“That Aiden was naive and stupid,” he says, inching to the edge of the line where the shadows meet the daylight. “He didn’t understand what it was like to be fearless, strong, perfect.” He tries to grab me, but I’m too fast, jumping out of his reach.
I glare at him and narrow my eyes as I back towards the rocks again, deciding what to do. Walk away? Stay? Hurt him? “If you’re so perfect, then how come you are stuck there in the shadows?” I raise my eyebrows at him, challenging him, then tip my chin back and look up at the grey sky. “You’re flawed and your inability to go in the daylight isn’t what I’m talking about. You’re cold and uncaring. I’d much rather have the human Aiden than what you have become.” I turn my back on him and walk away.
Aiden growls, furious, and bursts out of the cave into the light, running straight at me. Without thinking, I spin around to shove him back, but it is too late. Sun blankets him as he stumbles back, still out of the shade of the cave. There’s a moment where he doesn’t realize what’s going on then he sees my terrified expression and his gaze drifts down at his hands. Time seems to slow down, yet the more time that slips by, the more aware we both become that nothing is happening. He doesn’t burst into dust as the sun touches his face, his hands, his arms. Aiden’s a Day Taker. Monarch told me that Aiden was broken, but apparently his flaw is not the sun.
A grin spreads across Aiden’s face as he holds his hands up to the sky. “See, we are perfect.”
I roll my eyes, resisting the urge to shove him to the ground.
He drops his hands back to his side and walks over next to me, placing his hands on my shoulders. “You know I would never hurt you, right?”
“I know you can’t hurt me,” I say then let out a breath of frustration. “Aiden, I care for you and everything; I don’t want you to become something different just because you suddenly feel powerful.”
His expression falls, but it quickly vanishes. “You care for me, yet you don’t love me?”
“I don’t love anyone,” I say, but for some reason it feels like a lie.
“That’s not true. You love Sylas.” He waits for me to deny it.
I open my mouth, planning on denying, but for some reason, the words won’t leave me.
“Don’t worry,” he says, pretending to be nonchalant about it when really I can tell he’s hurt. “I’ll always be here for you. Especially now that Sylas is gone.” Then his mood shifts, and suddenly, he’s back to being as cheerful as can be; a bounce in his walk as he breezes by me towards the path. “Well, since daylight isn’t a problem, how about we go get those papers?”
I can feel lies radiating from him, although I can’t figure out what they’re coming from. He’s so moody and I know I’m going to have to be on my guard. Either that or knock him out and leave him somewhere.
As I follow behind him, up the rocks, beneath the faint flow of the sun, Monarch’s words keep echoing through my head. He’s the only other one like you, but he’s broken. Broken.
I’m beginning to think that Monarch meant he is broken in the head. I wonder if he’ll ever be able to be fixed; go back to being the same Aiden he used to be. The one that cared for others. The one that I cared about, in a way. Because right now, I don’t care about him, and if he tries to put humans or me at risk, I’ll stop him no matter what it takes.
Chapter 14
It’s a long journey and exhausting, but only because Aiden makes it that way by being happy one minute and rude the next. His mood swings are tiring. Finally, though, we’re walking across the park where Sylas, Aiden and I once played when we were smaller. The place where Sylas gave me a flower on my birthday... one of my rare, good memories, well, at least the beginning of it anyway.
“Is something amusing?” Aiden asks, watching me intently.
I realize I’m smiling and quickly erase it as I focus on the building across from the park where the papers were left behind. He practically burns a hole in my head, trying to decipher what I’m really thinking about, but I ignore him and speed up, leaving him a ways behind me.
As we reach the building, I veer to the right and head towards the doorway that’s covered with torn plastic, which I cut open the last time I was here. I carefully push the plastic aside and peek into the building. It looks vacant, so I cautiously duck through the hole, glancing around at the empty space, the plastic above. Nothing else seems to be around.
I motion for Aiden to follow me and he ducks through the plastic, looking around the empty room curiously. “So where are the papers that we need?” he asks, turning in a circle, looking at the walls and the ceiling.
I nod, holding my finger up to my lips. “Shhh… We don’t want to get caught and be locked up,” I hiss.
He shrugs my comments off and begins to wander around the room, like he doesn’t care if we get caught. I dash through the room and make my way down the hall in the direction of where I dropped the papers; where I last kissed Sylas. I cautiously peer around the corner and then step into the room carefully. I see the doorway that leads to the cells and I rush over to it. As soon as I get to it, I see the papers still scattered over the floor with droplets of dried blood on them.
I bend down quickly to collect them as they flap in the gentle breeze blowing from somewhere. I have a few in my hand when I hear a noise through the doorway that leads into the cell area I was locked in. The door is still missing from where I ripped it from its frame. I slide my knife out of my pocket, setting the papers down on the ground before I make my way towards the noise. I’m on guard as I walk down the hallway between the glass cages, peering in each of them, secretly hoping that Sylas will be inside one of them and that’s who made the noise
“You know that he is gone, right?” Aiden’s voice rises up behind me. I whirl around in surprise, ready to fight. He’s standing in the doorway at the end of the hall, staring at me with a guarded look. “But here you’re still hoping that somehow he’ll be inside one of these cages.”
“I thought I heard a noise.” I give him a dirty look then.
Choosing to ignore him, I check the rest of the cages, but of course they’re all empty. When I turn back around, Aiden’s no longer standing in the doorway and I quicken my pace until I reach the end of the cells. I stop when I get to the papers, then glance at the spot on the floor where Sylas and I kissed, memories hitting my mind like pinpricks. I tear my gaze away before it becomes too much then bend over to scoop the papers up from the floor. I stack them in my arms and head towards the door when Aiden steps in front of me, putting his arms on the doorway like a barricade.