by Regan Ure
I hesitated. I tried to pull my arm from his hold, but he wouldn't budge. My arm hurt so much that I couldn't suppress it any longer and I released a scream.
I felt a pull through me and realized that I was feeling weak. My energy was being drained. Confusion set in. I didn't understand how or why my power was being drained. At least the pain where Jared held my arm began to ease. As the energy seeped from me, I began to feel tired.
I looked at him. His emerald eyes had glazed over to become silver. Was he draining my energy? I felt weaker. I swayed. I felt his other hand hold my other arm. My knees buckled and I passed out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I felt awful. My head was pounding so badly I couldn't open my eyes. Groaning, I shifted slightly. It felt like my head was going to explode. Gently, I touched my forehead with my hand.
A warm hand touched my head and I felt warmth spread from the hand to my head. The pounding began to ease. I opened my eyes, but everything blurred and I struggled to focus, so I closed my eyes tightly.
"You're okay, Ava," Jared soothed, sounding close to me. My mind felt fogged up as I tried to remember what had happened; it was all a little hazy and hard to remember. I opened my eyes again and this time managed to focus on Jared, who was sitting in the chair next to the bed I was lying in.
"What happened?" I whispered. My headache was nearly gone. I felt tired and hungry.
"Try and drink some of this," he instructed. I felt his hand under my head and he gently tilted it forward. The cold rim of a glass touched my lips and I sipped. The few sips of water I drank soothed my dry throat. He lifted my head again and I took a few more sips. I managed to sit up on my own and I drank the rest of the glass. My hair was disheveled. I felt him brush it aside and tuck it behind my ear. The small gesture made me feel fuzzy inside.
Jared sat quietly next to me, watching me, while I tried to piece together what had happened from my hazy memories.
I remembered waking up next to him this morning. I smiled at the thought. Then I remembered I had started an emotionless episode before eating breakfast and having a shower. Then I remembered the whistling noise I'd heard from outside and then I'd seen Mason waiting patiently for me across the street.
I gasped. I put my hand over my mouth. Jared didn't say anything at my reaction. He continued to watch me with a worried expression on his face. I'd wanted to go to Mason.
Am I nuts?
Horrified at my actions, I got out of the bed and began to pace the room while Jared continued to watch me. My hand went to the wrist Jared had held. I remembered the pain of his touch, but when I took a look at it, there were no marks.
Memories of what had happened after that flooded back and I felt bewildered. My actions had been that of a stranger. There was no way I would want to go to Mason. He'd nearly killed me. All I remembered just before everything went dark was Jared holding on to my wrist as I felt weaker and weaker.
"What did you do?" I whispered to him. His expression was hard to read.
He stood up. "I drained you."
"Drained me?" I quietly questioned.
"I drew out the power building up inside you. It makes you weaker. That's why you passed out," he explained quietly. He stood on one side of the bed and I stood on the other. "I didn't want you to hurt yourself and I couldn't let you go to Mason. You were getting very agitated. I did what I thought would diffuse the situation without anyone getting badly hurt."
I slowly walked around the bed to him. When I stood in front of him, I said, "You did the right thing."
He seemed to be relieved I wasn't angry with him. How could I be angry when I would have done something horrible if he hadn't stopped me?
"I didn't want to do it but I didn't have a choice," he continued, but I shook my head. He didn't need to explain his actions to me.
"I know," I said. I wrapped my arms around his waist. He hesitated for a moment and then I felt his arms enclose around me. I hadn't been thinking like I normally did. It was like a split personality that came out when my emotions vanished, and that part of me was capable of doing terrible things.
"I'm sorry if I hurt you," he whispered. I tightened my arms around him. He'd hurt my arm, but that hadn't had anything to do with him draining my energy. It was like when I was a Hue my body was repelled by his Archaic touch. It was weird.
I said nothing, I just held him. His hands tilted my face toward him and then I felt his lips gently brush against mine. It was such a gentle kiss. Maybe he was scared he was going to break me. It wasn't enough so I released my hold around his waist and lifted my hands to his face. Holding him, I kissed him harder. I needed more.
He broke away from the kiss and smiled at me. Damn that smile, I thought as I felt my knees go weak.
"We have company downstairs," he explained as he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I resigned myself to the fact that we had important things to discuss. I followed him downstairs as he held my hand.
Tyler and Danny were waiting in the living room when we entered. They both gave me a stiff nod. I can't say I blamed them. Every day, I was getting closer to becoming their enemy. I was having more emotionless episodes, each of which lasted longer, and I wondered if I even had a week before the change was complete.
The four of us sat down. Jared sat next to me on one of the two-seater sofas and Danny and Tyler sat down opposite us on the other one.
"What happened?" Danny asked.
"She had another emotionless episode," Jared began to explain. I sat next to him quietly with his hand holding mine. "I left her alone to have a shower and when I heard her come down the stairs, I went into the hallway to see if she needed anything. She tried to open the front door but I stopped her. When I asked her where she was going, she told me she needed to go to him. I asked her who she needed to go to, and she told me Mason."
