Hidden (Hidden Series Book One)

by M. Lathan

  I wanted to run back up when I saw him. He was too perfect to stand next to. Muscles … everywhere, but not too bulky. Just right. Just perfect.

  “Ready?” he asked. My answer stalled. I was still staring at him, following the defined lines from his chest to the top of his black trunks. “Is that a no? We don’t have to swim. I’m sure there’s something on TV.”

  “No. Swim. Sure,” I babbled.

  We walked to the pool. I was too terrified to drop the towel, so I couldn’t hold his hand. And what did he mean it wasn’t cold? It wasn’t serious-winter-cold, but it was definitely too cold to be in a swimsuit.

  He turned to jump in, and I saw his bare back, his bare back that had claw marks from his right shoulder to his lower left side.

  “Did Remi scratch you?!” I screamed. “I’ll kill her!” I couldn’t breathe or feel anything but rage. I was near combustion. I racked my brain, trying to remember what bar they said they were going to. I needed to find her and leave remnants of panther all over the dance floor.

  “Baby, relax. Those aren’t scratches. I was born with them. Birth marks,” he said. He reached out to hug me, but I dodged it, going around him to see his back. Two of my fingers fit in each of the four scratches. And they were definitely scratches. Definitely injuries, but old ones.

  My eyes watered. “Did John and Theresa do this?” I was about to say I’d kill them too, but it didn’t come out. Thank God, because he was laughing, making me feel like a psychopath for being so angry.

  “Birth marks, babe. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have them. They didn’t do this. They didn’t abuse me.” He kissed my forehead and chuckled again. “Look at you, trying to protect me from grumpy panthers and parents. You’re so cute, but I think I could take ‘em,” he said, flexing his biceps.

  He jumped into the pool, and I sighed. My face could be bloody and terrifying like Paul described. He had no idea how un-cute I could be.

  Nate, I’m a copy, I should have yelled. He would’ve heard me, but the thought of saying those words curled my insides in the most painful way. I wouldn’t be able to say for sure that he was safe from me, nor that I was safe from myself. All I had was: My parents were in love. I am in love. And I will try to be different and not act like a copy every day of my life.

  I watched him in the water as I trembled, remembering every beautiful moment we’d had together. Playing fetch, popcorn and TV, making out for hours. Coming to life, like Catherine did with Raymond, history repeating itself with her copy.

  “It’s warm,” he said, snapping me out of the fog I’d entered. “I swear. Get in here, beautiful.” I adjusted the towel, pulling it tighter. “Okay … take your time.”

  He swam away to the other end of the pool. I pulled off the towel, calmed by his voice, by him calling me beautiful, but wishing I’d taken up working out as a hobby. I dipped my toes in the warm water. I didn’t see him until he was close enough to grab me. He yanked me into the pool. His sneaky smile should’ve warned me that he was about to push me under.

  He pinched my nose and the warm water rushed over my head. I could hear him laughing. Even though I felt safe, I kicked and squirmed until he pulled me up.

  “See? I told you it was warm.” I splashed a pathetic amount of water on him. “Do you know how to swim?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Sort of isn’t good enough,” he said, chuckling. “So we’ll stay in the shallow end. Unless … you want to learn. I taught myself recently, in a lake. I was taking a bath and just decided to swim.”

  “So … you were skinny dipping?”

  He laughed and winked. I looked down at the water. I would miss his eyes the most.

  He nudged my chin up with his finger. He rubbed my cheek, and I puckered for a steamy moonlit kiss. He laughed instead. “You have a little snot situation happening.”

  I groaned and went underwater to hide from him and wipe my face. He pulled me up, laughing, and we wrestled in the water as he tried to reach my nose until a swim lesson began.

  He led me through a series of leg kicks while he held on to my waist. I knew how to swim more than I let on. We had mandatory lessons years ago. I just didn’t want him to let go.

