The Chosen: A Resurrected Series Novel

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Yes, Sir,” Aiden sighed.

  “But it was my idea!” I lied. I had no reason to think Dietrich would listen to me, but I couldn’t let Aiden lose his job because I kept screwing up his life. “We got to that neighborhood, and I just had this horrible feeling I’d mess everything up so I begged them to let me stay in the van. Aiden didn’t want me to, but he also couldn’t take an hysterical woman with him.”

  Aiden shot me a “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” glare, so I shrugged at him.

  How did he not know by now I rarely seemed to know what I was doing anymore?

  My mouth just kept talking. “He gave me his Beretta and showed me how to use it in case of an emergency and told me to keep the doors locked and windows rolled up. They left the keys with me in case of an emergency.” At least that part was true. “But then something incredibly weird happened. Like… weirder than normal even considering everything we’ve both been through. This maroon Mercedes drives up to the gate, and I know the guy driving it, but I can’t place him. And I feel like there’s some voice in my head urging me to follow him.”

  “Oh, hell,” Dietrich groaned. “You followed him, didn’t you? That’s why we had two messes to clean up over there.”

  I didn’t bother asking what they meant when they referred to “cleaning up messes.” Aiden had used the same language, and part of me suspected it was exactly what it sounded like. There were two houses in an Atlanta suburb with bloody messes inside that needed to be taken care of.

  “Dietrich, it turns out that man was the CFO of the bank where Mason worked. I’d never met him. I recognized him because Mason knows him.”

  “Knows him,” Dietrich repeated slowly.

  “Yes,” I answered softly. “I know I just had this conversation with you and we both insisted that dream had to have some logical explanation, but if you think about it, what’s logical to us is only logical because we understand it, right? There’s so much of this technology these men are using that even you can’t quite figure out how it’s working because there simply isn’t a field of science here yet to explain any of it. Maybe we just don’t have the science to explain what’s going on with me.”

  I heard another man’s voice in the background then a chair squeaked and the man’s voice was closer to the microphone when he spoke again. “Dietrich’s a stubborn asshole. Ignore him. I believe you, Bella.”

  I smiled at the cellphone on Aiden’s bed. “You must be Eric.”

  “Obviously. If I were anyone else, I’d probably be dead by now.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Dietrich sighed.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” I offered.

  “None of it’s true,” Eric insisted.

  I snickered and allowed myself to peek at Aiden. I desperately wanted to know if he was still glaring at me like he was ready to fly back to Houston anyway and take his chances with his pissed off boss. But Aiden wasn’t scowling anymore. He was still watching me, but his eyes sparkled as a small smile played at his lips.

  “I hope some of it’s true,” I countered. “According to your subordinates here, you’re a total badass and if you intend to help bring down this company, I’d kind of like that to be true.”

  “Oh, well that part is true,” Eric agreed.

  “They also told her we’re lovers,” Dietrich added helpfully.

  “Is Aiden still coming back to Houston tonight? If so, I’m picking him up at the airport so I can kick his ass.”

  I laughed and Aiden rolled his eyes.

  Dietrich sighed again and moved something on what I assumed was his desk. I held my breath as I waited for his answer. “Since you believe her, then you decide,” he told Eric. “What do you want to do with them over there?”

  “Depends,” Eric answered. “Did you find out anything from this Jacobs guy?”

  I hadn’t mentioned his name but my momentary surprise that Eric had so casually used it was replaced by remembering I was surrounded by men in the CIA.

  Holy shit, how did I end up in this mess?

  Because of me.

  Now he wants to show up again.

  “I… found out he was the one who reported Mason to Schultz because he suspected something was off about him. And Mason somehow found out he’d been turned in so that’s why he left. He was trying to protect me. He hoped if he ran, they’d just leave me alone.”

  God, you have no idea how badly I wanted to believe that. How desperately I wanted it to be true.

  I blinked at the phone as tears stung my eyes and my throat began to burn. I begged myself not to cry in front of Aiden, yet again.

