The Chosen: A Resurrected Series Novel

by S. M. Schmitz

  I suddenly wished Aiden weren’t in the room, too. I studied the back of my hands then busied myself dumping sweetener into my coffee and stirring it carefully. “This was Liam’s girlfriend’s body,” I said quietly. “And he could never move past that. Mason did leave me, I think because he didn’t want to hurt me anymore.”

  “Oh,” Dietrich said quietly. He tilted his head at Aiden and ordered, “Go see if Johnson and Talbot are ready.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he responded.

  Despite not wanting him in the room only seconds before, I didn’t want him to leave now. I watched him walk toward the door and wished I could beg Dietrich to order him to stay instead, but how pathetic would that seem? And what reason could I possibly give?

  Oh, hey, can you make your incredibly hot agent stick around because I’m pretty sure I’m totally developing a huge crush on him, and yeah, you’ve got something major brewing with this company that’s trying to kill me, but come on… look at the guy.

  Not pathetic at all.

  I think I might have actually sighed wistfully when the door closed behind him. Please have only imagined that.

  By the way Dietrich was looking at me, I’m pretty sure I hadn’t imagined it.

  “Any chance you’re willing to kill me?” I mumbled, burying my face in my hands.

  Dietrich laughed and told me I was out of luck: killing innocent people wasn’t really his thing.

  Instead, he sat in my room and told me his and Lottie’s story, all of the impossibilities, this extraordinary love that existed between them that had brought them back together, how extraordinary she was because of her resurrection and her ability to live this life as Lottie Theriot without losing the woman she once was before coming to Earth as well.

  Snippets of Lottie’s story seemed so familiar and I found myself nodding along. Dietrich emphasized what an incredible spirit Lottie had and how even though she wasn’t exactly the same, she was so close to being exactly like the fiancée he’d lost. I told him Mason was like that, too. Maybe if I’d taken a different body, if I hadn’t been a constant reminder of the woman he loved but could never hold again, our entire lives would have played out differently. Because sometimes, Mason was just the boy I’d met back home and fallen in love with. I would allow myself to forget there was more to him now than this different body, that there was a different mind and person, too.

  But Mason quickly reminded me anytime I got too close and he pulled away, that constant sense of regret and hurt and anguish and love betraying his emotions before he even had the chance to apologize.

  I soon tired of his apologies anyway.

  “Why does it happen to some of us?” I asked. My coffee had long since gotten cold and I used the wooden stirrer to form slow whirlpools inside the cup. I wanted answers. They wouldn’t bring Mason back, but I wanted to know why I’d lost him in the first place.

  Dietrich sighed and I looked up from my black vortex at him. “We don’t know,” he answered. “Believe me, we’re trying to find out. And we will tell you… if you’re still in contact with us. We’ve got a worldwide insurrection beginning in a couple of weeks, and we’d like your help.”

  “Me?” I squeaked.

  Ok, so all my talk about being a badass, independent woman? I meant I could take care of myself in the real world, not take on an army or whatever the CIA was planning. I shook my head and pushed my chair away from the table. “What do I know about taking part in an… insurrection? I’ll get killed! Worse, I’ll get other people killed!”

  “You’ll have help,” Dietrich assured me. “Our help. That’s why I sent Aiden here. He’s one of my best field agents outside of the team I work with. But you have something we don’t. Something we could really use.”

  A breathy laugh floated from my lips as I stared wide-eyed at the beautiful man sitting across from me. He looked completely serious. I couldn’t even fathom what I possessed that none of them had, so I did what normally happened in similar circumstances: I spoke way too quickly.

  “What,” I snapped, “a vagina?”

  Dietrich blinked at me. “Um… no. We have female agents. Well, one of them is debatable, but I’m not checking.” The corner of his lips pulled a little higher and he added, “I’ll get Eric to check for you.”

  “Dietrich, I can’t possibly help you. Any of you. I’m sorry. I know nothing about… being a spy or a soldier or…”

  Dietrich held up a hand and stopped me. “We’re not asking you to be a spy or a soldier. You’ve been somewhere we haven’t, and you know the layout. And there’s something inside that building we want.”

