Tormented (Evolution Series Book 2) (22 page)

Marie called out, “Can you take up a glass of water for her?” She rushed off to the kitchen before I could answer. She returned after a moment with two glasses of water. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” I took the glasses,
then
went upstairs to Chelsea’s room.

Her door was closed, and a muffled song came from within. I knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, I juggled the glasses into one hand and opened the door with the other. “It’s just me,” I said, stepping inside.

Chelsea lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her right hand held a photo of her and Ben. I couldn’t pick up any thoughts running through her mind, as there was nothing there. At first, I thought that I had lost the ability to hear people’s thoughts, but then I
realised
that she just wasn’t thinking. Her mind was numb from the tragedy of losing her boyfriend.

I put the glasses on her dressing table and dropped my bag down beside it. I then climbed onto the bed and lay down beside her.

After staring at the ceiling for what seemed like ten minutes without either one of us saying anything, I turned my head to face her. “How are you feeling?”

She didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to do. I was clearly out of my league, and I wished that Aiden
was
there to fix things. I rolled onto my side, put my arm over her, and rested my head against hers. A moment later, I felt wetness against my forehead. She was crying.

I didn’t say anything. I just lay there with her while she shed tears for the death of her boyfriend. Soon after her flood gates opened, so did mine. We just cried together until her mind started to function again.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. She wasn’t sorry for crying, but she felt as though she needed to
apologise
for making me sit through it. She knew how much other people’s highly emotional states freaked the crap out of me.

“Don’t be silly. You can cry anytime you want.” While I meant what I said, I still hoped it wasn’t going to happen too often.

Her mood went sullen. She was thinking about what she had said to me down at the beach earlier, and how she wished that those words had never come from her lips. She loved him. And if she had any doubts about it before, she no longer had them.

I wanted to tell her not to feel bad about what she had said, but it would have seemed more than a little weird if I brought it up out of the blue. “You know if there’s anything you want to talk to me about, you can. Right?”

“I know.” But she didn’t.

I sat up and crawled off the bed to get the glasses of water. “Here,” I said, holding one out to her.

She pulled herself up and took the glass. “Thanks.” She took a sip.

I sat back down on the bed with my legs folded underneath me. I was trying to work out how I could get her to open up, or better yet, how I could take the pain away from her, when there was a knock at the door.

Chelsea’s mum opened the door and stood leaning against the doorframe. “How you feeling, honey?”

Chelsea took another sip of water. “I’m okay.”

Marie walked further into the room, stopping just short of the bed. “Um, the police are downstairs. They want to speak with you. I can tell them to come back later if you want?”

“Nah, it’s okay. I may as well get it over with.” Chelsea handed her glass to her mum and climbed off the bed. She walked over to look at herself in the mirror on her dresser. She grabbed a tissue and began dabbing her eyes. There was no way that the tissues were going to make any difference to her swollen, red eyes, and she soon
realised
that and threw them in the waste bin.

“Do you want me stay while they question you?” I asked.

“Nah, you may as well go home. Who knows how long I’ll be downstairs with them.” She grabbed a hair tie off the dresser and tied her hair back into a loose ponytail.

I hopped off the bed and picked up my handbag. “Are you sure?”

“Yep,” she said, turning back to face me. “I’ll give you a call when they leave.”

“You better.” I follow her downstairs.

The police officer
who
had handed me her card was sitting on the sofa. She had agreed to wait until Chelsea was ready to talk before questioning her, but obviously, she hadn’t kept her promise.

“Speak to you soon,” I said to Chelsea before walking out the front door.

“I’m leaving now,”
I said to Aiden.

“I’m already here.”

I walked around the side of her house, ducked behind the same bush that I had emerged from about half an hour ago, and transported myself to Aiden.

He was sitting outside on the sun lounge with a glass of Coke in hand, looking out at the seaway. “How is she?”

I dumped my bag on the ground next to his chair,
then
sat down on the lounge next to his. “She’s better than she was when I first arrived. At least now she’s talking.” I wanted to let down my mind barrier so I wouldn’t have to explain what happened, but I knew I couldn’t for fear that someone besides Aiden would be listening in, or worse, searching for something. So I had to tell Aiden about the guilt and pain Chelsea was feeling. In a way, I felt as though I was betraying her confidence, but the moment Aiden was in Chelsea’s presence, he would know everything anyway. And I was hoping that would happen sooner rather than later. It wasn’t fair that Chelsea was feeling guilty as well, and I wanted to take that away from her, except I couldn’t. It would be up to Aiden to save the day once again.

