Page 33 of Awakened Gifts
Our car rolls to a stop when the numerous cars in front of us do the same. Just as several of our men step out, gunshots ring free, blood spews, and all hell breaks loose.
ARIA
“Jase isn’t answering.” The worry in my voice is evident, and Uncle Grayson groans with Aunt Angelica as Rex continues to hover over Simone’s shoulder, watching her put the ex-captain’s blood to work.
They got here just an hour after Jase left, and they brought the children who all look so much healthier than the last time we saw them. After dividing the kids up into rooms and assigning some of the most trusted officers to their floor, we came down here to start watching Simone do her magic—well, her science, rather.
“Any chance you can get a vision?” I ask Rex.
He frowns as he turns around. “I haven’t gotten a vision in weeks. I don’t know what’s wrong. Usually I at least get distorted images, but there’s been nothing.”
Uncle Grayson hops up on the counter, and he eyes me for a moment before knocking his blonde hair from his eyes.
“So Brazen thinks you’re changing your counter,” he says randomly, and I groan.
“Who told you?”
Simone tenses, and I glare at her back. “Sorry,” she says under her breath.
Mel’s eyes have widened, and Rex tilts his head in confusion. “You’re changing your counter? Why the hell does he think something like that is possible?”
Simone tightens her lips as she turns around, and Uncle Grayson frowns.
“Sorry,” he says to her. “I didn’t realize this was under wraps. Why is supposed to be a secret? This is good news, isn’t it?”
“It’s impossible. That’s what it is,” Rex growls. “You can’t change your counter, and Uncle Brazen shouldn’t be giving her that false hope. Especially with no real facts. Does anything support this ludicrous theory?”
Leave it to Rex to freak out about my hopes getting too high. He’s so protective over me that he fears the worst any time I’m emotionally attached to something. Such as hope.
“I’m not telling Jase because it’s just hypothetical. Uncle Brazen thinks that since I denied Kellan when I should have been falling mindlessly under his spell, that my blood is evolving and choosing a more suitable mate. The only thing that supports it are the counter results from Uncle Clay’s old test. I don’t believe it any more than you do.”
Even though I wish with everything in me that it could be true.
Deep down, I know Uncle Brazen was simply finding a way to explain why Mom wasn’t able to choose him over Dad. He needed to justify all he gave up, and unfortunately, that was the only way he could reconcile the facts.
But I wish he had just kept his impossible theories to himself. He’s a brilliant man who has been around for longer than all of us, but his passion rules him more than his mind.
Rex’s eyes soften when my first tear falls, and he sighs long and hard.
“I believe him,” Simone says in a near whisper. “And if he’s right, you might eventually be able to help hybrids who have already lost their counters find new ones. You can reshape the world as we know it. Not all hybrids are lucky enough to find a soul mate like Araya did. Most suffer a misery like you can’t know when their counter dies. There’s a hole—one that can’t be filled—and you’re left feeling empty.”
The sincerity in her eyes makes me wonder if Uncle Brazen hasn’t given her too much hope. I just learned about her counter problem a few minutes before Uncle Grayson got here. It’s heartbreaking, but what she’s asking is impossible.
“Simone, I’m so sorry, but—”
“Don’t,” she says, interrupting me. “Don’t tell me how unlikely it is. I’ve been a scientist since I was in diapers. I realize the numbers on this are nearly nonexistent, but right now, I need this. For once, just let me have what I need.”
The sting of her words implies more than the context. So I shut up and give her this, even though the likeliness is next to nothing. Mom walks in, eyeing us warily as the silence envelops us all.
Just as I’m about to speak, my legs give out, pain sears through my body, burning my blood on its way to my thundering heart that is trying to explode. Rex rushes to me as I cry out, and I grab onto his arm, squeezing it as though I can find peace somewhere within.
But then something just as painfully powerful surges through me, igniting pieces of my brain that burn as badly as my blood.
Death. Fire. Fear. So many things pass through my mind in a blur, but then it steadies, and the smell of blood invades my nose. Guns are firing, screams are tainting the air, red stains the ground, and faces are etched in terror.
Jase. I see him.
Bloody and beaten, shot all to hell, but he’s alive and fighting back. Fire pours from his hand, and Kellan, who looks just as tragic, tosses him a bag of blood before he spews his purple streaks of fury at men with covered faces. But one lies on the ground at their feet, and the tattoo staring at me forces me to drop Rex’s arm and suck in a sharp, stabbing breath as the connection to the vision is abruptly severed.