Hidden Powers

Chapter 12: Jack

There’s a rage boiling inside me. When I talked with Hope in her dream, she knew who Ava was when I mentioned Kyle sending me his powers. This whole time, she’s been hiding his killer. Or did she know Ava killed Kyle? She knows Ava’s side of the story, but did she ever find out who she killed? There are so many questions that I need answered. It was time to bring Emily back, so I pulled out my phone to text her.

Me: Find an excuse to leave them. We need to adjust the plan.

I knew it would take her a while to respond since she was with her friends, but the longer she took, I got angrier. It was difficult to get those memories out of my mind. Kyle always made it seem like Ava was his mate, his real mate, but who was that girl, Megan, who released him? Did she have her baby? Maybe I should find her and make sure both of them are OK.

Ding!

Emily: About time, I can barely stand being around either of these two. I’ll be there in a few.

When I first approached Emily for help, she made it seem like she couldn’t betray her two best friends, now she can’t be around them. There must have always been darkness in her heart and I just gave it a gentle nudge to the surface. I knew she felt something towards me, so it wasn’t too difficult to convince her to help me.

Ten minutes later, there was a knock on my door, then Emily burst in. “Are you sure you still want her? She’s not even your true mate.” She says to me.

“She isn’t my true mate, but she is actually my second mate.” Emily gasps and looks over to me.

“How come you didn’t tell me before?” She sounded angry, which annoyed me.

“There was no need to mention it. Now, there’s a new plan we need to figure out.” I told her as I tried to change the topic of conversation. “I’m no longer interested in this guy Mark at the moment. We need to find a way to lure this Ava out into the open. She’s the one who killed my brother.”

“How do you know? Your brother is dead, he can’t tell you for certain.” She rolled her eyes at me as if this should make everything clear to me that I was losing my mind.

“You forget that we have magic, and there are certain spells that can be used to see someone’s last memories.”

“You don’t even know how Ava looks; how do you know it’s her?”

“The way he whispers her name before he dies, and now finding out what Hope’s friend went through, I am confident it is the same person. We need to put an end to her as fast as possible.” Kyle was the only family I had for a long time. He was taken away from me, and now I’m left alone. This is why I came back to Hope. I found out long ago that she was my second mate, but in my heart, she was always number one, but something happened to make her leave me. I can’t remember what it was, but I plan to find out. A spell was used on me, that much I know after receiving Kyle’s powers. Dealing with Ava is the start to uncovering the truth about what Hope and her brother did to my memories.

Hope

“Why did Emily leave so fast? Wasn’t this gathering her idea?” I asked Lucy.

“I thought it was your idea.” She responded with raised eyebrows.

“What? No, Emily came over and practically dragged me out of bed.”

“When she called me, she said it was your idea to get the girls together. Why would she lie? What would be the point of it?”

“She’s acting weird, right? I’m not the only one who sees that.”

“There’s definitely something going on.” She stared out the window as if lost in thought. Did she know what was going on? “We need to get back to your place where we won’t be overheard.”

With that being said, we rushed back to my house, but tried our best not to attract too much attention. The last thing we wanted was someone to notice that something was amiss in the magical world. Our kind tend to be a little jumpy when it comes to the supernatural world. It didn’t take us long before we were inside the safety bubble of my home. Holton was there, pacing back and forth just on the other side. As soon as he saw us, he rushed to Lucy and pulled her into his arms.

“What’s happened?” I asked my brother.

“Mom said she felt a change in the air a moment ago. A darkness of some kind. She didn’t explain much, so I was worried something was going on, and when I couldn’t reach Lucy…” He looked down at Lucy with so much love and worry in his eyes.

“I’m sorry Holton,” she reached up and placed her hand on his cheek, “we were with Emily, and she can’t know that you and I are true mates, not yet.”

“Why not?” He asked with a playful pout. That was a look I never thought of seeing on my brother’s face before. Lucy giggled while I rolled my eyes and responded to the question instead.

“There’s something evil taking over her, that’s why.” He looked over at me, all playfulness gone. “Mark said he could smell evil on her, whatever that meant. She’s up to something, and since she’s been in love with you for many years, once she finds out you and Lucy are together after never giving her any attention, she will freak out, and I don’t really want to find out what she does.”

“What she said.” Lucy said as she tilted her head in my direction.

“She always gave me the creeps,” Holton said with a shiver. “I never understood why you were both friends with her for that long.”

“Emily had her moments, but she wasn’t always aggressive.” I tried to defend my friend, even though he had a point. Emily had problems when it came to changes. She didn’t like Lucy at first, and when I started to date Jack, she was furious. I always felt like I was being taken away from her, and she would lose me as her best friend.

“She’s always been aggressive Hope. Do you not remember the first time you brought Lucy over for a sleepover with the two of you?” Holton asked. I looked over at Lucy and saw the sadness in her eyes. “She tried to cut her hair when she fell asleep, then after you stopped her, I caught her trying to smother her with a pillow. She put a spell on Lucy to keep her asleep so she wouldn’t wake up and cause a scene. All because she didn’t want to share you.”

