Vengeance (19 page)

“What about Aiden?” Anna asked, instantly fearing the worst, even though she could see for herself that he was fine.

Aiden put his arm around me, and we walked back to Harry’s room, leaving Mum to explain.

Chelsea was sitting up in bed, talking to Lucas.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

“Great actually.” She put her hand to her neck. “I can’t feel a thing.”

“That’s great,” I said. “We’re going back to the hotel to clean up.”

Chelsea wanted a shower badly, but she didn’t want to leave her mother. Her need to be clean won out in the end.

“Just a heads up,” I said. “I’ve told Mum about Marie.”

“Oh.” She crawled to the edge of the bed. “How did she take it?”

“Not good, but what’s done is done. She can’t change it. She just has to suck it up.”

Chelsea laughed. “I would’ve loved to have seen her face.”

“Yeah, she was pretty pissed.”

“That’s an understatement.” Aiden laughed. “Anyway, we better get going. Did you want to come, too, Lucas?”

“Ah, yeah. Sure.”

The four of us transported back to the hotel room. Lucas grabbed the TV remote and made himself comfortable on the couch, while the rest of us headed to our rooms.

“Don’t be long,” he called out. “You know I get bored easily.”

The shower was a decent size, so Aiden and I both got undressed and hopped in together. I soaped up the loofah and scrubbed Chelsea’s blood off my body.

I rinsed the loofah, applied more soap, then turned to Aiden. My eyes instantly went to the faint white line on his chest. “Why is it still there?” I traced the line with my finger.

Aiden looked down at his chest. “That’s weird. It should have healed by now.” He grabbed the loofah and started cleaning himself.

“He must have put something on the knife,” I muttered.

“That would explain why I almost died.”

“Yeah, but what could’ve done something like that? I mean, aren’t our bodies supposed to be able to fight anything that might kill a normal human?”

“Maybe this is something different. For all we know, he could’ve found something that attacks our bodies, something we can’t fight off. After what your mum told us about what they did when they were together, it’s not such a far-fetched idea, is it?”

My stomach churned. “I guess not.”

I got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around me then walked over to the sink and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a mess, but at least it was clean. I picked up the crappy hotel comb and ran it through my hair, trying to get out the knots. Aiden turned off the water, grabbed a towel, and stepped out of the shower. I looked at Aiden in the mirror. He stood there watching me as he tied his towel around his waist. My eyes dropped to the scar on his chest. “I still can’t believe you did that for me,” I said as I put down the brush and turned around to face him.

Aiden picked up my hand and turned it palm side up. “I still can’t believe you did that for me.”

“It was my other hand.”

Aiden laughed as he dropped my left hand and picked up my right. Unlike his, there was no evidence left of my selfless act. He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my palm softly. “Thank you.”

I pressed my lips against the scar on his chest then looked up into his eyes. “Thank you.”

Although I could no longer hear what he was thinking, I was sure he was fighting the same impulse I was. But I knew that if we got started, there was no way I would let go of him. And no matter how much I wanted to live in a world where we could fly by our hormones alone, we didn’t. At least not until Nathan was stopped.

“We should probably go,” Aiden said with a longing in his tone to match that of my heart.

I nodded and moved toward the bathroom door. Aiden grabbed me from behind, turned me around, planted a kiss on my lips, then spun me around and pushed me gently out the door. “When all this is over, you and I are going somewhere where no one can interrupt us,” he said as, a little dazed, I walked into the bedroom.

Chapter 19

Ten minutes later, we were back at Harry’s house, sitting on the sofa. Chelsea had gone into the bedroom to sit with her mum. The rest of the UK and U.S. clans were there, except for Gemma, who had gone to nap in one of the bedrooms.

Mum had filled in the Scotts and Kai on what I’d done to Marie, Chelsea, and Aiden. Surprisingly, the Scotts weren’t as pissed as my mum. And Kai… well, he was Kai. Nothing bothered him.

Harry sat forward in his chair. “I’m going to run some tests on you to see if we can find out why that knife caused you to almost die,” he said to Aiden, then realised Aiden should have a choice in the matter. “Only if that’s all right with you?”

