The Chosen: A Resurrected Series Novel

by S. M. Schmitz

  “Surveillance,” I repeated. At that moment, I felt stupid.

  “Yeah,” Aiden answered, although he squirmed a bit and looked uncomfortable now. “It wasn’t difficult to confirm you were the woman we were looking for considering you matched the identity of a dead woman, but Dietrich didn’t want me to make contact with you until they were closer to launching this insurrection. I was already stationed in Baton Rouge, so he asked me to keep an eye on you until he was ready. I wasn’t like… it’s not nearly as creepy as it sounds.”

  “I don’t know,” I responded slowly, even though I was only partly messing with him now. “You ever had anyone spying on you for months?”

  Aiden snorted and lifted a shoulder at me. “Yes, actually. Of course, I knew he was watching me and I knew who he worked for and I eventually ended up killing the guy… wait, pretend like I didn’t say that last part.”

  I laughed despite the gruesome details of what I was supposed to be ignoring and noticed some of the tension in my chest loosening. I breathed a little deeper and rubbed my palms against my legs. “It had to have been some combination of Dietrich telling me about what happened to him on that lake and all of this now bringing up my guilt and how much I miss Mason. That’s all.”

  “Ok,” Aiden responded carefully. “So you had a nightmare about being shot?”

  I shook my head too quickly and made myself dizzy. I exhaled heavily, frustrated that I couldn’t quite articulate what had been so utterly disturbing about this dream. “No, I dreamed about being at a lake with Mason and this yacht approached us, and he knew it was coming for him and they were going to kill him and he kept apologizing to me and telling me how sorry he was and how he’d only ever wanted to protect me. And then the yacht stopped only there wasn’t a dock, and this tall man with silver hair walked onto the deck…”

  “You mean Willis McGrath?” Aiden asked.

  I blinked at him then shook my head far slower. “I don’t know. I doubt it. I’d never met him and I wouldn’t know what he looks like. He was just some creepy, random guy…”

  “I don’t know about that. You remember anything else about him?”

  I sighed, a little annoyed that Aiden was focusing on this part of my dream rather than Mason, which had been the part that sent me to his room in the first place. I thought back to the tall man on the deck of the yacht and tried to place anything else specific, like clothes or markings or what little I thought I knew about the things a CIA agent would notice when sizing up a suspect.

  I decided I’d be a truly terrible CIA agent.

  “I can’t think of anything else, Aiden. It was just a nightmare. It felt so real, but dreams can be like that. He just stood there, watching us, his expression completely vacant and cold.” The image of the tall man with thick gray hair pushed to the forefront of my mind and I shivered. “I guess it’s kind of weird that it was a little windy at the lake, but the wind didn’t seem to touch him. It kept blowing my hair in my face and Mason’s was all messed up from the breeze, but this guy’s hair didn’t even move. It was like he was just a cardboard cutout or something.”

  “Or,” Aiden said slowly, “you just described one of the things Dietrich noticed the first time he met Judge Willis McGrath.”

  My stomach flipped and I had to hold onto the edge of the bed as the room began to spin. I was certain Dietrich had never described McGrath and I was certain I’d never met him, which meant someone might be stalking me after all. But there was no way Aiden could protect me from someone who was supposed to be dead.

  Chapter 9

  I watched Aiden’s sleeping form in the other bed as the dim morning sunlight tried to break through the blackout curtains of the hotel room. I’d been a little – ok, a lot – hysterical at three o’clock in the morning when I became convinced a ghost was trying to kill me so Aiden let me stay with him, but I’d never gone back to sleep. Now that the Earth faced the sun again, it seemed silly to think a ghost could stalk me, let alone hurt me, and I wondered if I could sneak out of the room without waking him. Better yet, I wondered if I could sneak out of Atlanta and maybe even off this goddamn planet so I never had to face him again.

  A familiar humming sound promised me I wouldn’t be hiding from him at all. His hand snaked underneath his pillow and pulled out his cellphone and he switched it off, the vibrating ending immediately. He blinked at the screen then seemed to remember he wasn’t alone in his room anymore.