  I inhaled sharply and shook my head again. “No. I can’t go back there.”

  “And we won’t make you,” Dietrich assured me. “If you want to disappear, we’ll take you anywhere you want to go. But I’m asking you to consider helping us. For some reason, Stuart Schultz kept tabs on every person who’d been resurrected in the past few decades. His records may go back even further if we can get our hands on them. But his business is laid out like fucking Fort Knox and the technology he’s using to keep that place under surveillance isn’t technology any of us humans are familiar with. But you worked there.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But just think about it,” Dietrich said, standing and cutting off my feeble protest. “Schultz has to die anyway. But we’d like to get those records. I’d like to be able to give my wife answers. She doesn’t even know I’m here, and if nothing comes of this, I don’t want her to ever know. But I won’t ask you to risk your life if you don’t need those answers, too.”

  I closed my eyes and whispered, “Oh, Dietrich, you don’t understand…”

  “I do,” he promised me. “I’ve been terrified and lonesome and heartbroken and I’ve wanted to die. Getting answers now won’t bring him back. We’re going to end this company regardless and you won’t have to live like this anymore. Two things kept me alive after Lottie died: Eric and eventually believing something I did in this job might make some little bit of difference in a world that’s far more fucked up than you can possibly imagine. You just have to decide what you want your new life to look like.”

  I groaned and let my head fall into my hands again as he headed toward my door. I suspected then it would be a long time before I saw Dietrich Kliewer again, and I was right.

  “Ok,” I sighed. “I want to know. I have to know why he was chosen.”

  “Why he was what?” Dietrich asked, his voice confused and unsure for the first time.

  I lifted my head and looked at him. “Chosen,” I repeated. “They did something to him, or… I don’t know… but this wasn’t an accident. And it wasn’t an accident for Lottie either. They were the Chosen from among us. And I’ll find out why.”

  Chapter 6

  Aiden stuffed the rest of his belongings into his overnight bag with a little too much force. I leaned against the wall and watched him, wondering if Dietrich had given him one of his “This is why I’m one scary son of a bitch” lectures before leaving or if Aiden had just been hoping I’d say no so he wouldn’t have to go to Atlanta.

  And then I remembered cracking those jokes about Eric in front of Dietrich and felt my cheeks flushing as I realized I’d probably just made the guy I was way too attracted to hate me for humiliating him in front of his boss. A boss he’d already admitted he looked up to and admired.

  I shuffled my feet and cleared my throat but Aiden barely glimpsed over at me. “We’ll stop to get you new clothes and whatever else you need. We can’t go back to your apartment.”

  “Ok,” I agreed weakly.

  God, I could be such an idiot.

  “Aiden,” I said but I wasn’t really sure how to apologize for humiliating him in front of a man he most likely desperately wanted to impress. “Give me your phone.”

  Aiden finally looked up at me, those blue eyes with the hazel-green rims staring at me like I’d begun speaking Martian. Assuming there were aliens on Mars, obviously.
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  “Why?” he asked.

  “I’ll call Dietrich and tell him the only reason I agreed to go to Atlanta is because you had already half-convinced me last night. Maybe it will make up for…” I trailed off because I didn’t want to acknowledge how badly I’d treated him when he’d been so kind to me.

  “For what?” Aiden asked, a tinge of aggravation in his voice.

  I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “For embarrassing you in front of him like that!”

  Aiden blinked at me then slowly offered me his holy-shit-his-smile-could-melt-Crayons grin. “I’ve known Dietrich for years, long before he was my boss. You really think he’d care even if I had told you he and Eric were lovers?”

  “Well, you didn’t seem too happy about it,” I muttered.

  “Because he is my boss now. Dietrich never really gave a shit what anyone thought about him though. The only person he ever seemed to like was Eric, which was partly what led to the rumors in the first place. Besides,” Aiden added with a shrug, “he was a lot nicer to you than I’ve ever seen him. I think he’s got a soft spot for you… um, long-distance-immigrants.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him and repeated, “Long distance immigrants?”

