Twisted

TWENTY-TWO

ADEN HAD FILES STUFFED under his shirt, inside his pants and clutched under his arms. So did Seth. They’d busted into the small, dusty room Julian had led them to, and as promised, no one had been inside. No one had been inside for a really long time, he suspected. The lock had been rusted, the hinges on the door squeaking and practically falling off with the pressure he’d applied.

They’d hurried from one box to another, rifling through the papers—realizing everything related to the unexplainable. Unexplainable deaths, unexplainable injuries, unexplainable healings. They’d grabbed everything they could hold. Later, they’d come back for the rest. As for today, Mary Ann and Riley were priority one.

Now they were on their way back to the SUV, and he couldn’t shake a sense of nervousness.

“Elijah,” he muttered.

Seth cast him a strange glance but didn’t say anything.

The apology couldn’t wait for a little private time. “I’m sorry.” The soul wasn’t usually vindictive, but then, maybe Elijah couldn’t talk. Maybe something was wrong. “I was frustrated.” The words left him in a rush. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

A pause. A familiar sigh. I know.

Finally. Blessedly. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on with you.”

I’ve just been thinking. What if all your problems stem from me? From my guidance? What if these bad things happen to you because I tell you they’re going to happen? Like a self-fulfilling prophesy?

“Uh, that would be a ‘hell, no.’ I need you. Now more than ever.”

What if none of this would have happened if I’d kept my mouth shut?

Aden didn’t have to be a psychic to know where this was leading. “Don’t do this to me, Elijah. Not now.” Yeah, several times over the years, he’d asked the souls to keep their pie holes closed. A few times they’d tried. A few less, they’d succeeded. For the most part, they’d failed. Talking to each other and Aden was their only outlet, their only connection to a world they’d lost.

I have to. I’m going to.

This time, there was finality in Elijah’s voice. He meant what he said. “No.”

I’m sorry, Aden.

“No,” he repeated.

We’re going to try this. We’re going to try silence.

“I’m serious. Don’t do this to me.”

I really am sorry, Aden. For the past. For…the future. So sorry. I just…I really think this is for the best. So this is it, my last words to you for a while.

“Define a while.” The clouds had done a disappearing act. The sun was high, stroking his skin, making him itch and burn.

As long as it takes. Be careful, and know that I love you.

“Elijah.”

Silence.

“Elijah!”

More silence.

Seth grabbed hold of his arm and jerked him to a stop. “What the crap is this?”

Elijah was momentarily forgotten as Aden’s brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing. The once bustling parking lot was completely empty. Of people, of cars. Except for Maxwell and Nathan, who were a few yards away and bumping into air.

No doubt about it, Tucker was here, casting an illusion. Aden dropped the papers he was holding and ran. Five steps in, and he, too, slammed into something solid, though there was nothing in front of him.

A human he couldn’t see huffed out an angry, “Watch where you’re going!”

Aden did his best to dodge the invisible person. And maybe he succeeded, but a few more steps, and he was slamming into something else. Most likely a car, since another protest wasn’t forthcoming. He lost his breath the moment he hit the concrete. More papers made their way into the breeze, catching on indiscernible cars and staying put.

To be able to manipulate Aden’s mind like this, without tampering with the humans around him, was insane.

Seth ran up behind him, fisting his shirt and yanking him to his feet. “You’re the expert on all things whacked out. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Danger, everyone’s in danger. Victoria!” he shouted, already running forward again. “Victoria!” If she’d just call out, he could find her.

He slammed into something else.

“Aden,” Maxwell called. A good distance still separated them. “Can you see me?”

“Yes.”

“I can see you but nothing else.”

“Tucker’s here. Be careful.”

Maxwell nodded grimly. “We found Riley. He’s alive. Guards at his door. Mary Ann was harder to find, we couldn’t get her scent, but the guards at her door gave her away. What the hell happened out here? We smell blood, right—” he pointed to a spot about a yard away “—there.”

Aden sniffed and realized he could smell the blood, too. Not Victoria’s, but…Shannon’s?