  I cringed as he rolled over to look at me.

  God, this was humiliating.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Feeling exhausted,” I admitted. “Couldn’t go back to sleep.”

  Aiden yawned and sat up, blinking at his phone again. “I’m going to call Dietrich. I thought about it and he must have mentioned something to you about McGrath but with everything else he was telling you, it all just got jumbled together. Once you hear it from him, you’ll feel better.”

  Doubt it. I’d feel better if I could disappear. Preferably from Earth.

  “What makes you think he’ll remember every detail from the story he told me?”

  Aiden glanced at me and smiled as his finger hovered above the screen on his phone. “Because he has an eidetic memory.” His finger lowered and pressed twice then he set the phone on the bed beside him. He’d turned the speakerphone on and I watched it cautiously, like he’d put a venomous snake there instead of a harmless cellphone.

  Because it wasn’t really harmless if Dietrich claimed he’d never mentioned McGrath’s appearance.

  Aiden must have woken him because he answered in German then sighed and corrected himself. Aiden immediately told him about my dream and how much it had upset me, and I felt my cheeks warming. He didn’t have to include that last part, I thought bitterly.

  So. Freaking. Lame.

  Aiden finished his report with my claim I knew nothing of McGrath’s appearance and that’s what had panicked me. That was mostly true. I couldn’t stop obsessing about Mason, though, and how sad and scared he’d seemed, how real his fear and pain had felt to me.

  “Wait,” Dietrich said. “What time did she come to your room?”

  “Just after three,” Aiden answered. “She said she woke up exactly at three a.m. and came here a few minutes later.”

  I heard a woman’s soft, quiet voice in the background mumbling, “Everything all right?”

  Dietrich didn’t answer her right away then he seemed to remember his wife had just asked him a question. “Yeah,” he told her. “Sorry. I’ll go to another room. Go back to sleep.”

  Aiden glanced uneasily at me and shrugged as if to say he had no idea why the time of my late night visit should have any significance, but it obviously did. We both waited silently as a door clicked closed behind him. “Is Bella still with you?” he finally asked.

  “Yes,” I answered, but my voice sounded strangled and hoarse.

  Dietrich took a deep breath and my heart beat faster. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence,” he said. “But before I met Lottie… this Lottie, I mean… I used to dream about her all the time. Always with memories and I thought it was just because of the way my own brain worked. But I always woke up at three a.m. when I dreamed of her.”

  “Holy shit,” Aiden mumbled.

  I shot him a fierce look that warned him to keep his unwanted exclamations of surprise or any other opinions that any of this was not a coincidence to himself.

  “I haven’t had one of those dreams in a long time,” Dietrich added. “The last time was right after I went to Baton Rouge to see her, but before I knew we’d be together again. Just strange.”

  “Yes,” I quickly agreed. “You missed your fiancée, so once she was in your life again, you had no reason to dream about these memories anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Dietrich said, but he didn’t sound nearly as convinced as I wanted him to. “You’re probably right. But, Bella, I never mentioned anything about McGrath’s appearance. I told you how Eric and I got off the
yacht… well, up until the point I had no more memories… but I didn’t describe McGrath or anyone else with us.”

  The blood in my veins suddenly seemed cold and I shivered. I shook my head at the phone, a completely wasted and pointless gesture.

  “So what do you think it means?” Aiden asked.

  I wanted to shoot him the same look I’d just given him, but I couldn’t stop shivering and I couldn’t take my eyes off the phone. “Aiden, you know me well enough to know I’ll have to think about this and I’ll come up with some sort of logical explanation, which is exactly why I didn’t want Lottie to overhear any of this.”

  “What do you think she would say?” I asked quietly. I wanted to slap myself for letting those words out of my mouth.

  Dietrich snickered and I could imagine those amazingly blue eyes sparkling as he thought about his wife’s response, this woman he loved so deeply and passionately he’d died his own sort of death without her. “Lottie and I disagree about some things. Like the possibility of an afterlife and that Mason could be trying to warn you about something, or even just tell you he loved you and was sorry for what had happened.”

