Hidden (Hidden Series Book One)

by M. Lathan

  “And my boyfriend?”

  He pulled me closer, pressing his nose against my neck. “He’d say now was a good time, and he hates your friend for putting that stupid distant future idea in your head.” We laughed, and he kissed me softly. “But he loves you, so so so so much, and wouldn’t want you to do anything too soon. And he feels like dirt for mauling you just now.”

  “You did not maul me, Nate.” He propped himself up again. He closed his eyes and half smiled, half winced.

  “You must not feel that I totally unhooked you back there.” I felt my back and the hanging straps under my shirt and gasped.

  “When did you do that?!” He half-chuckled, half-groaned and shrugged. “That is in a way, impressive, and in many ways, very creepy and concerning.”

  “I told you, I lost it.” I re-hooked my bra, laughing at how embarrassed he looked. “I can’t believe I did that. I should go.”

  I pouted. “Please stay. I promise not to attack you again.”

  His kiss seemed to mean, attack me any time you like.

  I wanted to laugh at how the nuns’ step thing worked. We were fine when we curled up under the covers, all traces of smoldering heat gone.

  “Tell me this is real,” he said. “Tell me you can fall in love with someone this fast. Tell me I won’t wake up from this and be living on the streets, hungry and dreaming about someone like you.”

  I should’ve said it then, the truth, but this was real. Despite the lies. And to have him get up and leave in this moment would be death, more pain than Sienna or Satan could ever cause. “I want to be yours forever,” I said, the truest words ever spoken.

  “Works for me,” he whispered, as he bundled my feet in his.

  I fell asleep in his arms as my powers told me to dread tomorrow. I could almost hear the thunder from the storm that was soon to hit.

  I reached for him when I woke up, but he was gone. Sophia was humming a sweet melody in the bathroom. He must’ve crept out of bed before she came.

  I turned over, face down into the oversized pillow he’d been on. I held it like it was Nathan. Tears pushed at my eyes, thinking about what I had to tell him today and that I may have to deal with the Remi situation on my own after he broke up with me.

  “You went swimming?” Sophia asked when I forced myself to get up and drop the Nathan scented pillow.

  “Yep,” I said. She looked like she was expecting me to say more than that. “It was fun. That’s what you wanted, right? Me to have fun?”

  I went into the closet and shut the door to get dressed. “I didn’t imagine that fun would include a bikini. Where’d you get it?”

  “Emma made it,” I said.

  “I’ll have to congratulate her. This is good work. She’s been practicing. Believe it or not, creating clothing is pretty advanced magic. The seams are perfect. Expensive fabric. Since there aren’t any tags, I’ll assume I should hand wash it.”

  I cocked my head to the side. I hadn’t thought about it having a tag. I guessed that made sense. Tags were from designers and manufacturers. Witches wouldn’t need to make them. I looked inside of the purple shirt I was about to pull over my head. It had a tag. I searched through all of my clothes then. They all had them.

  “Emma loves to swim,” she said. “She’s always talking about the beach or something.” Sophia laughed, her sweet, trusting laugh, and I pulled on the shirt. My clothes having tags wouldn’t make her a liar, and God knows I didn’t need another problem to deal with today. “She told me you two were becoming good friends.”

  “Yeah. She’s great.” She went on about Emma, and I tuned her out and opened the little door in my closet. I pulled out Catherine’s diary and checked the pages I’d marked.

  “Did you hear me, love?” Sophia asked, right outside of my closet. I hid the diary and pushed my jeans to cover the door.

  “No.”

  Slowly, I walked out. She looked over my shoulder before looking into my eyes.

  “I said I had a few errands to run, and I’ll be back later. Maybe later than usual.”

  “Bye,” I said. She kissed me on my cheek and left with a snap.

  I sat at my desk, watching the door, waiting for him to knock.

  “CC,” I said, knowing she’d come if I called her. “Do you think he loves me enough to look past it?” I shivered and opened the laptop.