  You really like this guy, don’t you?

  Shut up, Mason.

  I didn’t know if it worked both ways, if he could hear my thoughts, assuming he was real at all, but his voice quieted again only it was too late. Aiden noticed I was on the verge of tears and that concern and pity had resurfaced in those uniquely beautiful eyes.

  I hated being pitied.

  “And I’m assuming Jacobs threatened you?” Eric asked.

  “Yes,” I answered quietly, still shaken by the memory of his large body looming over me.

  I felt an unnerving anger shift within me. That wasn’t my anger. Mason was still pissed off at the image and thought of what might have been my fate had Aiden not given me that gun.

  “Give them a few days,” Eric told Dietrich. “Let’s see where this leads. If it starts to get out of control, Aiden can shut it down quickly. You wouldn’t have sent him after Bella in the first place if you didn’t trust him.”

  I watched Aiden’s face pinken slightly at the casual and unintentional compliment from Eric.

  “Ok,” Dietrich finally agreed. “A few days. But no more leaving her alone, even if she doesn’t want to go with you.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Aiden responded, sounding completely mystified that he wasn’t really getting recalled to Houston and fired. Aiden hit the end call button and shook his head at me, something mischievous and unbelievably sexy lurking behind his grin.

  Unbelievably? Really?

  I groaned and fell back on the bed, covering my face with a pillow to try to suffocate Mason’s voice. It didn’t work. The only person who felt suffocated was me.

  Aiden laughed and the edge of the mattress dipped as he sat beside me and pulled the pillow away from my face.

  “What?” he asked. “You wanted this, didn’t you? A chance to avenge your dead husband? Well, you’ve got three days to do it.”

  I squinted at him and retorted, “That marriage was never even consummated. Stop calling him my husband. He was more like… my best friend.”

  Aiden lifted a shoulder as if to say he couldn’t care less how we referred to Mason. I wasn’t actually sure why I told him that.

  Please. You want him to know your dedication to me now is out of a different kind of love than the one we should have shared.

  “Would you shut up!” I yelled at the ceiling.

  “Um…” Aiden answered.

  “Not you,” I mumbled. I propped myself up on my elbows and my stomach quivered. God, he was so beautiful.

  “So… the ghost is back,” Aiden teased. “And giving you a hard time.”

  “I don’t know if he’s a ghost,” I answered. “I don’t know what he is, but yeah. He comes and goes when it’s convenient for him.”

  “His ghost is kind of an asshole,” Aiden said, his voice deadpan, but the expression on his face couldn’t hide how comical he found this conversation.

  I couldn’t blame him.

  I didn’t bother sticking up for my dead husband. At that moment, I kind of agreed with Aiden.

  “Maybe that happens when a person is murdered. Makes your spirit all… assholish,” I answered, equally deadpan.

  Aiden nodded seriously. “What if the person seriously deserved it though? Will the person who, say, murdered him still get haunted by an assholish ghost?”

  I sat up and reminded him, “I didn’t kill Mason,
yet I’m being haunted. Or could use some hefty doses of Thorazine.”

  Aiden laughed and shook his head. “You’re not psychotic. Traumatized, which can cause some weird reactions in people, but you’re not crazy, Bella.”

  I smiled and reached over to his head so I could smooth down those messy soft brown spikes of hair. He caught his breath and whispered, “What are you doing?”

  “Sorry,” I whispered back. “I just…”

  What was I doing?

  Aiden leaned toward me, his fingers lightly trailing my cheek where Jacobs had hit me. “Don’t go off on your own again, Bella. Promise me.”

  “Ok,” I promised immediately. Right then, with him so close to me and touching me like that, I thought I would have promised him anything.

  I closed my eyes as he leaned closer still and when his lips brushed against mine, for the first time in a long time, I was grateful to have a body that felt physical sensations like this. Because I didn’t just feel that kiss in my lips. And it wasn’t just sexual arousal.