  When he did, I grabbed him and rested my head on his chest, enjoying the last moments before I complicated our easy relationship. It grew quiet enough to hear the sounds of the night – trees and wind and bugs. Because he was perfect and could sense what I needed, he lifted me up on his back. I lay there as he swam. We didn’t speak, just enjoyed the peace, the calm before a storm he wouldn’t see coming.

  It eventually became too cold for the pool or Nathan to warm me. He wrapped me up in my towel and carried me inside. He put me down in front of my door. “Is this goodnight, birthday girl?” he asked.

  “No, I want to hang out … and talk.”

  He didn’t seem to notice the dread in my tone. He kissed me and ran to his room to take a shower. I left the door unlocked so he could come in if he finished before me.

  Mere minutes could be all the time I had left with him. And I’d be alone again. Lonely. Worst case, he’d feel obligated to turn me in. No, worst case, he’d shift and try to handle the abomination on his own. I’d have to be quick, explain, show him the diary. Pray.

  And I hadn’t allowed myself to freak out about Remi. My hands rattled in the shower. She could turn me in, report that she’d seen me, and I’d gone psycho hunter on her with a knife.

  Who was I kidding? I couldn’t act all tough with her. She had the upper hand. Everyone else in this house would keep my secret because they’d been asked to. Not Remi. She obviously had other plans. Good thing I was a millionaire. I’d pay her for Sophia’s sake and everyone else who could be home when the hunters came to collect me.

  “How much would shut her up?” I whispered as the water beat down on me. I heard nothing. “What can I do about Remi?” Her name echoed in my head, again and again, getting louder, drowning out the water, bringing whispers and buzzing into the shower with me. Then I heard her.

  She was thinking of so much. The drink she ordered. Potato skins. How much she hated me already.

  I let the noise pull me closer, and I could see the bar. It made me dizzy. I lost my footing in the shower and grabbed the towel rack for balance.

  My plan is shot to hell, she thought. She sipped out of a beer as Emma and Paul danced near her. The image was blurry, watery, but I could see her drumming her long nails against the table. I can’t believe I failed. I just want to go home now. Without the pictures, he won’t believe they’re not human. I couldn’t even get in her room. That’s probably where Sparky hid them. It will take too long to get new pictures on my phone. Giving these idiots to him was the best way to thank him for making me human. I have nothing now.

  Human? That was why I could hear her. She’d done the purging thing and wanted to turn us over to hunters. That was why she wanted to make me upset. She wanted me to do magic in front of her. She needed a picture of that.

  I wanted to know more, but her thoughts turned to faint whispers in my ear, and the blurry bar distorted even more. I strained to hold on. I shook all over – my hands, legs, all of me. My head hurt like crazy, like it was ripping apart. I strained harder as her thoughts muted more and my vision rattled with the rest of me.

  I bit down on my tongue from the shaking, almost seizing, and had to let the final traces of her thoughts float away. I kneeled down so I wouldn’t fall. Pink water swirled around the drain. My nose poured blood. My mouth did too, so much that it coated my chin and neck.

  I curled up in a ball on the floor of the shower, breathing deep, trying to regain control of my muscles.

  My shower song came to me then. I hummed it at first, then sang, as the shaking subsided and my tongue stopped throbbing. I used my hand as a cup to bring water to my mouth. I swished to clear the taste of blood. My nose stopped too, and I sat on the floor of the shower, scared and stunned, until I realized I couldn’t stay in here
all night.

  I nearly fell twice as I dried off and slipped into my pajamas. I tried to pull it together when I heard the TV from my room.

  I made the mistake of sitting on the bed and couldn’t get back up. “Nate,” I whispered, so he wouldn’t think I was ignoring him in here. He heard me over the TV and came into the room.

  “You okay?” he asked. I nodded with my heavy head. “You don’t look okay.” He sat next to me and pulled me to his lap. I wanted to believe that I’d just gotten really worked up about hearing thoughts and I did not just make myself have a seizure or some bloody, psychic fit. But I knew that wasn’t true. “You also don’t sound okay,” he said.

  “What do you hear?”

