Revived (The Lucidites Book 3) (32 page)

“She wouldn’t let me!” Joseph answers.

“Would ya keep it down?” I say too slow. “I’m trying to sleep.” The bed underneath me is all too familiar. I’m in the infirmary, the stiff brown covers tucked up to my chest.

“Roya,” Joseph says, moving around Trey and grabbing my hand. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone stabbed me in the back,” I say.

“Top of your shoulder,” Joseph corrects. “When I asked you about your other injuries you left that one out. Oh, and the bloody gash on the back of your head.”

“I actually forgot about the last one.” I wince from the light in the room, my head an explosion of unrelenting pain. “Not anymore though.”

Trey moves to the position beside Joseph, worried frustration coating his face. Aiden eyes me from the corner with a cautious look.

“Roya, what happened?” Trey says, his tone still frantic.

“I told you,” I say, gasping for breath between each word. “I killed Allouette.”

“I was hoping for details,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“With a knife,” I say.

With a heavy sigh he turns to Joseph. “What happened?”

“Hell if I know. She abandoned me.”

“I saved your life,” I say, pressing up into a sitting position, my shoulder screaming about the effort.

“After I saved yours,” he says.

“Fair enough,” I say, smiling a little at Joseph.

“Would you two stop?!” Trey says, flaring his nostrils. “Roya. What. Exactly. Happened?”

“Allouette followed us last night. Was planning on murdering us. She was about to slit Joseph’s throat.” An audible gasp falls out of Trey’s mouth. “I knew, well seriously hoped, she’d track me using my ripple, so I disappeared. I’m the one she wanted to kill most. I traveled to the Voyageurs National Forest.”

Joseph bursts into a laugh. “Nice!”

“Silence,” Trey commands.

“Anyway, we danced around a bit,” I say through measured breaths. “She stabbed me. I gave her a few bruises and I stabbed her. That’s the story.”

“And you’re certain she’s dead?” Trey gives me a skeptical look.

The memory rushes back to me, bringing with it bile in my mouth. “Yes, usually people don’t recover from a knife in their brain.”

“Damn, Stark!” Joseph says, gripping my fingers tighter. “You’re twisted. Why didn’t you go for something less disgusting? Like the chest?”

“I didn’t have much of an opportunity to plan my attack since I was being strangled to death,” I say, pinning my eyes on the fresh gauze bandages wrapped around the wounds on my arms.

Joseph raises my hand, placing the back of it against his cheek. “I am so, so, so sorry I wasn’t there.”

“I’m not,” I say, repeating the scene in my head of propelling a blade into another human’s brain. I don’t want anyone to ever see what I did.

“I do understand that you two had to defend yourself,” Trey says, glancing between Joseph and me. “But why didn’t you escape by dream traveling?”

I look at Joseph, knowing our answer is the same. “Because we wanted to kill her.”

“She could have killed you,” Trey says too loud, making my head sear suddenly.

“Do we want to talk about what happened or didn’t?”

“You take too many risks,” Trey says.

“You have no idea,” I say, thinking about Chase.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” I dismiss the question. “And it’s funny you say that since all my enemies are because of you.”

“Please know that I realize I’m one hundred percent responsible for all of this. I apologize,” he says, his tone weighted with guilt. “Until I give you different instruction I do not want you to dream travel. Is that clear?” His authoritarian tone has a quality of protective fear. It does something strange to my insides. Unable to look directly at him, I nod, staring intently into Joseph’s green eyes.

All right, let’s give Roya a chance to rest,” Trey says, placing a hand on Joseph’s shoulder.

Joseph gives me an uncertain look, my hand still in his. “It’s all right,” I say. “I’ll call for you as soon as I wake up.”

“Before you have any visitors though,” Trey interrupts, “I want a full psych evaluation done on you today.”

I nod and watch them leave. “Wait,” I say when all three are filing through the exit. “I need to ask Aiden a question about my patch. It will only take a minute.”

Trey gives Aiden an unreadable look and nods. “Make it fast and then I want you in my office, Dr. Livingston.”

Once the door closes, Aiden hurries to my bed, tentatively peering over his shoulder. He looks like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t. “Roya, if you show up in my presence one more time half dead, I’m going to have a heart attack,” he says in an angry rush.

“Well, if you survive it, you can recover in the bed next to me.”

