by Tara Brown
"I agree. I can't leave them alone."
Aleks cleared his throat thinking out loud, "We should hide now before they see us, its bad enough if they have a shifter they will smell us out. So where are you meeting them?"
"Bus depot for the last bus out. It's in three hours."
Lucas frowned, "Well we have to assume they're watching you right now. There is no way they would have left you without surveillance. I wouldn’t have."
She wanted to take it the wrong way but she nodded looking out at the night growing dark beyond the windows, "Probably."
"Well keep your uncle busy and let us work on something. Did I read it correctly you can knock an immortal unconscious?"
Ari nodded, "Except Lucas. I've uh well done it too many time to uhm him. He's immune to it now."
Aimee laughed, "We are best friends."
Lucas scowled at Aimee but blushed when he spoke to Ari, "What were we doing?"
She blushed, "Uhm well you were taking piercings out of my face one time with pliers and once you fought with your brother Ben over me. Once another wolf kissed my cheek in front of you. It was all really just misunderstandings."
He raised an eyebrow, "Someone kissed you?"
She nodded watching his face twitch at the thought. She smiled, "Does it bother you even though we've never met?"
He licked his lips staring at hers.
Lydia smacked him, "Anyway we need this to work so you better get back to work and we will come up with something."
Ari walked away and when she looked back Aimee was gone already. She hoped their plan would work.
Chapter Twenty-Eight- Bane
Aimee
She took Lorri's hand in hers and winked them to the bathroom in the diner.
"So she is legit?"
Aimee nodded, "It's weird."
Lorri laughed, "I met one once, it was weird. They really are the Bane of our existence. They mess with everything. I'll sneak out back and follow you guys."
Aimee walked casually back to the table and sat down.
"Where is she going?"
Aimee smiled at Lydia, "To watch out back."
They waited for the diner to close and then slipped out into the night to hide around the property. Lucas and Aleks went to the bus terminal to wait and watch out for the others.
Aimee watched from a distance as Ari said her goodbyes and hugged everyone. Her uncle got into the truck to drive her over. He seemed like he was devastated about her leaving. Aimee felt sad for him thinking about her own father and how keeping her distance was no doubt the only thing that had kept him alive. Her constant worry for him was the main reason she hadn’t ever tried to patch things up with Shane.
Ari climbed into the truck hugging the blond older woman once more.
"Take care of yourself sweetie and we expect visits at Christmas."
Ari waved to the woman and her uncle pulled out of the parking lot.
Aimee ran to the suburban and jumped in starting it and following after Ari.
The plan had seemed to be pretty basic, use Ari as bait and kill everyone as her uncle left. The only part Aimee was uncertain about was whether or not Ari could handle herself. She'd seen the way Luke had watched her, like the wolf and Little Red. She smirked thinking about it.
"Don’t be mean. She's his mate. He can't help how he looks at her."
Aimee grinned at Lydia, "Its just funny. He's so sexy, if you tell him that I will deny it to the death, honestly he is though and he has never shown an ounce of interest in a girl. Then suddenly this little sporty looking waitress comes along he's drooling and growling like a madman.
Lydia laughed.
They pulled in behind her uncles' old beater truck and watched as he helped unload her bag from the back of the truck. He hugged her and handed her some cash. She tried to turn him down but he insisted.
"He loves her so much." Aimee whispered.
"Its mutual." Lydia whispered back, "She's been through more than any of us will ever understand. She's lived this year four times, each time as a different her. One of the girls was raped and beaten and lived on the streets as a drug addict. Lucas saved her. She is the only one who remembers all of it."
Aimee felt pain for the girl who seemed like a small town country bumpkin.
They watched as Ari hugged her uncle and kissed him and dragged her suitcase over to the bus stop. He ran his hands through his hair and paced as if ready to tell her not to go. Aimee glanced at Lydia who nodded at her idea.
Aimee got out of the truck and walked up to the bus stop.
"Ari?"
