Hidden (Hidden Series Book One) (36 page)

“Thanks. If you speak with her, please tell
her to call.”

“I will. Oh, and … Emma, could you tell
Nathan I said hi and that I’m sorry?”

“Sure.”

I decided to watch the teen movies instead
of surveillance. The next one on the stack was the same as the last
two, just with a soccer team and kissing at the state championship.
I couldn’t lie. I liked them all. I changed it out for the next
movie about the antics of the ghost of a homecoming queen. I called
Sophia while the previews rolled.

She answered on the first ring.

“Hi, love. Did you eat lunch?” I um-hummed
slowly. I shouldn’t have been surprised that I could reach her when
they couldn’t. “How can I help you?”

“Emma called. They’re worried. Where are
you?”

“In California getting your house ready.”
She sighed and paused. “No more lies. I
was
getting your
house ready, but now I’m trying to locate Remi. We are having
trouble finding her and Liam. All we know is that they’re looking
for you. Obviously there’s nothing to worry about since you’re safe
at your mother’s house.”

I groaned. “Don’t call her that. Please,
call her Lydia.”

“Okay, love. I will. And I’ll be done soon
and will be there to make you a nice dinner. You aren’t scared, are
you?”

“A hunter is after me … besides that and
everything else, I’m fine. Don’t forget to call Emma.” She agreed,
but it felt like she wasn’t about to call her. I heard the worry in
her voice. She was too focused on work right now to answer the
phone for her family.

I put my phone on the table, trying to
forget about everything but the movie on the screen.

The newly crowned homecoming queen hopped
into her pink convertible and sped down a dark road. Poor thing. As
her car flipped, my cell phone beeped.

One new message from Nathan.

I took a deep breath and flipped the phone
open. My thumbs shuddered, trying to get to the message.

Hey, Chris
.

Chris! Not Leah. I exhaled loudly and
smiled. I replied,
Hi. I’m so sorry. Are you still mad?
I
almost died waiting on his response.

No, baby. Where are you?
he texted
back, two minutes later.

“Thank you, God!” He’d realized like Sophia
had said he would, and of course I would forgive him for running
away from me. No question.

Paris. Long story. I love you.

I love you too. I miss you like crazy. I’m
dying. I need to see you right now. It can’t wait.

I looked around and rolled my eyes. I wanted
to see him too, but I knew Sophia wouldn’t bring him here.

I replied:
Sophia will be here before too
long. I’ll ask her to bring me to you.

No. I’m in New Orleans. I just had Paul
bring me to the house to see you. I thought you were still here.
Please come see me. I’m going crazy from being away from you.

I stopped the movie, smiling. At least
something could go right in my life. I could still have him, the
first person to love me. Well, the first person I knew to love
me.

Okay, baby. I’ll see you in a sec
, I
replied.

I ran to get dressed up, even though he’d
mostly seen me in sweats. I pulled on nice jeans and a black lace
shirt I’d never worn. I rolled my eyes when I slipped my feet in
the pumps from yesterday. I was doing way too much. He already
seemed over it, but I needed to make sure I’d get my boyfriend
back.

I brushed my hair into a ponytail. Searching
for pins to make it tighter, I found a tube of lipstick. Red
lipstick. I slicked it on and smiled. Hopefully, I was about to
smear it all over his lips.

I closed my eyes and opened them in front of
the mirror in my bathroom. Well … Cecilia and Vincent’s
bathroom.

“Nate?” I called as I walked down the steps
to the second floor. CC met me instead. I shook my head at her.
“Later,” I whispered. “We can talk later.” I knocked on his door.
It was open but empty. “Nate?” Now Vincent was behind me, I could
feel his taller chill as he grabbed my hand. “I know we need to
talk, but I’ll come back after I handle this, okay?”

He followed me down to the first floor. I
thought maybe the doors were locked and Nate couldn’t get in.

I went out to the patio, alone now. The sun
was setting on a quiet and normal day here. Calm and easy like I
needed my life to be.

“Nate?”

