chapter 27

"I had a vision of my parents’ death. I relived it, and I think I know more about the world than you realize." Jade stretched her arm out and placed a palm on the fresh cut she had noticed on Aiden’s bicep. She waited until the skin underneath closed shut, seamlessly melding together, then took her hand away.
He let out a breath she hadn’t realized he had been holding. Jade looked at him, at the freckles that spanned across his cheeks and the slight bend of his nose that was beautiful in its strangeness. She noticed the luminescent quality of his hair underneath the die and finally the flaming irises they shared, but she saw a difference for the first time. He always looked on with concern and fascination, but now sadness and maybe even defeat.
"What happened in your memory?" He asked.
"It was like you said about the Seraphina societies. I was a baby and trying to control my power and make my parents smile but then we were jumped by demons, and they were killed while I hid under a bush, powerless to stop anything."
"I’m sorry," Aiden said reaching for the hand she had let dangle beside her swing. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to act indifferent, as if the past was just that, in the past. But his hand was warm in hers, keeping her connected to real life, and she appreciated it. "How’d you remember? Or did you dream it?"
"It was Shaun and Owen actually," Jade said. She held onto his hand, which now seemed more like a lifeline, and told him about what had happened how Shaun and Owen had almost killed that girl, about Skye’s sudden appearance, and a little bit about her afternoon with Benjamin and his history. He listened quietly his frown slowly replaced by worried stress lines.
"I don’t like it," he finally said. "Revenge is the worst kind of evil."
"But Benjamin said that Skye wouldn’t be able to do anything to make him go bad." Aiden nodded absently, but Jade could see his thoughts wandered into ominous territory. "What? What is it you’re not telling me?"
"Nothing," Aiden said, still half-aware.
"Come on," she said jerking on his hand, almost pulling him from the swing, but at least gaining his attention.
"It’s just that Benjamin might not have a choice. Seraphina blood is like a drug to demons it makes them go crazy."
"But he would never bite me," Jade said dubiously, flashing back to the moment in the gym when she had been cut and all of the fighting had ceased even Benjamin had been distracted by her blood, and, for a second, had become completely animalistic because of it. When Skye smeared some on his lips, he couldn’t resist it.
"Willingly, no. But, what if it’s not in his control?"
"How could they do that?" She twisted in her swing, coiling the chains and facing him. "I have my powers now they can’t surprise me anymore. I’ll fry them."
"All I’m saying is that they have a plan or at least the start of one and it involves you and Benjamin draining you, and some plots we don’t see yet. This is serious, and we need to prepare somehow."