  I’d never felt anything like that kiss before. And it wasn’t even the kind of kiss they wouldn’t put on primetime television. It intoxicated me simply because Aiden was touching me, and as I would learn, in these bodies and being human, some people obviously had that power over us.

  I wrapped my fingers behind his neck and as our kiss promised to cross that threshold from primetime viewing to HBO-worthy, somebody just had to say something and ruin it.

  Um… you know I’m still here, right?

  I groaned – and not the good kind of groaning that a guy would want to hear while making out with a woman on his hotel bed – and let my hands fall. “Why can’t you go away?” I said aloud.

  Aiden sat back from me and gave me a strange look. “Well, it’s my room.”

  “No, not you,” I assured him.

  Aiden took a deep breath and I braced myself for getting kicked out. I wouldn’t have blamed him. “I was right. Your dead husband’s ghost is an asshole. Think he can hear me, too?”

  I shrugged. “Probably. He could hear and see everything Percy Jacobs said and did.”

  “Right,” Aiden agreed. “In that case, seriously – go away for a while. You’re dead and Bella’s allowed to move on.”

  I smiled at him but Mason didn’t let me answer.

  I can’t just take off and come back later. I have this one chance to help you find the men who did this to us. When I leave, I’m gone for good.

  “Wait,” I breathed. “What does that mean?”

  It seemed like ages ago that I’d sat on this bed and agreed with Dietrich that there was no such thing as an afterlife, and now, I was sitting on the same bed talking to my dead husband and worrying about his afterlife and what would happen to his… soul. Or ghost. Or whatever he was.

  “Are you talking to me or Mason?” Aiden asked.

  “Mason,” I said.

  Yeah, this gets annoying, doesn’t it? You should go back to your own room so you don’t have to explain who you’re talking to all the time and avoid any misunderstandings.

  I rolled my eyes then to make sure Mason didn’t miss the annoyed gesture, told him, “I just rolled my eyes at you.”

  I know. I’m dead, not an idiot.

  “Then what do you mean when you leave you’re gone for good?” I demanded.

  “Great,” Aiden muttered.

  I flashed him a sympathetic glance because I was frustrated, too, and I had no reason to think Aiden would just tolerate my dead husband’s voice in my head indefinitely.

  I thought I actually heard Mason sighing. I don’t actually know. I have no idea how I got here or why I’m here. This only started because you agreed to help these guys in the first place. I would have never endangered you, Bella. I would have never asked you to do any of this if you hadn’t wanted to. I had no idea Jacobs was going to attack you like that. I may not like Aiden, but he’s right about one thing: don’t take off without him again.

  I grunted and rubbed my eyes and forehead. Talking to my dead husband was giving me a headache.

  And there’s a thought nobody should ever have to think.

  “One, you didn’t answer my question. And two, the only reason you don’t like him is because I do.” I blushed as soon as the words came out and I realized I was speaking aloud and Aiden had just heard me say that I liked him. I mean, yeah, I’d just been kissing him, but I didn’t want to be the first one to admit it was far more than sexual attraction.

  Because what if it weren’t more than just sexual attraction for Aiden? What if he knew, or perhaps worse, I admitted to myself, just how much I liked him?

  Mason didn’t let me fixate on my blunder though.

  I didn’t answer your question because I can’t. I only have this feeling that I’m here for a reason and when I leave, I won’t be coming back. But I’m here now, which means there’s more to life than we could possibly ever understand. And I want you to be happy, Bella, but I don’t trust him. He didn’t hesitate to pull you into this mess, and he runs hot and cold on you all the time. One minute, he acts like he can’t stand you then he turns around and is hitting on you in his room simply because he’s trying to get laid. You’re going to get hurt and I don’t have a body. There’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  I peeked up at Aiden again who was still watching me as I listened to this voice in my head, perhaps waiting for me to fill him in on what Mason was telling me. But I had no intention of relaying any of this to Aiden, mostly because I was scared he was right. I already knew he was partly right: Aiden did vacillate between seeming to care about me and acting like I just pissed him off all the time.

