s stupid! Why
not just hide with him? She’s not-”

“Thinking clearly?” I nodded. “She’s
terrified. A month ago, she found her parents headless in their
home.” Headless? Julian beheaded her parents. Oh, God. That was why
I’d felt horrible pain in my neck in CC’s studio. “She wants to go
back to Julian so you and your father won’t end up like them. She
knows Christopher wouldn’t let her go, and she believes leaving is
the only way to keep you two alive.”

Sophia snapped her fingers and brought us to
a freezing cold house. Lydia was bundled up in front of a
fireplace, crying. In the dim lighting of the room, I could see
easels lining the walls. She painted like her mother.

I painted like mine.

She watched the fire fizzle out and got up
to light it again. Her stomach was huge, but she was still skinny
otherwise.

“One … match,” she said and chuckled. No
other lights were on in the house; I assumed the power was out. She
struck the final match against the box, but it died before it
caught on. She erupted in a fit of screaming and swearing.

I sighed. I’d inherited the same explosive
anger.

“Relax, Lydia,” she said. “Sorry, baby.” She
created her own fire when she calmed down, the same way I could.
“Don’t worry. It won’t hurt you. No one will train you. You’ll be
normal.”

That didn’t happen. While she crooned,
swearing I wouldn’t be affected, she created another blanket and a
little white dress.

“You’re going to look like an angel. Two
more weeks,” she said, crying again.

Someone knocked on her door and she jumped.
I shook too. A knife appeared in her hand and she walked to the
door, cloaked in the blanket. She twirled it through her fingers
like I’d done with Remi.

“Karen?” a man said in an accent, Russian
maybe. “Ms. Karen? Is there something wrong?”

She sighed. “No, Gerald. I’m fine.”

“Can I come in? I’ve been meaning to talk to
you, but I never see you since you paid the rent up so far in
advance. You never come out of there. It’s strange.”

She peaked out of the window on the door,
and he smiled at her. “You see me every day, Gerald. Don’t you?”
His eyes dulled, and he nodded. “I have dark hair and dark eyes and
I work at the market. Don’t I?”

“Yes,” he whispered, clearly in a trance,
believing what she wanted him to.

“Has anyone asked you to look for a blonde
woman?” she asked.

“Yes. A blonde woman that will be with a
man. Men are searching for her. The bounty is two million
dollars.”

Lydia’s eyes watered, then she smiled at him
again. “I’ll see you tomorrow like I do every day, Gerald. Where do
I work again?”

“The market,” he droned and walked away from
her door.

Sophia snapped, and we moved to a different
house. It had rough wooden walls, like a cabin. Like
the
cabin built for one.

I was there, screaming.

I crept down the hall, toward the sound of
running water, my heart close to giving out. I didn’t know what I’d
do if I saw someone dangling me over a tub again.

A shower cranked off and Lydia ran into the
bedroom, wrapped in a towel.

“Shhh,” she said. “I’m back, angel.” She
picked me up out of a crib. I had a head full of curly hair
already. I stopped crying immediately. “I left you for two minutes.
Two little bitty minutes.” She bounced me as she walked around the
room. “If I can’t leave to take a shower, how am I going to leave
you forever?”

I was nestled against her chest with her wet
hair in my face. I must have learned to think that smell meant to
calm down.

“How old am I?” I asked, because it felt
impossible for me to remember this moment. But I did, in a way that
I could almost feel her skin on mine, and I shivered from the
memory of that scent – oranges wafting from her hair.

I looked back at Sophia who hadn’t answered.
She was smiling, her eyes watering. “She never lets me see her like
this.” She sighed. “And I believe you are almost a month old. She
was supposed to bring you to school right after you were born, but
leaving is more complicated than she imagined it would be.”

Lydia pulled me away from her chest. She
smiled at me and laughed. “Can Mama get dressed now?” I swatted my
little hand in the air, and Lydia’s towel loosened at the top.

Sophia giggled. “I think you’re hungry,” she
said, as I tried to take off Lydia’s towel without touching it.

I had powers before I was twelve. I had them
as an infant. I guessed that was what complicated her leaving
me.

“Christine! No!” Lydia yelled. “What did I
say? Do not move things!” I screamed again, and she rocked me,
cooing, until I stopped. “Oh, God. I am the worst mother in the
history of mothers. Good thing I’ll be dead soon.”

I moved closer to the bed as she positioned
me to eat. I sat next to her, looking at us in the most nurturing
position a mother and daughter could ever be in outside of the
womb. The icy shell covering my heart shattered, and I let myself
remember her completely. This room. This cabin. How she was always
crying, even when she laughed.

“Why does she think she’ll be dead soon?” I
asked, instead of the words my heart pushed to my lips –
bring
me to my mother
.

“She made it so she couldn’t have any more
children. She believes Julian will kill her when he finds that
out.” I was crying as hard as Lydia was now. “Let’s go, love.”

I shook my head, I didn’t want to leave. I
reached out my hand to touch Lydia, but it went through her. “I get
it. She loved me. I believe you.”

