Emerge: The Judgment: (Book 2)

by Melissa A. Craven

  I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I had the answers. I thought I knew who I was. The truth is, I didn’t even know the half of it. There's a reason these vampires are still after me. There's a reason they will always hunt me. Because I'm not human.

  I'm the devil they fear and the angel they crave.

  Only problem is, I don't know it yet.

  ONE

  Aidan:

  “I can’t believe I’m back here again.” Aidan glared up at the Art Deco gates of Cliffton Academy like they were the bars to his prison cell. The school was a small, but elite community that provided Aidan and his friends with some semblance of a normal life. He just wasn’t sure if he could face another year of pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

  I’m going to suffocate here. It took everything he had to cross the perfectly manicured lawns teeming with students and teachers. Fountains splashed and shimmered. Winding paths and small, gated alcoves branched off from the courtyard here and there, offering intimate shaded corners of respite from the late July heat. The gardens were bursting with colorful flowers and the Lake Erie breeze drove the noise of the bustling city center into the distance. It was all such a pleasant picture, but Aidan wanted to run in the opposite direction.

  Time to suck it up and do this. He sighed, but the deep ache in his chest reminded him he was still healing.

  “Can’t be that bad already?” Quinn slapped his back, making Aidan draw in a sharp breath.

  “Sorry, I forgot! Still sore?”

  “It’s alright. I’m just so exhausted, and coming back to this place isn’t exactly conducive to my recovery.”

  “I know. It sets my teeth on edge to be back here again. I don’t know, man, maybe you should’ve stayed in Tibet a few more weeks. You aren’t back to your normal self yet.” Quinn gave him a worried look.

  “I’ll take school any day over that place.”

  “Take it easy today, Aidan. Try not to let it all get to you.”

  “Yeah, sure.” Aidan shrugged, wincing at the tug of torn muscle not quite healed.

  “Quinn!” Sasha waved him over to a group of her friends.

  “Looks like I’ve been paged.”

  “Go. I’m fine.” Aidan slid his earbuds into place, selecting Elgar’s Serenade in E-minor for a soothing distraction. He gazed around the quad at all the eager faces and groups of friends reuniting after six weeks of vacation. And then he noticed the wide arch of empty space surrounding him and the way everyone waved and called out to him, but never ventured close. Aidan’s reality came slamming back into him like a punch in the gut.

  Here we go again. He’d spent the last six weeks with his kind. Now he was back in the mortal world where everything that sucked about being Aidan was ten times worse. Their extreme reactions to his power sucked, but he was used to that. It was the onslaught of all their mortal pain that was difficult for him to manage. Every knee scrape, paper cut, and broken bone—every hurt feeling, bruised ego, and heart-wrenching breakup, Aidan faced it with them.

  Immortals processed pain in a very different way. It still hurt like hell, but it was fleeting. With mortals, the pain lingered longer and was more poignant. Coming back after so many weeks away, it would be difficult to get used to it again. He was just beginning to learn how to erect a barrier between himself and everything they felt, but it required an incredible amount of concentration and a level of focus he’d completely neglected over the past two months.

  They just feel too damn much!

  At that moment, everyone around him was happy and in high spirits, which he didn’t get to experience with them. As a healer, Aidan only got the sorrow, never the joy.

  “Hey Aidan!” Jason called across the quad. Aidan waved back, feeling his spirits lift at the sight of a familiar face. Jason was a teammate and a long time friend. He wasn’t too complicated or bright, but he was loyal. There were a few other friendly faces around, like Kayla and the rest of the football team. People who would be happy to see him.

  Definitely better than Tibet.