  I lowered my eyes again and picked at a loose thread on the hem of my jeans. Nobody on either planet I’d lived on had ever loved me like Mason. Even from the grave, he was trying to protect me from a broken heart.

  At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “Ok,” I whispered. “I’ll be more careful.”

  Aiden almost certainly thought I was talking about Jacobs and my reckless behavior, even though Mason had urged me to follow him in the first place. And only Aiden didn’t know I was really talking about him.

  Chapter 11

  The room was so dark I could only make out the outline of my hand when I held it in front of my face. I didn’t know why, but I was terrified. And in pain. I couldn’t remember what had caused the pain though. I tried to roll over but bolts of stinging shocks electrocuted the length of the right side of my body. I cried out in agony and immediately wished I’d been able to hold those cries in. I needed to be quiet and not attract attention to myself but why?

  Footsteps approached and sweat broke out along my forehead and trickled down my face and neck. Who was coming? Why was I so scared? And where the hell was I?

  A door opened, allowing a sliver of yellow light to fall on the floor. I squinted at it. Even the dim light hurt my eyes that had grown accustomed to the darkness. A gruff voice spoke to me and sweat prickled my back, too. “About time you woke up. I was getting bored.”

  I recognized this voice, yet I didn’t. I wanted to scream but I no longer seemed to have control of my body. I couldn’t move at all.

  The large man entered the room and reached toward me, wrapping his fingers around my forearm and yanking me off the thin cot I’d been lying on. I bit my cheek so I wouldn’t scream in pain again. I didn’t know how I knew it would end terribly for me if I did scream, but somehow, I knew.

  More footsteps in the hallway. I couldn’t help it. I whimpered and my body sagged as my mind begged, No more. Please, just kill me.

  The large man pushed me into a chair and cuffed my hands behind my back then, while he was still behind me, cuffed my legs to the chair. I was immobile and helpless. Again.

  Two other men entered the room and the overhead light flickered on. I squeezed my eyes closed because the sudden brightness stung and my head already felt like it was going to split open.

  “Open you
r fucking eyes, Mason,” one of them demanded.

  Mason?

  I opened my eyes.

  “You want to die? You know what you have to do,” he said.

  I inhaled slowly. I ran my cracked tongue over my cracked lips but it didn’t do any good. I was dehydrated, but they’d make sure I had just enough fluids to keep me alive.

  “If I told you what you wanted to hear, I’d be lying,” I said, my voice rough and broken just like my body. I’d told them this before. I had no idea why they didn’t believe me.

  The thin man folded his arms over his chest and glared at me. “Who do you think you’re protecting? Bella? It’s too late for her. I’ve already told you. She’s dead.”

  Bella… Bella? I’m Bella. I’m not dead!

  A new kind of agony overwhelmed me, but I understood it as much as I understood anything else about this bewildering experience.

  “I was trying to protect her, but now, I’m just telling you the truth. I’d make something up if I knew what you wanted to hear,” I said weakly.

  The thin man clicked his tongue at me and said, “Wrong answer.” He nodded at the larger one who’d restrained me. I closed my eyes and hoped I’d pass out again. I heard the clinking of metal and my stomach lurched as the hot metal seared against my skin…

  I screamed. I swung in the direction of the man who had been burning me, but my fists found only air. My legs felt bound by something still, but it took several minutes of thrashing wildly at the air before I realized I was in a bed in a hotel room and my legs were only tangled in the sheets. I gasped and tried to take deep breaths but my heart wouldn’t slow down. I felt something warm on my face and at first, I thought I was still sweating. I reached up to wipe my face and noticed I hadn’t been sweating after all. I’d been crying.

  “Oh, God,” I moaned. My stomach turned and I rolled out of bed, but I didn’t try walking to the bathroom. I glanced at the red numbers on the clock sitting on the nightstand. 3:03 a.m. I sat on the floor with my head between my knees and continued to cry.

  Bella… God, Bella, I’m so sorry. My memories. They’re all a part of you right now and when you sleep, so are my nightmares.