“You never told me about the pillow before.” I looked over at Lucy, and she had the same shocked face. She knew about the haircutting but knowing now that Emily tried to go that far, had me on edge.

“I should have said something back then, and I’m sorry, but she played it off like she was having a dream and acting it out. She said she never meant any harm to come to Lucy. I believed her at the time.” He pulled Lucy in closer and held her tight.

“We need to go inside and talk. Mark might want to be around for this too.” Lucy said as her eyes locked on mine. I nodded and we started the trek up the gravel driveway to the front of the house.

Once inside, and out of the light, Mark was in front of me. He was obviously worried like Holton was. He didn’t say anything, but just held me in his arms. What could mom have felt that made everyone act like this? I turned to Lucy to figure out what was going on.

“What did Emily whisper to you at the café?” I asked her.

“She said the plan was now in motion. I thought I had more time to find out the whole plan, but I guess we’re out of time.” Her shoulders sank like there was nothing we could do to stop whatever this plan was. She was ready to give up already, but I wasn’t.

“What do you know of the plan? Maybe we can figure it out with the information we have.” I suggested.

“He wants to lure Mark out into the open somehow and kill him, then turn himself into Mark so he can trick you into loving him again. That’s all Emily would share, because according to her, Jack didn’t trust me yet.”

“Yeah, nothing he does will work. From now on, I’m not leaving Hope’s side. Ava will give me some more of her blood so I can go in daylight. He’s not getting me, and he’s not getting Hope.” Mark was almost snarling as he spoke.

“We’re going to be fine Mark. Nothing is going to happen; we know to expect something now, at least. We only have to figure out a few different ways for him to strike.”

“Mark is going to be safe.” A voice came from the stairs and we all turned to see Ava standing there, supporting a nice new baby bump. James was standing close behind her. I was about to gush over the bump until Holton brought me back to reality. From the looks of it, Lucy was about to do what I was going to do.

“What do you mean Mark will be safe? Jack is pretty relentless; he doesn’t stop until he gets what he wants. He proved that years ago when we caught him…”

“How do you know this Ava?” I needed to cut Holton off quickly. He was about to shed some details that I did not want to share with the others. I felt guilty for what Jack had done, and I should have gone to the authorities right away like Holton said. It was a moment of weakness, and I was not ready for everyone to know how weak I was…at least not yet.

“I was given a dream, or premonition of sorts, I guess you could say.” She shrugged. We all waited until she was willing to share what she saw. “Whatever you talked about with Emily today, was enough to put Jack on a different path. He knows it was me. I killed Kyle, the only family he had left.”

“No.” I whispered. “I was trying so hard to keep that information quiet. How could I have been so stupid? I didn’t know Emily was going to turn against us.”

“It’s fine Hope. He can try all he wants, but he can’t kill me.”

“He wants to kill you?” Lucy gasped. Her eyes flickered down to the baby bump. She has always been protective over children. Some witches have a specific calling, and she has known hers for an exceedingly long time; childcare. I never knew mine, until recently when Holton and I turned 18.

“There was something else in Ava’s premonition though.” James spoke for the first time in a gruff voice while placing a protective arm around his wife’s waist.

“What is it?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“There was a jump to a different battle. We were all there, fighting together against Jack, but he wasn’t alone.” Ava looked right in my eyes as she spoke this last part. “Derek was beside him, and he was beyond angry that I was pregnant. He said Michael would be glad to get rid of the child growing inside me so I could carry his child instead.”

“We will not let that happen, Ava!” I was getting angry at the thought of Michael trying to get to my new friend, my new family.

Ava

James and I were back in our room after telling the others about what I saw in my dream, or premonition, whatever it was. Needless to say, no one was happy about that outcome. James was going to be more protective than usual, and I don’t blame him. Mark and Hope wanted us to share a bigger room so they could be closer to us too. Lucy was even thinking of staying here from now on as well, so she could be close to help protect the babies. The remainder of this pregnancy was going to be a challenge. I feel like we need to stay here until the babies are born, then we will have Jade and Chase come and get them until the final battle against Michael is over.

“You didn’t tell them the whole dream,” James said as he wrapped me in his arms. I then noticed that my arms were placed protectively around my belly.

“It’s not something they can decide to change. Only the ones connected to that part of the dream should be told, and they can decide if they want to change anything.”

“Do you think they will figure out a different way?”

“I’m not sure, but whatever they decide, it will be done for the best outcome. They might know some information that we don’t that they can use to their advantage.” James nodded his head and gave me a kiss on the cheek before pulling away and leaving the room. I knew he wanted to go talk strategy with Mark and Holton to try and figure out how to best keep me safe. I didn’t worry about my life, or my babies' lives. I worried about the lives of the others who are meant to be lost along the journey to this upcoming battle.