Aiden nodded. “Of course it is. I want to know why that thing almost killed me just as much as you do.”

“And if it was something Nathan has discovered can kill one of us, then maybe we can use it on him,” I said, then instantly regretted it.

Lucas’s heart sank. He hated what his father had done, but Nathan was still his father. He didn’t feel it was right to be planning his murder.

“I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Don’t worry,”
he said, trying to brush it off.

Everyone else may have had no idea what was going on, but I sure did, and I wasn’t about to let it go. “Why don’t we find out what we’re dealing with first? Then we can make plans on what we’re going to do with it.”

“Shall we go now?” Aiden asked Harry.

Harry stood. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll see you soon.” Aiden kissed me on the cheek then disappeared with Harry.

“Did Harry say when he’s going to wake up Marie?” I asked, knowing Chelsea was worried.

“We discussed it while you were gone,” Mum said. “And we decided it was for the best if we left her unconscious until this is all over.”

“That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?”

“Well, think about it. If we wake her, then we’re going to have to explain to her what’s going on and then find somewhere to hide her and convince her not to say anything to anyone and not contact anyone she knows. Or we could just leave her in the room then wake her when she’s safe.”

I raised an eyebrow. Mum had already shipped Grandma off to the Italian countryside. And if it was okay for her, then it was okay for Marie. “Or we could wake her and let her stay with Grandma. It’s not fair to keep her sleeping like that, and at least Grandma would have someone to keep her company.”

“Or we could just keep her sleeping,” Mum said again.

I shook my head. “Yeah, not going to happen.”

Mum’s eyes flared with annoyance. She was not used to me being in control. She quickly got a grip on herself, and said, “If that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Can you at least wait till Harry gets back before you wake her?” she asked.

“I’ll wait.”

“Thank you.”

Kai suddenly asked, “Where’s Georgia?”

“She’s gone to stay with my mother,” Mum answered.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“I think she probably feels more comfortable being anywhere but around you,” Lucas said.

“And at least she’s safe,” Anna added, not denying Lucas’s theory.

“What are we going to do about being outed?” I asked. “Does the media just think it’s a hoax, or are they actually buying it?”

Jack picked up the remote and switched on the TV. The screen came to life, showing the very footage Gemma had shown us on her phone. Jack pressed a button on the remote, flipping to another channel, and again, the same footage played. He continued to flip through the channels with almost every one showing videos of me doing one impossibly freakish thing or another. He switched off the TV.

Aiden appeared sitting next to me, and Harry stood leaning against the wall.

Aiden looked around at everyone’s sullen faces. “What’s wrong?”

“Show him,” I said.

Jack flicked the TV back on and flipped through the channels again.

“Holy shit,” Aiden said. “What are we going to do?”

“How about we just concentrate on one thing at a time,” Dave said.

“You mean Nathan?” Kai asked.

Dave nodded then turned to Harry. “How long do you think it’ll be before you have the results from the knife?”

“We should have something in a few hours.”

A few hours!
“So we’re just supposed to sit here and do nothing ’til then?” Then I remembered Marie. “Oh, yeah.” I jumped out of my seat. “Harry, can you come help me wake up Marie?”

“Um…” Harry looked to Mum, who shrugged. “Yeah, sure.”

Harry and I went into his room, where we found Chelsea sitting on the bed beside her mother.

“Hey, you,” I said, sitting down beside her.

“Hey,” she said, looking down at her mother, unable to believe how good her skin looked.

“Chels?”

She looked up. “Hmm?”

“I was thinking we should probably wake your mum up now. What do you think?”

“Seriously?” she asked, a smile spreading across her face. “She would love that so much.”

“Good. It’s settled. We’re waking her up.”

Harry walked over and took another look at Marie’s skin. “She may just make a full recovery.”

Chelsea bit her lip, trying to contain her joy.

I rubbed my hands together. “Let’s do this.”

Chelsea laughed. “You look kinda evil when you do that.”

