Chapter 14
LATER THAT EVENING, I HELD THE CELL PHONE TWO feet from my head and still felt like Seth was yelling in my ear.
“I’m going to kill him!”
“Yeah, you’re not the first one to say that.” I climbed off the couch, scowling at the door. I didn’t need to check to know that Leon stood right outside my room. Thank the gods most of the kids were gone, because having a personal Sentinel guard would make me an even bigger freak. “And it’s pretty sad when I’m the voice of reason.”
“What else do you suggest?” he asked. “He’s the Head Minister, Alex. It’s obvious that he ordered that Guard to attack you.”
“Yeah.” I headed to my bathroom, turning my head to the side. The left side of my cheek was red and slightly swollen. A bit of blue lined my jaw. Jackson had done worse. Telly hit like a girl. I started to smile. “But Aiden said that he doesn’t—”
“Aiden’s an idiot.”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, why didn’t you answer the phone last night?”
“Are you jealous?”
“What? No. It was just weird.”
Seth laughed. “I was busy and it was too late by the time I had a chance to call you. Did you miss me or something?”
Not really. I pushed away from the mirror and went into the bedroom. “Seth, what are you really doing up there?”
“I already told you.” Static filled the line for a few seconds. “Anyway, is that really important right now? You should be worried about Telly.”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “Telly said that you were there to deal with the halfs who were causing problems and weren’t responding to the elixir. Is that true?”
Silence.
Knots started to form in my stomach. “Seth.”
He sighed into the phone. “Alex, that isn’t the problem right now. Telly is.”
“I know that, but I need to know what you’re doing up there.” I plucked at a loose thread in the bedspread. “My dad… I know he wasn’t responding to the—”
“I haven’t even seen your father, Alex. Granted, I really don’t know what he looks like and Laadan isn’t telling. He could be here. He could be gone.”
Anger and frustration rushed to the surface. “What are you doing to the halfs who aren’t responding to the elixir?”
A sound of exasperation traveled through the phone. “What I’ve been ordered to do by the Council, Alex. Take care of them.”
Blood froze in my veins. “What do you mean by ‘take care of them’?”
“Alex, that isn’t important. Look, they’re just half-bloods—”
“What the hell do you think we are?” I stood and started pacing. Again. “We are half-bloods, too, Seth.”
“No,” he replied evenly. “We are the Apollyons.”
“Gods, I wish you were in front of me.”
“I knew you missed me,” Seth said. I could hear his smile.
“No. If you were in front of me, I’d kick you in your junk, Seth. You cannot be okay with… taking care of those halfs! Wrong doesn’t even sum up what that is. It’s disgusting—revolting.”
“I’m not killing anyone, Alex. Gods, what do you really think of me?”
“Oh.” I stopped, feeling my cheeks turn red.
A couple of moments passed in silence. It sounded like Seth was walking somewhere fast. “I’d like to be in your head for just one hour,” he laughed. “No. Forget that. I don’t. You’d kill my self-confidence.”
“Seth—”
“Let’s focus on the important stuff here, which is Telly. I don’t believe he doesn’t have a damn thing. He wouldn’t hold that threat of going after the pure responsible for the compulsion without having something.”
Fear spiked. “You seriously think he has something?”
“Telly is a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid. He waited until he knew that neither Lucian nor I were anywhere near you before he made his move. I wouldn’t be surprised if Telly didn’t screw with the elixir weeks ago as a fallback plan. He needed a distraction and he got one. And Aiden isn’t stupid, either,” he said. “He’s telling you what you need to hear to stop you from doing something stupid.”
Feeling dizzy, I sat back down. “Shit.”
“Listen to me, Alex. None of them—your uncle or Aiden—is important. Stay away from Telly. Let him act on his threat, whether he has proof or not.”
“What?” I stared at the phone as if he could somehow see me, which was kind of dumb. “They’re important to me, Seth.”
“No. Aiden is important to you. In reality, you could care less about the rest,” he corrected.
“That’s not true!”
Seth laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Alex, you’re a terrible liar.”
What the hell? Did everyone think I was prone to acts of stupidity and a terrible liar? But I wasn’t lying. Laadan and Marcus were important to me. Even Leon, though he was kind of weird.
I took a deep breath. “So, you think Telly does have something?”
“I don’t think Telly would make idle threats and hope you fall for them. Look at all that he’s done so far.”
I dropped my head into my open palm. “Seth, I can’t let him go after them.”
