Taken Over (Book 2 The Ravening Series) (8 page)

   “I loved him Aiden. I loved him with every
ounce
of my being. I loved him with a joy and wonder that I never even knew could exist.” I turned my gaze back to my brother, needing him to understand
.
N
eeding him to see I was not a silly child harboring a
fierce
crush, or a wounded person
with
survivor’s guilt. “I knew what soul
mate meant with Cade.”

   Though I knew Aiden loved
me
, and realized that I was far more mature than almost anybody my age, I could see the pity in his gaze. It was that exact look I had feared,
that
look was the reason I had never talked about my feelings for Cade. “I know that the two of you went through some intense shared experiences…”

  
“Don’t.” I interrupted sharply. “Don’t you dare minimize what happened between us, or what I feel for him. I am
telling
you what I feel for him, what I will
always
feel for him. I am telling you what was, is, and always will be. I loved him from the first time I saw him, I loved him when he first taught me to fish,
and
when he insisted that I be allowed to play with
the two of
you. I loved him when he was broken by his parent’s deaths and took to avoiding us. The night of father’s funeral he came and sat with me in the garden for hours. It was the first time I had spoken with him in
two
years.”

   “I didn’t know that,”
Aiden
whispered, looking slightly surprised by my words.

   “Throughout that whole horrendous time he was the first person I cried in front of, the
only
person I cried in front of.”

   Aiden’s eyes narrowed on me, his gaze became sharper
,
more questi
oning. “
I didn’t know you had cried
.”

   “He never came back
after that night
. At first I kept going to the garden, hoping that he would return, but he never did. I was hurt
in the beginning
, wounded by his rejection
but time
,
and the struggle that our lives became
,
eased it. And eventually I forgot about that night, eventually I moved on. Eventually I even started dating Bret, but you know how much I resisted that, how
fairly
platonic our relationship truly was. At first I didn’t understand why
it was like that
, why
I
was like that
.
E
very girl in school thought I was crazy for not agreeing to go out with
Bret right away
, and then for being so
distant with him
once I did agree
.”

   “Bethany…”
   “And then
Cade
touched
me Aiden.” I couldn’t stop now, once I had opened the bottle o
n the
emotions
I had been suppressing,
I couldn’t stop them from
pouring
out of me.
I seized hold of his hand, desperate for him to understand, desperate for him to
see
why
I was so broken. And maybe, just maybe, he could even forgive me for being
so lost
.
I wanted him to know that I had not abandoned him, or Abby, that I did not
want
to die but that I simply couldn’t breathe, or even
be
anymore because part of me was lost forever.
A
part of me had been killed with Cade.

  
“Then
Cade
pulled me into that antique store, and held me, and he kissed me…” I broke off, knowing this was not stuff Aiden wanted to hear. I swallowed heavily before continuing. “And
everything
made sense.
I was whole for the first time
in so long
, whole in a way I never knew I could be.
My
indistinct feelings toward Bret, the strange emptiness inside of me, it all made sense because what I had been missing all along was Cade. With him it was so easy, so beautiful, and so
absolute
.
E
ven my
guilt
,
and lingering
sorrow over surviving th
at
car when dad didn’t, weren’t anywhere near as bad
when he was holding me
. With him everything
was better
, even
with
the world falling apart around us.

   “It was
true
Aiden, you must believe that. You have to also believe that though I am empty without him, I will do everything I can to come back to you and Abby. I love you; I don’t want either of you to experience anymore pain. I
’
m
broken
, but I
will
survive
and I will continue to keep on living.
P
lease believe me when I tell you that I do
not
have a death
wish.”

  
Aiden’s eyes were fille
d with a sorrow that tore at me
.
T
here were tears in his eyes, tears I knew he would later shed for Cade and I. Tears
that I
was unable to
shed for us. “I didn’t know
Bethany
.”

   “I know.”

   “I’m
sorry
.
I wish I could take this from you, I truly do. I’m your older brother, I should be protecting you
.
I should be the stronger one of the two of us, not you.”

   I frowned at him, confused by his words. “But you
are
the stronger one Aiden.”
   “You saw dad die, and you never cried. You saw Cade die, and you never cried.” I winced at his words, shying away from the awful memories they aroused. “You
are
the stronger one Bethany.”

   I bit on my bottom lip as I shook my head. “No Aiden
.
T
hat just makes me the colder one.”

   The sadness in his eyes was almost more than I could bear. I embraced him tightly, knowing that I had to leave before I couldn’t
. “I love you Bethy,” he said, cradling my head gently.

   “I love you too Aiden. I’ll see you soon.”

   “I know.”

CHAPTER 4

   With just the four of us, we ma
d
e pretty good time. If the terrain allowed
,
there were times we were able to jog for a couple of miles at a time before having to take a break. Lloyd would have been able to make even better time without us, b
ut
he never became irritated
with our slower
abilities
. According to the GPS it was a little over twenty miles to the hospital. I wished that we could do it all in one day, but I knew eventually
we would become tired, hungry, and more than likely come across some form of danger.

   I still held out
some small
hope that we wouldn’t
run into anything
.
The sooner this was over and done with, the happier I would be. Jenna was the first to tire. She had changed a lot from when the aliens had first attack
ed
, but she had always been a girly girl and some habits were hard to break. Physical exercise was still not one of her
favorite things, but she had been trying to adapt to our new world. That was the only reason I didn’t become annoyed when she asked for a break after only five miles.

   She settled onto the ground, panting slightly as she wiped the sweat from her brow. I still didn’t understand why she had
insisted
on
com
ing
with us in the first place, but I wasn’t going to push he
r
.
There were things I preferred to keep secret also. Maybe she had simply wanted to escape the warehouse
,
and the people
,
for a bit. I had a feeling it had more to do with wanting to stay near Bret, but she surprisingly hadn’t pursued that relationship as aggressively as I
’d
thought she would after our break up. Though I suspected she had
stayed away
because Bret was
mistakenly
convinced
that we would
still
get back together
again
one day
.

   Bret handed Jenna
and I each
a bottle of water and a power bar.
The sun was moving over the horizon, it was getting closer to lunch. “I think we should rest for a couple of hours now. We’ll move
again
later on in the day,” Lloyd said softly.

   “We can’t move as fast at night.”

   “We can’t move as fast in the heat
either
,” Lloyd informed me.

   I frowned but nodded my agreement. He was right, it was September but the day was unseasonably warm.
The heat
would drain our energy
,
and our water
,
far faster than any of us wanted. I settled down against a tree and closed my eyes. I hadn’t slept much last night, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep now. Sleep was a lost commodity to me, one that I had given up on a long time ago. I had actually gotten quite good at dealing with
the depravation,
though I would have welcomed at least a couple
of
minutes
of rest
.
Anymore
time
than that and the dreams
would start.
D
reams that
,
while comforting at the time, left me lost and broken and aching for something I couldn’t
ever
have
again when I awoke
.