He allows a small smile.

“I just need to know why Trey looks like he’s infuriated at you. I won’t be able to rest until I do.”

Aiden shakes his head. “You just stabbed someone in the head and you want to know about my drama?”

“Oh, believe me, I’m about to have an emotional breakdown about what I’ve just been forced to do, but I wasn’t going to allow myself to in front of Trey,” I say, battling a sheet of tears. “Just tell me what’s going on because the extra worry is more than I can take. Is this about...?”

“No.” Aiden takes a seat on my bed and holds my hand. I close my eyes, suddenly relieved by his touch and that one word. “It’s about me and my work.”

Aiden releases a long, furious exhale which makes my eyes spring open. His eyes are burning with anger. “Trey wants us to keep our current security,” Aiden begins. “But I’m demanding that he allow me to upgrade it. He refuses. He thinks that the upgrade fails and that’s how Zhuang gets into the Institute. But I think the reverse is true. I know about Joseph,” he says, his tone milder suddenly. “I think Zhuang knows how to break the security because of the access he had into Joseph’s thoughts, the things he would have seen. But Trey isn’t willing to see that. He keeps taking my pleas as attacks at Joseph. He’s colored by his protectiveness of you two.”

“And you think this is how Zhuang gets into the Institute?”

“Yes.” Aiden grips his hair like he wants to pull it out. “And Trey won’t listen to me,” he says with a growl.

“But Bob and Steve once told me that Trey is usually right on these kinds of things because of his gift. Could he be right?”

“I don’t think so because I don’t think his intuition is guiding him here, it’s his bias toward Joseph. Zhuang will know to submerge in water to enter the Institute. If we just changed that to something he didn’t know then we could stop this whole thing.”

Aiden’s right. Instinctively I know he is. And it burns the blood in my veins to know Trey won’t listen to reason. That he’s taking it as an attack on Joseph. “Do you want me to say something?”

“No!” he says at once. “He’s too mad, he’d kill me if he knew I discussed any of this with anyone...especially you. Just...don’t even worry about it.”

All I want is to comfort him, wrap my arms around him, ease his pain, and that’s the last thing I can do.

“Really, I don’t want you to worry about this,” he repeats. “You have enough to think about.” He gives me the look visitors offer the animals who have been at the pound for too long, those animals that are no doubt lonely and bordering on insanity due to the confines they’ve been sentenced to.

“You think I’m a monster, don’t you?” I say, a searing pain spreading through my chest.

“No,” Aiden says, shaking his head furiously. “Not at all. You defended yourself and you purged this world of a disgusting person.”

“I’ve killed someone, marked my soul with their blood. It’s not like when Amber died. This time I actually performed the act that ended someone’s life.”

Aiden shuffles forward on the bed, leans headfirst, and presses his forehead against mine. It’s warm and his eyes are so close our eyelashes are almost touching. “Your soul is perfect. And if it’s even possible I love you more for what you’ve done. I love you for––”

“Please stop,” I choke out. Tears spill out of my eyes in a torrent, all of them racing to be the first to spill over my chin.

Aiden eases back, unbridled heartache in his eyes.

Pulling my hand from his, I wipe the tears away, but not faster than they are replaced by new ones. “You have to go––or otherwise Trey’s going to be even angrier with you. The longer you stay here the––”

“I don’t care, Roya,” Aiden says, wiping a tear off the side of my chin with his thumb and resting it against my jaw.

I pull back, angling my face so he’s no longer touching me. “I do,” I say, unable to look at the expression of disappointment I know he’s wearing right now. “I care what happens to you.”

“Then stop pulling away from me,” he says in a half whisper.

“No.” I lie back, pressing the side of my face into the pillow and staring as far away from Aiden as I can manage. “Trey could walk back in here at any minute. And he probably will if you don’t leave right now.”

“And he’d see me comforting the girl I––”

“And he’d have another reason to fire you,” I say, revolving my gaze to Aiden’s.

“Please stop worrying so much about me.”

“Fine, then leave so you stop giving me more to worry about.”
 

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“O
nly ten sessions?” Samara says in disbelief. “I had double that when I killed Pearl.”

“Apparently you’re assigned fewer therapy sessions when you kill your arch nemesis versus a friend.” Self-consciously I rearrange my pillows, disliking so many eyes focused on me.

