Chapter Thirteen

Shameful though it was to admit it, I’d been falling asleep very night to thoughts of Tristan swirling around in my head. They varied from platonic to mushy to romantic to plain erotic but as a result I was having some very pleasant nights’ sleep.

To be honest at the beginning I was pretty scared to think much of anything, because I didn’t know the full extent of everyone’s powers. Often they seemed to tune into what I was thinking without actually verbalising it but that could just have been heightened intuition. After a while of sneakily practicing on Annabelle though, she eventually cracked and told me.

‘Stop that!’ she snapped one evening a few weeks later as we sat doing puzzles together.

‘Stop what?’ I asked innocently, even though I’d been staring at her intently and concentrating on trying to figure out what she was thinking.

‘Trying to read my mind,’ she said monotonously.

Rather than being embarrassed, I just squinted at her suspiciously. ‘How can you tell?’ I demanded.

‘I can hear you,’ she mumbled, already regretting bringing it up. ‘And it’s very rude, by the way.’

‘What does it sound like?’ I demanded.

She looked at me longsufferingly, and I put my hand over my heart. ‘He’ll never know,’ I swore.

Rolling her eyes, she turned her full attention to me, laying down the puzzle piece she’d been trying to fit. ‘Here, I’ll show you,’ she muttered grudgingly. Her eyes turned black and I heard a distinct knocking sound inside my head.

‘Knocking?’ I asked.

‘Well you can’t just barge into someone’s head,’ she admonished me. It was always strange getting scolded by a six year old but I was starting to get used to it. ‘You have to knock.’

‘So how do I let you in?’

She shrugged. ‘Just imagine yourself opening the door to your brain.’

I was about to comply but then I stopped myself, looking at her suspiciously again. ‘This isn’t like with vampires, is it? I invite you in and then you can come and go whenever you please?’

‘No Cody,’ she sighed, her little body slumping like she just couldn’t deal with my ignorance. ‘I have to knock every time.’

‘How do I know it’s you when you knock? Does everyone have a different knock? What if like Aldrich or someone wanted to read my mind and I let him in and then I was like “Oh crap, it’s you” but it was too late and he already knew like, where we were or whatever?’

Annabelle was staring at me. ‘How do you ever find out who’s at the door?’ she questioned eventually. ‘You just ask.’

‘Oh. Can we try again?’

Annabelle rolled her eyes. ‘Why not,’ she muttered, her eyes going black again. I heard the knocking sound and called out with my mind, Who’s there?

No need to shout, Annabelle grumbled, projecting her voice into my head.

Sorry. Come in, I imagined a door opening and suddenly my head felt too full, like I was at a high altitude with no oxygen.

Leaving, Annabelle warned me, and the pressure in my head returned to normal.

‘Is it always that uncomfortable?’

‘Not really, it always feels weird, but you get used to it.’

And so that was how I learned that even though they – we? – are a really intuitive bunch of freaks, the mind-reading thing is, like, voluntary. So now I happily fall asleep every night employing various Tristan-orientated fantasies, many of which, embarrassingly enough, involve nothing more than cuddling.

I’m kind of girly, it turns out.

Anyway, the point of this is that I tend to fall into a coma-like sleep of detailed and colourful every night, so when my eyes snapped open at what my phone informed me was half three in the morning, I knew something was up.

Before I could even ponder it for a minute, I’d jumped out of bed tugged a t-shirt over my head, striding silently out of my room the way Annabelle had taught me when we rescued Kaley. I sped down the stairs, and wasn’t surprise to see Tristan and his sisters emerging from their rooms as well, their eyes already ebony-coloured.

‘Come on,’ Annabelle said quietly, slipping her hand into mine and leading me downstairs, where Edwin and Gregory were standing in the hallway.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked her in the same hushed tone, even though I thought I might already know.

Tristan told you about the defences that have been set up? she asked, projecting.

Around this house? Yeah...

And around the whole area. Well, Aldrich just breached the first line.

I felt my tummy flip over with nervousness. A mere five weeks after we had brought Kaley home and he was already coming to get her back.

‘How many?’ I Tristan’s voice caused me to tune back into the general conversation.

‘Just him,’ Gregory replied, and I didn’t miss Kaley and Maya clasping hands tightly, going deathly pale.

‘So this is it,’ Maya murmured.

‘He’s angry,’ Gregory said, ignoring her, and I realised he must be tuning into Aldrich. ‘It means he’s more powerful, but it also means he’ll be sloppy. We just need to remain calm. We can outsmart him and we can overpower him if we keep our heads and all work together.’

I glanced surreptitiously at Tristan. “Working together” wasn’t exactly his strong point, but he caught me and scowled. I couldn’t help it; I grinned.

‘We have to try to contain it,’ Edwin took over the speedy, hushed pep talk. ‘We wait until he’s actually in the house before we make a move. Our house collapsing we can explain; the whole of Notting Hill would be more difficult to get out of.’

‘Most importantly, don’t let him get inside your heads,’ Gregory continued. ‘That’s his favourite tactic and he’ll try to use it. Don’t let him manipulate your emotions.’

Smugly, I figured that should be easy enough. They didn’t know Annabelle had coached me on keeping people out of my head, but at this point I felt like an expert. Keeping Aldrich at arm’s length shouldn’t present much of a challenge.

I knew I was still pretty strong. Even when I wasn’t using my powers, I could feel them coursing through my body, anxiously waiting to be called on. Tristan had said my volatility would die down quickly and it had, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still restless.

