Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (35 page)

I took off the fancy dress and pearls and
put on sweats. It was eight o’clock at night and I was beyond
starving. I rummaged through her refrigerator and found a lot of
prospects for dinner – cheesy pasta, pepperoni pizza, and ranch dip
for the tortilla chips on the counter. This was from Sophia. A note
that said,
Eat up, dear
, was taped to the glass casserole
dish.

I put the entire thing in the microwave and
watched the tiny blue flowers on the glass revolve slowly, images
of Lydia in all of her forms intruding.

“Don’t think about her,” I ordered myself as
I sat on her fancy cream sofa to eat. They obviously planned for me
to stay a while. A stack of girl friendly DVDs were on the coffee
table. All set in high school. All about love. I popped one in.
After the third kissing scene, I wanted to die. I missed Nate so
much, even though that ache was nothing in comparison to the hole
Lydia left in my chest when she ripped my heart out.

The movie ended with the couple making out
at prom. The next movie was eerily similar, just with two pep
squads and making out at a cheer-off. I cracked open the chips,
still hungry, and covered my plate with ranch dip. Sophia would be
proud of my pig-out.

I walked around her home, crunching on
greasy chips, instead of starting another movie. This was where
Lydia had been while I was hidden in hell – the lap of luxury. Part
of me wondered if she’d been sad all of these years, missing her
husband and child. The other part of me, the girl I’d tried not to
be, wanted to fight her.

And Sophia too. I shook my head, thinking of
when she’d cried about letting me stay at school so long. And all
the other times the truth was apparent – her laughing at the
newscast, getting freaked out about me knowing Lydia was psychic,
waiting on me hand and foot.

Sophia was right. My life was down right
bizarre. Actually, I’d watched Lydia Shaw breastfeed me today. I’d
say that was a little more than bizarre.

Her apartment had four rooms besides the
living and dining rooms. I’d slept in her bedroom. I opened the
door next to it and shook my head. Lydia needed an entire room for
a closet. I counted seven long racks that stretched from one wall
to another. Most of her clothes were black. Her heels too. The
exceptions were white dresses and suits and one lonely red shirt on
the last rack.

The next room was her gym. She had three
complicated looking machines, some weights, and a very worn
punching bag hanging in the corner.

The last room on the hall was an office. I
still wasn’t clear on what she did for a living.

By the look of the office, I’d say nothing.
It was too neat and stylish to be used for actual work. I sat in
her white leather chair and wiggled her wireless mouse. There
couldn’t be anything important stored on the computer because there
wasn’t a password.

I clicked on the Internet and searched her
name. The web knew nothing about Catherine and Raymond, but
everything about Lydia. The first result was about the Nobel Peace
Prize she’d received a year after killing Frederick Dreco. The
second was a fashion blog that follows her chic style in the press.
The third, a conspiracy site detailing a rumored connection to the
death of a senator. The comments at the bottom of the page all
bashed the author for trying to degrade the woman who saved the
world. Hilarious.

Nate was right, she worked for the world,
the United Nations, as the Special Defensive Coordinator, whatever
that meant. Our names appeared in several of the results together.
Leah Grant, the missing girl, and the famous woman.

I rolled my eyes at the screen. She’d been
pretending to look for her hidden child.

Before the articles about her heroic acts
could piss me off, I closed out the browser.

I spun around in her chair. As I looped
around, a picture on her desk caught my eye. It was of Cecilia and
Vincent as they walked hand in hand on a beach. Her painful past
squeezed at me, forcing my mind to pull the loose ends of her story
together. She’d sent me to their home, she never cleared out the
studio, maybe she was afraid to go in there beyond clearing blood
and bodies. I knew I would be.

“You really wanted to help me, CC,” I
said.

“System activated,” the office answered
back. “Passcode correct.”

I jumped out of the chair as the left wall
opened like an elevator door.

“Whoa.”

Barefoot, I walked behind the wall and into
what had to be her real office. Something I’d said opened it. I’d
bet it was
CC
.