“You can and you will. They. Are. Not. Important. You are. We are.”
“I hate it when you say things like that,” I seethed.
“Because it’s true, Alex. Why? Because once you Awaken, we can change things.” Seth paused and then his voice lowered. “You have no idea what the majority of the Council wants done to the half-bloods up here. Luckily, my presence seems to be keeping most of them in line, but they do want them killed, Alex. They see the half-bloods as a problem that they don’t have the time or manpower to deal with. Especially now that the daimons have no qualms about attacking the Covenants.”
“I thought you didn’t care about the half-bloods.” I lifted my head and stared at the blank wall across from the bed.
“Not losing sleep over their crappy lives and being okay with exterminating them are two different things, Alex.”
“Gods, Seth.” I shook my head. “Sometimes I don’t even know you.”
“You never tried to,” he said, without a trace of anger. “And it really doesn’t matter right now. All that matters is that you stay safe. Look, I got to go. Just stay in your room, at least until Telly leaves. I know he has to be back here by Friday because they are having a session.”
“All right,” I said. “Seth?”
“What?”
I bit my lip, having no idea what I wanted to say to him. There was just so much, and none of it was anything I was willing to get into right now. “Nothing. I’ll…I’ll talk to you later.”
Seth hung up, without making me promise to stay out of trouble. I think he knew my word was just as good as his.
The next twenty-four hours crept by painfully slowly. I wasn’t allowed to leave my room. Food was brought to me by one of my babysitters. Besides them, I had no visitors. Bored out of my mind, I cleaned my bathroom and started to rearrange my closet, which ended with clothes strewn across the floor.
There was a moment when panic punched a hole through my chest. Was I making the right decision by not turning myself in?
I tried calling Seth a few times but that was a total bust. He eventually called back just after I’d changed for bed. We didn’t talk for long or about anything important. I think he was just surprised that I was still in my dorm and hadn’t done anything dumb yet.
It took hours of tossing and turning to drift off to sleep. But I didn’t stay asleep for long. I woke up while it was still dark, the comforter twisted around my legs.
I watched slivers of light slice across the ceiling, disappearing when the moon dipped behind a cloud outside my window. My brain immediately kicked into hyper drive, replaying everything that had happened with Telly, then with Aiden and Seth. What if Seth had been right and Telly had a way of finding out that it was Aiden? Or even if he didn’t, what if he did go after him? And it wasn’t just Aiden I cared about. What would it say about me if I let others be harmed so I skated through until the next time? Because there would be a next time—I knew it. And who would risk their future and their life then?
It wasn’t right or fair.
Sitting up, I swung my legs off the bed and stood. Cool air spread goosebumps over my bare legs. I grabbed a long, chunky sweater off the corner of my bed and slipped it over my tank top. Creeping to the window, I pried the blinds apart and peered outside. I couldn’t see anything in the darkness and I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.
“What am I doing?” I asked myself.
“Absolutely nothing if I have anything to do with it.”
Shrieking, I dropped the blinds and spun around. Heart pounding, I squinted at the tall outline taking up the entire doorway to my bedroom. Once I recognized who it was, it did nothing to calm my racing heart. “Holy daimon babies! You gave me a heart attack.”
Aiden stepped forward, folding his arms. “Sorry about that.”
I pulled the sweater closer, staring at him. “What are you doing in my dorm?”
“You have a problem with guys in your dorm now?”
“Ha. Ha.” I hurried over to my bedside table and flipped on the lamp. A soft glow filled the room. “Actually, I never invited Seth in here. He just kind of made himself at home.”
A ghost of a smile appeared on his face. As always, he was in his Sentinel garb. Then it struck me. My mouth dropped open.
“You’re working, aren’t you?” I demanded.
“Well, there was a good chance that you’d try to sneak out and turn yourself in before Telly could leave in the morning. We were taking precautions just in case you did.”
“We?” I sputtered. “Is anyone else in here?”
“No, but Leon was in right after you fell asleep. Linard is patrolling the outside.” He paused. “I just switched shifts with Leon. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “You guys have been switching off in here while I slept? Last night, too?”
He nodded. “Thankfully, Marcus suggested the idea. Otherwise I have a feeling Linard would’ve been chasing you across the quad and stopping you before you ran off.”
“I’m not stupid.” My fingers curled around the edges of my sweater. “Do you really think I’d just up and go turn myself in to Telly in the middle of the night?”
