Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (24 page)

I gathered she’d succeeded in seducing him
by the next entry. I only stopped to read it because her tone was
different. Not obsessed with him or overly sexual.

It was nothing that I thought it would be.
Because I’d thought it would cost someone a good deal of money or
Julian would creep into my room and try to father the copy himself.
Tonight was everything I thought I wouldn’t have. Romance. Love. A
choice. And it was perfection. No moment in my life can compare. I
couldn’t care less about being a damn agent or what my parents
would think of him anymore. I’d live in this tiny apartment and
love him and only him for the rest of my life.

I folded the corner of the page. Their love
was undeniable in this entry. It also showed a side to breeding
Nathan didn’t seem to know about – that it wasn’t a choice women
hunters made for themselves. They were forced to, and my mother
chose a different life. She chose love.

Indisputable evidence.

“Thank you,” I whispered to her. I took the
deepest breath I’d taken since I was twelve, when I started feeling
like an abomination. Something God and the world hated.

They were crazy, but in love. If this was
who I was a copy of, that wasn’t so bad. She’d learned to kill at
twelve, the same age my powers came, but she stopped, it seemed.
This Catherine didn’t seem like she would’ve wanted to make a copy.
She seemed like she’d have a baby with the man she loved.

The entries that followed were way too much.
She wrote about nothing but their
physical
relationship for
nearly seventy pages.

“Seriously?” I said. “You couldn’t have torn
these out before you showed this to me?” I didn’t expect her to
come out now. It was 12:30 in the morning, my birthday, and I was
avoiding pages that would’ve taught me how they’d made me if I
didn’t already know. She had to be somewhere hiding in shame right
now. Raymond too.

The next entry I stopped on seemed safe to
read and happy.

We got married today. He proposed this
morning and we were on our honeymoon by sundown. It’s not legal,
but we bought rings and exchanged them after the vows. We were
alone, we’re always alone, but it was amazing. He hasn’t said my
name all day. It’s just wife this, wife that. I love it. He
couldn’t have given me a better 17
^th
birthday present.

She was married at my age. I couldn’t
imagine being married. They were so young, and it couldn’t be too
long before I came along. There were only a few pages left since
I’d skipped most of the diary.

I haven’t written in over a year. I found
this diary in a box of old things we never unpacked
, she wrote.
So she’d be eighteen now.
I read it, all of it. I let him read
it too. We laughed about how insane we were, and he thinks I should
start writing again since life is getting so stressful. Stressful
doesn’t even begin to describe it. Julian has threatened me and he
knows I’m with someone. Not to mention magical kind have completely
lost their minds, and apparently no one can stop them. And I know
Julian could, maybe he’s too concerned with finding me to
care.

He told my dad I owed him at least one copy.
That he made me what I am and I ran away before he benefited. Dad
has given him millions to leave me alone. Mom finally told me that.
Dad would never admit it, even if he were speaking to me. He hasn’t
said more than ten words to me since I quit training without
telling him. It was impossible to do that and be a good wife, so I
said goodbye to my dreams of being an agent. I’m happier. I love my
husband more than anything in this world. In any world. He lives in
hiding with me and never complains. It’s been months since we’ve
seen humans other than my parents during awkward, silent dinners. I
promised him it wouldn’t be forever. Julian will give up one day. I
know he will. Then we’ll be a normal couple, even have normal
kids.

My heart jumped to my throat. I was starting
to see where this was going. How they died.

Since Dad finally convinced Mom to ignore me
too, I went to the house. It was empty, but I found them easily.
She answered the door and said ‘May I help you?’ like she didn’t
know me. She didn’t. She stared for a second, but it never came to
her.

I told her my name, and she said I had the
wrong house. She said they had no children. Then Dad came out, just
as clueless. Then he remembered something, not that I was his only
child, but that a piece of mail had come for someone by that
name.

They closed the door in my face, and I sat
on the doorstep and read the letter Dad sent there for me. Julian
threatened to kill them if they didn’t bring me to him, and now
they’re hiding too. He and Mom drank some potion to erase their
memories. He wanted to keep their minds safe in case Julian ever
found them. Apparently, this was the only way to keep my location
and husband a secret.