Ari looked at her confused, "Hey."
"You catching the bus?"
Ari nodded looking at her uncle and smiling, "Yeah."
"Me too. Awesome at least we wont be alone. You must be Ari's uncle, I'm Aimee. I graduated two years before her."
He smiled brightly at Aimee, "Nice to meet you. What school do you go to?"
"She goes to Brown too Uncle."
Aimee nodded playing along, "I do yup, third year. It's an amazing school. You catching the flight from Albuquerque?"
Ari nodded, "Yeah they're paying, I got full scholarship."
Aimee whistled, "Good for you. You must be so proud of her."
Ari's uncle nodded and turned to hug her once more, "I am. Stay safe okay kid? Stay together."
Ari smiled at her uncle, "We will Vince, jeeze, easy on the PDA. It's only two months till Christmas."
He laughed, "You're a brat. See ya at Christmas."
The bus pulled up. Ari let them load her suitcase and looked at Aleksander in the corner. He nodded. Ari hugged her uncle once more and Aimee pulled her on the bus, "OMG Ari there is a dance in the fall it's so fun. Bye." She waved at Lydia as if it were her mom or grandma. Lydia waved smiling from ear to ear.
They went to the back of the bus and sat down. The bus driver scowled at them, "Tickets?"
Aimee smiled at him, "We don’t need tickets remember, we gave them to you already."
He looked dazed, "Oh yeah." He turned and walked back.
Aimee and Ari sat and watched Vince get back into his truck waving at the bus once more before driving away. When the truck was gone from sight Aimee winked them back to the bus stop.
"Wait here for them okay." She winked herself gone instantly.
She watched from across the street as Ari stood alone at the bus stop under a lonely yellow light.
"She looks like bait."
Lydia nodded, "That’s good, she is."
They didn’t wait long before a tall thin man in dark jeans and a sweater walked up to her. He was alone, which made Aimee nervous. They never traveled alone.
He spoke softly to Ari, she smiled sweetly.
Aimee looked at Lydia who shrugged.
Aimee crept along the building she had parked beside to listen. She lifted her face into the wind. She could smell Lucas but no one else.
"Are you ready to go?" His voice was familiar.
Ari spoke softly, "Yeah."
He took his first step and with a flash was behind Ari holding one of his fingers to her throat. Aimee winced knowing his finger would be as deadly as a knife.
"Don't move Aimee or I will kill her. Tell Lydia to get out here where we can see her too."
Aimee knew she didn’t need to tell Lydia anything.
"Andy told me about your little friend here. She figured eventually you would remember some how."
Aimee frowned walking forward holding her hands out, "Andy was untouched by it all?"
He smirked, "The first time Ari erased her memory but it came back in odd flashes. Andy came to me and had me glamour her against Ari's special gifts. That’s far enough Aimee. I know exactly what those hands of yours do. You killed my brother last year."
Aimee smiled, "Right, that’s why your voice is familiar. You sound exactly like him." Aimee snapped her fingers at him making sparks in the air.
He poked a small slit in Ari's neck sniffing her blo
od.
Ari winced.
"Oh demon blood. Dorian if I'm not mistaken. You're a real full blooded Nephilim."
Aimee looked back at Lydia who was walking forward along side her. Ari didn’t look fazed by the information, she must have known who her father was.
"She'll make an excellent acquisition. I understand her talents are incredibly unique, one or two born every five or six hundred years what with full blooded angels not mating as they used to."
As Ari's blood began to waft through the air a large brown wolf leapt down from the roof above the bus stop knocking the thin man and Ari.
Ari turned as the thin man turned on Lucas to grab him. Ari froze them both as a light shot from her hands hitting the thin man.
A huge black panther dashed across the parking lot grabbing Ari as she knocked the thin man out. The cat ripped at her arm. Aimee winked herself across the lot letting the hunger in her hands have the cat. He changed back into a man as he died.
