Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (211 page)

Aiden typed for a few moments. “I
found something.” He rotated his laptop, showing me the
screen.

I scooted a chair out and sat down
across from him, throwing a skeptical look in his direction. “A
map? You helping me break out of here?”

“
Of the area we live in.
There’re two houses within fifteen miles. If that girl exists, she
lives in one of them.”

I clenched my jaw to keep it from
dropping. Unknowingly, I slid forward in my chair. Maybe he didn’t
think I needed to be locked up. “Seriously?”

“
She’s a Drea. Maybe her
gift is communicating through dreams or visions…”

At this point, anything that convinced
him thrilled me. “So say we do happen to find her. What do we tell
her? I saw she was going to be sucked dry?”

Aiden nodded and shut his laptop.
“With a bit more tact than that.” He stood. “Ready?”

She had to know who the Kember was. I
jumped up from my chair, nearly knocking it over. “Hell, yeah.
Let’s do this.”

Chapter 8

I hadn’t realized how deep into the
forest I actually walked yesterday. As I followed the same path, it
was hard to believe. I kept thinking we’d passed it, but apparently
Aiden had a GPS installed in his brain and knew exactly where we
were going.

The sun shone through the trees,
peeking through the branches, casting its warm beams on the
frost-covered plant life. With every step I took, leaves and twigs
crackled beneath my feet. They littered the ground, congregating
around fallen tree trunks and surrounding foliage, camouflaging the
land in orange and yellow. Back when I actually liked the woods, I
would’ve thought it pretty. Today, all I saw were dead, withering
leaves.

Aiden weaved through the trees about
ten yards away. He took long strides, his features masked in the
hard warrior face he wore twenty-four seven, while his eyes
constantly swept the area. Did he ever smile? Not like I cared, but
still, I was curious. I bet the guy didn’t have a fun bone in his
body.

Not that I’d know. The only things I
knew about him were his gift, he liked to read and he was some sort
of badass ninja who had no problem protecting me.

Still, the silence was killing me.
“Okay, so, if I start screaming and throwing myself into the dirt
like a crazy mofo, what then?” I flinched when my voice disturbed
our quiet surroundings, sending a flurry of birds in the
air.

Aiden
pushed back a tree branch and ducked under it. “Then we try again
tomorrow.”
He stopped and gestured around
the section of the forest. “This is it.”

I took in the tall, skeletal trees.
This couldn’t be. The forest looked completely different. The tree
had been full of green leaves, maybe even a bit taller. I stepped
over a fallen log and weaved through the dead vegetation. The
boulder the girl stood against came into view. I picked up my pace,
practically stumbling as I went, and crouched in front of it. Aiden
was right. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. I smoothed my hand
over the rock that stood easily as tall as Aiden and breathed a
sigh of relief. Maybe we still had a chance to find the girl and
figure out who the Kember was.

When I turned to face him, the same
girl with dark eyes and black hair flashed in my mind, making me
wince. She smiled. All traces of her panicked and fearful
expression were gone. My heart thudded in my chest. What was wrong
with me? I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to rid her from my mind,
but everything except her disappeared. I started to lose my
balance.

Aiden grabbed my arms before I
collapsed and held me in place. “What’s going on?”

I blinked until the picture cleared,
allowing me to see him.

“
Can you hear me?” He
looked straight into my eyes, as if trying to see what I saw. I
stared back at him, hypnotized by two of the most dazzling
emeralds. My chest tightened. I’d never noticed how green they
were.

Immediately, Aiden released me and I
stumbled back a few steps. He glanced at his hands, hardness
masking any of the earlier concern. “What happened?”

I drew in
a deep breath and shook my head, snapping myself out of…whatever
the hell that was. “I saw her,” I whispered. “It’s like she took
over my entire vision. I couldn’t see anything else.” It scared me,
too, but I didn’t want to tell
him
that.

“
What was she
doing?”

I pressed my palms together and
twisted them. My gaze shifted out toward the dead trees, unable to
meet his. “Uh…smiling.”

“
Can you tell me what she
looks like?”

Aiden’s features gave none of his
thoughts away. Maybe he believed me. Or, possibly, he was gathering
evidence of insanity for Ian. Hesitating, I tapped the side of my
leg before pulling a piece of paper from my pocket: a sketch of the
girl. I handed it to him.

A line creased between his brows.
“Where did you get this?”

I sighed. “I couldn’t fall back asleep
this morning…I was bored.”

He studied the paper with something
that looked a little like astonishment, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You drew this?”

“
Sarcasm isn’t my only
talent.”

Aiden folded the paper up and handed
it back to me. “With this, she shouldn’t be too hard to
find.”

“
You really think she lives
around here?”

“
You saw her running
through these woods. It only makes sense.” He tucked his hands into
his pockets, leaned against a tree and waited silently as I studied
the forest.

Nothing odd had happened here; well,
except me throwing myself around in the dirt. Maybe I was crazy.
No. I refused to believe that. I was positive I hadn’t overlooked a
single thing. “Let’s go to those houses now.”

He pushed away from the trunk and
silently followed. When we reached our house, we climbed in the
truck and once again depended on Aiden’s innate sense of direction
to get us where we needed to be.

It didn’t take us long to find out no
one lived in the first home. A big red “for sale” sign stood in the
overgrown grass and a window in the front revealed lack of
furniture and life.

Aiden straightened in his seat and
motioned toward the little yellow house. “No one lives
here.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thank you, Captain
Obvious.”

He switched the gear into drive and
peeled out of the driveway.

