Tormented (Evolution Series Book 2) (15 page)

The bullet in her brain inhibits her body from producing more blood.

Your goal is to pass each test.

If you don’t…

Another bag of blood will be drawn.

The screen went black again. A moment later, four little words appeared on the screen.
Four words that would change everything.

Welcome to the game…

DD

CHAPTER 14

If Aiden hadn’t been holding me up, I would’ve collapsed. My mind kept racing with possibilities of what he had meant by “Welcome to the game.”

Dave switched off the TV. “I wish I could say, ‘Don’t worry about it,’ and that he was probably just messing with you, but I don’t think he’s just trying to scare you.” He was still holding the bag of my mother’s blood. “Sorry,” he said, then returned the bag to the fridge. “It’s probably a good idea if we keep it chilled.”

I sat on the lounge and pulled my knees up to my chest. My mother’s life was literally being sucked out of her. He had already taken one bag, which only left three more until her body shut down. Aiden and Anna sat on either side of me, placed their hands on mine, and sent some much needed calming endorphins my way.

“Thanks,” I said, letting them know when I’d had enough. I sure as hell didn’t need to pass out from an overdose.

“You’re never going to let up about that one, are you?” Anna asked sheepishly.

I forced a smile. “Never.”

Dave ejected the disc from the DVD player,
then
sat on the adjacent sofa. “I want to get this to Kai so he can have a look. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find something that might tell us who this prick is. Or maybe he’ll be able to find a clue to where your mum is.”

Anna turned to me, her green eyes glistening with threatened tears. “Hey.” She placed her hand on my leg, but didn’t send more endorphins. “I know this is a big shock, finding out that your mum’s still alive. How about us oldies get out of your hair for a while? Dave and I will go see what Kai can find out, and you just stay here and try to clear your head.”

I nodded, and they disappeared.

“Come here.” Aiden pulled me down so that my back was resting against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” I said softly, but then changed my mind. “I can’t believe she lied to me all these years. She knew what she and I were and didn’t bother to tell me. I mean
,
if she had, then I wouldn’t have left her lying on the floor while we disappeared to Thailand. We could have helped her.”

“She must have had her reasons.”

I scoffed. “What? Did she think that I wasn’t going to eventually notice that she still looked the same age, or that
I
would never age past my mid-twenties?”

“I don’t know.”

I sat up and turned to face Aiden. “She even lied about her job, for Christ’s sake. Why would she do that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He picked up my hand and laced his fingers with mine. “Just look at it this way, your mum’s alive. Right now, we need to concentrate on finding her, and then you can ask her all this yourself.”

Aiden was right, which only made me mad at myself. There I was consumed with thoughts about my mum
lying
to me all my life when I was missing the bigger picture—she was alive. For the past few weeks, I had been grieving for her when she wasn’t even dead. She was out there somewhere, and it was up to me to find her.

The words “Welcome to the game” played on my mind again, erasing all the feelings of betrayal and replacing them with the deepest dread imaginable. “What do you think it means?”

Aiden shifted in his seat. “I don’t know. I just hope that we’re able to work out who’s doing this before we find out.”

“Me, too,” I whispered,
then
snuggled back into Aiden’s side. I sat there staring at the TV screen, wondering how someone could manipulate me into not wanting to turn it on ever again.

“How about we go for a walk?”

I screwed up my face as if that was the worst idea ever. I so didn’t feel like stepping out in the cold weather. Actually, I didn’t feel like doing anything at all. All I wanted to do was wallow in my own self-pity for all the mistakes I had made, and why I couldn’t have seen what my own mother was sooner.

“The fresh air will do you some good.” Aiden stood up. “And you don’t get much fresher than in the middle of an English country town.”

Ever since I had stepped out onto the balcony when we first arrived, I had wanted to explore their “garden,” as the English would call it. But the cold weather was a bit of a turn off. “Before you say anything, yes, I remember what Dave said, our bodies can adjust to the cold so that we don’t feel it.”

Aiden grinned. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Yeah, right.” I got up off the sofa. “I think I will put on a coat just in case. Do you know if my shopping bags are still downstairs?”

“Nope. Bernard put them in the wardrobe for you.”

God, I hoped he hadn’t put away my new underwear.

“Don’t worry. He didn’t.”

I sighed with relief. I really didn’t like the idea of someone going through my knickers.

