Evolution (Evolution Series Book 1)

by Kelly Carrero

My stomach twisted when I saw Chelsea walking up my driveway. It was dark, and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing outside my house. The last thing I remembered was falling asleep at Aiden’s house, wrapped in his arms.

  Although most of her face was covered by her hoodie, I could still tell she was beaming. It was clear she’d been bitten by the love bug and was coming over to gloat. I made a mental note to ask Aiden what the hell happened between her and Ben—I had obviously missed something huge.

  As I sat on the porch, waiting for her to get closer, I felt something was wrong. I wasn’t sure what exactly had my stomach doing flips, but the feeling was getting stronger by the second.

  “Hurry up!” I yelled out to her. I wanted her to get inside and away from whatever it was that was making my skin crawl. Chelsea didn’t quicken her pace.

  “Chelsea,” I called again, but it was as if she didn’t hear me.

  Alarm bells were going off inside of me. Something was seriously wrong.

  “Run!” I yelled to Chelsea as I saw a man wearing something that resembled a ninja getup step out from a nearby bush.

  “Chelsea!” I screamed. She continued plodding up the driveway, oblivious to my warnings.

  What the hell was wrong with her? Maybe she was listening to her iPod. I started flapping my arms around, trying desperately to get her attention, but it was as if I wasn’t even there.

  Despite the fact that I was yelling, the man continued to creep up on her. I couldn’t believe the nerve of the guy. He was seriously going to try something with a witness not only watching, but calling out to the whole neighbourhood to come see what all the commotion was about.

  I looked around at all my neighbours’ houses. Not a single soul came out to see what was going on. Not even the nosy Mrs. Carson.

  When I looked back, he was going for the attack. Chelsea let out a deafening scream as he tried to put a bag over her head.

  Despite the confusion of why nobody seemed to acknowledge my existence, I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to Chelsea. Maybe my visions had been warning me of that very moment, and it was up to me to save her.

  Without thinking of how I was actually going to save her, or what I was going to do if the psycho turned on me, I ran across the front yard and tried to tackle the guy. I had no self-defence experience, nor had I ever been in an actual fight, but I’d be damned if I was going to let him take her without even trying to save her.

  As I sailed through the air in full-blown attack mode, I hoped the fact that I was some sort of super human would offer me some help in getting us both out of this situation. But I was wrong. I didn’t even have a chance.

  Instead of ploughing straight into his chest like I had planned, I actually went straight through him and landed without a thud on the grass behind where he stood.

  I looked around, trying to work out what had happened, and saw that he was dragging her off towards a van parked on the street.

  My body started trembling as I pulled myself up onto my knees and watched my best friend being shoved into the van. And the worst part was, despite all my efforts, there wasn’t a thing I could do to save her.

  I was trembling uncontrollably, and within seconds, I blacked out.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking up. I was still trembling uncontrollably, but I was no longer kneeling on my front lawn. I was back in Aiden’s room, lying in his bed with his arms wrapped around me.

  Neither of us said anything while I waited for the trembling to stop. I kept telling myself it was just a dream, yet somehow my brain wasn’t buying it. That hadn’t felt like any dream I’d ever had. In fact, it felt more like the visions I had been having the last few days, which scared the hell out of me.

  When the trembles finally stopped, I turned to face Aiden. I was hoping that he would be able to confirm that it was just a dream, because if it wasn’t, Chelsea was in some serious shit.

  Aiden seemed to be as shaken by my dream as I was, which didn’t make me feel any better. He kissed the top of my head. “Sorry, I don’t mean to scare you. It’s just… I’ve never heard of anyone having visions like that.”

  My heart lifted in hope. Maybe it was just a dream.

  Aiden’s face grew sorrowful. “I don’t think it was a dream, either...”

  And with those few words, any hope I had shattered into a million pieces. To tell the truth, I already knew that it wasn’t a dream, but hearing it come from Aiden’s lips made the whole thing real somehow.

  I didn’t know what to do, but I knew I had to do something to try to save her. “Come on, we have to try to figure this out, and we’re not going to do it lying in bed,” I said, throwing the covers off us. “I need to find Chelsea. We’ve got to make sure she isn’t ever alone because she was alone when she was taken. And if that’s all I can figure out so far, then that’s what we’ve got to eliminate.”