  If Aidan could have a do-over, he would’ve made drastically different decisions that night, almost two months ago. It was just before the end of the school term and he was bored and more than ready for the escape of summer vacation. There was a party, he’d been drinking from Gregg’s special stash—the kind that was slightly more potent to Immortals and therefore off limits. The small flask was just enough to make Aidan feel a little reckless, and a lot stupid. Racing the train seemed like a fun idea at the time; the thrill of driving fast, speeding along the tracks until he pulled ahead of the engine. But it was the turn that threw everything off. He should’ve been able to make it in plenty of time, but he took it too fast and lost control of the car. She didn’t make it. Even now, his heart lurched at the memory of his beautiful, but completely totaled Maserati. He’d missed the train, but rolled his car down a hill and wrapped it around a tree.

  What was I thinking? But it was just another one of those reckless moments when Aidan was so desperate for a distraction he acted impulsively. The mess that followed was a total nightmare and the look of disappointment on his father’s face still haunted him.

  Aidan vividly remembered the moment of impact; the screech of the train trying to stop, the blare of the whistle as it sailed past, narrowly missing him. The crunch of metal. The way his body bounced around as the car tumbled. The excruciating pain as he slammed into the tree, the sound of glass shattering and then silence, as the closest thing to death he might ever know, took him. He was out for nearly three weeks while his body regenerated. When he woke, he was in a clinic in the mountains of Tibet and the worst of it was over, but it would still take many more months before he was completely recovered.

  Aidan’s journey to Tibet was a long road of lies and deception that led to tampering with medical records, coroner’s reports, and a lot of memories. When Aidan was pulled from the wreckage, he was dead; every bone in his body, broken. He was packed off to the morgue where his brothers had to break in to steal his body. They shipped him to Bangladesh in a coffin, and Jin traveled with him to the remote mountains of the Himalayas. Aidan spent the entire summer there as he slowly healed from all the visible wounds. The pain of regeneration was tolerable, but he’d never felt so weak and disconnected from his power. And here he was, months later, and he still felt lost and alienated from the person he was before he “died.”

  There was a Senate hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, where young Immortals could go while they recovered from grievous injuries, but Aidan’s healing gift made it impossible for him to be around other patients. Instead, Gregg sent him to Abbot Jing Zong and the Monastery where Aidan was the only Immortal in residence. He nearly lost his mind from the boredom.

  Aidan worried that he would have to face criminal charges for his reckless behavior. He’d risked discovery and caused far too much effort to cover up his death. His behavior did not reflect well on Naeemah and Gregg in their position as Governor, but somehow, it all went away while he was recovering. The Senate left it to his parents to discipline him, which hadn’t really worked out in his favor. He wouldn’t be driving again until after graduation—in two years. And his allowance was going directly into his college fund for the next year.

  “How was your summer, Aidan?” He snapped out of his reverie to find a pretty brunette staring up at him expectantly.

  Crap, what was her name? He tugged on his headphones. She was his lab partner just last term.

  “Short.” His tone was unintentionally harsh and Aidan watched in dismay as she stammered and rushed away.

  Then he remembered.

  I am such an asshole. He watched her retreating figure, wanting to run after her but he knew that would only make it worse. Her name was Eva and she was mildly Autistic. It was a secret she kept locked up so tightly, she often made herself, and Aidan, sick over it. She was highly functional, but her limitations were mostly social.

  He remembered how difficult it was for her to
work so closely with him in chem lab last term. For the first few weeks, she went entirely mute whenever he spoke directly to her. By the end of their last semester together, Aidan had coaxed her out of her shell and they’d become hesitant friends. And he’d just scared her to death on a day that was already a huge challenge for her.

  Aidan slid his earbuds back in place and made his way toward the symphony hall. Mortal girls always had such strong reactions to him. Sometimes they were flustered and frightened, much like Eva. Other girls reacted to him obsessively, following him around campus like an annoying, giggling, whispering shadow. In middle school he discovered that flirting shamelessly sent them scurrying away.

  Guys were different. They were either mildly okay with him as long as he didn’t get too close or it went to the other extreme, and they absolutely despised him for no other reason than his power made them uneasy.