Television screens covered every inch of the
room. They showed surveillance footage for major landmarks, on a
live feed apparently.

The first ten screens were all places I
recognized in America. After that, I could only identify the Eiffel
Tower. The others were random skyscrapers, mansions, and
bridges.

So she … watched things all day. That seemed
boring.

The center screen, the biggest of them all,
showed a map with blinking red dots. It showed Europe, then it
switched to South America, then to Africa.

“What does this track?” I wondered out loud
with my hand on the screen.

Then I knew. It tracked Kamon, the man who
had cut me out of her stomach in her vision, the man she’d feared
would hurt me out of revenge.

“Bedtime, my sweet,” Sophia said at the
door. She didn’t mention I was snooping in Lydia’s office. She
laced her fingers through mine and walked me to the bed.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Working. She’s always working. Keeps her
mind clear, without my help.” I lay down on her pillows then shoved
them away. I didn’t want to let her scent drive me insane, or drive
me to love her – I wasn’t sure which would happen. “Are you ready
to talk about things?” I shook my head, and she tucked me in. “I’m
sleeping on the sofa, right in there, if you need me. Do you want
anything now? Perhaps the chips you left in the office?”

“Okay.” She snapped, conjuring my
ranch-covered chips. She dimmed the lights, and I thought of
something to ask. Something I’d wondered about since I met her.
“Sophia…”

“Yes, love?”

“You’ve always taken people in who needed
you. Why not me?” She sat on the bed. It was silent for a
minute.

“I knew you’d ask me that eventually,” she
whispered. “Working for her was never my plan. All of the agents I
had connections to were killed. I was desperate enough to go to her
and demand that she help me, and she ended up needing me as much as
my family and I needed her.” She let her tears fall without wiping
them and bit down on her trembling lip. “They have no idea who I
work for. Gregory knows but no one else. I’ve kept the two biggest
parts of my life separate. I’m sorry.”

I adjusted my head on my arm, my makeshift
pillow, and Sophia stood like that was enough of an explanation. It
wasn’t. And it wasn’t a reason to cry. It was something bigger.
Something obvious.

“You were afraid of me. Lydia Shaw’s copy
should be rude and violent, right?” Her breath caught, and she
covered her mouth.

I turned over in Lydia’s bed, trying not to
cry. Sophia had actually believed what I’d feared about myself for
years. That I was evil and dangerous. I still didn't know if I was
or not. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep her family safe
from me.

“I judged you from what I saw while Lydia
watched. She saw her little baby, but I saw a little girl who never
said anything. Or laughed or played. I never called you a copy ever
again, but you fit what I thought one was. It’s a stupid bias I
shouldn’t have had, dear. Copies are people, and even though you’re
not one, I shouldn’t have let fear stop me from loving you and
taking care of you.”

She was crying so hard that her words
blended. I remembered a moment where I’d seen a hint of fear in her
eyes – when I’d grabbed her hands in my room and she’d almost
pulled away.

“I wasn’t even planning on meeting you now.
She’d been planning to take you from school days before I did. She
was trying to get things together, and like always, I was just
trying to get her to go to work and do her job and keep things
going for all of us. Selfish, like I’ve always been when it comes
to her personal life and you. She’d missed several meetings
already. Kamon had heard about it. I volunteered to watch you to
avoid a disaster and happened to fall in love with you that night
in the kitchen. Dear, I understand if you hate me now. ”

I refused the dramatic cry pounding against
my chest. I pulled Lydia’s comforter over my head, trying not to
think of her watching me through a magic mirror and crying in this
very spot.

“It wasn’t your job to raise me. I don’t
hate you,” I said. “I just want to be alone. Goodnight.”

She whispered it back, still crying, and
left the room.

I fought the urge to sleep brought on by
sadness and the oranges lingering in this bed, not admitting to
myself that I was waiting up for Lydia. I stopped staring at the
clock at eleven. In New Haven, mingling time was ending. It was the
perfect time for someone to bang on my door for a laugh, and Lydia
was working. She would have missed them bullying me, probably like
she’d done for years. I lasted until three AM. Either I’d missed
her between then and when my eyes popped open at eight, or she
never came home.