I kept
waiting for the truck to gain its usual illegal speed and blur out
our surroundings. It didn’t. I figured it had something to do with
the winding, dirt roads and cliffs. I should be grateful. It was
just that something about the world rushing by helped me feel
alive. Slumping back, I pulled my knees to my chest. “Are we
there
yet
?”

He pointed off into the distance. “See
the little log cabin?”

I strained my eyes. “All I see are
big, fat trees.”

“
Give it a moment. You’ll
see.”

“
Does it get annoying?” The
words slipped out before I even knew they were coming. I pursed my
lips, hoping he wasn’t getting the impression of small
talk.

He glanced at me and, for a second, I
could’ve sworn he looked a little taken aback. “Does
what?”

“
Uh, your gift.”

Aiden righted a strand of hair from
his eyes with a quick shake of his head. His hesitance made me
think he didn’t talk—especially about himself—much. “No. It’s saved
my life on numerous occasions.”

“
I just figured it may be a
little weird…”

“
I was born with it. I’ve
never known anything different.”

Not only
did I wish I would’ve been born a Kember—so I could kick major
ass—their gifts were a lot easier to adapt to. Sure some Kembers
would accidentally light things on fire, but after a few short
weeks they gained complete control of their physical energy. My
mental gift took me years to nail. Sometimes I still had problems
with it. “
See.
I
didn’t know that. I woke up one morning and could control minds. I
wasn’t sure how it worked with anyone else.”

“
I think most Dreas’
abilities surface like yours did.”

As far as I knew, they did. The first
time mine emerged, I was in class getting lectured by this prick
teacher. The next thing I knew, he was blurting every profanity I
thought. I passed out, and he got fired. After that, it took weeks
before I could start to even recognize the hum of my ability.
Skyler and a few of my other friends all went through the same
thing. All around the time of puberty. After a couple years, when a
Drea’s gift is fully developed and accessible, the Authority
assigns a Kember.

Of course, I was the exception to
this. The Authority felt the need for a Kember to raise me. No one
knew when a Drea’s gift would first surface or how. Sometimes it
came in the heat of rage, danger or frustration. The Authority
discovered negative events usually spiked mental
energies.

My eyes burned thinking back to those
simpler, better, times.

The truck
slowed and a little log…cabin? Was that the word Aiden used? How
could he call this a
cabin
? To me, the place resembled
more of a boarded-up shack; a place where crazy hermits lived.
Broken down vehicles, and what looked like some of their parts, lay
scattered across the weeds and dead grass. Animal carcasses and
skins—which I didn’t dare
try
to put a name to—hung from the
trees.

Creepy. It reminded me of a movie
Skyler and I watched a few months back about some hillbillies who
hunted people because they were bored with animals. I shuddered and
glanced around. No power tools hung anywhere; then again, the
forest was dense—how psychos liked it.

Aiden stared a moment before he put
the truck in park and cut the ignition. “Let me do all the
talking.”

“
Aye, aye, Captain.”
Shoving the door open, I jumped down from the huge truck and walked
around to the front, meeting Aiden.

Two shaggy masses of fur came
sprinting toward us, howling like sick seals. Before I could even
start to panic, a grizzled toothpick of a man emerged from behind a
tree, yelling profanities and zipping up the fly on his pants. The
dogs—as I took them to be—dropped to the ground
whimpering.

“
What dun brung ya to my
neck of the woods?” The man ran a hand through his greasy brown
mullet.

Oh. My. Hell.

Aiden remained completely
expressionless. “We’re trying to find someone.”

Oh no—please no! This deranged
mountain man couldn’t be the source of help Aiden and I were in
search of.

“
I’d be happy tuh help. I’m
Herman Vale.” The mountain man extended his hand.

Aiden’s hesitation was barely enough
for me to notice as he stepped forward and took it. “Aiden
Oltman.”

Herman smiled, showing all six of his
yellowed teeth. “Well, good tuh meecha.” He turned his wide, grey
eyes on me, moving them up and down my figure. “An’ who mightya
be?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and
opened my mouth to say “take a cold shower” when Aiden spoke. “This
is Taylee.”

My eyes narrowed. Apparently, when he
said no speaking, he meant it.

Herman took a few steps forward and
held a dirty hand out to me. “A pleasure.”

I stared at his long, thick
fingernails, picturing them cutting into my flesh and giving me
some kind of rabid mountain man disease. I almost gagged. For all I
knew, it could’ve been the one he just used to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d rather die.

Herman dropped his hand and chuckled.
“That’s all right iffin yur shy.” He turned back to Aiden. “Who can
I help ya find?”

Aiden reached toward me. “The
drawing.”

I scowled and gave it to him. Herman
took a few steps and stood at Aiden’s side.

Aiden watched the mountain man study
the sketch, looking like he might decapitate him—or worse—if the
man made the slightest wrong move.

Cringing, I wondered how he could
stand that close to the man. I smelled the mixture of raw meat and
BO from here.

Herman smoothed down his red and black
flannel shirt and shook his head. “Never seen ’er.”

Aiden scrutinized him.
“Never?”

Herman stroked his beard and took
another peek. “Nope. An’ I know evuryone ’round here.”

I didn’t dare look at Aiden. I wasn’t
crazy. This chick had to be real.

“
Also,” Aiden hesitated.
“There’s this man. He wears a long black cloak—”

“
He’s about as tall as
Aiden and works with a few Ry—” I covered my slip quickly. “Guys
with tattoos on their faces…” Rygons weren’t exactly
dinner-table-talk to the Norms. Neither were Kembers and Dreas. The
Authority highly discouraged them knowing about us. I guess they
thought we’d become a mad scientist’s next victim or
something.