I was about to do an evil laugh when I realised Harry was already waking her up. I nudged Chelsea’s arm and pointed toward her mother.

Chelsea sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“She’s coming around,” I said.

“She’s probably going to freak, but we’ll fix her,” Harry said.

“Probably wasn’t a good idea to wake her ’til I’d spoken to Chelsea about her mum going to stay in Italy. And it probably would’ve been a good idea to wake her up there instead.”

“Too late now,”
Harry said.

Marie’s eyes slowly opened. Before she had time to process that her surroundings had changed, I pushed my way inside her mind and removed all memories of her ever being burned. She no longer had any knowledge that she’d been in hospital for the past few weeks. I replaced her memories with ones a little less life-shattering. Marie would think the redness of her skin was due to a chemical peel gone wrong.

Realising Chelsea would have no idea what I had done, I tried something new.
“I’ve made your mum think she’s had a chemical peel gone wrong.”

Chelsea’s eyes widened the second she heard my voice inside her head. She quickly realised what I was doing and pretended as though nothing had happened. “Hey, Mum,” she said in a soothing voice. “How are you feeling?”

“A little better.” Marie attempted to sit up but wasn’t quite ready.

“Lay down.” Chelsea eased her mother back onto the bed.

“Chels, can I speak with you for a sec?” I asked.

“Um, okay?” She wondered what was so urgent that I needed to tell her so soon after her mother had woken up.

“It won’t take long,” I told her, then said to Marie, “Harry will take a look at you to see how everything’s healing.”

Marie nodded, completely unaware of the real reason her skin felt the way it did.

Chelsea and I stepped outside and into another room down the hall. Just my luck, it ended up being a bathroom. Why did so many of my conversations end up in the loo?

Chelsea leaned her back against the wall. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Your mum can’t stay here because of everything that’s going on at the moment and—”

“Because you don’t want her finding out that you guys have evolved?”

“Yeah. So we were thinking it would be best if your mum stays with my grandma in Italy.”

She nodded. “Do you want me to go with her, too?”

“Do you want to go with her?”

She shook her head. Chelsea felt guilty, but she wanted to stay with me.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “She’ll have fun. We can go and see her after this is all over.”

“I know. And I’m counting on you to make it quick.”

I smiled. “I’m trying.”

Chelsea swung her arm around my shoulders and pulled me toward the door.

“Hang on just a sec,” I said, stopping. “There’s something else you need to know about Italy.”

“Such as?”

“Georgia is staying with Grandma, too.”

Chelsea’s eyes bugged out. “Seriously?”

I shrugged. “Who knew? Georgia likes to hang with the oldies. I guess she got used to them, considering most of her customers were probably seniors.” Instantly, I felt bad for saying it. Georgia was my sister, and I probably shouldn’t give her so much crap about being a hooker. But my remark made Chelsea laugh, so I wasn’t going to put a damper on the moment. “Come on.” I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward the door. We stepped into the hallway then back into Harry’s room.

“So, Mum.” Chelsea plopped on the bed next to her mum. “I’ve got to go somewhere for a bit, but I’ll come see you again soon.”

“I’m going to take her to Italy now,”
Harry said.

“Won’t she think it a bit strange being in another country?”
I asked.

“She would if I wasn’t going to make her think she was meant to be there.”
He looked down at Chelsea, waiting for her to take the hint, say goodbye to her mum, and leave.

Chelsea leaned down and kissed her mum on the cheek, thanking God she was able to do that without her mum being in excruciating pain. “Love you, Mum.”

Marie smiled. Her still-taut skin made it a little uncomfortable to hold the expression for long. “Love you, too, sweetie.”

With tears welling in her eyes, Chelsea hopped of the bed.

“After I drop her off, I’m going to go back to the room to do some work,”
Harry said.

“Okay,”
I said silently to Harry. “See ya,” I told Marie, putting my arm around Chelsea’s shoulders as we walked out of the room.

The TV was back on in the lounge, and everyone was completely fixated by what was on the screen. When they noticed Chelsea and I had come back into the room, all eyes fell on us.