“Still does. And there’s more to see,”
Sophia said.

She snapped and took me from the memory I
wanted to stay in, to one I really didn’t want to see. I broke down
immediately when I saw the St. Catalina crest in the wrought iron
fence.

We were in a car in front of it. Lydia had
me in her arms in the backseat. There was no one in the front. Her
hair was jet-black, her eyes green. A disguise, I guessed. She
opened a briefcase with her free hand, checking over the contents.
A birth certificate, my prints, and loads of money were inside. St.
Catalina had lied about not knowing who we were. Maybe the bible
names were a decoy, a cover for only taking rich kids.

“This is it, baby. You’re all set. Mama
loves you. More than loves you. You’ll be safe and happy here. I’ve
seen you all grown up. You will be absolutely stunning. Perfection,
like your father. I’m sorry I won’t be here to hold you and watch
you grow. But don’t worry.
I’m
not worrying. You haven’t
moved anything in two weeks, and you won’t ever be trained, so the
powers are gone for good. I’m sure of it. Everything will go right
in your life. You’ll be normal with normal friends and you’ll find
someone normal to love. That’s what your father and grandmother
should’ve done. But you have to. You’re the only piece of me that
will live, and you have to be happy.”

She wiped her face with the collar of her
shirt, and I yanked her wig. “You have to fall asleep, angel. I’ll
never be able to leave if you scream.” She rocked me for a minute,
still crying, but I still wouldn’t close my eyes. “Okay … you’re
going to make me pull out the big guns. You know you can’t resist
it.” She chuckled and cleared her throat.

In a sweet soprano voice, one I remembered
so clearly, she sang the song I’d thought I made up, my shower
song. My little eyes fluttered. She sang the verse I’d sung to
Nathan after I’d fallen asleep in her arms. I’d bet I rarely heard
that part, and it had gotten buried deeper in my mind. I fell to
more pieces as I watched and listened and remembered and
wanted.

She kissed me and covered her mouth, her
face and body tensed with a scream she couldn’t release. She opened
the door, and Sophia pulled me closer. I bawled into her hair until
the car disappeared.

Sophia and I now stood under a huge tree
with moss hanging over our heads. Lydia looked like what I imagined
a hunter would look like, dressed in an all black, clingy outfit.
She did
not
look like she’d just had a baby.

“So … obviously he didn’t kill her like
she’d thought,” I said, recovering from seeing her leave me. Ready
to be upset again.

“She changed her plan. While hiding with
you, she hadn’t seen how bad things had gotten with the war. She
doesn’t think you’re safe because of the people trying to take over
the world,” Sophia said, pointing to a house in the distance.
“Fredrick Dreco is inside with all the major leaders of the war.
They are the most powerful witches, wizards, and beasts alive. They
are about to figure out that they’ve been lured there, but it’s too
late.”

Lydia stretched her arms in front of her and
closed her eyes. A gentle breeze shook the leaves and the moss
above us. Then the house exploded. A cloud of fire and multicolored
smoke flared so high that no one could’ve escaped it. This was the
Lydia I’d learned about. The fierce assassin. The woman who saved
the world.

She sat under the tree between Sophia and I
as sirens wailed in the background.

“Last moments as me,” she said. “Maybe I
should pray.” She laughed then looked up to the sky. “You’d like
that huh, Mom? And Dad, you’d love that I just took out all those
creatures. Maybe I’ll get to see you two and get to watch her from
up there.” She chuckled again, sadder this time. “Yeah right. I
don’t even have a chance.”

She wiped her eyes as she stood and breathed
a defeated sigh.

We moved with Lydia to a door. She knocked
twice before it opened. Julian smiled at his desk. Kamon rushed to
the door. "Hold on, my boy," Julian said. "Let me speak with her
first. Dreco killed all of the agents, all hunters now answer to
me, and I didn't issue and order to kill him. You've had a big
night. Haven't you, pet?" Lydia didn't answer. She shivered and
Julian laughed. "Kamon, make sure Lydia's room is ready. We don't
have time to waste. I've waited long enough. Go ahead and give her
credit for Dreco. It's the least we can do."

Julian laughed. “Yes, Master," Kamon said
and vanished.

Alone, Julian stood and walked slowly to
Lydia. She shivered, and he chuckled.

Lydia closed her eyes. “Julian …”

“Don’t you mean Master?”

“Julian,” she strained. “You won’t be
getting any copies from me. This is over.” Her breaths sped, and he
reached his hand to her head. She jerked away from him.

"Over?” He laughed. "You wouldn't kill me.
You don't have it in you. You're as soft as your father was. I'm
surprised you didn't run off and start a family with your mystery
guy." He gasped and laughed. "Is that what you've been up to? I'm
going to enjoy finding-"

Lydia screamed and reached her hands to his
neck. Sophia turned me away. Julian screeched as we flew out of
that room and into another. One with padding covering the floor,
walls, and ceiling.

Lydia was staring at the wall while four
heavily armed soldiers stood in each corner of the room.

“What happened? Go back!” I said.