Tears were streaming down her face; seconds later, she let out a blood-curdling scream as her face contorted into absolute agony. A split-second later, the same searing pain that had engulfed me in the science lab ripped from the bottom of my right ear and across my throat, ending just below my chin. It was the most excruciating pain I had ever felt, then it was over just as quick as it started. The image of Chelsea was no longer there. The pain in my neck was gone, too.
I looked down at Chelsea’s hand; she was no longer holding onto me. She was holding her hand out wondering what the hell was going on. “What the hell did you do that for?” Chelsea yelled at Aiden. Ben was standing there with the same confused look on his face that was plastered on Chelsea’s.
I didn’t see what Aiden had done to deserve that reaction from them, but if I had to guess, I would say Aiden had broken her hold on me not so subtly. Within seconds, though, they were no longer looking at Aiden like he was crazy. Instead, they were gazing into each other’s eyes like the closing scene out of some romantic movie. It was as if the previous fifteen seconds never happened.
I turned to Aiden, trying to figure out what the hell was going on, but his facial expression told me nothing.
Nothing was making sense anymore. It was as if two days ago I’d woken up on some other planet.
“Okay, we’ll leave you two lovebirds to it,” Aiden said as he picked up my bag with one hand, and ushered me out with the other.
At first I didn’t budge. I wanted to work out how I had somehow landed in the Twilight Zone. But Aiden had other ideas, and seeing as though he was the stronger of us two, he won out. Unable to find my voice, I waved a goodbye and let Aiden lead me out onto the esplanade.
We didn’t go home right away. Instead, we headed to the beach.
“So, what happened back there?” I asked as I sat down on the sand dunes, hugging my knees to my chest as I looked out at the sea.
There was the usual after-school crowd trying to get in a surf before sunset. I had never learnt to surf, which was kinda crazy since I grew up in the surfing capital of Australia. And at that moment, I wished so badly that I had learnt. Apparently, it was good for the soul—a way to release the stresses of the day. Boy, did I need to let go of some of mine.
Aiden sat down behind me so that I was sitting in-between his legs. “I don’t—”
I cut him off. “Don’t give me any of that crap about you not knowing, or that it would be best if Anna tells me, ’cause I don’t want her to tell me. I want you to explain it to me now.”
“Look,” he paused, pulling me back so that I was leaning against his chest. “I really don’t know what happened when Chelsea grabbed your arm. From what I was able to get from your thoughts, it kinda seems like you had a vision of some sort—but I’ve never experienced anything like it before.”
“A vision? Does that mean that… Is it really going to happen?” I shuddered.
He didn’t answer. I turned my body so that I could see his face. His expression was that of someone about to give the worst possible news.
I buried my head in his chest, tears spilling down my cheeks. I felt like I was going to throw up. I had just pre-emptively witnessed what was probably my best friend’s murder. How could that be possible? How could that happen to her? Who would do that to her? No one hated her enough to do something like that to her. I didn’t even know anyone who was capable of such a thing.
“Hey, hey, come on,” Aiden said, trying to console me. “I don’t think the future is set in stone.” He stroked my hair. “And I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think we should speak with Anna.”
He was right. I needed to speak with someone who could help me save Chelsea, but I couldn’t stop crying. The fear in Chelsea’s eyes kept replaying over and over. The way her face contorted in agony was just too much for me to handle, so I stayed wrapped in Aiden’s embrace until my eyes ran dry. In the end, it wasn’t that long, because Aiden sent waves of endorphins pulsating through me.
Chapter 5
Anna was waiting for us in the garage when we arrived at Aiden’s house. I climbed out of the car and was met by her warm embrace. She didn’t say anything; instead, she filled me with that amazing peace and serenity she had given me earlier. This time, however, I did not freak out; I welcomed it into my body. The feeling was almost indescribable. It was like the way I felt around Aiden, but on steroids.
Once I was completely content, Anna broke our embrace. My legs started to buckle. I felt like I had been given drugs and was well on my way to La La Land. Aiden scooped me up in his arms before I hit the floor.
“Oops,” Anna said, giggling. “I guess I got a little carried away.”
I tried to say that I had never felt better, but what came out was slurred. I guess maybe she did go a bit overboard, but I wasn’t complaining.
Aiden carried me up the stairs and laid me down on the sofa. He propped me up with a mountain of cushions, which I slid down from so that my head was lying directly on the sofa.
I could barely keep my eyes open, so I closed them and tried desperately to remain conscious.
My phone started to ring. There was no way I was getting up to answer the thing. It stopped ringing a second later, followed by Aiden saying, “Hi, Nikki.”
Crap. Mum was going to kill me for not resting at home, but at the moment, I was too dazed to care.
I tried desperately to stay awake long enough to hear the rest of the conversation. However, whatever it was that Anna had done to me was too much for me to fight, and I quickly drifted off to sleep.
***
“Hey, sleepyhead,” Aiden said as he tucked a few strands of my hair behind my ear.
“Hi,” I whispered, gazing up into his hypnotic green eyes. I was still feeling amazing from whatever Anna had done to me, and all those loving feelings were heading his way.
His perfect lips parted into a smile, filling my body with even more desire.
A not-so-discreet clearing of the throat came from across the room. I looked over to find Anna sitting across from me on the other side of the sofa, holding back a smirk.
Normally, I would have died from embarrassment knowing that my boyfriend’s mother knew what I was planning to do with her son, but I was still too much in zen mode to care. I did, however, manage to stop any further thoughts on that subject.
Pulling myself up so that I was once again leaning against the mountain of cushions, I looked out of the window to find darkness had set in. It was pitch black outside, bar the twinkling lights coming from the houses on the other side of the seaway.