Tyler and Danny looked horrified that I'd tried to go to the enemy, especially after the fact that he'd tried to harm me before. It was hard to explain to them that, when I was like that, I wasn't myself.
"The more I tried to keep her in the house the more agitated she became, and then when she started to harness her power I decided I had no other choice but to drain her. It was the only way I could keep her here without someone getting hurt."
He looked at me. I gave him a weak smile back. I knew I didn't have any control, but I felt so guilty.
"Why did you want to go to Mason?" Tyler asked me, his eyes watchful.
"I don't know. I remember seeing him across the road from Jared's bedroom window. I didn't understand it, but all of a sudden I needed to go to him. I don't know why, all I know is that I had to," I explained quietly.
"I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he is the one who set this change into motion," Danny pondered aloud.
"I think you're right," Jared agreed with him. I felt his hand hold mine, like he didn't want to let go. He was scared he was losing me, and maybe he was right to be scared.
"This means we can't leave her alone at all. If she has an episode when no one is with her, nothing stops her from going to Mason," Jared explained.
I hadn't thought of that. With the episodes now happening more often and lasting longer, this was going to be a problem. How could they be there all the time? The truth was they couldn't. The fear hit me right in my chest and I felt short of breath. I couldn't stop myself; I had no control. It would just be a matter of time before I went willingly to Mason. I struggled to keep my fear from engulfing me. Jared felt my panic and his hand tightened around mine. He turned to me and took both of my hands into his, stroking the outside of my hand with his thumbs.
"I won't let it happen," he told me. He eyes held mine, assuring me, but he couldn't be with me all the time. What if I did manage to get away? "We will have to keep watch over you."
"All of the time? It's only a matter of time before I have an episode when there isn't anyone to stop me. And worse, what if I hurt someone while trying to get to him? I do
n't want to hurt anyone, but I know I'm capable of it."
It was difficult to say, to put my fears into words.
"It will take a little planning but it is possible," Tyler said. "Although, it'll be difficult to watch over you at school. We can't all be in our classes and yours."
Jared looked at him and pinned him with a look.
"We can post some cars around the school," Danny suggested.
Jared nodded.
"How many more days do we think we have left before the change?" Danny asked. He wasn't sitting anymore. He was pacing back and forth in front of us.
"I don't know, maybe five days," Jared answered, watching Danny pace. The truth was none of us had any idea how much longer I had. It was a guessing game.
"It would be so much easier if we were able to contain her," Tyler suggested.
Contain me? What was I--an animal? I laughed. Nope, I was turning into a monster. They all looked at me and I shrugged, not wanting to voice my internal thoughts.
"That's not going to be easy, especially when her grandmother doesn't have any idea what's going on," Danny said.
"What happens when I start acting really strange when I have the episodes? Anne will notice something isn't right. She can't find out about all of this; I don't want her life to be in danger," I said.
"Ava is right. We need to get Anne out of town," Jared agreed.
The doorbell rang. Jared left to answer the door and he soon returned with the rest of the Archaic following behind him into the living room.
Jared waited for everyone to sit down before he started talking.
"We have a new problem. It seems that when Ava enters an emotionless state, she wants to go to Mason. It happened earlier today and Mason was waiting across the street for her. I managed to stop her but this means we're going to have to keep a very close eye on her at all times."
"It makes it more difficult to watch her if Anne doesn't know what's going on," Neve said, voicing what we had already been thinking.
"I know, that's why we need to come up with a way to get Anne out of town for the week," Jared explained.
Then I remembered her telling me she was going to be going to the city to see some of her clients.
"She did mention she would be going into the city next week for a couple of days," I mentioned, feeling a little hopeful as I tried to remember which days she'd mentioned she'd be away.
"Do you know which days?" Catherine asked.
"I think it was Tuesday and Wednesday."
"What about school?" Jennifer asked.
"Let's tackle one problem at a time," Jared suggested.
"Anne usually travels to the city every few weeks to see her bigger clients," Catherine mentioned. I could already see the wheels in Nathaniel's mind turning as he took his phone out of his back pocket.
"All we need to do is make sure she has enough appointments with different companies and spaced out so she will need to be away for the week," Nathaniel said as he began to press the buttons on his phone.
"Is that even possible?" I asked, not sure how they were going to pull that off.
"Yes," Nathaniel murmured, already engrossed in what he was trying to accomplish on his phone.
"How are we going to pull that off?" Jennifer asked with a doubtful expression. I didn't need to know her well to be able to see she was the pessimist of the group.
"I have some contacts there who should be able to help me," he continued to explain as he concentrated on the task of looking for whatever he was looking for on his phone.
Within thirty minutes, he'd set up multiple appointments, enough to keep Anne busy for the week in the city.
"How did you do that?" I asked.
He flashed me a smile and said, "Money talks."
I didn't understand. They all lived in the same area as I did. Anne was well off, but I was pretty sure she didn't have the type of money to do what Nathaniel just had. Jared saw the confusion on my face.
