For the entire trip to the hospital, I thought about how lucky I had been that Aiden came to me when I needed him the most, and what would have happened if he didn’t.
Thank God Aiden developed his ability to transport the same way I could. I just wished it didn’t have to go that far before he was able to come to my rescue. Even more so, I wished that I knew how to control my own abilities so I wouldn’t have needed rescuing. I wondered what else I might be able to do when my abilities got stronger. Would I be able to read people’s minds like Aiden? And what had he done to Michael? I shuddered at the thought of the power Aiden had over people.
The ambulance officer thought I was still cold from shock and pulled out another blanket to wrap around me.
“Thank you.” I gave a slight smile to the officer. It was easier to pretend I was cold than to explain the real reason behind my shudder.
Chapter 19
Chelsea and I arrived at the hospital. It was the second hospital visit in a matter of days for me, and I was hoping this wouldn’t become a habit. We were immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses who asked us questions about what Michael had done to us and if we had any injuries. I answered politely, not giving them any more information than what they needed. I also skipped the part about how he cut me just below my belly button. They took some blood just to be sure he hadn’t given us anything harmful while we were unconscious.
The doctors and nurses were talking about their plans for us when I felt a calming sensation wash over my body—the feeling was getting stronger by the second.
I looked over at the door and a few seconds later, Aiden’s smiling face appeared.
“Hey, beautiful.” Aiden leant over and kissed my forehead. “What happened? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?” Aiden was playing up for the doctors, pretending he hadn’t seen me already, but he was laughing silently.
I glared at him and said, “I’m fine,” through gritted teeth. I really didn’t want to recite my story so that he could look like the concerned, ignorant boyfriend they would expect to see for someone in my situation.
I looked up at the doctors, who were all huddled in a bunch just inside of the doorway. “Can I go home now?” I asked no one in particular.
The doctor with thinning grey hair turned to face us. “We would like you to stay overnight for observation.”
I looked over at Aiden.
“I don’t want to stay, I want to go home with you.”
“As if I’m going to leave you here. I’m not going to let you out of my sight for the rest of your life, which you know is a very, very long time.”
He laughed silently.
The doctor suddenly had a change of heart. “Actually…” He flipped through my chart. “Everything looks good. You can go home as soon as I complete your discharge papers, which I will get to once I have finished assessing…” He paused as if he was having second thoughts. “Oh, I suppose the other doctors can do that. I’m sure you want to get home as soon as possible. I’ll go get your discharge papers now.” It was amazing to see how people had absolutely no idea they were being manipulated.
“Thank you,” I said to the doctor, but my gratitude was meant for Aiden.
“See, I told you one day you’d wonder how you ever got along without our abilities,”
he said, laughing silently. His lips curled slightly, but he quickly composed his expression because we still had company in the room.
“Get your things together. I will be back in a couple of minutes with the paperwork,” the doctor said, before leaving the room.
There wasn’t much for me to get ready because I hadn’t been at the hospital long enough to accumulate the usual stack of get-well gifts and flowers.
I got out of bed, grabbed the overnight bag Aiden had brought with him—just some clothes for me to put on over my bra and undies—and headed to the bathroom to get changed out of my hospital gown.
Standing in front of the mirror, I assessed myself. I looked awful. My dark brown hair was in serious need of a wash, and the hospital gown really didn’t do me any favours.
I quickly got out of the gown and put on a pair of shorts and a singlet. I searched through my toiletry bag, hoping Aiden had included a hairband to get the awful mess of hair off my face, although I wasn’t sure a guy would think that deeply into what a girl might need. Thankfully, I was wrong. A hairband was tied around the handle of a brush. Not bothering to brush my hair, I stuck my hair up in a ponytail, picked up my bag, and opened the door to my room.
The doctor was holding my discharge papers.
“That was quick,” I said.
“Just sign here, and you can be on your way.” He held a pen out for me to take.
I grabbed it off him and signed the forms.
“Do you have any other questions before you go?” the doctor asked.
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Right then.” He turned to Aiden. “Be sure she goes home and gets plenty of rest.” He turned around and headed for the door.
Aiden picked up my overnight bag off the bed and slung it over his shoulder, and the two of us followed the doctor out the door.
We were almost to the elevators when I thought about Chelsea. I hadn’t seen her since I was admitted.
I stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor. “I want to see Chelsea before we leave. I want to make sure she is okay.”
Aiden put his arm around my shoulders. “No worries.” He leant over and kissed the top of my head.
Chelsea was in another room down the other end of the ward. The doctors had wanted to put the two of us in the same room because of the trauma we had endured together, but I had insisted that I wanted to stay in a private room. The less I had to lie to Chelsea about what happened out there, the better.
We stopped outside her closed door. Through the window, I could see her mother in the room, her back to us, holding onto her sleeping daughter’s hand.
“Can you…”
I asked Aiden silently, not wanting to intrude on her private moment.
Aiden smiled and said,
“Great minds think alike.”
I stood in silence, and watched Aiden remove all the fear and anxiety Chelsea would have had after the last few days. “She’ll be fine,” he assured me.
Chapter 20
When we arrived back at my house, it was late afternoon. I wondered where the day had gone. It had been barely lunchtime when the police arrived, and now the sun was starting to set.