  “Do we have time for a shower?” Aiden asked, crawling out of bed after me.

  “Nope.” I searched the room for my bikini and kaftan. Once I had located my missing attire, I quickly changed and turned around, half expecting to see Aiden still in his birthday suit, but thankfully, he was already dressed and ready to go.

  “I was only half serious about the shower,” he said in his defence.

  “Sure you were.” I kissed him softly, savouring his sweet taste before pulling away too soon for either of our liking.

  With our hormones in check, we headed down to his car. Aiden threw his bag into the back seat next to where mine had been dumped yesterday, then jumped into the driver’s seat. I was already waiting next to him.

  We made a quick detour to my house so I could get changed into something more decent. Mum wasn’t home—no surprise there. She had left another note on the kitchen table saying that she promised she would be home for dinner at seven. “We’ll see,” I said to myself as I closed the front door and headed for the car.

  Mum generally had the best of intentions for the two of us to spend time together, but most of the time she would arrive hours later, apologising profusely that she hadn’t realised the time. It used to bother me when I was a kid, but these days it kind of worked out for the best. I mean, how many teenagers really want to spend ‘quality time’ with their parents? I love her and all, but I would rather be spending time with Aiden and my friends.

  Even with us arriving at school with only five minutes until the bell rang, Aiden’s usual parking space was still available. In the past, I’d been stumped as to why no one ever tried taking that spot, but I had got a pretty good idea it wasn’t a coincidence at all.

  Aiden gave me a wicked grin, making me think that there was a whole lot more he could do than he had told me about.

  We got out of the car and made our way towards our usual morning meeting point. From a distance, I could only see Chrissy, Megan, and Ben. I was hoping that Chelsea’s tiny frame was hiding behind Ben’s bulky body, but by the way Chrissy was trying to flirt with him, I knew my best friend wasn’t there.

  “Where’s Chelsea?” I blurted, a little more forceful than I’d intended.

  They all turned to face me, but only Chrissy opened her mouth to speak. “Well, hello to you, too.” She sounded a bit put off by my abruptness. If it was anyone else, I may have felt bad, but it was Chrissy we were talking about. There wasn’t much that would make me feel sorry for her anymore.

  “Just answer my question,” I snapped. “Has anyone seen Chelsea?” The sickness in my gut was getting heavier by the minute, and I really couldn’t deal with much more of Chrissy’s crap.

  “No!” Chrissy snapped back.

  “How often is she here on time anyway?” Megan said sweetly. She was obviously trying to defuse the tension building between Chrissy and me.

  I really didn’t want to get into an argument. Actually, I kind of did, but I didn’t have time for it. I had to try to find Chelsea. “Look…” I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself before continuing. “I
just really need to find her. Have any of you seen her?”

  Megan and Chrissy were looking at me like I was high on something, but neither of them said anything.

  “Has something happened?” Ben asked. He looked genuinely worried about why I was freaking out.

  I didn’t want to worry him too, so I lied. “Oh, nothing, I just need to speak with her about something,” I said dismissively.

  Ben still looked worried. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

  I waved off his concern. “Everything is fine, really.”

  Thankfully, the bell rang, saving me from any further questions, but I still hadn’t seen Chelsea.

  As the others hurried off to class, Aiden pulled me into his arms, trying to ease the panic building up inside of me.

  I buried my head in his chest, trying desperately not to shed the tears that were threatening to spill from my eyes. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t have access to those feel-good endorphins he was sending my way. They were already releasing the fear that had gripped me only moments ago.

  “You know, she could just be late,” he said, trying to ease my concerns.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I agreed half-heartedly.

  “But you don’t really think so, do you?” He bent down and kissed the top of my head. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  I leaned back enough so that I could look him in the eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me by the way he was looking at me, but he accepted my decision to go to class nonetheless.

  “Okay.” He bent down again and kissed me good-bye. “See you at lunch.”