  You’ve let the slightest thing interrupt you. You’re psychic, so you know exactly what will happen, and you’re avoiding it. And that’s wise. He could tell someone your secret. It’s best if you two just break up, if you ask me.

  I sighed and closed the laptop. “I’m sorry I said anything. You don’t have to worry about me talking to you anymore.”

  She left again, going back to her husband who had yet to acknowledge me, I guessed.

  If the daughter I hid with all of my riches asked me for relationship advice, I’d be encouraging. I’d bring up the time it worked out with her father. CC was someone completely different than the girl who wrote in that diary. Maybe Raymond’s death had changed her. I shivered as I wondered if he’d died while she was pregnant and she’d had to wait to kill herself, dreading living with life inside of her.

  I rocked back in my chair, startled out of my skin, when Nate knocked and sang my name.

  I’d never walked slower than I did to answer the door. He picked me up and showered my face with kisses. It was the happiest I’d ever seen him. Great.

  “Last night was the best night of sleep I’ve ever gotten in my life. Almost eighteen years of laying my head down and no night comes close. Maybe because of the song.” He put me down only to wrap his arms around my waist. “Oh! Guess what I dreamed.”

  “What?”

  “You were running in this blue ball gown and jumped in the pool. Then you climbed out and tried to scramble eggs outside on the concrete. It was so random.”

  Our fingers locked together, the most effortless action ever.

  “That is random. Why didn’t I just go inside?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t know. You just really wanted those eggs, I guess. I expected to see you eating that this morning. Now at least we know I’m not psychic like hunter-scum.”

  The silence was so tense that I thought he might figure it out right then.

  I stared at our hands. The wounds I hadn’t felt in days stung suddenly.

  He threw me over his shoulder before I could say that we needed to talk. CC was right. I was avoiding it, and I had an idea of how he’d take it.

  He jumped down to the second floor, making me giggle against my will.

  “Is that Chris?” Emma asked. “Nathan, bring her here.” He took me to Emma’s room and sat me down on the bed. For some reason, that made me giddy. I never used to sit on Whitney’s bed. It had always felt like I couldn’t, like we weren’t close enough for that. Nate sat next to me, and Emma cleared her throat. “Out. This is girl talk. No Nathans allowed.”

  He chuckled and walked with his hands on his hips, twisting, to the door. “Au revoir. You have exactly five minutes, Emma, and I’ll be back.” He kissed his fingers, in a very French sort of way, mocking her.

  She snapped her fingers, and the door slammed in his face. “So … the pool?”

  I smiled at my hands. “It was fun.”

  “Fun … like?” I groaned. “Come on. Dish.”

  “Fun like, being in a pool with your boyfriend … then spending the night with him.” She squealed. “With your clothes on.”

  “Booo. Well … it was almost interesting. Next time I’ll make the bikini a little racier.” She sat across from me on her bed, tucking her legs underneath her. “I also had an interesting night,” she said and sighed. “Remi ended our friendship. After everyone in my life – my parents, Sophie, Paul – told me to leave her alone, she comes in my room and says that she hates me and that we’re done.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “That’s a good thing. She’s …”

  “She’s something,” Emma
said. “Really something. I wanted to help her, but you can’t fix that kind of crazy with dancing and margaritas. I mean … the girl actually likes getting captured. It’s like a hobby of hers. I thought it was fun until I got around normal people again.”

  She winked at me, but I wasn’t normal.

  “Anyway, I don’t expect her to stick around much longer. I just wanted to tell you because she also said some things about you. She told me to watch my back around you. She said you were crazy.”

  She fell back on her pillows, like she wasn’t afraid at all, like she didn’t believe Remi. She needed to believe Remi.

  “Enough girl talk,” Nate said outside of the door. “I’m hungry.”

  “Eat without her,” Emma yelled.

  “Not possible. I can’t seem to function without her. She’s my life.”

  In unison, Emma and I crooned, “Awww.”

  He was smiling like that had been a joke when I opened the door. I still jumped in his arms, kissing him. Enjoying this while I still had it. “I love you,” I whispered, nervous and unsure if he’d say it back again.

  “I love you too.”