Gregory was about to say something more when my hackles rose unexpectedly; a quick glance at the others indicated theirs had too. ‘He’s broken the second line,’ Gregory amended his speech. ‘It’s only a matter of-’

A deafening crash from outside mooted Edwin’s words of caution about waiting until Aldrich made it into the house. He wasn’t about to play discreetly after all.

A wave of car alarms went off up and down the street and dogs started barking.

‘Oh god,’ Kaley muttered, sounding sick. ‘It’s all over.’

To everyone’s surprise, Maya slapped her across the face. ‘Snap out of it,’ she ordered. ‘It’s not over yet.’

There was a moment of stunned silence before Edwin cleared his throat. ‘I have to agree. It’s not over until we beat Aldrich.’

That seemed to bolster everyone’s spirits a little and we all became a little more determined, before another crash outside reminded us that we should probably get out there.

Aldrich was standing in the middle of the street outside the Darlington house, a massive crater on either side of him, and rubble strewn all over the road, on people’s cars and in their gardens. The residents of the street were standing in their doorways, some looking shocked, others angry, some even appeared to be on the phone to the police. A few were shouting at Aldrich, but thankfully he was ignoring them, his sardonic smile focused solely on us and growing with every step towards him we took.

I glanced warily at the spectators, wondering how we were going to handle this, until with a casual wave of his hand Gregory sent them forcefully back into their houses. From the sounds of shouting and panic we could hear, they weren’t best pleased about this. I wondered if we should have evacuated them instead – with the damage Aldrich had already done to the street (and that was just to get our attention) would they really be safe in their houses?

Then again, we didn’t really have the time.

‘Glad you could finally make it to the party,’ Aldrich rasped at us in his throaty voice. He had a dark hood pulled low over his face, which probably explained why the people around hadn’t freaked out and run screaming when they saw him. God knows what rationale they’d used to explain away the craters.

‘Sorry we couldn’t roll out the welcome wagon,’ Maya sneered. ‘Only you’re not a very good guest.’

Aldrich pretended to be affronted. ‘I?’ he asked, seemingly baffled. ‘But it was you, my dear, who entered my home and organisation and left with the intent of sabotaging me.’ Without waiting for a response, Aldrich raised a hand in Maya’s direction. Space distorted as a blast of energy flew from his outstretched arm towards his former employee, but before it could reach her Kaley had coldly raised a hand and batted it away like it a bad smell. It flew into the distance and disappeared.

‘You’ll have to try harder than that this time, Aldrich,’ she snapped. That slap across the face seemed to have worked; she was a lot more confident.

‘I’m just warming up,’ he rasped. Raising both his arms from his sides, the ground started to shake and suddenly the boulders of rubble from the craters he’d made shot into the air and hovered briefly at a maximum height before tumbling over each other and rushing back to earth.

Back to us.

Before I could even comprehend the sight of my life flashing in front of my eyes, Tristan had thrown an arm straight up in the air and created some sort of shield; the rubble bounced off it and landed in a neat circle all around us.

‘Best you can do?’ he asked mildly, letting his arm drop back down to his side.

‘Not even close,’ Aldrich sneered.

His form seemed to blur momentarily and I blinked, trying to get him back in focus, but it quickly became obvious that his body was vibrating and my eyes weren’t at fault at all. Like a hydra with its multiplying heads, Aldrich’s body split into two; a perfect doppelganger.

Then it did it again.

And again.

And again.

Sixteen Aldrichs faced us, each of their grins growing broader as they registered our shock.

Somebody please tell they’re just decoys and don’t have any of his powers, I mass projected, and received six definitive They’re real’s for my trouble. I gulped. We were now outnumbered two-to-one.

Before we could even rally ourselves, the sixteen Aldrichs launched themselves towards us, two to each of us and three focusing on Kaley, making no secret of the fact that his main goal was getting her back. Maya and Tristan both threw themselves in front of her but I guess she wanted to prove herself, or knew what a stupid idea that was – making it seven against three – because she ducked out from behind them, drawing three of the serpent-like enemy after her.

For my part, I could barely concentrate on this as it happened and soon stopped, as I had two of my own adversaries to deal with. The Aldrichs sneered at me, but, caught unawares, all I could manage were defensive moves, blocking the blows they were trying to hit me with and throwing up shields that they easily dismantled.

Trying to catch my bearings, I summoned the focus of my powers and started fighting back, throwing everything I had at them and not getting very far. I wasn’t sure how the others were faring but while I wasn’t exactly struggling, I wasn’t excelling either.

Then I felt it. It was like the knocking Annabelle had demonstrated for me, but it was louder, more intimidating. As if rather than politely waiting to be let in, Aldrich was trying to knock down the door altogether.

Now trying to focus simultaneously on protecting my body and my mind from him, I felt myself begin to falter. Even alone he was too strong for me; doubled it was surprising I’d lasted this long.

I missed my volatility. I might still have the strength of my powers, but they no longer had an urgency to take over and I wasn’t sure how to make them. Consciously utilising my powers was only taking me so far; I needed them to take control of my body like they had in that warehouse, or I wasn’t going to be able to hold my own, much less help defeat him.

Tristan’s words came floating back to me: ... We do actually need you...

Some help I was being.

What triggered my powers’ take-over the last time? Terror. I was scared this time, but I wasn’t as terrified as I had been before. Having faced and defeated him once, some subconscious confidence seemed to have embedded itself in my psyche and it was proving to be detrimental.

Suddenly the Aldrichs in front of me started to shimmer again and I froze, wondering if they were going to duplicate again. On the contrary; the two in front of me fused together and in the blink of an eye the rest had as well. There was one Aldrich standing in front of us now – with a captive.

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A/N: This story is coming to an end very soon, so please vote and comment my lovelies :)