Chapter 27: Aiden

 

 

 

"Relax! It's me!"

"Jesus Mother-effing Christ, Rowan! Why didn't you just text me?" I said, rubbing the side of my cheek where her fingernails had poked me.

"There was no time. Listen—" Rowan scooted forward and sat on the very edge of the seat, so that our faces were barely an inch apart. "You have to get me into that building." Her finger pointed at the windshield in the direction of the spa.

I would've laughed at her if I weren't so dumbfounded. "Not possible, Rowan."

"I know that Erick is planning to burn the place down, okay? I just want to get in and out before he does."

My mouth flopped open. "How did you—"

"I had a dream. A vision." At that point, Rowan looked nervous as she bit her lip and fiddled with her pendant. "Does it matter, though? All that matters is I'm right. Erick is coming, isn't he?"

"He should be on his way soon, yeah," I said, a little numbly.

"So we have time."

"Why do you have to get in there?" I asked.

Rowan continued playing with her pendant. It was a little gold heart, no larger than her thumbnail, and she kept zipping it back and forth along the chain. "Those animals, Aiden. In their little boxes. They're the other half of someone's soul, and once Erick's fire touches them, they'll be gone. I…I just can't let that happen."

My heart wrenched to a full stop when she brought up the boxed animal spirits. No fucking way, I almost said. But something in her expression stopped me. She looked pained, as if the very thought of losing those animal souls caused her physical anguish.

I was starting to consider Rowan as a really good friend, and it was hard to see her like that.

"I'll help you," I heard myself saying, almost against my own will.

A huge smile spread across Rowan's face. "Thank you!" she gushed, and I knew she meant it.

Both of us got out of the car and slammed our doors shut at the same time. It took us a few seconds to hammer out the details. Since there was no way to text Erick to tell him to wait a few minutes, we had to make our mission quick. It was decided that I'd run inside, since I knew the security codes and layout best. That way, Rowan could stand guard outside so she could flag down Erick, in case he showed up while I was still inside the building.

"Easy-peasy," Rowan said breathlessly, handing me an empty duffel bag.

"Lemon squeezy," I echoed. My heart was beating a mile a minute. "I'll make it quick, okay?"

"You better," Rowan said, turning suddenly serious.

With shaking hands, I unlocked the entrance doors with my key and raced inside. After disarming the alarm system, I ventured deeper into the building. Once I got to the back hallway, I could feel my edges unraveling.

Focus, I told myself. Quick and easy.

However, it became extremely hard to focus the moment I set foot in the lab.

The atmosphere of dread consumed me, and my mind was immediately seized by the memory of what I'd experienced the last time I was in here. The scream of the wolf. The endless void of its eyes.

"Focus," I told myself aloud. My own voice sounded foreign to me, and goosebumps rose up along the backs of my arms as if I'd just heard the voice of a ghost.

I knelt in front of the cabinet under the sink, opened it, and stared at the boxes within for a moment. Then, ignoring the lump of terror in my throat, I began shoving them into the duffel bag, one by one.

Completely lost in the task at hand, I almost didn't hear the door opening behind me, or the click of a stiletto heel on the tile floor. Only when I heard someone clearing her throat did I look up, and that was because I was hearing the last person I wanted to see in there.

"Eliza!" I gasped, unable to contain my shock.

I dropped the box in my hand.

The lid cracked open when it struck the floor, but nothing came out, although it did shudder with a supernatural intensity. Unable to face the thing that was inside, I hastily scooped it up, re-latched the lid, and—in spite of the rage in Eliza's expression—threw it into the open duffel.

"You have caused me more trouble than you're worth," Eliza snarled.

There was an edge to her voice and a manic energy in her eyes that I'd never seen before, and it was all laser-focused towards me. I felt her wrath like a weight bearing down on me, and it was enough to make my blood turn to ice.

"Did you think you could fool me, Aiden? Ever since the Janelle debacle, I've been watching through the cameras," Eliza continued. "Put that box down."

I placed the box at my feet.

Eliza raised her right hand, poised as if holding a ball. Blue sparks jolted from her manicured fingertips. Recalling Janelle, I jumped harder than I would have if she'd pointed a gun at me.