  I smiled and exhaled loudly. “Let’s get breakfast and talk. We didn’t do much of that last night.”

  “I remember that being your fault,” he whispered.

  Paul walked up behind Nate, nodding suggestively, and slowly raised his hand for the high-five he hadn’t gotten yet.

  “Please, just do it,” I said.

  “Yes!” Paul said, when their hands smacked in the air, like he’d won a prize or something.

  If I had to choose a moment I didn’t want to end, it would be this one – in my boyfriend’s arms after saying I love you, my friend smiling at us from her room, Nate also connecting with someone after years of being alone like me. But my instincts told me that all good things must come to an end.

  And the doorbell reminded me that I was psychic.

  Chapter Eleven

  The four of us just stood there for a moment after hearing the impossible sound. None of us needed the doorbell. My mind went to the worst of scenarios – that Lydia Shaw was behind the door.

  “Paul…” Nate said. Paul nodded and went down the stairs at the same moment as Nate closed Emma in her room. Then he sprinted up to the third floor and closed me in mine. I couldn’t stay inside.

  For one, I was sure if something happened it would be my fault. And if we were going to survive this, everyone should be in my room, where my enemy couldn’t get to us.

  I ran down the stairs, slowing when I heard the commotion. Remi struggled with Nate to get to the door. “Get out of my way, Sparky. It’s for me,” she said.

  “Why the hell would you invite someone here?” Nathan asked. “How did they get in the gate?”

  “I opened it. Get over it,” she said. The doorbell rang again, and the front door opened. Whoever it was, brought a lot of noise in with him. His thoughts blasted like the kids at school, like humans, like Remi. “Liam, you’re right on time.”

  “He’s not coming in this house,” Paul said.

  “Hello, Remi,” the guy said, in an English accent. “Introduce me to your friends.”

  “Trust me, I don’t have friends,” Remi said. Liam sized up Nathan and Paul in his mind, wondering which was the dog and which was the wizard she’d told him about. And he was … excited. Thrilled, really, to meet them, to know that Remi hadn’t made them up.

  He was a hunter, the hunter who’d purged her, the guy she wanted to impress. I almost ran down there, feeling completely capable of ending this right here, right now, but I remembered I was a missing person. A missing copy.

  “Come in, Liam,” Remi said. Her thoughts were loud too, telling her plan to lead him to the other two prizes upstairs. She didn’t have time to take new pictures, so she was letting him see for himself.

  I thought about what would happen, and I saw it. It had been days since I’d been pulled into a vision. Whitney giving me the mask was the last one. But I was different in this vision. I didn’t curl up and take it. Not even close. I raised her hunter friend, who must be a dirty blonde with gray eyes, into the air and forced his body through a window. Blood and glass scattered on the living room floor. I stalked away from him to Remi. Fire flared from my hands, and Nate ran out of the door in a panic. Then Paul and Emma followed, leaving me alone again.

  I pulled out of the misty vision and caught my breath.

  I couldn’t be that person. Not if I wanted Nate to look past me being a copy. Not if I wanted to keep my other friends too. I didn’t bother running to my room. I needed to move faster than that. I opened my eyes in front of my desk and grabbed my phone.

  Sophia had stopped me before. I needed her again.

  “Hello, my love,” she said after one ring.

  “Sophia, I need you.”

  “What’s wrong, dear?”

  “I know this is going to sound weird, but I know for a fact that Remi is no longer a panther, and the person who changed her is in the house.”

  The phone made a startling noise in my ear, like something was wrong with the connection.

  She flashed into the room and inspected me in a panic. “I’m fine. Nate and Paul are down there.”

  “Lock the door,” she said and vanished.

  I sat on the floor and tucked my head between my knees. I hadn’t prayed in days, but I needed to now. I’d needed to the entire time here. This whole situation was dangerous. Everyone was at risk, especially the guy I loved.

  What if something happened down there? Something I could’ve stopped by opening my mouth sooner? Something that would be my fault because I’d pissed her off? What if he was hurt? That was enough to get me up and out of the door.