  “See you,” I called out as I hurried off to maths—what a start to the day. It was not one of my favourite subjects. Don’t get me wrong, I was good at it, I just found it mind-numbingly boring. I would spend most of the class letting my mind wander off. It used to annoy the hell out of Mr. Heithcliffe. He would try to catch me out by asking me a question about whatever he was discussing at the time, but I always knew the answer. It all came to me so clearly, like I had a photographic memory or whatever it was called. Until now, I’d never understood how other students couldn’t wrap their heads around the simplicity of it all, which made me wonder just how it would feel to have a brain like your average Joe Blow. Maybe it was bloody hard, and I should be thankful for who, and what, I was.

  When I got to class, Mr. Heithcliffe had already separated the desks and had placed some exam papers facedown. I had completely forgotten he was giving us a practice exam before our finals, which were coming up in less than a month.

  I couldn’t believe the school year had gone so quickly. We were all facing the end of our lives as we had known it for the last thirteen years. Somehow, thirteen years of school didn’t seem as long as it used to. But I guess when you’re faced with eternity, thirteen years is barely the blink of an eye.

  I completed the exam and looked up at the clock at the front of the room. It had taken me less than twenty minutes to get through the exam that Mr. Heithcliffe had allocated two hours to complete, and most of that time I had spent thinking about the previous night’s vision.

  When Mr. Heithcliffe first became my teacher, he would approach me after I had finished an exam and suggest I review my answers to be sure I had completed them all correctly. After a few times, he realised he was wasting his breath. I didn’t need to make sure I had answered everything correctly, because I never got anything wrong.

  When the bell finally rang, I made my way to the cafeteria and grabbed my lunch from the canteen. It was my usual, consisting of a hamburger with all the trimmings and a strawberry milkshake.

  I looked over at our table; Chelsea wasn’t there, and Ben's eyes were darting around the room in search of her. The poor bugger. He was probably thinking she had serious regrets about what happened between the two of them yesterday, and she had skipped school in an effort to avoid him. At least his theory of why Chelsea wasn’t at school was a lot more comforting than mine.

  Not wanting to worry Ben any more than I already had, I walked casually over to our table and greeted everyone in my usual chirpy manner.

  I leant over to give Aiden a kiss on the cheek as I squeezed in between him and Chrissy, who shot me a supposedly friendly smile, but her eyes were laced with daggers.

  “Oops, sorry,” I said, as I accidentally-on-purpose nearly shoved her off the end of the bench.

  I didn’t wait to see the daggers reappear in her eyes before I turned my attention to Aiden, but I could feel them digging their way into my skull.

  Leaning closer, Aiden wrapped an arm around my waist and whispered in my ear, “Are you sure you don’t have any mind reading capabilities yet? Because you were pretty much spot on with what Ben was just thinking and the daggers Chrissy is throwing your way.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t hear anyone’s thoughts, but maybe having a sixth sense about what people were thinking was the first step. “Is that how it happened for you?” God, how I wanted to be able to know what everyone was thinking.

  “No. It came to me all of a sudden. One moment I was like you, and the next my mind was invaded by everyone’s thoughts. Yours may or may not come suddenly. Some people’s abilities come and go for a while before they click.” Aiden spoke low enough so that no one would catch on to what we were talking about. “And it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. People can think some pretty mean and horrible things.”

  I was pretty sure Chrissy was throwing a ton of horrible thoughts my way.

  “You don’t want to know,” Aiden said with a laugh.

  He was right; I didn’t want to know. What I really needed to be thinking about was Chelsea. I should have been trying to figure out where the hell she was.

  I put a smile on my face and turned to Chrissy. I wanted to see if the queen of gossip knew anything about Chelsea’s whereabouts.

  I waited until I saw a break in the conversation she was having with Megan before I butted in. “So, Chrissy, have you seen Chels today?” I asked as casually as I could. I was hoping that I hadn’t drawn Ben’s attention to my conversation; I really felt sorry for the poor bugger. Thankfully, Aiden had him engulfed in a discussion about a debatable try from that morning’s P.E. class, so I knew it was safe to continue.

  “Nope, she didn’t turn up to class this morning,” Chrissy said through a mouthful of food, then turned back to Megan to finish their conversation. They were trying to decide what we should all do this weekend, which to her was a lot more important than Chelsea not being at school.