He didn’t answer. I’d forgotten my phone in
Paris, so I couldn’t call him to see where he was or reread the
text to make sure I hadn’t misunderstood him. While I waited, I
planned what I would say to him. I walked around to the pool,
remembering my birthday night. Maybe I’d bring that up. I just
needed to convince him of how much I loved him. Well, that I could
love at all.

Or maybe I could write him a letter telling
him I was glad he was born like he’d told me. That was the moment I
realized how deeply I was in love with him. Or maybe, since he was
a goofball, I’d get some eggs from the fridge and pretend to
scramble them on the concrete. Maybe it would ease the tension.
Then we’d kiss, hopefully.

I heard whispers and smiled. He had to be
walking this way, maybe on the phone or talking to Paul too softly
for my ears.

“Hey, babe,” said the wrong voice. I jumped
and spun around. Remi smiled, decked out in black leather. “Don’t
you
look nice. Got a date or something?”

“Where’s Nathan?”

“You’ll see him soon enough,” she said.
“This was too easy. All I had to do was use Sparky’s phone and you
came running to me. Well to him, because you’re a slut. What kind
of girl comes over from a text?”

She took one step forward, I took two back,
and she laughed.

“So you turned yourself in, but you still
wanted to see your boy-toy, right? I’m so happy. You almost ruined
things for me.” Her tone seeped into my ears, speeding my heart,
and awakened my darker side, my furious side. She stepped up again.
I didn’t move this time. “Oh! There she is. I’m tempting you, like
you told me not to. Show me what you got, show me some magic.”

She did
not
want to see what I
had.

She shoved my shoulder. I shoved right back,
but harder. Then she had the audacity to slap me. Me … the girl who
could debone her.

For the quickest second, I considered
restraining Leah or Lydia or whoever the villain inside of me was,
but I’d done that enough over the years. Suddenly, Remi had long
blonde hair like Sienna, then short black hair like Whitney. Then
her face and hair changed to the countless other girls who’d joined
in on the Leah bashing. Everyone who thought being called a lesbian
was hilarious and loved to see me fall and scream.

My hands clutched her throat before I felt
them move. I brought her to the ground easily; I used more than my
hands to get her there. I grabbed a fist full of her hair and
slammed her head against the edge of the pool for the slap. Then
again for bringing the hunter to my house and ruining my life. Then
harder for those girls who I’d never get to punish.

It looked like she was screaming. I couldn’t
hear it, but I did see the blood running into the pool. I thought
about pushing her into the water and holding her under, but I
didn’t. I guessed Lydia hadn’t made me a killer. When it came down
to it, I didn’t want Remi to die.

I just wanted to beat her ass.

Considering what I could have done, I’d
taken it easy on her. I’d been moving things since I was an infant.
I supposed I could have moved her heart out of place. I had a lot
of power packed in my little body, according to Sophia, so really
Remi should be grateful that I only busted her face up.

But I still wasn’t prepared for her to smile
as she rolled over, blood slithering from her nose to her mouth,
coating her teeth. She laughed. Before I could react to the new
whispers in the air, a needle pierced my neck.

“She’s going to be pretty useful once we get
this magic out of her,” Liam said.

I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body
stiffened. Like if I fell, I’d shatter like glass.

“I want to drown her. Just kick her in. I’ve
already brought in three today,” Remi said. She got up and reached
for me. I couldn’t feel her hands. I couldn’t feel my own.

“No, I like this one,” Liam said. “And you
promised four.”

She dropped me by the pool. I tried to open
my mouth to scream, something, but I couldn’t. I was numb, shackled
there, this weak, vulnerable body on the pavement. As they argued
over Remi killing me or not, my vision blurred.

It felt like I was dying … and that felt
nothing like what I’d dramatically called death before. This was
quiet and slow. It didn’t burn. It felt empty. Like everything was
drifting away from me.

And all I wanted, of all things to want, was
my mother. I wanted her to hold me. Sing to me. I wanted to smell
the most calming scent there was in the world. I wanted to tell her
what I hadn’t before. That I missed her. Even though I didn’t
remember her face, the moment I smelled her I knew I’d been missing
her for a long time.

I remembered that feeling, of wondering
where she was, of hoping if I screamed enough she would come back
to me. I remembered when that hope faded, when she faded from my
infantile brain, only leaving whispers of herself behind – her
scent and her song.