Aimee looked out at the parking lot as Aleks threw a man across it and Lydia held a man frozen gripping his head. She crippled him with one of her migraine of doom moves. Aimee cringed knowing the pain he was in. She winked to the man killing him instantly.
She winked behind one of the men picking himself up off the ground, he spun punching her in the face. She tried blocking but he was stronger than she expected. He was on top of her choking her with his knee holding her hands down with his. The world spun as the air left her. His grip froze as he fell to his side passing out. Ari stood over her smiling. Aimee laughed and put her hand to the man on the ground. She took his life from him feeling badly for the fact he was unconscious but not bad enough to let him live. She knew he would not have offered her that fate.
The large brown wolf walked up nuzzling against Ari licking her wounds on her hands and neck. Ari laughed putting her hands around him.
"Demon blood will make you sick Lucas stop it."
Aimee laughed, "Not when he's a wolfie. He isn’t like us, shifters are something completely different. They are like mother natures warriors. He could eat a demon and not even get a little heartburn."
Aimee looked around wondering where Lorri had gotten.
Lydia spoke looking haunted, "She will be here in a moment."
A black car drove up making a horrid squeal, smoke billowed from its hood and bullet holes riddled its doors. The car came to a screeching stop and the driver door nearly ripped off its hinges as Lorri climbed out looking particularly badass. She dragged a bleeding and weak looking Andy Cromwell.
Lorri threw Andy, rolling the woman along the pavement to Lydia's feet.
She coughed and turned her battered face up to Lydia as tears of blood rolled down her face, "Lydia please spare me. I didn’t mean it. I was trying to help you all. Save you."
Aimee looked horrified as Lydia's face crumpled, "You're my oldest and dearest friend Andy how could you?"
Andy spat viciously, "She erased my memory once. I had spent a full year of my life trying to find the mole in our organization. I met someone in my journey into the dark ones, I fell in love Lydia. She erased it all. All my time and all my effort. I started to remember, my heartbreak was real. My depression was because she stole a year of my life, all our lives. I told the dark ones about her. It seemed like a smart idea. What better way to destroy them than give them something that will destroy them all without them being aware of it just as we weren’t."
Lorri leaned down and ripped Andy's head off suddenly. She picked up one of Andy's arms and dragged her walking away from the small group of them, "Enough of that bullshit." She muttered like a psychopath.
Ari threw up, Lucas turned his face away and Aimee shivered at the sight of the violence.
Lydia shrunk to her knees sobbing for her loss.
Chapter Twenty-Nine- Angels and Demons
Ari
The words were truth, she didn’t want them to be but she truly was the best weapon the good had against the bad. She had systematically destroyed all of their lives without even trying. Her chest felt empty.
Lydia looked at her, Ari knew the older woman was reading her but she didn’t even try to consol Ari. She knew Lydia agreed with her thoughts. She watched Lucas walk away, she knew he was going to shift and put clothes on.
She walked to Aimee putting a hand to her arm, "I need you to do something for me."
Her grey eyes sparkled with the tears that floated in her eyes, "What?"
"I need you to take me somewhere."
"Now?"
Ari looked around, "Quickly. Think of New York City, the Roses."
Aimee frowned and took her hand thinking of Daniel and the institution.
The sick feeling she already had from Lorri ripping Andy's head off increase as they stood in the entryway of the Roses. She turned to Aimee, "Thanks, don’t bring Lucas here. Just let me be here alone for a while please."
Aimee looked at her confused, "I don’t understand. Andy is dead."
Ari felt tears pouring from her eyes, "I know but she was right. I'm a natural disaster. Who knows who I'll touch next, who I'll send back and mess with everyone's life."
Aimee nodded, "I'll tell him. See you soon?"
Ari shrugged, "If you want to. If not I get it."
Aimee was gone in an instant leaving Ari standing alone in the hallway. She walked up and pressed the doorbell to the institution for after hours.
Daniel answered the door looking exhausted, "Ari, uhm how, well what's going on?"