  At times like that, I wondered why I still put up with her. But I had known her since we were in primary school, and I guess I had grown used to her selfish ways. She hadn’t always been so bad. Ditsy, yes, but always wanting to be the centre of attention only really started when Aiden moved to the Gold Coast. She’d been trying to divert his attention away from me to her, and even though she had not been successful, she still kept with the attitude.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and called Chelsea’s mobile, but it was switched off. I quickly dialled her home number, hoping that she would answer so I could put my mind at ease, but there was no answer. “Damn,” I said under my breath, and nobody noticed.

  I was contemplating what my next course of action would be when my phone started ringing—it was Chelsea’s mobile. Thank God, she must be okay.

  “Hey, Chels, where the hell are you?” She didn’t respond. “Chelsea, can you hear me?”

  “Jade,” the voice sounded shaky.

  It was not Chelsea. It was Marie, her mother. My heart started thumping. Why would Marie be calling me, and why on Chelsea’s phone?

  “Jade, have you seen Chelsea? She wasn’t in her room when I went in to wake her up. She left her phone on her bed, and I don’t know where she is.”

  My heart stopped as my mind started replaying the scene of her abduction. This couldn’t be happening. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to stop it
from happening.

  “Jade?”

  I gulped, unsure of what I was supposed to say. It wasn’t like I was about to tell her that I’d had a vision of her daughter being taken by some psycho. So I told a half truth. “No… I don’t know where she is,” I replied, my voice a little shaky.

  “Oh.” She paused. I could tell she was disappointed. “Well, can you please call me if you see or hear from her?”

  “Will do,” I promised before hanging up.

  I had crushed whatever hope she had that her daughter had uncharacteristically gotten up early, made her bed, and headed to school; most mornings Marie had to almost forcibly drag Chelsea out of bed so that she could just make it to school before the bell rang. But at that moment, I think it was better for her to have a little hope than for me to smash her heart into a million pieces by telling her that her daughter had possibly been kidnapped.

  “What’s wrong?” Chrissy asked. She actually seemed concerned.

  I looked up, realising all eyes were on me. “Chelsea… she’s gone,” I said softly, not wanting to believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Her mum went in to wake her this morning, but she wasn’t there. And the police won’t do anything until she has been missing for forty-eight hours.” My vision came true, and there wasn’t a damn thing I did to protect her, I added mentally for Aiden.

  I badly wanted to be alone so I could let out all the emotions I was holding in. Aiden pulled me closer to him, letting his feel-good vibes enter my body. At least I knew that I would soon be feeling better; I just had to hold myself together until then.

  “Stop worrying, she is probably just off with her cute mystery man,” Chrissy said.

  “What mystery man?” Ben asked before I could. He looked wounded, like he was waiting to be crushed by what she was about to reveal.

  “I don’t know his name. She wouldn’t tell me when I asked her a couple of days ago. I saw her getting into some hottie’s car. She looked pretty friendly with him. Didn’t she tell you?” She directed the question at me. When I didn’t respond, she said, “I thought you guys told each other everything.” Chrissy seemed to be relishing the idea that she knew something about Chelsea that I didn’t.

  “Yeah, I did too.” I was surprised Chelsea had kept that from me. But I was also hurt, as was Ben, who looked like he had just had his heart ripped out and stomped into a million pieces.

  I looked over at Megan, wondering if she knew anything about the guy Chrissy said she saw Chelsea with, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

  Once Chrissy was satisfied that her shock revelation had done what she’d hoped for, she went back to her conversation with Megan about their plans for the weekend.

  Aiden leant over and pretended to kiss me on my neck. “She’s lying,” he whispered in my ear. “She only said it to get to Ben. She saw the two of them together yesterday after we left and, to put it nicely, she is not happy.”

  My mouth dropped open. How could she do that? For all we knew, Chelsea could be missing, and all Chrissy cared about was trying to manipulate the situation for personal gain. I couldn’t take it anymore. This time she had stepped over the line. Without thinking things through, I turned around, raised my fist, and slammed it into her face. I moved so fast she never saw it coming.

