“It’s me,” I smiled.
He pulled me into his arms. “I’ve been so worried about you. Are you okay? I couldn’t get to you. They wouldn’t even tell me where you were,” he said, a little angry that my whereabouts were even kept secret from him.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine. Better actually, now that I’m here with you.” He slid his hand behind my neck and pulled me in for a kiss. I slipped under the covers and snuggled up next to him. “I can’t stay long. Everyone will be up soon,” I said.
“I know,” he sighed, holding me a little tighter.
“But…while I’m here.” I ran my hands up his chest and behind his neck pulling him in for another kiss.
Things had gotten so hot and heavy we hadn’t realized how much time had passed until there was a knock on the door. We sat up abruptly and Aidan gave me that look again. “You are kidding me, right?” Not again. When he sat there not saying anything, I rolled my eyes, and grabbed my shirt up off the floor. “Does it have to be a closet again?”
“Under the bed,” he said, rushing me.
This was getting ridiculous.
Once I got out of sight, Aidan opened the door. “Aidan, I hope I didn’t wake you?” Ms. Kraft asked.
“No. What can I do for you Sylvia?”
“The guardians had informed me they want to call a faculty meeting to discuss what needs to be done.”
“Why was I not told about this until now?” he asked. I could tell he hated how the rest of the faculty seemed to under mind him. I knew he thought because he was so young and just filling in for his dad most of them didn’t take him seriously.
“I apologize. When I heard the news I told them I was on my way out and would let you know.”
“It’s not your fault Sylvia and I think it’s a good idea. What time are we meeting?”
“In one hour in the auditorium,” she replied.
“Thank you. I will see you then,” Aidan told her and she departed.
“You can come out now,” Aidan said.
I climbed out from underneath the bed. “How about next time you just don’t answer the door,” I said, tired of having to hide like I was the other woman.
“I’m sorry. I never said this would be easy,” he smiled, pulling me into him.
“How long did she say you have?” I asked as I nibbled on his neck.
“An hour.”
“I can think of a few things we can do in an hour.”
“As much as it kills me to say no, we can’t.”
“Why not?” I pouted.
“Because the only thing that seems to stop us is when we’re interrupted.”
I sighed, pulling myself away. “You’re right. I should go.”
I walked over to the door and listened carefully to make sure no one was in the hall. When I knew it was clear I quickly made my way outside and back to my room. When I got there I found Roman asleep on the floor outside my door. I bent down and shook him gently. “Roman, wake up.”
He blinked a few times before he looked up at me. “Oh, hey,” he said, looking a little embarrassed. He got up and quickly ran his fingers through his hair.
“What are you doing out here? You and Mackenzie have a fight?”
“No, I was…I was waiting for you,” he said, surprising me.
“Why were you waiting for me and why didn’t you wait inside?”
“Mackenzie has this weird rule about me not spending the night and...” he paused looking uncomfortable with what he was going to say next. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay?” he said rubbing his neck.
“I’m fine…thanks.”
“Good. I’m going to go then.” He took off abruptly before I even had the chance to say anything else.
I didn’t know what to think. Roman seemed to have multiple personalities and I never knew which one would show up or when. If I had to pick one, this would be the one I’d like to see more often. When I stepped inside my room I could hear that Mackenzie was already in the shower. I quickly changed into clean clothes and left before she came out. Despite the events from last night, being with Aidan put me in a better mood, and I wasn’t about to let Mackenzie ruin that.
I headed to the dining hall to grab some breakfast then I thought I’d hit the library and go over the project Roman and I had to hand in tomorrow. I headed to my normal table in the back and spread out my work. I started to look over the notes but had a hard time concentrating. I tried to blame it on the noisy couple hidden somewhere in the stacks, but the truth was I couldn’t focus because of Roman. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I still couldn’t believe he slept outside my room on the cold, hard tile floor just to see if I was okay. Maybe Sienna was right. I shook my head. That was crazy. Roman didn’t like me and I certainly didn’t like him. I mean, what was there to like? He was arrogant, two faced, and dating Mackenzie – clearly proving he lacked any type of morals. Those intense, dark blue eyes had no effect on me, or that black, wavy hair, or sexy accent.
No. Not Sexy!
I buried my head in my hands. I was giving myself a headache. I tried once again to concentrate on the project. The project Roman did all on his own without me. Ugh! I shoved the papers away and put my head down on the table.
“Ella?”
I looked up. “Dean? I never thought I’d run into you in a library. What are you doing here and this early?”
“Just checking things out,” he said as the giggling girl I heard earlier walked out, winking at Dean. I rolled my eyes. I should have known that would be the only reason Dean would set foot in a library. I’m just glad I didn’t overhear anything I would regret later.
Dean pulled out a chair next to me and had a seat. “So how are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Ella, don’t play coy with me.”
“Really, Dean, I’m fine.”
“You weren’t fine last night. You know it’s not good to suppress your emotions.”
“Thank you Dr. Phil.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, not appreciating my sarcasm. “Ella, I want you to be fine. I do. But pretending like nothing happened is not a good way to cope with things.”