Ari nearly walked inside to embrace but then it dawned on her she had never been to Roses since she'd been sent back. Daniel shouldn’t know her. She stepped back but Daniel took a step forward, "You okay?"
She gulped and reached out for him tears streaming down her face even harder. Her hands brushed his before he could get away. She pushed watching his body drop to the floor. She turned and ran to the elevator. She looked up at the camera and decided the stairs were a safer bet. She had walked into the trap that had been set to put her down. She knew she was a danger to everyone but she wanted to live. She wanted a life. She turned and ran through the emergency stairwell and sprinted the eight floors.
She heard the doors open at the top of the hall, she knew there would be more waiting at the bottom if she didn’t beat the elevator. She ran past the main floor remembering about the underground parking. She burst through the door on the second parking level. She ran toward the light. Her legs started to fill with the sweet adrenaline. Her instincts from being angry Ari filled her like muscle memory, she weaved through cars and trucks, jumping levels and running as fast as she could.
She leapt through the gate at the end jumping it like a hurdle. She sprinted out into the dark night in New York City feeling the cold October Rain hitting her in her shorts and t-shirt. She pumped her legs hard. Again all she wished for was Lucas. She knew he would come for her. She needed to reach him before they used him as bait to bring her in.
Her brain worked still like Angry Ari, she sensed the conspiracies and traitors in her midst.
She ran until she reached the area where the shifter bar she'd heard about many times was supposed to be. She looked around desperate and soaked. The entrance was a red door, she remembered that much.
Unfortunately the number of red doors on the street was unbelievable.
She walked trying to smell and see if she could get a scent of the shifters, they did smell differently than regular humans.
She walked up and down the street twice and gave up turning down an alleyway. She looked at a man watching her. She felt her fingers heat instantly as he followed her into the alley. She kept her head down assuming he was one of Daniels rogue Roses. She couldn’t believe he was the Mole in the organization. Lorri was going to rip his head off if Ari could ever get word to her.
"Look girl you don't want to do this."
He spoke softly looking behind himself.
She turned to see his face better, he wasn’t a shifter that was certain.
He wasn’t nearly attractive enough to be one. He could be a demon but she wracked her brains to think of an unattractive demon or vampire. This man was skinny to the point of starvation and homely.
"Please don’t go down this alley. Just go. Turn around before anyone else sees you."
She frowned looking back at him, "Leave me alone."
He shrugged shaking his head and turned around. He left her alone in the wet alley. She looked around her at the fire escapes.
She turned back to him and shouted, "Do you have a cell phone?"
He turned back around laughing, "Yeah I live on the streets and have no food but I totally have a cell phone."
She smiled and rolled her eyes following him out of the alley back onto the street.
"The shelter up the road, sometimes the workers will let you use theirs if it's an emergency."
"Why are you helping me?"
"You look like my sister. I would want someone to help her."
She nodded and followed him in his rumpled clothes down the wet street. He didn’t stop for her, he didn’t speak to her again he just walked until they reached a building with a red and blue cross on the outside.
He opened the door but never held it for her. She walked behind him leery of everything he did. The room he walked into seemed like a gymnasium filled with homeless people and bad smells. She also caught a whiff of chicken noodle soup. She smiled seeing the shelter. Angry Ari had memories that had been similar. She walked in behind him.
He pointed to bins, "There are clothes over there. I'd cover up if I were you."
She smiled at him seeing his face up close for the first time. He didn’t seem much older than her but the dirt and filth over his gaunt face aged him incredibly.
She turned to the bin of clothes.
"You're new?"
Ari looked toward the voice, "Yeah."
"You living on the streets?"
Ari shrugged at the woman and started rifling through the bin of clothes, "I am now."
"No job?"
She shook her head, "No family, no money, no clothes, no home." She heard the edge in her voice but she knew if she didn’t act defensively they would never believe she needed help. She looked healthy and fit and tanned in expensive running shorts and shoes.