  And I ran. Eyes closed and fingers crossed, on my way to kill. I’d been in this dark place many times before. In the cafeteria, countless times in a classroom, and in the halls. God, the halls were the worst, people bumping me, provoking me. But those kills would’ve been selfish. This would be for all of us. This hunter had to go. This girl had to die.

  I collided against a body. I opened my eyes and still couldn’t see, still raptured in the rage I’d fought so hard. But I could feel him, his arms, his hands, and Christine couldn’t help but respond to him.

  “Nate,” I said. He kissed my cheek and carried me back to my room. I wrapped my entire body around him, elated to see him in one piece. “What happened? Is it over?”

  “Sophia threw the guy and Remi out. Everything’s fine.” I wasn’t entirely sure, but I thought I felt Nate sniff my neck. “She was actually already packed.”

  I didn’t imagine the sniff, he did it again. I unhooked my legs from his waist so I could have his full attention.

  “Nate, that guy! She brought him here on purpose. That idiot!” He tightened his arms around me and kissed my cheek again.

  “I wouldn’t have let anything happen. I think he was just here to pick her up,” he whispered. “She left on a motorcycle with him.”

  “Did he hurt you? I swear if he did-” Nate chuckled.

  “You have no idea what you’re doing right now, do you?” he mumbled.

  “No. Nate, tell me more about what happened down there. What did the guy say to you?”

  He kissed my neck and chuckled again. “Let me see if I can get the accent right,” he said. “-ello there, ‘ole chap. I’m Liam. I smell like old, rotting meat. I’m -ere for Remi.” He laughed at his horrible impersonation of Liam – who he couldn’t know was a hunter or else he’d be panicking right now. “Sophia walked into the living room and went nuts on Remi. Now she’s gone, said she’s moving in with her new boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend? Did she say that?” He nodded against my neck, and his hands moved lower on my back.

  “Are you sure he didn’t hurt you? If he did, I swear I-”

  “You’re doing it again,” he whispered. “Your angry voice. You can be unbearably sexy at times. Did you know that?”

  I sighed,
losing my focus because he had none. “I’m not always sexy?”

  One of his hands traveled up my back, all the way up to my face. “Typically, you’re adorable and sweet. But I’ve noticed that when you’re angry or your temperature hikes for … other reasons…” He kissed my neck. “You smell more like spice than cake batter.” He sniffed me a third time. “It’s unreal how great you smell then. I almost want to make you mad just to get another whiff of it.”

  I smiled. That was a new take on my anger. Sexy, not murderous. I could live with that.

  He kissed me, softly at first, then hard enough to rock me on my feet. Of course I kissed him back. I didn’t want to be rude, even though he was being incredibly random, drunk almost.

  I pulled away and caught my breath. His eyes were on my lips. “Baby,” I said, trying to get us back on topic. He moaned and chuckled.

  “That just makes it worse. Baby. Nate. Any affectionate term in your voice makes me feel … important. Loved.”

  He’d won. Pulled me in. “You are important. You are loved,” I said. I let him take my breath away, making me forget I had a care in the world. I tangled my fingers in his hair. He growled, picked me up, and pressed me against the door.

  Just as I reached my legs around his waist again, Sophia cleared her throat.

  “Sophia!” I said. “We … um…” Nate put me down and stepped in front of me, like he was protecting me from her.

  “I’m sorry. It’s my fault, Sophia. I promise,” Nate said. She groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I broke the rules. I’m sorry. Should I pack?”

  “Go to your room, Nathan. Yes, you should pack, because everyone is leaving. But right now, I need to speak with Christine alone,” she said, in a voice I’d never expect from her. She sounded terrified.

  Nate left with his head down. It was silent in the room for a moment until Sophia sighed again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We got carried away.”

  “You can’t date a shifter, dear,” she whispered. “He’s a nice boy, but not for you.”

  “I love him,” I said.

  She chuckled without humor. “Love him? Even better. You are going to get me killed. That’s how I die. Not the war. Not bribing hunters. It’s going to be you.”