“What do you want me to do? Freak out? Because I could do that. I could rant and rave and hide in my room for the rest of my life, but what good is that going to do? It’s not going to change the fact that Jack knows where I am and it’s not going to stop him from coming after me.”
“How do you even know it was him?” I knew he thought I was being paranoid.
“Because I know,” I said, gripping my chair to try and calm myself. “Trust me when I say I know it was him.”
“Okay, but I still need to know you’re going to be okay and not go off the deep end.” I stifled an eye roll. “Are you going to man up and explain to everyone what happened last night?”
“Yes I will be fine and no I’m not. I already embarrassed myself enough last night. It’s none of their business so as far as I’m concerned nothing happened.” He opened his mouth to argue but I stopped him. “Sorry if I would like to pretend for a moment that I have some kind of normal life.”
“Ella, I hate to tell you, but your life is anything but normal and as soon as you start to realize that then maybe you can move on from this fantasy of trying to be normal,” he said, leaving me.
I knew he was right, but it was so much easier to keep believing that maybe someday I could live a normal life. I also knew deep down that would never happen. Too much was expected of me. Sometimes I wished I could trade a life with someone else.
I spent the rest of the day in the library not wanting to face anyone and have to explain what happened last night. I wanted so badly to go see Aidan, but with everything going on I thought it best not to. I was also curious to know what happened at the faculty meeting, but that was something else that was going to have to wait.
Chapter sixteen
I was woken up very early Monday morning by a knock on the door. I looked over t
o see Mackenzie still sleeping and not making a move. I got up to answer it to find Roman standing on the other side. “That’s what you sleep in?” he said, giving me the once over.
Seriously, what the hell was wrong with flannel pajamas? “Roman, it’s like five o’clock in the morning. What the hell do you want?”
“Gabe told me to come wake you for your training session,” he said, leaning up against the door with his arms crossed.
“But it’s five o’clock in the morning,” I protested.
“I’m just the messenger,” he shrugged. “You better change. This isn’t summer camp,” he smirked. I slammed the door in his face and went back to bed. I’m sorry, but no way was I getting up at five o’clock in the morning to work out. That was where I drew the line.
I was just about to fall back asleep when there was another knock on the door. I got up and swung it open in a huff. “Gabe, is there something wrong?” I asked, half expecting it to be Roman again.
“You’re not ready,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.
“Yeah. We need to talk about this whole training session thing. I know I agreed to do it, but I did not agree to get up this early.”
“Miss Ella, I have told you I take these sessions seriously and would treat you as I did any other student and you agreed to these terms. I would have thought after the other night you would be more than willing to get started.”
“But…”
“But nothing. If you choose not to take this seriously then I’m sorry I have wasted your time and mine,” he said, turning to walk away.
I stood there, shell shocked for minute, before I came to my senses and ran down the hall after him. “Gabe wait!” He stopped and turned around. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Can we try this again?”
“You have five minutes to change. And dress warm, it’s cold outside.”
“We’ll be outside?” I whined. Gabe crossed his arms, showing me he was not in the mood. I stifled an eye roll. “Where outside?” I asked.
“On the track. Where you’ll find Roman,” he replied.
“Roman?”
“Yes. In order to make time to train both of you Roman has offered to share his time so I could train you too.”
“Oh,” was all I said.
“Now go change and do ten laps around the track.”
“Ten laps,” I groaned. Gabe gave me a stern look and I put my arms up in surrender. “Okay, okay.” I dragged my feet back to my room and grumbled to myself as I changed into warmer clothes. Then I grabbed my coat and hat along with my scarf and gloves and headed out to the track to meet Gabe and Roman.
When Gabe spotted me, he jogged over, and led me through a series of stretches. “Couldn’t we have done this inside?” I complained, no longer able to feel my nose. Gabe let me know he didn’t appreciate my commentary and for every time I would complain he would add an extra lap. I thought it wise to keep my mouth shut from now on.
Roman was done with his laps by the time I started and had already moved on to the next thing. Gabe actually ran the laps with me which was a nice surprise. I kind of think he only did to keep me going or in case I passed out, regardless, it was nice to have the company. When we were done, he had me join Roman on the bleachers and do sprints up and down the steps. Then he had us do another five laps. I thought my legs were going to fall off. I almost passed out in the grass when we did our after workout stretches.
On top of our training sessions we still had to take our regular self-defense classes. Gabe told me he wanted to meet with us twice a day every day before and after classes. I was ready to tell him this wasn’t what I signed up for, but he was taking time out of his day to help me so I kept my mouth shut.
I spent a few extra minutes in the shower letting the heat sooth my aching muscles. Then I headed off to class. After this morning I was not looking forward to tonight’s session.
At lunch no one said anything to me about Saturday night. I didn’t know if they were afraid to bring it up or if Dean had warned them ahead of time not to. “We’re going to hang out in the social room on my floor after class if you want to join us?” Cameron asked me.
“Sorry, I can’t. I started training with Gabe today. He has me working out every day before and after classes,” I said. She nodded and went back to talking to Austin.