He apologized for everything, shutting me
out for the last few months, even sending me to Julian all those
years ago. He blamed himself. He told me where to find money to
keep me stable for the rest of my life. He finally admitted how
much he liked my husband, and he begged me not to undo what he’d
done. At least for as long as Julian was obsessed with me.

I knocked on the door and asked to hug them
both. They let me, with curious faces, and I went home to my love.
He held me all night. I didn’t say a word. I do that a lot lately,
just sit and stare. And he’ll sit and stare with me, being
everything I need. Now I only have him. He’s always only had me. I
love him more than life, and because of me, he could be killed.
Julian believes he is the only reason I won’t give him a copy. I’d
do anything to keep him safe, even allow my parents to forget me. I
wrote a poem long ago about what would happen to me without him.
And if Julian wants me dead, this is how to do it: take my husband,
take my life.

The rest of the pages were blank. She wrote
nothing else. Nothing about me. I tried to fill in the blanks on my
own. They must have stayed in hiding and had me. CC knew how to see
the future, so she knew when Julian was coming and brought me to
St. Catalina. But if she could save me, why not save herself? And
Raymond too?

“CC?” I whispered into the air, crying now.
I shivered and opened the laptop. “Did Julian find you?”

After an excruciating minute, she typed:
Yes
.

“My grandparents too?”

Yes.

“Oh my God. A hunter killed my entire
family.” I grabbed a pillow and hugged it against my chest. She
typed as I cried into it. I lifted my head to look at the
screen.

Not exactly
.

“What do you mean? He killed my
grandparents?”

Yes
.

“My parents?” I waited a whole minute. She
didn’t answer. “Did he kill your husband?”

Yes
.

Julian killed her husband … but not my
parents. He didn’t kill her. Because of the poem, and her many
pledges to not live without him, I asked, “How did you die?” Her
chilly hand touched mine, and I shattered. “He died first, and you
did it yourself after you brought me to New Haven, didn’t you?” My
chest burned as I waited for her answer. I thought about the times
I didn’t want to live. I’d never gotten far enough to plan it, it
hurt too much to think about for more than a minute, but after
reading her diary, I knew Catherine would go through with it.

Can’t say. He doesn’t want me to upset you
too much on your birthday. How I died doesn’t matter. It only
matters that you know that the shifter has no idea what breeding is
about and that you are not a monster.

“Then what’s wrong with me!? I want to hurt
people. I get so angry. I … literally have to fight to be
happy.”

She rubbed and froze my back before typing
her reply.

You inherited a powerful mind. If I were
you, I would stop thinking and saying such horrible things about
myself. Seeing as how your thoughts can very easily become
reality.

“You
killed
yourself, and you’re
giving
me
advice?” I said. “You should have changed the way
you
thought, the things you were saying to yourself and
writing in your diary. I inherited more than a powerful mind. I
inherited
your
crazy.”

You inherited an attitude problem, I see.
I’ve upset you, I’m sorry. I promised him I’d leave you alone now,
but I’ll come if you call me.

“And … that’s it?” I whispered. “You don’t
have anything else to say to me?”

Maybe I should add that your ancestors are
rolling over in their graves as the heir to their fortune houses
magical freeloaders.

I grunted and slammed the laptop shut,
giving up on having a mother-daughter moment beyond the few kisses
she’d given me.

“At least I know they like me,” I said. “Go
away.” She left, and I brought the diary back to the door in my
closet.

Back in my bed, I cried because I’d let
myself care about them. Before, they were nameless evil creatures,
then nameless evil hunters. Now that I knew their story, I felt
cheated. She’d learned to love but didn’t extend that to me.

I’d met my own mother and still hadn’t ever
been told
I love you
. She wasn’t emotional to talk to the
daughter she hid. She’d given me three kisses, but insulted Nate
and my friends, and her husband hadn’t come out at all.