  The cafeteria went silent. Everyone turned, mouths wide open, staring at where she lay. She had flown back with such force she had broken the table behind us when she landed on it.

  “Oh my God,” I said, bringing my hands up to cover my mouth. I couldn’t believe what I had just done. She looked like she was unconscious—or dead!

  Megan scrambled over to where Chrissy lay. “Someone get help!” she yelled, shaking Chrissy’s body in an attempt to wake her.

  She wasn’t waking up. Fear rocked my soul at the thought that I may have actually killed her.

  My eyes darted to Aiden. I was met by a reassuring look in his eyes, then a voice in my head said, “Don’t worry, you didn’t kill her. She’s just unconscious.” But it was not my subconscious speaking to me—it was Aiden.

  My head started spinning. This was all too much. How was I supposed to function at school with all that was happening? Chelsea’s disappearance, me turning into Supergirl. Oh, and I had just knocked out my former best friend, even though she became a bitch from hell and deserved it. It was all too much. Everyone was staring at me, trying to work out what had happened. Maybe they had seen me do it, and I was going to have to add assault to the list of things I had to deal with. I needed to get away from all those prying eyes and the scene of what I had just done.

  Suddenly, everyone in the cafeteria came to life.

  “Come on,” Aiden spoke in my head again. “Let’s get out of here.” He pulled me to my feet.

  We made our way out of the cafeteria as students and teachers rushed over to Chrissy, who was still completely out of it.

  Once we were in Aiden’s car and away from any prying ears, I turned to him, trying to make sense of what I had just done. “I…I…” I could not finish my sentence—I could barely even start it.

  “You don’t have to say it,” Aiden said. He laced his fingers through mine and brought them to his lips, sending those feel-good endorphins of his pulsating through my body. “Remember, that’s one of the benefits of my abilities.”

  I looked into his eyes; they were so intense, yet so caring. Just being in his presence seemed to make all my worries go away. I wondered what I would do if I didn’t have him in my life. How would I get through all of this?

  Once again his voice was in my head. “Don’t worry, you will never have to go through this alone.”

  “How is this possible?” I asked, not understanding how I could hear him in my head. I knew Aiden and his mum had been doing the whole having-a-conversation-without-saying-a-single-word-out-loud thing. But when it was actually happening to me, it kind of freaked the shit out of me.

  “You’ve obviously worked out that we can communicate telepathically.”

  I nodded.

  “Well, all I do is think what I want to say to you, but rather than speak the words from my mouth, I am able to project them mentally to you.” When I gave him a confused look, he added, “How about for now, we’ll just stick to speaking the old-fashioned way?”

  I gave him an appreciative smile. Any other day, I would have thought that being able to talk with my boyfriend without anyone hearing would have been the best thing ever. But with everything else that was going on, it just seemed a little too much to deal with.

  Aiden started the car. “Where to?”

  Ignoring his question, I fished out my mobile phone from my pocket. “Damn,” I muttered. The battery was dead. I had wanted to call my mum to see if she knew anything. I knew the police would have told Chelsea’s mum she couldn’t file a missing person’s report until she had been missing for forty-eight hours, but maybe a cop with a heart was looking into it unofficially. And if that was the case, maybe Mum knew something. I thought that she must have an inside source, considering the kind of info she was privy to.

  “The charger is in the glove box,” Aiden said as he reversed out of his parking spot.

  Finding a charger was so much easier because almost everyone had an iPhone. Thanks, Apple. I pulled out the charger, connected it to the outlet, and plugged in my iPhone.

  As soon as my phone showed the slightest bit of battery life, I turned it back on and called my mother. The phone rang twice before she picked up. “Hi, honey, is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I was just calling to see if—”

  “Sorry, honey, I gotta go. The boss is calling. We’ll talk more tonight. I love you.” She disconnected the call.

  I sat there looking at my phone in disbelief, although I wasn’t sure why, as she had done the same thing a million other times. It was always promises of talking later that never seemed to happen.

  An alert came through telling me that I had new voicemail. For some reason, my heart started beatin
g faster and my stomach churned while I listened to the recording say I had one new message, received that morning. Before hearing anyone’s voice, my sixth sense told me it was from Chelsea.

  Chapter 7