Revived (The Lucidites Book 3) (22 page)

“Trent,” Aiden chirps. “He loves a good scandal.”

I should have guessed Joseph would have told him. Neither one of them can keep their mouths shut about much. “I’ll be grateful when everyone gets their own lives. Then maybe they’ll quit being so fascinated by mine.”

“You might have to wait a while for that,” Aiden says, eyes still pinned downward. “Even I have to admit that when you get over the morbid parts of this whole Chase thing, it’s highly interesting.”

“So you really learned about this from Trent? You didn’t already know?” I ask, risking a direct glance at him.

He shakes his head. “I told you I didn’t, remember?”

“Right,” I say, the agonizing memory of that meeting with Trey, Ren, and Aiden washing over me. “But Ren knew. I wonder how though. When Trey dropped the bomb that he was Joseph’s and my father he said Ren was the only person who knew. It doesn’t appear that they’re really close so why would Ren know all these family secrets?”

“Probably because he’s been here for a really long time. Well, he’s been here for as long as I can remember anyway.”

Aiden kicks his long legs back and forth, catching the rails of the stool every now and then.

“Isn’t it weird to think that if Trey hadn’t sent me off, I would have grown up here with you?” I ask, the question like a paradox in my head.

Aiden doesn’t look at me. I actually get the impression that he’s distracted by thoughts in his own head. “So, you and George, huh?” he finally says, his voice flat.

How can a single question feel like a hot poker on my skin? “Yeah,” I finally say, pushing the ache out of my throat. “He was willing to take a risk on me.”

“Do you enjoy dropping little insinuations like that into conversations?” Aiden says, swiveling his gaze up, fastening it on me. Emotions, like telepathic links, spring back and forth between us.

I glare into his dark blue eyes, smoldering with regret.

“George doesn’t have anything to risk,” Aiden says.

“Sure he does. Trey can’t like that we’re together. He goes to great lengths to take away things that make me happy,” I say, not meaning any of it, but knowing it will feel like shards of glass on his skin.

“So are you happy?”

“Are you asking as a friend?”

“As your friend, all I want is for you to be happy. I wish it could be with me.” He throws up his hands as if in surrender. “I know I’m not supposed to say things like that anymore, but the way I figure it is things are coming down to a deadly wire and that’s how I feel. Sue me.”

“Oh, are we putting it all out there after all these weeks? I didn’t get the memo,” I say. “In that case––”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The microwave-looking-thingy cuts me off before I have a chance to say something I’ll no doubt regret. Without a second glance, Aiden slides off his stool, his shoulders tensed as he opens up the contraption. He reaches into the darkened box with a pair of tongs and removes my bracelet, which is glowing with dangerous heat. Steadily he places it on a mat on the counter. Pauses. With his back still to me he says, “It will take a little while to cool down. I’m sorry but you’re going to have to wait here.”

I’m not sorry. Sickeningly, I’m enjoying this. After weeks of tension building every time I think about Aiden and his cowardly behavior, it’s nice to have a fight. Let it blow up a little.

Exhaling loudly, he turns, leaning against the counter, pinning his hands on either side of him. “Here’s a caution,” Aiden says, and I tense automatically. “If this works, which I suspect it will, I advise you to not let Chase know it. Firstly, it will piss him off and I think that should be avoided. Secondly, we have the edge on him right now. If he knows you’ve found a way to stop him he’ll find another strategy and something tells me the next one will be more serious. If you do find yourself face-to-face with him then give him the reaction you think he wants long enough to keep him appeased. Trey’s working on a plan to rid you of Chase, but his first focus is on Day Z.”

“So you’re telling me to pretend to be in love with Chase if he comes around?” I say, completely blindsided by the instructions.

“Yes, pretend just like you do with George.”

I actually smile. He’s being cruel and clever. A new side of Aiden that’s strangely fun. “How do you know I’m pretending?” I say, threading my arms together.

“It’s more of a hope.”

“Seems like a really unworthy drain on your attention.”