I
was
a copy, technically, but for
different reasons than I’d thought. For different reasons than my
silly
shifter boyfriend told me. I probably wasn’t bred to
kill. I was just born at an inconvenient time to parents who loved
each other more than they loved me.

Fear filled every space inside of me as I
lay there. I had more to worry about than Lydia Shaw. Julian was a
hunter. If he knew I was Catherine’s hidden child, he’d finally
have what he’d thought she owed him, a copy.

I’d been afraid before. Of God, of his
wrath. But nothing turned my stomach more than the thought of
sitting in a lonely cell, being made to kill, copied myself. I
shivered, thinking of how terrifying it must be to be forced to
sleep with someone you don’t love and give birth to children who
wouldn’t be treated like children at all.

I could only hope Nate would understand
this.

I didn’t sleep at all. The sun was up, and I
was still crying, more petrified of the hunters than ever. And
Catherine’s death weighed on me, the heaviest of all my worries.
She’d taken her own life and left me alone. My birth didn’t change
the fact that she couldn’t live without Raymond. I really didn’t
want to have to tell Nate that I was a copy of someone who
committed suicide. He’d assume exactly what I was assuming now …
that I was capable of that too.

I’d have to say:
Hi, babe. I’m a copy …
the thing you said was the worst thing ever. Good news, even though
I’ve wanted to kill several times, I might not be a vicious
murderer, unless I somehow speak it into existence. Bad news, my
ex-hunter mother was nuts and eventually killed herself. Oh … and
in addition to Lydia freaking Shaw looking for me, I’ll also have
to hide from hunters that would want to breed me and kill
you.

Then he’d run away from the crazy girl with
the crazy life.

I wrapped myself in the comforter like a
burrito, pledging to never come out. If I never saw him again, I
wouldn’t have to tell him.

Of course, Sophia unwrapped me when she came
in. She dried my tears and kissed my forehead.

“Some nights will be harder than others, but
you’ll get out of this,” she said. “Depression won’t win.” I
nodded, going along with her assumption. “I was watching the news.
Is it because of what today is?”

“Not really. I forgot about my
birthday.”

She rested her hand on my cheek and smiled.
“I hope this will be the happiest day of your life.”

“Thanks,” I said, knowing it probably
wouldn’t be.

I climbed out of bed so she’d stop looking
at me like I was about to slit my wrists. “Did you hear Lydia Shaw
say she had leads on the news?”

It was silent for a moment, then she
laughed. “I’m sure that’s just what she has to say to keep the
world from having a panic attack.”

I followed her into the bathroom. She
sprayed cleaner on the spotless mirror and set a rag in motion that
continued to streak across the glass on its own.

“Did you hear her say she knows?” I asked,
taking my mind off of the harmless magic I wished I had. “She said
knows
. Like she
knows
, knows. Doesn’t it freak you
out that she’s psychic? Couldn’t her powers lead her here?”

Sophia froze, and her rag paused on the
mirror mid wipe. For a moment, I thought she was going to scream
and tell me to run. But she smiled, and the rag started up
again.

“What on Earth made you think a crazy thing
like that?” she asked.

“I thought about it last night after she
said she
knew
I was somewhere alive and well. And it’s not
crazy. They have powers. Nathan told me.”

Her eyes cut to me when I said his name. I
kept my eyes up so I wouldn’t look guilty. “You two are good
friends, I see,” she said. I swallowed hard and nodded. “Good.” She
said
good
, but her tone said,
I’m watching you
. “And
I swear you’re safe here, sweetheart. I give it a few more days
until they give up and call off the search. And she doesn’t
know
where you are. I know how to protect myself and this
entire situation from psychic readings or any other hunter trick. I
understand they won the war, but give my magic a little credit,
dear. Trust me. There are no leads.”

I sighed but let it go, wanting to trust her
and be safe and ignore the feeling that told me that I
knew
that I wasn’t.

I still didn’t trust her enough to tell her
about the blood test or my parents. I really liked Sophia, but
something wasn’t right with how she looked at me at times. Now was
one of those times.