  I swallowed and it made my throat burn. “No,” I answered too quickly, too adamantly. “You’re right. It’s impossible. The idea that we can continue living in some form because energy can’t cease to exist is just a pipedream. When we die on my planet, it’s because our bodies weaken so much, all of the atoms that bound us together break apart. We become nothing. We are nothing.”

  Dietrich didn’t respond right away like I’d expected. I had expected some, “I know all of this,” or “Are you seriously trying to explain physics to me?” At that moment, I would have settled for him telling me I was an idiot.

  “Bella, there’s so much about your planet and life there I don’t know. But it sounds like you’re just describing a kind of fatigue. That doesn’t mean those atoms cease to exist, only that whatever was holding them together in the first place can’t withstand external pressures anymore.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at the phone. “Doesn’t make us ghosts,” I snapped.

  “No,” he agreed, and it sounded like he was trying not to laugh at me. “It doesn’t. I don’t believe in ghosts or any kind of afterlife. I just don’t think it’s possible for something to cease to exist altogether. That doesn’t mean that those molecules will retain any sort of memory or sentience though.”

  “Um,” Aiden interrupted. “As fascinating as this chemistry… or physics… or whatever the hell kind of lecture this is, I have to go find some asshole who might know how to get us into Schultz’s building. You’re sure you didn’t mention McGrath’s appearance and Bella’s sure she never met the guy. I doubt she would have seen a picture of him anywhere since we kept his disappearance and real cause of death a secret. Something kinda weird is going on here. I wasn’t exactly thinking ghosts though. More like Bella may have been on to something with this brain tampering shit and maybe someone tampered with her brain after all.”

  Another strangled, choking sound escaped from me and Aiden glanced over at me, giving me that look that combined concern and pity. I didn’t want to be pitied. But I sure as hell didn’t want to be someone’s lab rat.

  “Goddamn it,” Dietrich muttered. He sighed and I heard him moving something around on a desk, probably more as a distraction than anything else. “I guess I have to talk to Lottie now.”

  “No,” I managed to squeak out. “Not yet. Let’s see if we can find those files first. If you don’t get the answers you wanted, then you can tell her we’re probably just… damaged merchandise.”

  “Bella,” he said, the hard edge in his voice disappearing, “you’re not damaged or merchandise. Neither of you are. They’re always lying to us though. They blamed her at first and told her she had been responsible for Lottie Theriot’s resurrection, then McGrath said they had no idea why it happened. Some people just seemed to have brains that worked differently than others. But every time we thought we were getting closer to the truth, we ended up farther from it than when we started.”

  Aiden rubbed his hand over his eyes and muttered, “I’m supposed to be looking for terrorist cells in the U.S., not… intergalactic mafia bosses.”

  “Would you stop talking to Eric?” Dietrich ordered, but it didn’t sound like a serious order. “They’re not the alien mafia!”

  “Close enough,” Aiden retorted. “Instead of smuggling drugs or weapons, they smuggle bodies and people. And there’s definitely a firmly entrenched, patriarchal hierarchy. Sounds like The Godfather to me.”

  “I need to see this movie,” Dietrich said.

  I could tell Aiden was about to answer him – about a movie when I was dealing with the possibility that my own brain had been tampered with or damaged – so I reached across the bed and grabbed the phone. Aiden protested, but I quickly shushed him and he blinked at me in surprise but closed his mouth.

  “When you have something more useful than a Marlon Brando movie to discuss with us, call us back. I’m going with Aiden to find this asshole who might know where Schultz’s files are.”

  “Like hell you are,” Aiden interrupted.

  “They’re in my head, Aiden!” I shot back, a little too loudly. This time, both Aiden and Dietrich shushed me.