“I’ll remember that,” Samara says dully, her eyes working their way over to Joseph and climbing up to his face. “Joseph, I bet you were terrified when Allouette held the knife against your neck,” Samara says, her voice dripping with sympathy.

“Oh, only a little,” he says with a smile.

“Really,” I say. “Because you looked like you were about to pee in your pants.”

“And she cut you too,” Samara says, ignoring me, her fingertips touching the cut on his throat.

Beside Joseph, Trent looks a breath away from reaching out and slapping Samara’s hand.

“It didn’t hurt,” Joseph says coolly, giving Samara a long smile.

“Roya was stabbed in the shoulder, Samara,” Trent says, folding his arms. “Do you want to caress that too?”

Samara shoots Trent a dagger stare. “What’s your deal, Trent? Can’t you be a bit more sensitive about what these two have been through?” Her hand slides down Joseph’s arm and she hugs it to her. Samara once told me she had a thing for bad boys; I wish she knew that she had a thing for gay boys. Joseph has done an impeccable job of shielding that information from her.

Trent plops down on my bed, sending me bouncing slightly. Melodramatically he grabs my hand and strokes my arm. “Oh, Roya, Samara has brought to my attention how insensitive I’ve been. Please forgive me. Can I do anything for you? Paint your nails? Braid your hair? Rub your back?”

“No, no, and hell no,” I say, jerking my hand away from his with a smile. Over his shoulder I spy an amused look on George’s face. He knows the true nature of the behavior being displayed here and he looks to be enjoying the drama as much as I am. He hasn’t said a word since he arrived, has hardly made eye contact until now. We haven’t even seen each other since he broke things off. I want him to take Trent’s place so I can wrap my arms around him, but it wouldn’t be like before. It would be torture for both of us.

Joseph slips his arm from Samara’s clutches and comes to lean against my bed, giving Trent a curious look. “Hey, T, you better get off George’s girl,” Joseph says. He knows we broke things off, but he’s a master at deflecting. “He’s gonna get angry that you’re touching her.”

“I think George knows I’m harmless,” Trent says, glaring at Joseph.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say, catching the uncomfortable look in George’s eye. “We aren’t together anymore.”

“I bet that now you’re all laid up needing comfort you wish you hadn’t dumped him,” Trent says.

“She didn’t dump him,” Joseph says in a gossipy tone.

Trent stands, turns, and gives George a nod. “Yep, that settles something I’ve suspected for a while. George, you’re a first class idiot.”

I busy my attention checking on the bandage around my calf, keeping my eyes low. “Well, I love all of you,” I say, faking a yawn. “That being said, would you all get the hell out of here? I need to sleep.”

“Yes, madam,” Trent says, hooking his elbow through Samara’s and pulling her away. She gives him a cold look. “Come on, girl, I’ll put dreads in your hair. I’m certain it will look dread-ful.” He laughs at his own joke.

Joseph kisses my forehead. “Sweet dreams, sis.”

“Thanks.”

Joseph slaps George on the shoulder as he passes him. He hasn’t moved, the brooding expression on his face taking up residence inside my chest.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” George says when the infirmary door closes. He’s more unshaven than I’ve seen him, his short beard flecked with tones of gold.

“I’m super tired. Can’t this wait?” I say, fidgeting with the sleeves of my periwinkle pajamas.

“I wish it could,” he says, taking three steps until he’s right beside my bed.

“Okay, well, at least sit down so I don’t have to crane my neck looking up at you. It hurts my shoulder.”

He tentatively peers at the space beside me where Trent had sat.

“You can pull up a chair if you want,” I say, hating this moment. Hating him more than he deserves. And strangely loving everything about how he looks right now.

He sighs and perches on the side of my bed, hands clasped between his legs. “Roya, all I want to do right now is be close to you, but this is just a recipe for disaster,” he says, chewing on his thumb. For some reason I’ve always found his teeth attractive, maybe because I’ve grown accustomed to watching his pointy canine chew on his bottom lip. “I’ve been crazy ever since I found out what happened to you. I’ve had so many doubts.”

“George, I can’t discuss us right now. My brain is too full. My heart, too heavy.”

“This isn’t about us, it’s about me.” He stops and waits until I look directly into his eyes, a silent hopelessness in them. “I’m leaving the Institute.”