  “Your heart is a little off. But I can’t really go by that. Your heart is always doing funny things around me.” He flashed his sneaky smile again. I was too tired to roll my eyes, so I closed them. “And your breath smells weird.”

  “Ouch.”

  He laughed. “It doesn’t stink. It smells metallic. So either you’re a vampire or something’s wrong in there. Let me see.” I tightened my lips and he tried to pry them open. “Come on. Open up. It’s my job to take care of you. I need to see,” he crooned.

  “It’s not your job!” I snapped. My eyelids weighed a ton, but I forced them open. He snatched his fingers from my lips and looked away. I sighed. “I mean … you don’t have to take care of me. You’re not obligated to.” He looked like he didn’t really know what to say to that. And he shouldn’t. I’d just gone off like a psycho. Like a copy. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to be a burden on you. I don’t want to be this thing you have to take care of and protect.”

  He reached down to peck my cheek. “Okay,” he said, like it was solved and done with. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, babe. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I groaned and sat up in his arms. I almost fell back, still dizzy. Holding on to his shoulders, I poked out my tongue, like I should’ve done without freaking out on him. “I bit my tongue in the shower,” I slurred.

  He rubbed the sore spot with his finger. “Yikes. It’s pretty deep. Does it hurt?” I nodded and retracted my tongue. “I know you just said that you don’t need to be taken care of, but you do realize I can fix that, right?” I chuckled and stuck my tongue out again. “My mostly useless magic takes some concentration, so don’t kiss me.”

  He slid his tongue over mine, and I moved in to kiss him. He pulled away and shook his head. I held still as his magic, that wasn’t useless to me, did its work on my self-imposed seizure wound.

  “Nate. We need to talk,” I said.

  “Do you realize that you’re talking in your incredibly cute, sleepy voice?”

  “I know. My shower was … eventful. That’s what we need to talk about.”

  He chuckled and growled. “I don’t need to think about you in the shower any more than I already do.” I managed a sluggish giggle. “You’re going to be singing in my dreams now.”

  “Why?” I asked, losing the battle with my eyes.

  “You sing very well. Was that a lullaby I heard?” he whispered, his beautiful voice echoing in my head like a dream.

  “Oh. Yeah. I sing that all the time. I made it up.”

  “I’m not one to judge, given my sock friends, but you made up your own lullaby?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. At least I’d meant to shrug my shoulders. I had made the song up, hadn’t I? I didn’t remember doing it, but I’d always known it wasn’t something I remembered from the nuns. They didn’t sing to me. I was Leah to them, the crier, a nuisance. My throat tightened thinking of Catherine and Raymond. I knew in that same moment, without a hint of doubt, that the song had come from one or both of them. How would I remember that?

  The answer came to me, draining me even more. I could remember it because I wasn’t normal and I hadn’t been normal then.

  That reminded me of what I needed to tell him – I was psychic and what we had was built on a lie that could dissolve at any moment. It could be because of Remi. She could come up with another plan. Or Lydia Shaw could knock on the door, led here by her psychic powers. Then he’d be hurt … and I’d…

  I really didn’t want to say die or admit to myself what I thought would happen to me without him. What I’d seen in my dream.

  “Baby … my parents. I think they sang to me. That’s good news because I …”

  “Shhh,” he said and laughed. “You’re totally drooling on me, Chris.” I felt the covers pull over my shoulders and his lips press against mine. “Goodnight, baby.”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t … go.”

  “You wouldn’t mind me in your bed with you?” Was he in the sitting room now? He sounded so far away.

  “No. Come back.”

  The bed heated up in a moment. “I’m right here.” He pulled me closer and I gave in, slipping into the warmest sleep of my life.

  Soft snores tickled my ear, and I opened my eyes. The lights and the TV were still on in the sitting room. Nate’s hand was tucked under my rib.

  Crap. I’d failed again. Didn’t tell him … again.

  I turned around carefully, trying not to disturb him. He was even more beautiful asleep.

