Chapter 26

When Jade awoke on Monday morning, a knot of dread tightened her stomach she did not want to go to school. She hadn’t seen Benjamin since he had dropped her off at home on Saturday, and she had ignored Aiden’s calls all weekend, completely unsure of what to tell him.
When she finally got out of bed, it took her ten minutes to brush her teeth and wash her face—staring at her hollow eyes in the mirror the entire time. The thought of Benjamin made a blush rise, but that warmth was quickly pushed away, replaced by self-loathing when Aiden leaked into her mind. Eventually, her mother pushed her into the car and drove her to school.
Leaving her in the parking lot, her mother scolded her to hurry up as she was late. Jade listened and ran to the safety of her class, one she shared with neither of the boys. She kept her eyes glued to the scratched hallway floor when sprinting from room to room, not daring to even chance making eye contact with either boy, she jumped at the sound of her name a few times, only to realize she had been dreaming it.
But then, the lunch bell rang.
It was time.
Unless she decided to eat in the bathroom stall, she would have to face them both. She meandered through the halls, waiting for them to thin and for the cafeteria to crowd, hoping her entrance would go unnoticed. Finally, she couldn’t stall anymore, and she walked through the double doors into the chaos of lunch hour. Her eyes immediately homed in on the table outside where one lone figure sat—Benjamin.
He was sprawled across the tabletop, basking in the sun with his hands crossed under his head and his foot tapping to the tune playing only in his mind.
Almost at once, he turned his face to meet Jade's eyes. Her heart stopped and he crinkled the corner of his mouth in a subtle greeting. Instantly, she flashed back to the hours they spent lying in each other’s arms on Saturday when all conversation had ended and all there had been where feelings. She had never been kissed so passionately, held so gently, and treated like a lady. He had respected her and let her set the pace, which yes, had ended at kissing.
Jade’s pulse started racing at the memories, switching from dread to excitement in a matter of moments. Her brain ran on overdrive, confused by the complete momentum shift that could only be caused by the delightful torment of falling in love.
She mindlessly bit her lip, hiding the grin that threatened to spread across her face and looked away first, right into the eyes of Aiden. He was dodging students, weaving his way through the lunch crowd, and staring her down with a look of relief and anger. Without hesitation, he pulled her into a bear hug.
"What the hell happened to you? I thought you’d died. Why didn’t you call me back?" He set her back down, but kept his hands on her shoulders, ensuring she couldn’t run away.
"Nothing." Jade avoided his question when she saw the others making their way over. "We need to talk but not here," she whispered then shirked his hold to greet Lacey, who squealed loudly and hugged her in a viselike grip.
"We were so worried. Oh my god, you don’t just run out of a school dance like that."
"I’m fine, I’m fine," she said when Alex and Sam leaned in to hug her too. Jeez, she thought, they really must have been worried. "My phone died, and I completely didn’t realize it. I’m so sorry." she shrugged, feeling terrible.
"So, what happened?" Lacey asked when everyone had sat back down at the usual table. "One minute you’re dancing with Mike Ryan…" she wiggled her eyes. "And the next you’ve disappeared." Crap, Jade thought she had forgotten to prepare a cover story for the rest of the gang. Eventually, she would have to tell Aiden the truth, but what would appease them in the meantime? Gossip, she thought.
Lacey would do all the work. "You’ll never believe it, but Mike slipped alcohol into my drink. I got drunk, and he started freaking out, so he just drove me home. It was insane, he always seemed like such a nice guy." As Lacey’s mouth dropped, Jade smiled to herself. Perfect.
"Oh. My. God. What a jerk! I can’t believe this that must be why he gets so many girls he tried to date-rape you."
Okay, maybe too far, Jade thought and interrupted to rein Lacey in. "No, no. I think I didn’t realize someone else could have spiked the punch, he drove me home that was nice."
"Drove you home after he drugged you!" Lacey looked over at Mike, shooting daggers across the room with her evil eye. Mike seemed to sense it because he looked over and quickly sank into the sea of letterman jackets that composed the football team’s lunch table. "Yeah, that’s right... hide."
"Lacey." Jade grabbed her friend’s arm, forcing her around. "Seriously, it was no big deal. I just went home I don’t even blame him." A woman scorned, Jade thought with a mental shrug.
"So, where were you Saturday?" Aiden interrupted.
"Yeah, what did happen?" Lacey let Mike go and turned her attention to the bigger mystery.