  His Immortal family also responded to his powerful nature, but they tried to hide it for his sake. Some were better at it than others, but it still stung when even his own mother balked at his touch. At sixteen, Aidan was already the most powerfully gifted Immortal of his generation. Probably the most powerful in many generations. His friends always deferred to him, which he ignored most of the time, but it was a lonely life when everyone’s natural inclination was to keep him respectfully at arms length.

  He knew his family loved him and it hurt them to see how much he suffered in his isolation, so he did what he could to put their fears to rest. He pretended. Aidan was the epitome of the jovial, cocky, all American high school boy everyone expected him to be. He smiled and cracked jokes. He flirted with the cheerleaders and he played football. He went to crazed parties and routinely got into trouble. He was the guy everyone wanted around, but no one wanted to approach. He was a total fake. But with mortals, it worked. It made him something they could understand. With his family, his pretense erased their looks of pity and concern. But he’d done it for so long, he wasn’t sure who he was anymore.

  “Aidan, walk me to class?” He turned to see a beautiful blond marching toward him with determination.

  Headphones are the universal sign for leave me alone. How is this difficult? He reluctantly tugged on his earbuds again.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” He put his mask firmly in place as he flirted with the vapid girl.

  “Sucks coming back, doesn’t it? I heard you spent the summer in Spain. We were in Madrid. You should have called.”

  “I was in Bangladesh, actually,” he lied.

  “That’s Spain, right?” Her brow puckered in confusion.

  “No. No it isn’t.” Check out Google maps, babe. Just once in a while, give it a little spin.

  “Aidan! Got a minute?” Graham waved him over.

  “Sorry, sweetheart. Gotta run.” Aidan left her blinking in confusion to join Graham by the steps of the Symphony Hall.

  “Dude, you looked like you were drowning there. You sure you’re doing alright?” Graham asked. “Maybe you should take another week or two off.”

  “I just need to get back to normal. If I’m forced to rest any more, I’ll lose my freaking mind.”

  “Is it extra weird this time?” Graham asked. “Coming back after so much time away from all this lying and hiding?”

  “You’re on the cusp, man. A few more weeks and you’re the newbie.” Aidan gave him a playful shove.

  “Happy birthday to me.”

  “It’s normal,” Aidan said.

  “What?”

  “Feeling scared shitless.”

  “I kinda wish I didn’t know it was coming. I feel like a ticking time bomb.”

  “I wish I could say the wait is worse than the Awakening,” Aidan said.

  “Thanks. You’re a big help.” Graham rolled his eyes. “See ya later.”

  “Later.” Aidan took the steps up to the symphony hall two at a time. It was his favorite place on campus—on just about any other day. Today it was a reminder that he could be heading toward a very different symphony hall. If he was a normal guy. He’d received the offer from the Musical Conservatory of Vienna, Austria last year. Of course he couldn’t go. Vienna was the last place any Immortal would step foot willingly. It was the headquarters of the Coalition. He’d be a fool to even consider accepting their offer. But God, he wanted it. It was the opportunity of a lifetime and it killed him to turn it down.

  Other schools were interested. He had a standing offer with the Cologne University of Music in Germany, but his parents wouldn’t let him leave until he had a few years of training under his belt. Just six months after his Awakening was the wrong time. Logically, he knew that. But it didn’t change his desperate need to use music as an escape.

  Stepping into the orchestra pit lifted his spirits more than anything else could have. His position as first violinist and Concertmaster of the Cliffton Orchestra was the best thing about school. That and football were the closest he ever got to normal life.

  “Hey Aidan!”

  He nodded toward the group of giggling flutists as he made his way to his seat. The familiar scent of horsehair and the piney aroma of freshly applied rosin snapped him out of his irritable mood as he checked out the sheet music for the day. They would be doing scales and warm-ups for the first hour. Too many students who hadn’t picked up their instruments all summer would need the practice.

  “Great.” Scales drove him batshit.