An ever-so-slight panic flittered over me at the thought of the shit I would be in with my mum for not staying at home. A small laugh escaped my lips. If she only knew just how rested I really was. God, I had never been so relaxed in my entire life.
“Don’t worry about your mum. I told her that you didn’t want to be alone today, and Anna volunteered to keep you company, except she was waiting for a package to be delivered, so you came here instead,” Aiden explained.
It was actually a pretty good cover. I’m sure it made Mum feel guilty for leaving me, and grateful that I had been properly looked after.
“You’re not just a pretty face,” I said to Aiden, and caressed his cheek.
Aiden grabbed my hand, kissing it softly before placing it in his lap.
“Sorry to burst your happy bubble, but we have to talk about your vision,” Anna said, snapping me back to reality.
At the thought of Chelsea’s murder, a small pain shot through my heart. Actually, it was more like a light buzzing feeling.
“The easiest way for me to know what happened is for me to see exactly what you saw,” Anna said, tucking her golden brown hair behind her ears.
I squinted my eyes as I looked at her, as if that was going to make what she just said clearer to me, which of course it didn’t.
“What I’m going to do is go inside your mind—mentally, not physically.” Anna laughed, but I was still too zoned out to catch on to her joke.
Aiden wasn’t laughing either, so maybe it wasn’t that funny. Which, when it came to Anna, wasn’t that uncommon. Her jokes sucked. Maybe it had something to do with her age; I still had no idea just how old that really was.
Anna cleared her throat at the same time Aiden burst out laughing, which stopped my inner ramblings and made me feel the tiniest bit of guilt over what I had just thought. Something told me that I just might feel a little sorrier tomorrow.
“Anyway,” Anna continued, stopping me from thinking anything else I might regret. “I will be able to see exactly what you saw, so I’ll know precisely what we’re dealing with. Now, this may feel a little strange, but just remember, this is not going to hurt you a single bit.”
“Go for it.” I was still too out of it to care what she did. And at the moment, I didn’t think I was even capable of articulating anything that would describe what I saw, anyway.
Not knowing how long the whole mind reading thing would take, I snuggled into Aiden’s side, mostly trying to get comfortable, but also because I still had the whole loving vibe going on, and I wanted to get as close to him as possible.
Aiden wrapped his arm around me while I rested my head against his chest. Listening to the steady beat of his heart, I waited for the invasion to begin.
It was hard to explain what happened next, because there literally was no explanation in any human language for what it felt like when someone entered your thoughts. One minute my head was my own, and the next I could feel her penetrating my mind. It only lasted about ten seconds, then she was gone.
Anna didn’t say anything straight away; she just sat staring at nothing in particular. Finally, she turned to us, her expression unreadable as I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t.
A couple of seconds later it was Aiden who spoke. “Come on, it’s time for bed.” He squeezed my arm, motioning me to get up.
I was too caught up in the fact that he was about to take me home to care that Anna hadn’t offered up any explanation of my vision. “But I only just woke up,” I whinged. I really did not want to go home. The truth was, I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be with Aiden. At the moment, he was like a security blanket that I couldn’t be without.
Aiden scooped me up into his arms. “Well, lucky for you, you’re not going anywhere,” he said with a smile.
I scrunched my eyebrows together in confusion.
“I called your mum about an hour ago to let her know that you were still asleep. She said to just let you sleep, and she would see you in the morning,” Anna explained.
Mum didn’t have a problem with Aiden and I spending the night together. I think it comforted her to know that I had someone to watch out for me during the nights that she spent working on some new lead.
She wasn’t worried about what went on behind closed doors, either. After all, her parents had been as strict as they came, and she’d ended up sneaking around with a guy, and wound up pregnant with me at fifteen. Her parents freaked. They wanted her to give me up for adoption, but my mum wouldn’t hear of it, thank God. So they gave her an ultimatum. She either had to give me up for adoption or move out. She moved out and into a cheap motel when she was six months pregnant, and somehow raised me as well as found herself a successful career. All without the help of her parents or my biological father, who hadn’t wanted anything to do with her or me once Mum told him she was pregnant. I guess she figured that teenagers would be teenagers.
And tonight, we would definitely be teenagers,
I thought, breathing in his intoxicating smell.
“I’ll just go now,” Anna said, disappearing suddenly .
I looked up at Aiden, waiting for him to explain Anna’s sudden departure.
He laughed. “I guess you forgot that she can hear your thoughts,” he said as he carried me up the stairs.
“Oops,” I whispered, blood filling my cheeks.
“Don’t worry, she wanted to get back to my dad anyway.” He carried me into his room.
“It’s so weird you calling Dave your dad,” I thought out loud.
He set me down on his bed and sat down beside me.
“Do you really want to be talking about my parents right now?” he asked with a mischievous grin. “’Cause I heard that you couldn’t wait to get me alone.” He ran his hand along my thigh, making my whole body quiver beneath his touch.
My heart was racing as I crawled on to Aiden’s lap. Bending forward, I pressed my lips against his. He welcomed me, kissing me passionately. I had never felt like this about anyone before I met Aiden. It was as if every relationship I had before him was meaningless, as if I was just filling in time until he came into my life and awakened all those senses that had been lying dormant.
Aiden ran his hands up my thighs, stopping when he reached the end of my kaftan. He lifted it up over my head and kissed my lips softly before working his way down my neck.
With one hand on my lower back and the other gently supporting the base of my head, he swung me off his body in one smooth motion, carefully lowering me onto my back. He pressed his heaving body against mine, careful not to crush me under his weight. I let my mind succumb to the passion, forgetting about the last few days, and just enjoyed all the love he was sending my way.