  Aiden nodded. “Eric’s nickname for those who’ve crossed over.”

  “If you’re not mad at me for joking about him and Eric, then why are you so pissed off at me?” I demanded.

  “I’m not,” Aiden insisted stubbornly, picking up the shirt he’d been folding and attempting to refold it. Mason had been terrible at folding clothes, too. I wondered if there were something on the Y chromosome that predisposed men to sloppy laundry. I grabbed the shirt from him and refolded it neatly.

  “You are. Were you hoping I’d say no so you could go home or something?”

  “No,” Aiden insisted. “I mean, yes, but not…”

  After my careful refolding with sharp corners so his green polo shirt wouldn’t get too wrinkled, he shoved it into a corner of his bag anyway. I narrowed my eyes at him and thought he’d better have a damn good explanation for his answer to my question or I was dumping out his entire bag and teaching him to fold everything properly.

  “I never liked this entire assignment,” he said, zipping up his bag. “There are a handful of agents around the world involved in getting this company shut down but it’s mostly… immigrants, and after learning some of what they’re up to, they need to be shut down. But sending you…” Aiden inhaled quickly and slung the bag over his shoulder. “Sending us into Schultz’s offices after some files that we probably won’t even recognize is foolish and dangerous.”

  “I thought you already found some of their devices though,” I countered. “So you do know what we’re looking for.”

  “What makes you think they’ll look just like the ones they’ve found before?”

  “Um… common sense?”

  Aiden squinted at me and pointed to the door. “Just for that, we’re eating at the Waffle House.”

  “Got a question,” I said as I pulled the door open and saw Mario, although Mario shirtless today, waiting in the hallway, “why did you bring me to Lobdell if this assignment is in Atlanta? You know that’s in the other direction, right?”

  I had no idea why I was antagonizing him so much.

  Because it beats running your fingers through his light brown hair and kissing those full lips or finding out what’s beneath that red t-shirt?

  “Bella,” he sighed. “You’re tuning me out again.”

  I blinked at him and caught Mario smirking at me. I had no idea yet if he was Johnson or Talbot, but I had no intention of calling him anything other than Mario, at least in my own head.

  “Sorry,” I retorted. “The threat of forcing me into another Waffle House momentarily stunned me.”

  Mario snorted as if he knew better so I kicked him.

  Just a little.

  Big baby yelped like I broke his damn shinbone.

  “I said we were hoping we could end up going back to Houston. I just told you I didn’t really want to be heading east anyway.”

  “And yet, last night, you made it sound like it was so important to convince me to come with you and go along with this… plan you had,” I shot back.

  “Because it’s my job!” Aiden shouted.

  “Sh, dude!” Mario hissed. “We’re in a fucking hallway!”

  Aiden punched his shoulder and Mario pushed him and exclaimed, “Why is everyone beating on me!”

  “Because you deserve it,” Aiden snapped. He stormed down the hallway and I gaped after his back before offering a sheepish apology to Mario for kicking him earlier.

  “I was just messing with you,” I said quietly. “I don’t know what his problem is. Does an early morning visit from Dietrich always put him in a bad mood?”

  “Wouldn’t know. We’re not usually important enough to warrant an early morning visit from Dietrich.”

  “That’s… not reassuring at all. He said Aiden was one of his best agents outside of his own team.”

  Mario shrugged then rubbed his shoulder. “He is. There’s just a pecking order, you know? And Dietrich doesn’t like people, so he’ll send out some subordinate whenever he can. And if he can’t, he’ll probably send Eric, who’s technically ranked just below him but even Dietrich’s boss lets him get away with murder.”

  “But not literally,” I confirmed.

  Mario sighed and shook his head at me. “We’re not the mafia, Bella.”

  So I shook my head back at him. “I’ve heard stories.”

  “I’m… going to see if Johnson is ready to leave.”

  Apparently, my Mario was the Talbot of the group.