  “At least we’re running through Tchaikovsky’s Concerto in D-Major in the second hour,” a familiar voice said. “But we’ll be lucky if we get through the first movement.”

  “Wendy!” He was surprised by how happy he was to see her. She was first cellist and one of the most musically gifted mortals he’d ever performed with.

  “I have a bone to pick with you, McBrien!” She glared at him.

  “What’d I do?” He bit back his laughter. She was trying so hard to tell him off, but the result was more comical than scary.

  “Racing trains? Are you a complete moron?” She swatted him with her bow. “Your stupid antics got you suspended and I had to learn Tambourin Chinois two days before the final show of the year!”

  That was the official story. As far as the school knew, Aidan’s race against the train ended in his favor, but the police didn’t think it was very funny. The school didn’t either when the story landed in the papers a few days later. Cliffton had a zero tolerance policy for such behavior, so he was suspended for the last two weeks of the term for “publicly dishonoring the school.”

  “Come on, Wen, you know Kreisler better than I do!”

  “Yo Yo Ma’s arrangement is difficult! And there were members of the Cleveland Orchestra in attendance! I nearly lost my mind preparing for two solos! Don’t you ever do that to me again! Not to mention you could have been killed and I wouldn’t have anyone to practice with this year!”

  “I missed you too.” They’d been friends for years, but it always felt more like a professional relationship centered on their love of music. Wendy was less affected by Aidan than most girls and he thought it had something to do with the fact that she wasn’t attracted to him at all. He, along with every other male in school, wasn’t her type, but she still liked to keep her distance. Wendy’s girlfriend, Anya, however, loathed him and was jealous of the time they spent practicing.

  “Missed hearing you play this summer, Aidan.” The cute viola player blushed furiously as she took her seat behind the conductor’s stand.

  “Yeah, we missed you at the final symphony,” another violinist added.

  “Sorry about that, sweetheart.” He slipped back into his role. Somehow he’d eased out of it with Wendy.

  He watched Wendy take her place just opposite him and felt a genuine smile light his face. She was seriously hot, with long dark hair lit with auburn highlights and big hazel eyes she happened to be rolling at him.

  “Oh no, don’t turn those big brown eyes on me!”

  “What?”

  “I’m not part of your weird little fan
club, McBrien.” She waved her bow at him.

  “Thank God for that,” he said dryly.

  “So when are we practicing?” She busied herself with applying fresh rosin to her bow.

  “After lunch?”

  “‘K, come find me here.”

  “Hi Aidan! Have a nice summer?” The greetings continued to echo all around him.

  “Yeah, thanks, sweetheart.” He rolled his eyes at Wendy.

  “They do seem to buzz around you like flies on sh—”

  “Hey!”

  “Su-gar,” she amended with a chuckle.

  “I think all the flirty is worse than last year.”

  “I suppose you do have that tall, dark and dangerous thing going for you. Especially after that BS stunt with the train. And the rippling tattooed muscles probably don’t hurt either.”

  “I do have other qualities.” Aidan felt his face flush at her blatant scrutiny.

  “Aw, you’re blushing! Athletic, Mr. Football with a trust fund, genius IQ, and a violin prodigy well on your way to becoming a virtuoso at sixteen! Plagued by every hot girl in the school. You poor thing!”

  “You’re not so bad yourself. Too bad I’m not a girl.” He winked.

  “Well, you can’t have everything. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  ~~~

  “Cheer up, little brother. High school won’t last forever,” Sasha said.

  “I know.” He leaned against the railing beside her on the ferry deck. After the full school day, they still had an afternoon of endless training ahead of them, but Aidan was already exhausted. “I know going back is always an adjustment, but now that we’re manifested, it was a lot harder, wasn’t it?”

  “A million times harder.” She gazed across the water and he could tell the struggle to get through the day had taken its toll on her as well.

  “Sometimes I wish I could just get my GED and move on,” he said.