“Why don’t you invite her to stay over here tonight?” Aiden suggested.

“Don’t you think that might not be such a good idea with all that’s going on with us?”

“I don’t think he’ll try anything again so soon.”

“How can you be so sure? The guy’s erratic.”

Aiden tapped his finger against his glass. “Well, think about it. The time lag between when he had that psycho kidnap Chelsea and the attack in Thailand was more than a day apart.”

“Except for my mum. She was shot the afternoon I was released from hospital, on the same day that I escaped the psycho trying to carve me up.”

“I still don’t think he’ll try anything so soon. I think he likes to strike when you’re least expecting it.”

“Like tonight.”

Aiden sighed. “I’m not going to win this one, am I?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “I don’t think we can afford to become too relaxed, ’cause as you said, he’ll probably try something when we least expect it.”

“Well, you know he could have tried something tonight when you were over at Chelsea’s. He clearly doesn’t have a problem with including innocent people in his plans.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. It didn’t matter
who
I was with or where I was, the guy had a plan, and all I could do was try to win the game.

Aiden got up off the sun lounge. “I’m going to get another one,” he said, holding up his empty glass. “Do you want one?”

I nodded. “I’ll have a Coke. Thanks.” I turned to stare out at the moonlight dancing over the water.

A boat sped past with a group of people my age on board. They sounded as though they were having the time of their lives. I was so envious of them. I was supposed to be living the happiest days of my life, where the most important things I should be thinking about were where I wanted to go to
uni
and what I wanted to study. Instead, I had to deal with a psycho who was hell-bent on making my life, and the lives of those I cared about, a living nightmare. I just wanted it to end. But of course, it wasn’t going to end until I figured out who he was and how to stop him. If he was just a normal human, then I stood a chance, but he wasn’t, and I had absolutely no idea what to do.

Aiden walked back outside and handed me a glass of Coke. He then sat down on the sun lounge, swung his legs up, and leaned his head back against the head cushion.

“Hey, did you find out why Lucas disappeared?” I asked.

“Nope. He isn’t around, and he’s not answering his phone.” He swirled the Coke around in his glass, making the ice clink against the sides.

My phone buzzed in my bag. Aiden reached down, picked up my bag, and passed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said, rummaging inside it for my phone. I pulled out my iPhone and looked at the screen—a text from Chelsea.

Hi
Jade
, the police have gone, and I just feel like going to bed - I’ll see you tomorrow??

No worries
Chels
. Let me know if you need anything - even if it’s the middle of the night - okay??

Okay. Night.

Night.

I put my phone down on the cushion beside me. I heard another chime, but it came from Aiden’s phone. He opened his phone and listened for a moment.

“Lucas wants to see us,” Aiden said, putting his phone back in his pocket.

“When?” I asked, hoping it would be later.

He raised his eyebrows and smiled tightly.

“Now?”

Aiden hopped up off the sun lounge. “I’m afraid so.” He went inside, locked the back door, then transported himself back outside. “You ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said with a sarcastic tone. All I felt like doing was being alone, or rather, alone with Aiden.

I took Aiden’s hand and transported us to Lucas. “Holy
friggin
’ shit,” I said when I opened my eyes and found myself looking through a window at the London Eye across the river.

“Oh, yeah,” Lucas said. He walked over to the
french
doors, opened them, and stepped out onto the balcony. “Have you ever been on it?”

I shook my head and followed him. “Nope.”

“Now you’re not a very good host, are you?” he said to Aiden.

Aiden came out onto the balcony and stood next to me, leaning against the stone balustrade. “We’ve kind of had a few other more important things to deal with.”

Lucas walked over and stood on my other side, facing toward his apartment. “Well, maybe once this is all over, we can show you around. You know
,
do all the touristy stuff I know you so want to do.”

“I do not,” I said a little too quickly.

Lucas raised his eyebrows. “And that’s why you reacted like that when you saw the Eye.”

Aiden put his arm around me. “You know, it’s okay to want to do things that will make you happy.” Even though he couldn’t hear my thoughts, it didn’t stop him from being able to know what I was thinking.

“Maybe another day,” I said, dismissing Aiden’s underlying meaning about how guilt-ridden I was feeling. I turned my back to the Eye. “So where did you take off to today?”

“Um…” Lucas’s eyes shifted straight to the ground. “I know there’s no excuse for bailing out on you when…” He paused. “But it’s just…”