His eyes flick up to the ceiling, a familiar frustration returning to his face. Aiden and I are spectacularly good at arguing. I’m pretty certain there’s no merit in that. “I would test the patch to see if it works by using the emotional modifier I built on you, but…” he says, tottering his head side to side, like he’s still considering the idea, “I suspect you wouldn’t want that.”

“How extremely astute of you. You suspect correctly. I’ve had enough emotional programming, thank you very much.”

Beside him my bracelet still glows hot on the counter. I think he gave me false expectations when he said this would only take a few minutes. “If,” I begin, drawing out the word, “you did test my patch with your emotional modifier, what sort of programming would you do to me? For testing purposes, of course.”

“Hmmm...” he says, thinking the question over with sincere deliberation. “Maybe I’d make you obsessed with something ridiculous like cheese puffs or ancient Celtic folklore.”

“Why not both?”

He strokes his chin. “I like the way you think.”

“Well, I
think
you could do better. Find a more entertaining way to manipulate my emotions.”

“Is that right?” Aiden gives me a heated glance. “Maybe I’ll use it to make you stop being mad at me.”

“Oh, I didn’t know it could work miracles,” I say, unable to suppress a sliver of a smile.

“Well, you being in love with Chase is a marvel.”

“No, it’s downright ludicrous.”

“You know, the line between love and hate is excruciatingly thin,” he says.

“Whoever said I hated you?”

“I inferred that much.”

“Well, stop with the inferences. The truth is––”

“You love me and I broke your heart,” Aiden says, his voice full of heat.

Talk about having words which were never going to come out of my mouth ripped from my chest. I gape at him. “What?” I revolt, like he’s just said the stupidest thing in the world.

“The walls here aren’t soundproof.”

“What does that have to do with anything? I’m not yelling,” I say.

“When you left my lab last time, I heard what you said after you shut my door.”

That memory rises from the deepest layers of my skin. I remember standing on the other side of his lab door, touching it, speaking those three tortured words. Embarrassment quickly morphs into aggravation at my own idiocy.

“Roya.” Aiden closes his eyes for a half beat. When they open, the look in them is a forbidden one between us. One I should look away from immediately. “I love you too,” he says, like it’s a curse.

“Aiden––”

“If we could be together…Would you still want to?” he asks, and the question unleashes an angry dragon inside me.

“Are you intentionally trying to torture me?”

“No, I’m sorry,” he says, massaging his temples like he suddenly has a headache. “After my parents died I went back and watched them die over and over again.” Aiden doesn’t look at me during this intimate admission until the last word. Then I see something in him uncovered for the first time. Sorrow. “I’m telling you this because something sick in me has to experience loss over and over until I exhaust the pain.”

“Us not being together is nothing like losing your parents.”

“No it’s not,” he admits. “But still, I have that same unhealthy urge to keep cutting myself with the loss. I know we can’t be together. Still, I only feel whole when I torture myself with the unattainable possibility.”

In the midst of all of these strange topics, there’s one question that begs the loudest. “How did your parents die?”

“Two of Chase’s minions killed them. Twins.”

“Meat heads,” I say, remembering the guys from my dream.

“Yeah,” he says, looking off, a sad smile on his face. “You’re really plugged in, aren’t you?”

“Lucid dreaming makes for a good channel.” I’m not sure why I cross the distance, but I do until we’re only separated by two feet.

“The Voyageurs wanted to know how to dream travel into the Institute,” Aiden says.

“Your parents wouldn’t tell them?”

“No. They knew that that piece of information would endanger everyone.”

“Why didn’t they just dream travel away? Escape?”

“My father was a Middling. Yeah, I’m a mutt.” Aiden laughs, like this is a funny moment. “Definitely no royal blood in me. My father was one of the US government employees who first worked here. Later, he was the only Middling who stayed. He’d fallen in love with Mom and Flynn let him stay, but it meant it was difficult to leave which is why I was raised here. They had taken a rare vacation away, leaving me with Mae. That’s when the Voyageurs took them. Tortured them….Killed them.”

Reflexively, I take his hand in mine. He grips it back.

“And your mother stayed with your father? She didn’t dream travel away?”

“No,” he says at once, like the idea was preposterous. “I don’t think she could bear to live without him. No two people were more connected than my parents. Their love is what made this science department what it is today.”