Like an engine had just been keyed, Junior roared to life, the scent whipping him into a frenzy.

“Calm down,” Aden said, but that didn’t help. “You ate just before we got here.”

His response? Another gimme roar.

Though urgency rode him, Aden gingerly made his way through the lot, feeling his way, winding around cars he still couldn’t see, until he reached the place where Maxwell had pointed. He reached out and felt—

The SUV. He knew it. The motor was still running, the metal warm.

He frisked the thing until he found the door handle. Just as he was pulling, the lock caught and the car came back into view.

He was peering through the back window, with a clear view of Shannon. Shannon, at an odd angle. Shannon, blood all over him. Shannon, eyes open and staring out at nothing. Shannon, immobile. Shannon, throat ripped open. Shannon. Dead.

Look away, please look away. Caleb gagged. Aden could barely hear him over the roaring. That can’t be…that isn’t…

No. No, no, no, Julian babbled.

This was not an illusion. The smell of the blood couldn’t be faked, he didn’t think. And right now, Junior was more ravenous than ever, clawing and biting at his skull, desperate to escape, to have a go at all that crimson nectar.

Shock numbed Aden against the headache he should have experienced. But even numb, he wanted to vomit when he saw Victoria tearing into Ryder’s neck. Blood, gore, other things, spraying, dripping, flinging in every direction as she shook her head, a ravenous shark.

Why would she…how could she…

To Aden’s everlasting mortification, his mouth watered. Part of him, a part that had nothing to do with Junior, wanted to slit the car in half just to get inside and go to town on that wound.

Ryder wasn’t dead. His mouth was open, releasing a silent scream, and his struggles were weakening.

Body heat at Aden’s side. A horrified gasp in his ear. Banging on the glass. “Stop! What the hell are you doing? Stop!” Seth hammered at the window, shaking the entire vehicle. When that failed to elicit results, he shoved Aden’s immobile hand aside and jerked at the locked trunk.

The commotion jolted Victoria out of her craze. She stilled, head turning slowly, as if she feared what she’d find. Their eyes met. She was panting, blood dripping down her face. But…he didn’t see a glaze of bloodlust, something that would explain why she’d gone after his friends. He saw sadness, remorse…fury. Frustration. Tears.

Her gaze darted to the passenger seat before turning to Aden, beseeching. He sniffed—and at last caught Tucker’s dark scent.

Tucker hadn’t appeared, but Aden knew he was inside that vehicle. Knew Victoria was in grave danger.

He swept around the vehicle and clawed at the metal as he’d imagined doing, ripping the door from its hinges. Instantly the odor of blood intensified, but now it was mixed with the pungent scent of death.

He swooped in and gathered Victoria in his arms. She was trembling violently. As he straightened, she buried her face in the hollow of his neck, arms winding around him and holding tightly. She released a gut-wrenching sob.

“He…my father…possessed…”

Maxwell and Nathan bounded to his side. Maxwell tried to check Victoria for injuries, an impossible task since Aden refused to release her, and she refused to release him. Nathan snarled into the car, poison dripping from his canines.

“Call off your dog,” Tucker’s voice said, even though he was still nowhere to be seen.

“Eat him, and make sure there’s nothing for anyone to find,” Aden commanded, then had to catch Nathan by the nape to stop him from obeying as Tucker added, “You want to save your remaining friends, right? Because I’m the only person who can help you.”

Victoria wiggled until she got her legs on the ground, but she still didn’t release Aden’s neck. “He’s…he’s…right. Don’t hurt him. We need him.”

Need him? When had that happened? And what the hell had happened in there? “Tucker, don’t you dare move.”

A laugh, and Tucker appeared, no longer trying to shield himself. He sat in the passenger seat, as calm as you please. His blond hair was plastered to his scalp, and his face was splattered with blood. “Like you could stop me if I did.”

Seth was shaking his head in time to his body’s shaking.

“Victoria,” Aden said, gentling his tone. “I’m going to move away from you now. Okay?”