"We have money. We just don't flash it around," he explained. "It helps when we need to cover up things," he added with a shrug.
"I need to email all the necessary information to Anne's office," Nathaniel explained before he left.
"One problem solved. Now we need to decide how we're going to handle school," Jared said.
"It might raise too many questions if Ava is off school for the entire week," Catherine warned. "Maybe it would be best to have her go to school for the first two days and then when things get worse we can keep her home for the rest of the week."
It sounded good. Just two days, and then the rest of the time they could keep me contained like Tyler had described.
"It isn't the most ideal situation, but I don't think we really have a choice," said Jared. It was better than nothing. I smiled at him, trying to feel hopeful that enough had been done to keep everyone safe from me, even myself.
"Next problem," said Danny. "Tyler and I have contacted the other Archaic groups, but no one has ever heard of this type of thing happening. So far no one has any ideas on how to stop it." I felt disappointment overwhelm me--I had hoped against hope that one of the other groups might have known a solution.
"Has anyone here got any ideas?" Jared asked as he scanned the room. Nobody answered. They looked among themselves, but no one said anything. There was going to be no way to save me, and in less than a week I was going to die. I took a deep breath to try and calm the overwhelming feeling of panic trying to take hold of me.
The deep breathing routine wasn't helping. I felt the panic attack threatening take over, and I drew in a sharp breath. Jared turned toward me on the two-seater sofa.
"Breathe, Ava," he said as I felt the air lock in my lungs. "It'll be okay."
He kept whispering soothing words that I wanted to believe. I expelled a breath and took in another deep breath. My lungs eased. Jared's eyes softened as he watched me keep my panic from overwhelming me. I wanted to believe him. I wanted everything to be okay, but the reality was that there might not be a way to stop what had already been set into motion.
He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. The gesture pulled at the warm and fuzzy feeling inside of me.
"This meeting is over," Jared instructed to the Archaic. "Ava's had enough for today." They started to filter out of the room.
"I just want to have a word with Tyler," he gently informed me.
"Okay."
Jared left me sitting on the sofa while he went to talk to Tyler. Catherine came to sit down next to me.
"It'll be all right," she said, trying to comfort me. I gave her a weak smile. I wasn't convinced.
No one had any answers. No one had any ideas on how to stop what was happening to me. I was changing and in a few days it would complete. I would be a monster. Jared would have to do what he had promised.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I was back in the house by the time Anne arrived back from her weekend away. I tried to pretend everything was okay when the deadline for my change hung over my head like a guillotine, but I still tried to sound happy and smile while Anne told me about her weekend.
"As long as you had fun," I said.
"So what were you up to this weekend?" she asked me.
"Not much. I spent most of the time at home, reading and watching TV. Nothing exciting." I added a shrug of my shoulders to add to the lie.
I couldn't exactly tell Anne that I'd cut myself and that in an emotionless episode nearly walked straight to the monster that had nearly killed me.
We talked for a little longer. I was tired. It had been a very busy and eventful weekend and all I wanted was to crawl into my own bed and sleep. I said good night to Anne and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. She hugged me close and I hugged her back.
In my room, I got my pajamas and went into my bathroom. It was spotless; there was no evidence of what had happened on Friday night. Someone had cleaned everything up. I showered quickly and got dressed into my pajamas. I brushed my hair and teeth. I switched off the bathro
om light, and as I entered my bedroom I stopped.
Lying on my bed with his eyes closed, his arms bent and his hands under his head, lay Jared.
What is he doing here?
He was dressed in a shirt and sweatpants. His leather jacket hung over my chair in front of my desk. At least my bedroom door was closed because I could just imagine my grandmother's face if she saw Jared lying on my bed. It wouldn't go down well at all.
Although, remembering the last time she'd met him, he'd be able to charm her within minutes.
"What are you doing here?" I asked him in a hushed tone.
"I'm here to make sure you don't wander off in the middle of the night," he replied lazily, with his eyes still closed. I hadn't thought of that. He had a point and I couldn't argue with that. Nobody could guarantee that I wouldn't have an emotionless episode in the middle of the night and decide to climb out of my bedroom window to find Mason.
Mason. Just the thought of his name sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
Jared hadn't mentioned anything about this earlier on as he'd helped me pack up all of my stuff and walked me to my house a few hours earlier. I'd asked him for a couple of hours on my own before Anne arrived home. With everything that had been going on, I'd needed some normality, to just forget for a few moments about everything that had been on my mind. I felt like my life was spiraling out of control and that slowly but surely I was losing myself.
Burying my head in the sand and ignoring what was happening to me wasn't going to change anything, but I had needed a time out. He hadn't left me unguarded because I'd seen Tyler's black SUV parked across the road.
I stood in my bedroom, watching Jared lying on my bed looking completely relaxed. He looked at me and studied me for a moment. The impact of his eyes as they locked with mine made my stomach flip. I switched the light off and walked to my bed. Jared adjusted himself and he lay on his side on top of my comforter, facing me. I climbed under my comforter and turned around so that I had my back to him. He didn't touch me at all.