  “Dietrich,” I pleaded, “I freaked out yesterday. I’d never been around anything like that but I can handle this. I’ll be better today, and I won’t get in his way. But they did something to us, and I have to find out if it’s reversible. Because if it’s not, what if we’re just walking time bombs? What if Lottie is just a ticking time bomb and one day, we’ll go off like Mason, unable to think rationally anymore and we’ll walk straight into our own Hell?”

  I heard Dietrich’s breathing change just slightly at the mention of losing the love of his life for the second time. I didn’t think he’d survive it again. I admired him greatly for surviving it the first time.

  “Ok,” he relented. “Aiden, she needs to do this. And you need to keep her alive. She’s not trained and I’m trusting you.”

  Aiden groaned but he wasn’t about to argue with his boss. “Yes, Sir,” he acknowledged. He cut me a sharp look because I’d gone and interfered with his operation here yet again, but I was certain now this dream had come from somewhere and if I didn’t find out where, I would be the next victim of this company’s murderous cover-up for its human – or at least partly human – experiments.

  And I refused to die as someone’s lab rat. I refused to allow that to happen to Lottie. And I wanted revenge.

  I waited in the ordinary navy blue Dodge Caravan with fake tan leather seats for Johnson and Aiden to return, presumably with the man who knew what room inside Schultz’s complex held secrets he didn’t want anyone to access. I’d been given two instructions: stay inside the van with the doors locked and the windows rolled up, and keep the pistol they’d given me in my hand at all times in case anyone approached the vehicle.

  I’d never shot a gun before in my life.

  I kept staring at the black metal and plastic object in my hand, wondering how anything so simple could be so deadly. Don’t get me wrong: I understood the physics of propulsion and everything, it was just so much smaller and lighter than I’d anticipated. As the cool metal warmed against my skin, it didn’t even seem so foreign and alien to me.

  My brief protest when Aiden produced the weapon from his bag for me had consisted of, “But I don’t know how to shoot a gun! I’ll end up shooting myself!” He’d given me a look that I translated as, “You’d have a to be a fucking moron to point the muzzle toward you when you pull the trigger.”

  He didn’t have to voice that thought. I’d rolled my eyes and held out my hand and told him to just give me the damn thing.

  “Flip the safety off,” he instructed. “This part slides back and loads a bullet into the chamber. You only have to do this once. After you pull the trigger, the spent casing will release from here,” he continu
ed, pointing to the middle of the pistol. “It’s a semi-automatic so you can empty the entire magazine just by continuing to pull the trigger. The slide will load a new bullet into the chamber each time. Keep firing until the bastard is dead.”

  “Ok,” I breathed. “What if there are bastards out there?”

  “Then aim well. You have a total of fifteen bullets so don’t waste them.”

  That had been the entirety of Aiden’s pep talk before leaving me alone in the not-at-all-super-secret-spy-worthy-family-van on a side street in an upscale neighborhood in a suburb of Atlanta. I’d told him he sucked at pep talks and he’d just given me that grin that I still found far too sexy and made me want me to taste his lips.

  I sighed and shook my head at myself. There was no one else around to shake my head at, and I was the one who kept vacillating between calling the guy a monster and having incredibly inappropriate thoughts about the man charged with keeping me alive. The man who couldn’t wait to dump me off in some CIA babysitting facility, if such a place existed.

  By now, I trusted Dietrich really wanted me to live, most likely for his wife’s sake because Lottie would desperately want to talk to me and find out if she had anything in common with Mason. But honestly, even then, I suspected there was more to it than that. Despite their fear of this man, despite my own suspicions he really could be one scary son of a bitch when he wanted to be, there was a heart and a soul in that guy that wanted to protect the weak and vulnerable.

  And right now, I was both.

  Aiden was so much harder to read. I had no idea if he cared about defending the defenseless or if he just followed orders. I had no idea if he cared about me for any reason. Part of me was ashamed that I wanted him to. I’d been so scared of him the day before in that house, watching some unfamiliar man in a familiar body terrorize Noah Miller. But he’d been the first person I went to when I’d awakened in the early morning hours, shaken and unable to think clearly and only wanting to seek safety and comfort.