Page 15 of Awakened Gifts
“And you’ve had me watched for both weeks,” I mutter dryly, the clanking of the ice rattling louder in the otherwise quiet room.
I’ve done nothing but stare at the picture of Aria and me together for days now. We were so happy in that photo. My life is... It’s over now. Mel just can’t seem to accept that.
“When you stop acting like you’re going to commit suicide, I’ll stop having a guard watch you. She’s gone, Jase. Burned and buried. There’s nothing you can do about it. And it’s not your fault. How can we kill these bastards if we’re all worried about you?”
I snort derisively while refilling my glass. “You’re the only one worried about me. Your counter wants me dead, Araya wants me dead, Kellan wants me dead... I want me dead, Mel. You’re the only one who can’t seem to understand the big picture—Aria is dead because of me.”
My sob escapes me, and the glass falls from my hand as I cradle my face, bending over as the stabs of pain wash over me and steal my breath. Just as Mel nears me, something inside my head starts pounding, a painful rush of a projected thought that almost tears through my brain.
I cry out while dropping to the ground, gripping my head, and Mel rushes to my side.
“Cerium,” the voice says, and it vanishes with the pain in the next second.
My breath comes to me in a rush, and I drop to my back as I slowly wrap my mind around what just happened.
“Fuck,” I blurt out, stumbling to my feet as Mel is knocked away by my frantic hands. “She’s alive. I just heard her.”
The look on her face tells me as much as her mind.
“I’m not crazy, Mel. I heard her. I fucking heard her! Call everyone. Now!”
ARIA
“You’ve been out for much longer than I thought you would be,” the traitor says, smiling at me as though he’s won this war.
“Hedin,” I hiss groggily, wishing these chains weren’t enough to hold me back.
“Uh-uh, Banner. You’ve got uranium in your system. It’s not enough to kill you, since you’re stronger than most, but it’s enough to keep you in your place.”
He laughs when I make another weak and futile attempt at breaking free, and I curse the vacant air around me. I’ve been in and out of consciousness for the past three days—though I’ve been here for much longer than three days. My exact time in captivity is unknown, because the bastards did something to me. I’m chained to a table as machines pump my blood from my veins, making me the science experiment I never wanted to be.
“Your blood regenerates so quickly. It’s fascinating, really,” he murmurs absently, studying the large amount of blood they’ve been pumping out of me for however long. “In another few days, we’ll have what we need. Maybe sooner.”
“So you can create an army?” I growl, crying out when pain sears through my side. Too much uranium. It’s going to kill me if I don’t get blood soon.
“We can create an army with any rare blood. Your blood is to bring someone back. Someone who deserves to live,” he says distractedly, counting the lines on the large machine that hosts my blood, keeping it alive as it dilutes it just enough.
“Who are you diluting it for?” I pry, hoping to keep him talking until Jase finds me.
Everyone has to be looking for me by now. Surely. Jase may have his counter, but he’ll still use the entire United to hunt me down. Then we can all kill this son of a bitch and his minions.
I keep trying to take in every scent, and each time I wake up, I taste the air for any clue as to where I am. Then I do my damnedest to send Jase a message through my projected empathic powers, praying he’s thinking of me long enough to catch the message. But each time I try it, I pass back out from the exerted energy.
I don’t even know if it’s working. I’ve never tried it before, and I’m kicking myself for that right now. But Mel can project thoughts to him even when he’s tuning her out. So maybe, with the added waves of my empathic powers, I can reach him no matter how far away he is.
“None of your concern,” Hedin says idly, still focused on the blood.
“Then why bother diluting it? Can you at least tell me that?”
“She’d want you if I gave it to her pure, and you’d kill her when she came for you. Obviously I can’t kill you before the blood heals her completely, or else your blood will be as worthless as dead blood. It’s tricky to do this, though. Your blood can’t touch oxygen, otherwise it’s ruined. So, we’re having to send it through a series of clean filters that are devoid of any oxygen.”
Shit. They know too many of my secrets.
“She’s awake,” the voice of another traitor says. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he poisoned me.
“Bastard!” I hiss, glaring at the man I once admired. “How could you?”
He looks at Hedin before saying, “You can leave us.”