Tears poured from my eyes, but I couldn’t
wipe them. I still couldn’t move.

To say I couldn’t feel any part of my body,
I’d never been so in touch with myself. I knew what was wrong with
me now. Why I’d been so quiet as a child, what had made me so sad
and lonely. I could call it depression, or an inherited
personality, or both. But I was overwhelmingly sure that at the
heart of it, I was just a girl who really missed her mother.

Liam ordered Remi to pick me up. For a
moment, I thought I was going into the pool, about to meet the
exact death she’d saved me from – a hunter drowning me – but we
moved from my backyard instead.

It was darker where we landed. Bricks raced
passed my eyes as she carried me down a hall. A squeaky joint told
me a door had been opened.

“Remi, you need to get to the infirmary. You
can’t go in his quarters looking like that,” Liam said. His
quarters? “Especially not when you have four offerings. He won’t be
pleased.”

Offerings?

She slammed me down on the cold brick floor.
I heard gasps and some commotion. “Get back!” Liam screamed. “Remi,
insert her needle. I won’t be here to do it for you every time.”
Remi kneeled in front of me, her face still bloody. “You don’t have
time for a stare off. Get it done.”

I barely felt her grab my dull arm. She
fumbled around on the ground, and Liam smacked his lips. It sounded
like several things made of glass dinged on the floor but didn’t
break.

“You need to be smarter than what you are if
you’re going to make it here,” Liam said. “This is a simple blood
test needle. Something you’ll do every day. No one asked you to do
anything difficult … yet.” He sighed, and Remi scrambled to find a
vein on my arm. “I see several, Remi. Hurry!” I felt a prick. Remi
bit a piece of tape off and secured the needle in place. “Clean
this mess up when you come back. We need to rush to get you fixed
since you let this tiny girl beat you up.”

The door slammed, and I tried to roll over
to my back. I felt too heavy to move.

“Christine!” Emma said.

She pulled me up and propped me against the
wall. I could see the room then. The walls were made of old red
bricks with chains coming from them. One was attached to Emma’s
ankle. Paul’s too. There was a pale, almost blue, man asleep and
chained in the corner. Next to him was a dark skinned woman with a
little girl in her arms. She couldn’t have been older than five.
And in the last corner, Nathan. He stared at me with sad eyes. I
had to look away.

“How did she find you in Paris?” Emma
asked.

I pried my mouth open against the immense
pressure.

“I came back to the house because … I
thought Nathan texted me to come see him.”

“I don’t have my phone,” he whispered. I
nodded. That would have been nice to know before I went to New
Orleans like an idiot. “You beat up Remi?”

I wanted to deny it, but I nodded again. He
looked at the ground. Still disgusted by me, I guessed.

Whatever Liam stabbed me with was wearing
off. I could feel the stinging needle more. Then I saw the needles
in all of their arms except the sleeping man. Even the little
girl’s.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“I heard them say they need to blood test us
before we can be offered since the lead hunter doesn’t hurt humans.
Just us,” Paul said.

That would work well for me, but they would
find magic in their blood.

“Are they watching us?” I asked. They all
shook their heads. “No cameras?”

“None,” Paul said. “I don’t think these
humans need things like that. They only need our blood and a
flame.”

“But Remi knows you guys,” I said. “Why
would she need to test you?”

“She knows us, he doesn’t. He needs proof,”
Paul said.

I saw the glass vials Remi had spilled on
the ground, and I got an idea that could keep us alive, at least
until Sophia noticed we were missing. Or Lydia. “I’ll give you my
blood. Those are empty. We’ll fill them up and use them for your
tests.”

“You can’t do that. You’ll pass out,” Nathan
said.

“Someone, hook a few up to my arm. Quick,” I
said, ignoring him.

“You’re human?” the woman asked. I nodded.
“Please, do one for my daughter. I won’t even ask for me.
Please.”

The woman crawled to me, her daughter curled
and afraid in her lap. She took one of the empty vials from the
ground and hooked it to my arm.

“Do one for yourself, too,” I whispered. “If
she makes it, and you don’t…” I paused, about to choke on my
words.