Her sobs took on a frantic edge. “No! Please!”

“Just for a minute or two,” he said, already easing away from her. He made sure she could balance on her own before lowering his arms. “I’m going to help Ryder. Okay?”

“Don’t.” She wiped at her tears with the back of a wobbly wrist. “Ryder killed Shannon. He started the fire at the ranch, and he would have killed me, but I…I… Vlad possessed him, worked through him.”

“Vlad possessed him?” Maxwell echoed hollowly. “But…but…something like that is impossible.”

“Actually, it’s very possible.” Thanks to Caleb, Aden had possessed other people himself. Many times. He’d simply stepped inside their bodies and taken over their minds. Was that what Vlad had done? Was Vlad inside Ryder’s mind, even now? Would killing Ryder end them both? “As for now, I’m gonna help Ryder as best I can.”

“You believe her? Just like that?” Seth banged a fist into the car, cracking the already abused glass. “You saw what she was doing. She had her teeth in his neck. And. You. Believe. Her?”

“Yeah, I do,” Aden replied as he climbed inside the car. “Don’t speak when you don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand plenty,” Seth said. “She’s a murderer, and you don’t care.”

“She’s not a murderer,” he snarled from his post. There was one subject guaranteed to hurtle him into a fight. Victoria’s honor. She wasn’t a liar, and she was broken about this. He wouldn’t have her hurt further.

Tucker didn’t try to stop him as he whipped off his T-shirt and wound it around Ryder’s gushing neck. He didn’t let himself think about Shannon, who lay behind him, gone, unsavable. Or rather, he tried not to let himself.

Shannon, the first boy at the ranch to be nice to him.

Shannon, whose body might rise from the dead and attack him.

Shannon, whom he’d have to kill all over again.

Hurry, he told himself.

Poor Shannon, Julian said.

Another senseless death, Caleb cried.

The scent of blood was overpowering. Moisture pooled around his tongue, and his gums ached. Junior’s roars laced with fury, and the banging against his skull became more pronounced.

“Keep an eye on Shannon,” Aden said to no one in particular. “Tell me if he so much as twitches.”

“Will do,” Maxwell vowed.

“And don’t worry,” Tucker piped up. “No one but us can see what’s going on here. I’ve made sure of it.”

Good Samaritan Award, meet Tucker. Or not. “You’ll pay for this,” Aden told him. “All of it. I hope you know that.”

“Oh, yeah,” the boy said, sadder than Aden had ever heard him. “I know.”

I could possess him right now, Caleb growled. I could make him hurt himself.

No. You heard him, and you heard Vic. Julian, a voice of reason. We need his illusion.

Aden lifted one of Ryder’s limp arms and felt for a pulse. Weak, thready, but there. The ring Aden still wore, Vlad’s ring, glinted in the sunlight. He’d had the thing refilled, so there was plenty of je la nune inside.

Best I can included cutting himself open and feeding the boy his blood. So that’s exactly what Aden did. With the pad of his thumb, he slid the glittering jewel out of the way. The clear liquid swirling inside, so innocent-looking. He tilted his hand to the side, allowing a single drop to splash against his other.

The burn and sizzle were instantaneous, and he hissed between his teeth. But blood welled, and he let the ensuing stream fall over Ryder’s neck, into his mouth.

“Shannon’s twitching,” Maxwell said.

Aden’s heart gave a little leap. Maybe, despite everything, he’d wanted Shannon to rise. He wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

If that were true, Aden had just committed his most dishonorable deed of the week. What he wanted shouldn’t have mattered. Turning his friend into a zombie, that was low, even for him.

“Hold him down,” he said.

The shifter jumped on top of the body the moment Shannon’s eyelids popped apart. Dull green eyes locked on Aden, and blood-soaked hands reached out.

Seth reached in and batted Maxwell away in an attempt to prevent the shifter from hurting his friend. A friend who was now a zombie, a fresh corpse who would know only a hunger for living flesh. Whose saliva would poison Aden and make him crave a death of his own.

