Page 52 of Awakened Gifts
Everyone starts to speak over each other, and Kellan’s eyes go wide when he figures out what I’m saying. It’s time to end all of this once and for all. My savage wasn’t willing to sacrifice herself to kill Alice. But I am.
“Aria, don’t!” Kellan yells, lunging for me just as my body scatters into nothing.
It all goes black, and my stomach lurches, even though I’m fragmented into the air. It’s odd to be disassembled yet feel whole at the same time, but within seconds, I’m rematerializing inside the Unaligned borders.
I drop to my knees and heave for air as my body slowly starts to solidify once again. My savage made that look so much easier. As bad as it sucks, it’s a hell of a lot quicker than driving. I’m not the same huntress she was, but I can track. It’s what I do.
And I’ve never wanted to find anything as much as I want to find peace. That can only come from finding and destroying Alice.
Chapter 17
JASE
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I growl, glaring at Kellan like he’s the biggest idiot I’ve ever known.
He had her. I had to turn her over to him, and he rejected her after the hell he went through trying to take her from me.
“We tried to stop her, but she knows how to control her gifts now. All of them. She vanished into thin air, and she went after Alice. We have to talk to Fricks. He’s the only one who knows where they keep this damn secret society.”
I should have known she’d never go along with it, especially if she saw Kellan and Simone have developed feelings for each other. For over a week I’ve sat in that damn terrible room, my stomach in knots from staring at her chained up. But the chains were the only way the United would allow her to live.
I’ve been in one meeting after another, doing all I could to keep anyone from retaliating against her. She didn’t hurt anyone except for the monsters we’re all already after. Fortunately. They agreed to leave her be as long as we chained her down—pointless as it was.
“I’ll grab my keys, and you track. We have to find her. And we’re not using Fricks to do it.”
Kellan mutters something, so I glower at him once more.
“I can’t read your mind, so you need to speak up if you have something to say.”
His eyes come up to meet mine, and I see all the bitterness in them that I feel. “I can’t track a phantom that doesn’t want to be found. Aria isn’t running; she’s vaporizing into the wind. I can’t track the fucking wind. And if we do find her, what do we do to stop her? She doesn’t want to be with me, and she knows Simone and I are falling for each other. She knows I don’t feel anything for anyone but Simone. She has empathic abilities, for fuck’s sake. She wants you to go find your true counter—but she knows she can’t endure watching it. She wants everyone safe, but she feels like as long as she’s alive that we’re all in jeopardy. And she’s stronger than any of us. So how do you stop her?”
Every time I think my soul can’t be shredded any more than it has been, something like this happens to prove me wrong.
“I’ll make her realize that she’s not the only target. I’ll remind her that there are numerous others who will become the main focus of groups like these if she’s not around to help us stop them. I’ll tell her that we’re strong enough to endure it, when others may not be. I’ll remind her that we’re just a small piece of the universe, and more lives will be affected than ours if she sacrifices herself in vain. I’ll tell her the truth, Kellan.”
He backs down ever so slightly, and then he releases a string of curses before running a hand through his hair.
“Then you’ve got to let me talk to Fricks. I can interrogate him better than Araya can. I know all the right buttons to press, and he won’t refuse me. It’s the only way we’re going to get a clue about her whereabouts.”
Reluctantly, I relent. I’d rather see that traitor with a bullet through his eyes, but until we don’t need him at all, I have to let him keep breathing.
“Fine, but do it fast. The sooner we find her, the quicker we can save everyone. You know as well as I do we can’t beat Alice any other way, and we’re running out of time. Once she’s healed, she’ll be invincible.”
Kellan nods, and he leads the way down the hall while I make the call to have Fricks brought to the interrogation room. As soon as I hang up, Kellan takes that as a cue to speak.
“I can track Alice if I have a lead as to where to start. But if Fricks can get us all the way there, then we can cut Aria off before she does something stupid.”
Man, I wish I could just punch him right now.
“Do you even fucking care if she does something stupid anymore?” I growl.
He cuts his eyes toward me and grabs my arm. I stare at the contact, debating on whether I want to break his hand or his face.
“Of course I care. I just don’t feel like I have to have her anymore. Simone—I just wish things were different. If Aria and I can’t care about each other without some stupid counter bond tethering us, then why should we have to try? There has to be a way to fuse the two of you together.”
My urge to hit him turns into an urge to fucking cry like a girl on his shoulder. I don’t do either. I’m barely holding my shit together. After begging Simone to try and fuse my blood with Aria’s, I sat in that cold steel room, waiting on her to finish the test. Nothing. Not even a little bit of a match. The closest she could get us was ten percent. I don’t know how much more I can take, and running a nation is damn near impossible when my mind is so scattered.
I’m running on no sleep, barely any food, and even less sanity. My own savage is barely staying contained. I spent centuries wondering if I even had a savage, and now it’s all I can do to keep it caged.