He cocked his head to the side. “This is coming from the girl who once snuck out of the Covenant to find a daimon.”
Touché. “Whatever. I wasn’t planning to do anything like that again.”
“You weren’t?”
I shook my head. There had been a part of me that had been considering it. “I couldn’t sleep. There’s a lot going on in my head.”
“That’s understandable.” His eyes drifted over me, settling on my cheek. “How is it?”
I tipped my head, shielding my face. “It’s fine.”
He looked away a moment, then his gaze swung back to me. “You’ve been through worse, I know, but still. You should’ve never had to deal with what you did… or with Jackson. Any of this really.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing—I’m just rambling.” Aiden’s shoulders relaxed as he glanced around the room. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in here.”
I followed his gaze, which had landed on the bed. A warm flush went from my hair to the tips of my toes. A dozen or so vivid images danced in front of my eyes—all of them completely wrong considering everything that was going on.
“It was your first day back here,” he said, and a small grin appeared. “There were clothes on the floor then, too.”
Surprised, I focused on him—the real, completely clothed Aiden. Of course, he’d been in my living room area, but he was right. He hadn’t ventured any further than the couch. “You remember that?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I was lecturing you.”
“After I pulled Lea out of her chair by her hair.”
Aiden laughed and the sound warmed me. “You finally admit to it.”
“She kind of deserved it then.” I bit my lip as he looked up, his gaze meeting mine. What was he thinking right now? I sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m not going to do anything, even though I should. You don’t have to stay in here.”
Aiden was silent a couple of moments, then he made his way to where I was sitting and sat beside me. The air in the room suddenly got heavier, the bed smaller. The last time we’d been on a bed—and I’d been this close to being undressed—had been the night in his cabin. Impossibly, I grew warmer at the memory, and nervous—a lot more nervous. I should’ve stayed asleep.
“Why do you think you need to turn yourself in, Alex?”
I scooted back and tucked my legs under me. The distance helped a little. “Seth said that there’s a good chance Telly can prove that it was you or that he will make a move against everyone he suspects.”
He twisted around, facing me. “It doesn’t matter if he does, Alex. Going to Telly means the end of you. Don’t you understand that?”
“Not going to Telly could mean the end of you—of anyone who he thinks may have helped me.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You sound like Seth—like no one else’s life is important but mine. That’s bullshit.” I rose to my knees, dragging in a deep breath. “What if Telly does something to you? Or to Laadan or Leon or Marcus? You expect me to be okay with that? To live with that?”
Aiden’s eyes darkened. “Yes, I expect you to live with that.”
“That’s insane.” I climbed off the bed, feeling the spicy rush of anger. “You’re insane!”
He watched me calmly. “It’s the way it is.”
“You can’t say that my life is more important than yours. That’s not right.”
“But your life is more important to me.”
“Do you hear yourself?” I stopped in front of him, hands shaking. “How can you make that decision for other people—for Laadan and Marcus?”
“Look,” Aiden said, his hands rising into the air. “Get mad at me. Hit me. It doesn’t change anything.”
I moved toward him, to push him but not actually hit him. “You can’t—”
Aiden caught both my wrists and hauled me into his lap, switching my wrists to one hand. He sighed. “I didn’t mean for you to actually hit me.”
Too stunned to respond, I just stared at him. Our heads were only inches apart. My legs tangled with his, and then he reached up with his free hand, smoothing the mess of hair back from my face. My breath caught as my heart sped up. Our gazes locked and his eyes turned to quicksilver.
He cupped the nape of my neck. I heard his sharp intake of breath. Then he let go of my wrists and grasped my hips. Before I could blink, I was on my back, and Aiden hovered over me. Using one arm to support himself, he lowered his head and brushed his lips over my swollen cheek.
“How do we always end up like this?” he asked, voice rough as his gaze traveled away from my face and down my body.
“I didn’t do this.” Slowly, I lifted my hands and placed them against his chest. His heart jumped under my palm.
“No. This was all me.” The lower half of his body shifted down. Our legs were flush. His eyes searched mine. “It gets harder every time.”
My brows rose and I bit back a giggle. “What does?”
Aiden grinned and his eyes lightened. “Stopping before it’s too late.”
In a second, everything—the rift that had come between us the day I’d given him that stupid pick, what I’d seen in the Catskills, the mess we were in, and even Seth—everything vanished. The words came out of me in a rush. “Don’t stop.”