  I followed him to the Grand Caravan and in the morning sunlight, I was able to tell it was a boring, navy Dodge van. And its windows weren’t even illegally tinted. If I were going to get caught up in some CIA operation involving aliens and breaking and entering and some intergalactic insurrection, the least they could do is play along with my preconceived ideas about what the CIA was and what they actually did.

  Aiden stood by the door and motioned for me to climb in. He still looked pissed so I didn’t bother with any witty comebacks. I climbed in the van and smiled at Johnson. “Anyone ever call you by your first name?” I asked.

  “Yeah, my wife,” he answered.

  “I’ll call you Johnson then.”

  He smiled back at me as he started the engine and Aiden slammed the door closed. Johnson glanced at Mario and mumbled, “What the hell’s his problem?”

  Mario’s eyes flickered to me but he shrugged and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Don’t know. Guess he doesn’t like the boss showing up in person. It’s admittedly… unnerving.”

  “I like him,” I announced.

  “I noticed,” Aiden muttered.

  Mario gave him a funny look, but Aiden looked at him like he was about to punch him again so he turned his phone on and focused his attention on the screen.

  For some reason, my mouth still decided to betray my own common sense. It just wouldn’t stay shut.

  “And what’s wrong with that?” I asked. “He’s not my boss. And he’s actually nice. You just don’t understand him because he’s so damn brilliant.”

  “He is brilliant. How do you think he became so powerful so young?”

  I held my hands open, waiting for him to make his point.

  “Forget it,” Aiden mumbled. “This is an eight hour drive. Here.” He handed me his tablet. “Find something to do.”

  I held the tablet in one hand and continued to hold my other hand open as if I were waiting for something else. Truthfully, I was so confused, I didn’t know what to do.

  “Asshole,” Mario coughed into his hand.

  “I will punch you again,” Aiden threatened.

  “This is going to be a long eight hours,” I sighed.

  It’s not always a good thing to be right. Like this time.

  It was a long drive to Atlanta. We stopped in Mobile w
here they gave me exactly one hour to shop for new clothes. I told them I couldn’t pick out a bra in an hour, let alone an entire outfit, and Johnson just grinned at me and said that’s exactly why I had a time limit: his wife was the same way.

  I snapped that women were the same way and tried to negotiate for a longer window, but having nothing to negotiate with, I quickly lost. By the time we pulled into Atlanta that evening, everyone was in a bad mood, not just Aiden, and we tumbled out of the van at our new hotel and shuffled grumpily into our rooms.

  I’d spent half the drive trying to help Mario construct a blueprint of Schultz’s complex that we’d soon be breaking into, but many of the offices had been restricted areas so I didn’t know what lay beyond those doors. Johnson would occasionally pipe in with comments like, “Attack hydras,” and “Sith Security Guard.” I only interrupted him when his interjections focused on Greek mythology rather than Hollywood depictions of aliens.

  Mario only seemed particularly interested when Johnson’s comments brought us back to Star Wars, and then he’d ask me questions like, “Are there cyborgs out there?” and “Ok, but what about Storm Troopers? Jedi? Anything?”

  He found my knowledge of life in this universe terribly disappointing.

  I tried to comfort him by assuring him even people on my planet knew so little about the universe and the array of life it held and that seemed to lift his spirits for the next two hours, at least until Johnson made a crack about Schultz having Romulan Robots behind those closed doors and I had to tell him that as far as we knew, there were no species like the Romulans either.

  Somewhere around Montgomery, Aiden threatened to quit his job and take his chances with Dietrich and Eric finding him.

  As soon as I closed the door to my hotel room, I headed to the shower and stood under the stream of hot water for a long time. Anxious about this assignment I’d agreed to, aggravated by the conflicting feelings I had for Aiden, this man I’d just met and didn’t want to be so attracted to but couldn’t seem to stop fantasizing about, and confused by his own reactions to me, I waited for the water to wash away all of my problems but in the end, I only stood under an increasingly cooler cascade from the shower.