"What do you mean?" she stared down at her sandwich, taking it out of the Ziploc she had packed it in that morning and pointedly ignoring her friends.
"I called you on Saturday, and you never picked up. It rang, by the way, which is unusual for a dead phone, and then I drove by your house, and your mom said you hadn’t come home yet... strange." She assumed from his sarcastic tone that he was pissed, but the raised eyebrows and rage-filled stare cinched it.
"Um…" Her mind was racing, nothing would sound convincing at this point. "I snuck in after they were sleeping and didn’t wake up until like four. You know, drinking…hangover…" she nodded, trying to sound convincing as she let the sentence trail off. Under the table, she pinched Aiden, hoping he would connect it to Seraphina business, and let it go. He understood but wanted to make her squirm.
"Damn," Sam chimed in. "Sounds like Mike got you wasted."
"Totally." She buried her face in her sandwich again and let Lacey take up the conversation, telling stories about the parts of the party she had missed. A bunch of guys from the basketball team pantsed a cheerleader and was disappointed she had missed it. The lunch hour rolled to an end, and Aiden grabbed Jade’s hand as everyone started flooding from the cafeteria.
"Come with me," he instructed, leading her against the crowd toward the back door. She let him pull her along. Just as they reached the door, she took one last look across the empty tables and through the windows at Benjamin. He was sitting up now and returned her gaze his eyes were pained, almost as though he had been waiting for her eyes all lunch hour and hated to be the afterthought she had as Aiden took her away. She wished she could give him one quick peck on the lips, letting him know he had been in her thoughts all along, but she was shoved through the door instead.
Benjamin’s eyes stayed with her as she and Aiden snuck around the school grounds toward the parking lot. Jade knew she had to fess up and tell him everything, she just prayed he would be all right with it. Easing into Aiden’s car, Jade let him drive wherever he wanted to go to talk. She thought he had maybe expected it. He had to have known she had been keeping things from him, especially about Benjamin it wasn’t fair to Aiden, she realized, to be lying and going behind his back when he had given up everything to help her inherit her powers.
Aiden pulled over next to a big empty playground, one slumbering until the town kids got out of school. He walked across the open field toward the jungle gym, and Jade followed. They sat on old swings covered in flakes of rust and squeaked in the breeze. Jade played with the woodchips at her feet, waiting for him to start.
"I’m not an idiot, you know."
"I know," she said softly.
"Ever since he saved you on the beach, I knew something was going on it just, once you realized who you are, I never thought you’d be so stupid." his eyes bore into her head, daring her to challenge him, to say it was a lie. "I mean, he’s a demon we were made to kill them."
"Not all of us," Jade said and finally looked up from the ground. "You’re a Hierophant you see the good in them."
"That’s what I’ve been taught, Jade, but we all know the truth. There is no good in them once a demon they can’t be saved."
"That’s not true." Jade's throat constricted. If Aiden were right, there would be no hope for her and Benjamin, and she couldn’t believe his words.
Aiden moved his hand to hold hers on the swing. "It is. Listen to me and trust me, because I for one have never lied. Seraphina have been around for thousands of years in all that time, not a single demon has been saved. They are evil, Jade, and any Hierophants who don’t believe it are fooling themselves."
"Maybe you can’t understand this, but I swear Benjamin is different."
Aiden started laughing, a dark and hollow sound that turned into a sigh after moments. "If he’s so angelic, what did he tell you about Willow? Remember my ex-girlfriend, the one I saw him eating?"
"He swore to me that he hasn’t had anything but bagged blood in decades and I believe him. He said he was saving her, closing the wound after Shaun had bitten her." Jade shook her head, defiant against the charge she knew Benjamin.
"And you believe him? Just like that?" He released her hand, swinging away from her in his frustration.
"I do." She stood her ground. If Aiden got to know Benjamin, he would see it too.
"Jade, you just don’t understand you don’t know enough I’ve known people who went away to fight demons and never came back. I’ve been part of a search party to rescue a Vindicator from being held captive and tortured. The world is a much darker place than you realize, and I joke and make fun because you have to be happy or you won’t survive, but there’s a different side of things you’re just too naïve to see."
"I’ve seen some things," she replied, lifting her hand from the chain and letting her palm face the sky. She brought a flame up, small and controlled, and let it dance along her fingers. Throwing a tiny ball of light up in the air, she caught it with her other hand and absorbed the fire back into her skin.