  The fire I’d feared for years seemed to swirl around my heart now. I smiled at my sleeping boyfriend, and a tear fell from my eye. For some reason, some deep and nameless reason, this felt familiar. Lying with someone in bed, love in my heart, love all around me. It made me want to sing. So I did. Softly, I whispered my shower song. It felt like it belonged here. In a bed, with your heart sleeping right beside you.

  As I told him to dream his little angel dreams, another verse leapt to my tongue.

  My heart is yours.

  My life is too.

  No one will hurt you.

  This is true.

  Sleep in peace as angels sing.

  My love. My everything.

  I knew in an instant I hadn’t made that part up either. I shivered, wanting to scream at CC, yell at her for killing herself, yell at her for leaving me alone. Nate’s arms tightened around me, and my eyes flew open.

  His were filled with tears.

  “You love me?” he asked in a weak whisper. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I was still shaking from the song I’d remembered and trembling more now because he’d heard me. “No one has ever loved me.”

  He sounded nothing like my Nate, not upbeat or goofy. He sounded incredibly wounded.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  He closed his eyes tightly, like he was refusing to cry.

  “I love you more. I have loved you for days. I will love you forever.”

  Love.

  Nate loved me.

  And if he loved me, I had a better chance of keeping him now. He could tell me anything about himself, ask my forgiveness, and he’d have it. No question.

  I kissed him hard, saying thank you, saying I love you even more than I did before.

  He pulled away after a minute, but I followed him. I rolled myself on top of him and tangled my fingers in his hair.

  He rolled us back to my side without moving his lips from mine. His hands slipped under my shirt, warm on my back. I reached my legs around his waist. That seemed to set a fire between us that changed … everything. The innocence we had in the pool faded. Our kisses were longer, deeper, infinitely hotter. His lips moved to my neck, and I tightened my legs around him.

  I slipped my hands under his shirt and trailed my fingers up his scars, raising the back of his shirt to his shoulders. He shrugged it off the rest of the way.

  This position seemed to have one inevitable ending that we were speeding towards way too soon. The nuns had called this one-thing-leading-to-another dilemma The Slippery Slope.

  I thought back. They’d given specific instructions on how to stop plummeting down the devil’s pathway. Step one. What was step one? Nate bit my lip a little. Damn. Why did I want to remember step one? He moved his hands slowly down my back, and I shud
dered.

  Oh, right. I wanted to get off of the slope because I’d only met him two seconds ago, and I was lying to him about everything. I was really human, and if how close we’d been before wasn’t illegal, this would certainly be enough for Lydia Shaw to remove his beautiful head, maybe mine too.

  Then I remembered that step one started with a V, like Virginity. Vertical. Step one of getting off of the slippery slope was move you and your lustful partner in sin to a vertical position. I lifted up and we slowed. Nate rolled away to the other side of the bed.

  What do you know? The nuns knew something after all. They knew how not to have sex.

  Step two. I remembered there being giggles in the assembly at this point. Step two was breathe and place a barrier between you and your lustful partner in sin. I grabbed a pillow and hugged it against my chest.

  He pulled his shirt over his head, inside out. “Sorry, babe,” he said. “I lost it.”

  “It was me. With the legs. I’m sorry.” The look he shot me said, don’t ever be sorry for doing that. I smiled. “I think we should um … talk about it,” I said, moving on to step three – openly communicate with your lustful partner in sin about boundaries. My boundaries would be a lot more flexible than the nuns imagined, but we should at least talk about them. Then we’d have a plan … if he didn’t break up with me after I finally told him the truth.

  “Right. Okay. So the leg thing, that was great, but it sort of made me lose my mind. Did I upset you?” I shook my head. “Would you tell me if I did?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t just you, Nate. I lost it too. So how long do you think we should … uh…”

  “Wait?” he asked. I nodded. “Who do you want to answer that question? Your boyfriend or your best friend?”

  “Both.”

  He propped himself up on his elbow. “Well, your best friend thinks it should happen sometime in the distant future when it’s right and you trust your boyfriend that much. And it should be planned out so you two can be careful.”