A devilish smile spread across his face. “But he did take them downstairs to wash them for you.”

“What!” Ever since I was twelve, I had done my own washing, and the thought of someone handling my knickers just grossed me out, even if the person was paid to do it.

Aiden laughed. “You’re pathetic.”

“I am not.”

“Well, I’m sure Bernard will be happy to know that he doesn’t have to do your washing, too.”

I fetched my new coat out of the walk-in wardrobe and joined Aiden out on the balcony. He was only wearing a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

“Where do you want to start?” he asked, looking down at the garden.

“Let me guess… we’re not going to be walking out the front door?”

I leaned against the railing. “How about down by the water, and then we can work our way back up to the house and actually use the front door to come back inside?”

“If you insist.” He came up behind me and grabbed me around the waist before we disappeared.

The next thing I knew, we were standing at the water’s edge at the start of a thirty-
metre
-long pier. Aiden grabbed my hand, and we walked the wooden planks. Just short of the end of the pier was a gazebo that had timber benches lining the right side of the railing and a massive table and chairs in the
centre
.
Pull-down shade blinds hung on all sides of the gazebo, which looked to have never been used. After all, we were in England, and from what I’d seen since I arrived, there wasn’t much sun.

“We have to go fishing again,” a voice called from behind us.

I turned around to find Lucas leaning over the railing, looking into the water. He was only wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt as well. What the hell was wrong with these people?

Lucas laughed. “I guess you’re not convinced of what our bodies can really do, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Do you fish?” Lucas asked.

“Uh huh.”

“She’ll out-fish you any day,” Aiden said, making me sound better than I really was.

Lucas raised his eyebrows. “That sounds like a challenge.” He sat down on the top rail and propped his feet on the lower one. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Fishing?” I asked, knowing where the conversation was heading. I was about to have to prove Aiden right. I just hoped there were actually fish in that water.

I found it odd how Lucas had the ability to make me forget about my worries and just enjoy the moment. I wondered if that was some sort of special ability he had, or if it was just his charismatic personality.

“Nah, it’s just his personality. He makes you forget about what’s going on because he’s always so fixated in the moment.” Aiden wrapped his arms around me and shifted so I stood between him and Lucas. “Personally, I think he has a touch of ADD.”

Lucas scowled. “You’re just lucky you have Jade there for your protection. Otherwise, you would be going for a swim.”

I thought about transporting myself out of the way.

Aiden squeezed me tighter. “You do that, and I’ll make sure you come with me.”

“That’s if you can catch me,” I said before quickly disappearing.

Both Lucas and Aiden had obviously anticipated my move, so when I reappeared, Aiden was there waiting.

“I really
gotta
learn to block my thoughts, don’t I? Unless…” A thought came to me. I seemed to be the only person who could transport myself to
someone
rather than to a place.

Aiden shook his head. “Don’t you—”

Before he could finish his sentence, I began to transport myself to Anna, but stopped before I completely phased out. “I can’t believe I didn’t think about this sooner,” I muttered. If I could transport myself to anyone, anywhere in the world, why couldn’t I transport myself to my mother? I turned around in Aiden’s arms to face him. “Could it be that simple?”

He gave a little shrug. “I guess it could.”

“You can really do that?” Lucas asked.

Ignoring Lucas’s question, Aiden said, “But I don’t like the idea of it.”

I pulled my eyebrows together in confusion. “How so?”

“Well, don’t you think that he might be expecting you?”

“I can be in and out in a second. He probably won’t even
realise
I was there until I’ve already gone.”

The look in Aiden’s eyes made me think twice about potentially handing myself over to some psycho again. The last time I had transported myself, albeit unknowingly, to Chelsea, Aiden had to be the one to come to my rescue before her kidnapper got too far in carving me up. I had promised him that I would never put myself in danger again, but things were different. My mum was in danger. And if there was any possibility that my idea might work, I had to try.

He shook his head. “Then at least take me with you.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Aiden turned to Lucas. “If we’re not back in two minutes, go tell Mum and Dad what happened.”

Lucas looked nervous, which seemed a little out of character for him. “Okay. But be careful.”

Without giving myself a chance to chicken out, I closed my eyes and thought of my mum, but something was different. I couldn’t feel the usual connection from when I thought of the person I wanted to transport myself to. I opened my eyes, and we were still standing on the pier. I stepped back from Aiden’s embrace. “Why won’t it work?”