Sophia hovered over me without talking as I
crawled out of bed and washed my face. She walked me to the dining
room for breakfast. As she sat my plate down, I looked into her
bloodshot eyes. She looked like she’d been crying all night.

“May I sit?” she asked. “She doesn’t usually
let me.”

I slammed my hand on the table, rattling the
glass, a lifetime of anger shooting out of me in a moment. I was
surprised everything around me didn’t shatter or catch fire. “I’m
not her!” I screamed. I took a deep breath, sinking into my chair.
I certainly sounded a lot like her just then. “I’m sorry,” I
whispered.

“It’s okay, dear. I know you’re not her.”
She sat in the seat next to me and snapped herself up a plate. “You
are more like your father. She says that all the time.”

“When can I leave?” I asked, because I
didn’t want to cry today.

“I don’t know yet. She found the camera in
your closet and the picture of you and Nathan. We know it was a
part of Remi’s plan. You came close to being turned over to someone
very dangerous, and Lydia is very upset about that. We’ve done some
digging, and it seems like Liam is more dangerous than I thought.
All this time of keeping you away from this life could be wasted if
she doesn’t clean up the mess I made by bringing Remi into your
life. You’re powerful. These hunters would give anything to have
you. Own you.”

“Why?”

“Because of the things you could do.
Influence thoughts, create wealth. And they would believe that
you’re capable of killing without leaving a trace, even though I
know that you’re not. That’s not even considering Lydia and what
some would do to hurt her or extort her. Taking you would give
someone a lot of power, dear.”

She didn’t have to say that they would breed
me. That fact clogged the air along with everything else. I was
still in danger.

I couldn’t hide my fear. My fork trembled on
the way to my mouth. We ate in tense silence, and she cleared the
plates when we finished.

“This place is very safe. She wants me to
leave you here while I take care of some things.”

“Of course she does.”

She hugged me then obeyed her boss’ orders
to leave me alone in her home.

As I brushed my teeth and hair, I stared at
myself in the mirror, seeing a lot of him and glimpses of her. I
made a mental note to avoid my reflection for the rest of my
life.

I stuffed my arms with snacks and drinks and
went in the most interesting room in the apartment. “CC,” I said
and activated the system again.

I dumped my snacks in Lydia’s white chair
and rolled it into her real office. I watched the screens for
hours. It was kind of cool being in several countries at once. I
had to stop watching the Kamon tracker. He moved around so much and
so fast. It freaked me out. My heart jumped all three of the times
his red dot flashed near Paris.

I heard my phone chime in her room, and I
ran to answer it.

“Hi, Emma,” I said.

“Chris, are you alright?” she asked. I
stretched out on Lydia’s bed and sighed. I was so far from
alright.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “How are you guys?”

“We’re okay. Well … Paul and I are. Nathan
isn’t really talking to us. I’m sorry we left. He scared me, so I
went along with it. I don’t want you to think I feel differently
about you now. Paul either. We know you’re not evil.”

“Thanks,” I said, wishing Nathan would’ve
been this cool about it. They also hadn’t kissed me countless
times. He had a right to be more disgusted, I guessed.

“I was calling to see if you’ve heard from
Sophie. We’re getting worried. She isn’t answering and we saw you
on the news.”

“What?”

“The news. It’s saying you’ve been
found.”

I ran to the TV and clumsily mashed buttons
on the remote. It kept switching between white noise and the DVD
menu for the cheer-off movie. “Emma, what’s it saying? I don’t know
how to work the TV … maybe because I’m in Paris.”

She tried to help me navigate it, but it was
no use. She ended up just telling me since I wouldn’t be able to
understand the news here anyway. My face was on most of the
channels out there. The story was that I’d been found alive and
unharmed and was in a safe place. Apparently, I reported never
seeing a witch and couldn’t recall much from that night.

“Sophia is fine,” I said, when she finished.
“I saw her a few hours ago. She’s probably working.”

… With her long time boss and rival Lydia
Shaw.