“He’s alive and needs medical help. Let me take him inside the hospital,” Seth said with a mix of panic and relief.

“He’s not alive,” Aden said, much as he wished otherwise. No, he shouldn’t have done this to his friend. Either friend. He’d given Seth hope.

Tucker clapped, a round of applause meant to gain everyone’s attention. It got their attention, all right, but it also upped the tension another thousand degrees. “You’re all playing right into Vlad’s hands. You’re distracted and pulling in opposite directions.”

“As if you care.” Maxwell didn’t budge from his perch atop the now-struggling Shannon.

“You have no idea what I feel! Vlad has threatened my brother. I’ll do whatever it takes to save him. And yes, that includes murdering each of you if it proves necessary. I’m hoping you won’t prove it necessary.”

Whether the brother thing was the truth or a lie, Aden didn’t know. He did know Vlad was capable of using anyone.

“Including,” Tucker continued, “make a deal with you, when I know you’ll kill me afterward. So here it is. Save my brother, protect him, and I’ll help you save Mary Ann and Riley.”

Yeah, they’d get right on that. Because everyone here was borderline certifiable. “And give you the chance to betray us? Again? No.”

Tucker launched forward, in Aden’s face a heartbeat later. “I hate what that bastard makes me do. I like Mary Ann. Do you think I enjoyed watching her suffer?”

From the corner of his eye, he could see that Maxwell had to stretch out his arm to hold Nathan back. Good thing he did. Otherwise the wolf’s pearly whites would have been embedded in Tucker’s cheeks.

Aden’s wound hadn’t yet closed when he shoved Tucker backward, the action ripping his skin farther. “Yes. I do.”

“I want Vlad to suffer. Do you understand that? I hate him. I hate what he makes me do.” Tucker’s nostrils flared with the force of his breathing, but he remained in his seat. “I can’t act against him until I make sure my brother’s okay.”

His concern seemed genuine, and much as Aden loathed admitting it, Tucker was the best way to get his friends out of St. Mary’s. But. “You want my help with your bro, you help me with Mary Ann and Riley. First.”

“First? No way. You’ll get what you want from me and dispose of me. No, help me first, I help you second.”

He studied Ryder’s face, expecting some kind of change but seeing nothing. His blood would work, or it wouldn’t, but there was nothing else he could do. He emerged from the car, Junior immediately calming down, and opened his arms to Victoria. She threw herself against him, her body still quaking.

“I’d rather kill you now,” he said to Tucker, “and send your brother a Hope All’s Well card.” Cold of him, and he wouldn’t let himself ponder whether he was bluffing or not. Not here, not now.

Tucker ground his molars together. “How can I trust you?”

“How can I trust you?”

More grinding. Then, “We have a deal. I’ll help you now, you help me later.”

No more argument than that? Huh. Was Aden playing right into some kind of plan? And Tucker had one, he would bet money on it. Hell, he was betting the lives of his people. “If I think, even for a second, that you’re doing this for Vlad, I will…” What? There was no threat vile enough.

“I’m not. Not at this time,” Tucker added. “He comes and goes, and right now he’s gone.”

“He possesses you like he did Ryder?”

“No. He…guides me.”

Easy fix. “Resist him.”

Tucker jerked at the collar of his shirt. “You don’t understand. I can’t resist.”

“Free will, dude. You should try it.” His gaze flipped back to Ryder. The flesh in his neck actually appeared to be weaving back together, and his features were contorted in a pain-filled grimace.

Pain was good.

Pain meant life.

“Maxwell, drive Ryder and Shannon back to the house,” Aden said, issuing orders to get things rolling. Victoria had saved Aden; Aden would save his friends. Hopefully the consequences would not be as severe. Hopefully he could find a way to prevent Shannon from—don’t think it—rotting. “Lock them in separate rooms, doctor Ryder up, and ignore everything he says, just in case Vlad tries to take him over. Have a vampire, Stephanie maybe, feed them both a little blood.”