“Okay, so what was with all the sirens Saturday? I had, like, a migraine all night because of them,” Mackenzie complained as she sat down.
No one said anything. Instead they just looked down at their plates of half-eaten food. Mackenzie looked at everyone suspiciously and I wondered what was going on underneath that mass of over processed blond hair. “Why are all of you acting like you know something? Don’t tell me you guys did something lame like try to sneak out of here or something,” she laughed as Roman took a seat next to her. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He gave her a faint smile and me a quick glance before digging into his lunch.
“Okay, seriously, it’s like invasion of the body snatchers. What gives?”
Mackenzie was not going to drop it and apparently no one else seemed to want to volunteer any information so I decided to. “Someone tried to break onto the campus,” I said and everyone turned their attention to me.
Mackenzie looked intrigued. “Why would anyone want to break in here?”
They all kept their eyes on me as they waited for my response. “Because they were after me,” I said, sighing. That was not how I wanted that to come out.
“You, please,” she said with a dramatic head roll. “This is a joke right? Why would anyone risk the punishment to see you?”
I braced myself for the impact of my next statement. “He wasn’t here for a friendly chat. He was here to kill me.”
Everyone’s jaw dropped to the floor, except for Mackenzie’s. She kept her, ‘I’m better than you’ attitude. “You want me to believe that someone actually cares enough to take the time to get rid of you?”
“Mackenzie,” Roman scolded.
“What? What’s so special about her that someone would want her dead,” she spat.
“He wants my powers.”
“All you can do is heal,” she said snidely. “Seems like a waste of time to me.”
“Regardless of what you think this is a serious matter,” Cameron said. “Ella, why didn’t you tell us any of this?”
“Because I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. We thought with me coming here he wouldn’t find me and I’d be safe.”
“Great, so now there’s a psycho on the loose around campus. I knew you were nothing but trouble the moment you got here,” Mackenzie said.
“Lucky for us Ella’s your roommate. Maybe he’ll do us all a favor and take you instead,” Cameron replied.
Mackenzie scowled at her and stood up. “Whatever, I’m done with you losers. This table is nothing but a bunch of freaks and fags.” I stood up so fast I knocked my chair over, bringing attention to one of the guardians over in the corner. My fists were clenched by my side ready to strike when Dixon put a hand on my arm. I looked into his eyes. He pleaded for me to sit back down and let this go. I mentally counted to ten and let out a breath. Then I turned back to Mackenzie, glaring, while she stood there smiling. “Addy, Maddy,” she said, storming off before she turned back around to address Roman.
“Roman?” I guess she expected him to follow her like Thing one and Thing two did. He didn’t even turn to look at her. “Roman!” she screeched.
“No,” he said.
“What did you say?” she asked even though she clearly heard him.
“I said no, Mackenzie. You can’t treat people like shit and expect me to follow along. I’m not your little lap dog. You can’t just call and expect me to obey your every command. That’s not how this works,” he said angrily.
“You rather stay here with these freaks?” she asked appalled.
“They’re not freaks,” he said, slamming his fist down on the table hard enough to make even me jump. “And yes, I
am staying here, with my friends,” Roman said, looking at me.
“If you don’t come here this instant than we’re over!”
“Then I guess we’re over,” Roman said, surprising us all, including Mackenzie. She stormed out of the cafeteria with her lackeys. Roman’s eyes flashed over me before he went back to eating. I didn’t know what to say so I just sat back down.
“Huh, what do ya know, miracles do happen,” Cameron said, making Roman glare at her.
Everyone tried to go back to their normal conversation but you could tell there was a mix of emotions in the air. Dixon pulled me closer to him. “I wish you would have said something to me Ella. I was there, remember?”
Something inside me snapped. “No you weren’t. You have no idea what really happened. You didn’t find your best friend’s body or have to watch innocent people die. So don’t tell me you were there or you understand because if you were and did you would be scared shitless right now,” I said, storming off, making things worse.
This was what I was hoping wouldn’t happen. I wanted to avoid admitting I was scared and that my new friends might be in danger because of me. Everything that was happening right now was part of the reason I didn’t want to befriend anyone. I didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt. I just wanted this all to be over. I’ve lost so much already I didn’t think I could handle it again.
When I got back to my room Mackenzie was there packing up her suitcases. “You’re leaving?” I asked, suddenly feeling better.
“This is only temporary or at least until whoever’s after you gets you. I’m not going to stay here and get murdered because of you. I’m staying with Maddy and Addy in their room,” Mackenzie said, slamming her suitcase shut. I didn’t say a word. I was not going to argue with her on this one. Despite my freak out at lunch, Mackenzie moving out gave me hope that there was some light at the end of the tunnel.
Since I left lunch early I had some extra time before my next class. So I decided to go see Aidan. I found him in his office, but had to wait because he was with another student. “Miss McCallister, Mr. Callahan can see you now,” the secretary said.
The Wanderers Beginning: The Wanderers, Reborn, & Unforgiven Page 64