Her jaw was clenched. When she spoke, her lips moved over a solid wall of gritted teeth. "Put. The Boxes. Back."

My joints were frozen. I couldn't move. I was petrified, but more than that, I knew that I couldn’t do what Eliza asked.

"What did you do to Rowan?" I said in a low voice.

"Rowan is fine," Eliza said. She took a single step towards me, hand still raised. "Return the boxes."

My brain screamed at me to obey, but something inside of me told me to stand my ground. "I can't do that, Eliza."

More blue sparks crackled up from her outstretched hand. "Do you really want to test me, Aiden Wheeler?"

My heart battered against my ribs, but I said nothing. I thought I was going to throw up, but the thing inside me implored me to keep my jaws clamped shut.

Eliza took one last, quick step towards me, making a throwing motion with her hand. When I saw the blue flare coming towards me, the thing inside that had been keeping me rooted in place finally reared up from within.

Pain.

The worst pain I'd ever felt licked up from my stomach, through my throat, and finally out of my mouth in the form of a column of fire. It struck Eliza's sphere of blue electricity, swallowed it whole, and faded away, leaving nothing but a thin trail of smoke.

Eliza lowered her hand. A single lock of blonde hair slipped out of her immaculate French twist and drifted across her forehead.

"Dragon's fire?" she said in disbelief.

I clapped my hand over my mouth. My insides were still stinging from the fire, but I barely noticed it.

Did she just say dragon's fire? I thought, equally astonished. From me?

Suddenly, the runes on the lab door began to glow a bright, flaming orange. Seeing the change in my expression, Eliza looked over her shoulder just in time to watch it burst open. Rowan rushed in from the other side, her ponytail loose and glasses askew.

"You," Eliza barked.

The fingers of her right hand twitched. The sparks formed. Rowan didn't know what was about to hit her.

As I watched Eliza preparing to attack Rowan, pressure formed in my chest. I felt the bottom of my throat burning, and I knew it was coming again. The fire. Before I could even stop myself, it blew out of me like a sneeze.

This time, it engulfed Eliza herself.

A horrible shriek filled the air. At first, I thought it was me. My insides were screaming in pain.

But no. It was coming from the flaming tower that was Eliza's body.

Her cries were otherworldly as tongues of fire leapt from her flailing limbs. I could only stare in horror as she bounced around the room, leaving a residual patch of fire on everything she touched.

Somebody was shaking my left arm. "We have to get out of here!" Rowan shouted in my ear.

I jerked out of my trance and stooped down. Together with Rowan, we shoved the last few boxes into the duffel. Once it was full, she zipped it up, pulled the strap over her shoulder, and yanked me towards the door.

When we crossed the threshold, I took one last look at the lab. Flames licked up the walls, biting at the edges of the ceiling. The heat was overwhelming as a solid brick wall, and Eliza's shrieks pounded into my head from all sides, as if her voice had spread with the fire.

"Dragon's fire is a hundred times more powerful than regular fire," Rowan said, her grip squeezing down on my wrist as she dragged me down the hallway at top running speed. "This entire place will be done-zo in seconds."

But I'm not a dragon, I wanted to say, but all I could manage was a minute-long coughing fit.

It didn't stop, even when we crashed through the doors into fresh, night air. I drew in one breath, and the cold blast of oxygen only triggered another coughing fit.

The momentum of my coughs drove me forward. I was bent over, hands on my knees, lightheaded from lack of air. It felt like my lungs, throat, stomach, everything inside were still on fire.

"Aiden? You okay?" Rowan said, her voice wobbling with concern. She slapped my back a few times. "Aiden!"

I'm dying, I thought. This was the greatest pain I'd ever felt.

I fell to the asphalt and rolled onto my back. Rowan's face swam in front of my eyes, her forehead creased with worry. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that she was slapping my face.

I kept coughing.

"…going into shock," Rowan's voice wound in and out.

I'm dying…

Shadows encroached the edges of my vision. I fought to keep my eyes open and focus on Rowan's face. A shadow appeared in the clouds behind her head, growing larger and larger as it advanced, until it was as big as a small airplane.

Just before passing out, I thought I heard the beating of wings.