“Shannon’s already dead, so okay, but Ryder won’t survive transport,” the wolf said, and after restraining Shannon with the seat belt, knotting the length around his wrists and chest, he moved to the driver’s seat.

“Will he?” Aden asked Elijah.

Silence, again such oppressive silence.

Very well. He’d move forward without the soul’s aid.

“Why don’t you go with them, Seth? You can help take care of both.” What he didn’t say: Seth was fully human, and Vlad could now possess humans. Aden didn’t know how the former king was doing it—he himself had to touch a body to step into it—so he had to take every precaution.

Red suffused the boy’s cheeks as he braced his legs apart in a classic attack position. “I’ll go. But if either one dies…” His narrowed gaze lanced at Victoria.

He’d want revenge.

“It won’t be Victoria’s fault, and you won’t touch her. Ever.” He did, and they’d become enemies. Aden didn’t want that.

There was no backing down on Seth’s part.

A bowl full of cherries right there, but they’d have to deal with it later—if Seth made that necessary. “Victoria will stay with me.” He didn’t like the thought of her around Tucker, but he also didn’t like the thought of her out of his sight. Look what had happened last time.

He reached into the waist of his jeans and tugged out the papers that hadn’t flown the coop. He tossed them on a clean section of the floorboard. “Read everything. Call and tell me what you find.”

Tucker emerged and moved to stand behind the car in the next slot over, using it as a shield. Seth took his place in the passenger seat.

“Can you make sure they aren’t spotted on the drive home?” Aden asked Tucker.

“Yes.”

“Will you?” Wouldn’t be smart to leave things open to interpretation. “Yes.”

Aden had no choice but to believe him. “Then do it.”

“How are you gonna get home?” Maxwell asked.

Good question. “I’ll steal a car.” And it wouldn’t be the first time.

“All right, then. I’ll see you when I see you.” A few seconds later, the SUV was motoring away, leaving Aden, Victoria, Tucker and Nathan—in wolf form—to take care of business here.

“I still can’t risking going inside the hospital,” Aden told them. “As you can see, I’m still in the body-raising business.”

“Nathan and I can go with Tucker,” Victoria said. “We’ll meet you out here.”

He’d known she would step up. That didn’t lessen his nervousness. She was strong, he told himself. She couldn’t teleport, but she could move quickly. “If anything happens to her…” Everyone knew the words were for Tucker, and Tucker alone.

“I won’t be at fault.”

“I bet that’s your excuse every time you hurt someone.”

A muscle ticked below the demon’s eye. “Your friend needed to be eliminated. I let her eliminate him. No excuses necessary. What’s wrong with that?”

They weren’t going to debate this now. Wasn’t like they’d change their minds about each other. “Riley made the mistake of trusting you, and look where it got him. Believe me, I’ll give you enough rope to hang yourself, but that’s it.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, she comes back to me in the condition she’s in now, or I hunt you down and make it hurt when I finish you.”

Tucker snorted, not the least intimidated. “Riley plans to make it hurt anyway. And guess what? I warned him. He didn’t listen to me. This is his fault. So let’s stop yakking and do this. I’ll get your friends, and you’ll get my brother. That’s the deal.”

Before Aden could respond, Victoria said, “I’ll be fine,” as she stepped between them. She offered Aden a small smile. “Besides, Nathan is with me. He won’t let Tucker do anything.”

Aden didn’t point out that Nathan wouldn’t be able to stop Tucker if the guy started throwing those illusions around.

He kissed her, hard and fast. “Do what you gotta do, but you come out of there.”

Her pupils expanded, black consuming blue, and he knew she understood. If she had to rip out a few throats to get out safely, she would just have to rip out a few throats.

“We doing this or what?” Tucker snapped.

“We’re doing this,” Victoria said without looking away from Aden. Then she turned, and the threesome walked away from him, disappearing through the hospital doors.

Aden was left in the parking lot, on his own with his worries and regrets. They wouldn’t help him steal a car, so he shoved them aside and cased the parking lot.