“So that’s why you love your work so much,” I state, the idea crashing down on me like blocks, followed by a rainstorm of guilt.

He nods, a beautiful pain in his eyes.

“I’m sorry I ever asked you to sacrifice this all for me,” I say, sweeping my arm around, gesturing at his lab.

He clutches my fingers with a new intensity. Pulls my hand closer to him. “You’re the only reason I’ve ever considered losing anything.”

“But you have to stop torturing yourself. I’m not worth it.” I squeeze his hand once and let go.

“I’m afraid I can’t make that promise,” Aiden says, plucking my bracelet from the counter. He grabs my hand, clamping my bracelet on my wrist. His thumb presses into my palm before he lets go. “My parents taught me about two things: science and love. Neither will I forget so easily.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

T
he button is under my finger when Joseph’s angry voice gives me pause. “I can’t give you what you want, don’t you see that!? You’re just wasting your time!”

A cold chuckle. “Asking you to be who you are is a waste of time, huh?” Trent says. “Get back to me in a few years and let me know how
that
worked out for you.”

Joseph and I are scheduled to meet in this classroom to train privately, since we don’t want anyone to know we’re planning on fighting Zhuang. What’s Trent doing here?

“It’s so easy for you to pass judgment on me, isn’t it? You’ve done what I can’t do, but I remember when you were just as insecure about people knowin’ you’re gay.”

I know it’s wrong to eavesdrop. Pressing my ear more firmly to the door I bury my conscience under my own curiosity.

“Yeah, it was last month. I’m not acting all high and mighty. All I’m asking is for you to do the same thing. I’m telling you that it makes you feel better. You drop the act and along with it the weight of all the pressure.”

“Right, and how ’bout all those people who whisper when you enter the main hall?”

“They’re whispering because they’re girls who can’t have me anymore, men who are glad I’m no longer competition, or guys who are interested. That’s why they’re whispering.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Joseph laughs, sounding half amused and half irritated.

“But you know I’m not interested in anyone else, don’t you?”

“I can’t give you what you want,” Joseph enunciates each word.

“But you want to, don’t you?” There’s a small plea in Trent’s voice.

“What I want and what I have to do are incongruent. Sometimes you don’t get to be who you are.”

His words make my heart feel stale, like a piece of bread left out, easily crumbled into bits.

“Don’t you see that everyone’s going to accept you no matter what? People here don’t care about that kind of thing, and everybody’s already totally endeared to you.”

“Maybe they used to be, but I spoiled my reputation.”

“Nobody knows about that.”

“No, they just know I disappeared and when I returned I looked as wasted away as a drug addict. I hear the rumors. My mystery is the only thing preservin’ my ego at this point.”

“Damn it, Joe! Why does everything always have to be about you!?”

“Because this is about me and all the stupid things I do. We wouldn’t be having this fight if I kept my mouth shut,” Joseph says, regret billowing from his words.

“You think I didn’t know that you loved me before you said it!?”

“I think I gave you the wrong impression when I did. I made you think we have a future.”

“And why don’t we?”

“Because I can’t risk anyone finding out.”

I jump from a sudden loud crash against the wall. “To hell with everyone else already!”

“Damn…gettin’ in an argument with a telekinetic is dangerous,” Joseph says, sounding strangely impressed.

“I wasn’t aiming at you.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to pick that chair up.”

Something scrapes along the wall. The noise is followed by a soft thud. “There,” Trent says dully.

“While you’re at it, you mind sendin’ my drink over here? I don’t feel like gettin’ up.”

“Can you just be serious for one minute?”

“Ha!” Joseph says without enthusiasm. “That coming from you is hilarious.”

“Look, Joe, if you can’t do what I’ve asked then stay away from me. That’s my level-headed request and I’m not budging on it.”

Joseph laughs like Trent just told a joke. “So you really think we should go public about our relationship?” Another laugh.

“Yes.”

“T, I’m a shadow to my sister and a disgrace to my father. Why would you want that?”

“Because...you’re the only person who’s ever owned my attention. Accosted it unfairly. And here I stand asking you to love me back. It’s all I want.”