Aiden leaned against his car as I made my way up the pathway to my house. Ben had called to see if we had heard about Chelsea being rescued. What Ben didn’t know, and what Aiden was filling him in on, was that I had been there, too.
I picked up my pace, trying to distance myself as much as possible from Aiden so I wouldn’t have to hear him explaining to Ben what had supposedly happened. I had already explained it too many times, and all I really wanted to do was get inside, flop on the couch, and try to forget about one of the longest, most terrifying days of my entire life.
Grabbing my house keys out of my pocket, I turned around to see if Aiden was still on the phone. He held up his finger and thought,
“I’ll be just a sec.”
Reaching for the door handle, I realised it was already unlocked. Mum must be home. I pushed the door further ajar and threw my keys onto the hallway stand.
“Mum?” I made my way into the living room, but there was no answer. That was when I saw the blood. My heart stopped, and I was gasping for air, but for all my efforts, I couldn’t seem to fill my lungs with anything that remotely felt like oxygen.
Her light brown hair had turned a crimson red, and she was staring directly at me—her eyes were lifeless.
My legs could no longer hold my weight and I buckled, falling to the floor and screaming as my heart was wrenched out of my chest.
Aiden was by my side in a split second. He pulled me into his arms for what I thought would be a comforting embrace, but I was wrong.
His voice ran through my head, but the words had no meaning. They were drowned out by the gut-wrenching numbness that consumed my mind. My vision had blurred as the world swirled around me.
Next thing I knew, I was no longer doubled over on my living room floor. I was standing in the Gold Coast International Airport.
An announcement came over the loud speaker. It was calling for passengers to commence boarding flight V165 to Singapore from Gate 21.
“What are we doing here? Mum needs help. We have to call an ambulance!” I sobbed softly. I knew deep down that calling an ambulance wouldn’t do any good. They couldn’t help her. They weren’t in the business of bringing people back from the dead. But I felt like I needed to be doing something, anything, other than stand in an airport. Why wasn’t I with my mother?
Aiden was speaking, but his words were still muted by the numbness that consumed me.
The next thing I knew, the numbness was almost gone. I still remembered that I had just walked in on the scene of my own mother’s murder, but the gut-wrenching pain that soared through my entire body was no more than a dull ache. It was as if it had been months or even years since her passing, not just the few minutes since I had walked in and found her lying on the floor.
“What just happened? What did you do to me?” I asked, knowing exactly what he had done, but I wanted to hear his reasoning.
I realised that Aiden had been holding me up, and I quickly broke away from his embrace.
He grabbed my hands, pulling me back to him, trying to avoid a scene.
“I know I promised I would never, but I had to. You were a mess.”
He must have seen the anger building up in my face. Of course I was a mess. Who wouldn’t be a mess in my situation?
“And of course you have every right to be a mess with what you…”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Jade, whoever did that to your mother… They were still there, waiting for you.”
“What?”
I didn’t get it. He had killed someone with nothing more than his mind, yet he ran from my house.
“I could feel their presence but their thoughts were blocked, which means they were like us.”
He paused, letting the full effect of what he had just said sink into me. The person who killed my mother was untouchable. She hadn’t stood a chance. Why did they stick around, waiting for me?
“I don’t know. But I had to get you out of there, and I needed you to be thinking clearly. All I did was dull your emotions enough so that we could get out of there safely.”
There was real angst in his eyes. He had broken his promise that he would never use his mind control thing on me. Yet, I could completely understand why he did what he had. If the situation was reversed, and he was as traumatised as I had been, I would have done the same thing to him—even if there was no immediate danger. I couldn’t bare to see someone I loved go through what I had just experienced. And really, with his latest revelation, there were bigger things for me to worry about than Aiden dulling my emotions.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. Although he already knew that I was okay with what he had done, I wasn’t planing on giving up on talking just because he already knew what I was going to say.
“Are you ready?” He was holding his arms out, waiting for me to embrace him.
Another announcement came over the loudspeaker. It was the last call for passengers flying to Singapore on Flight V165 to board through Gate 21.
Aiden’s words replayed in my mind. “We’re going to Singapore?” It finally made sense why we were standing in the Gold Coast International Airport.
“We have to get out of here. It’s not safe right now. There is no time to explain. Please, just trust me.”
Of course I was going to trust him. After what I had witnessed, I would be crazy not to. “But how? We don’t have tickets or passports.”
“Just trust me.”
I moved forward into Aiden’s embrace. The moment we connected, my vision went blurry again. When I was finally able to make out what I was seeing, we were no longer standing at the entrance to the airport; we were standing at the entrance to the plane.
A stewardess standing near the plane’s door and giving directions to the passengers almost passed out when she saw us suddenly appear before her eyes. As her eyes started to roll to the back of her head, she suddenly stopped and went into a trance.
“Go and find a couple of seats for us. First class preferably. I just need a couple of seconds with her,” he said to me, cocking his head towards the zoned-out stewardess. “I’ll be with you in a few seconds.”
I took my seat on the plane and waited for Aiden to join me. A few seconds passed, and he wasn’t to be seen. I knew he was all right. After all, he could convince people to do anything he wanted, but I wondered what could be taking him so long. My mind was instantly put at ease when I saw his smiling face appear around the corner of the plane’s entry door.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, sitting down beside me.
I smiled in return.
“Sorry. One of the pilots popped his head out of the cockpit, so I had to make sure he didn’t remember us being on board, either,”
he explained.