Arden: The Gift Of Delirium

13. Unpredictable Upbringing

One cannot prepare for the unexpected...

***

Arden

"Nova." I repeated slowly. Nova. Nova. Nova. "As in-"

"Yeah." Hayden cut me off. "Her."

Nova was the young girl that Hayden was in love with a long time ago. In fact, Zane and Perri were also in love with her. They were all best friends when they were young and the boys eventually developed a love for the girl. But...she moved away.

I shook my head and put my hand up. "Wait.." I stated quietly. I'm confused. "How does...Nova have anything to do with the Kai and why you wanted it so bad?"

Like we stated before, I'm sure Hayden didn't want to kill us, he didn't want to hurt us but for some reason- he saw us a threat, and he couldn't stand the obstacles so he had to get rid of us to get to what he really wanted.

Hayden paused for a while. He ran a hand through his hair and I watched as he closed his eyes, blocking my gaze from them. I waited a little longer and I could feel the sudden sadness that filled the air around him.

Was he going to cry?

I've never seen Hayden so...defeated. "Um," He started off slowly. "Uh...there was...this one day where I..." He voice was almost inaudible and it was shaky.

Oh my...

"One day I heard a voice and I had some kind of...vision..." Hayden continued quietly. His eyes were still closed- maybe he was reliving the story he was telling me -remembering it the way it happened. "I don't know why, or how. It was early in our senior year- you weren't at Green Brook yet. But, I had the vision and it was from Nova. In the vision, she simply stated that she needed my help and she wanted me to do something for her."

My eyebrows came together as I listened to Hayden's story. "I didn't understand. I was shocked and confused, I haven't heard from Nova in over ten years and she wasn't...you know, she wasn't supernatural- she was a mortal. I was lost at why she was all of a sudden contacting me through that vision."

"At first I thought I was losing it or something. I thought maybe it was a dream- it only happened once. But there was a part of me that knew it was real- it was completely real. I did some research and looked into it and it turns out, only shades or people in the underworld can send visions or contact people in the mortal world."

I registered his words and my lips parted in a silent gasp as realization dawned upon me. "That means...Nova...she was-"

"Yeah." Hayden tightened his eyes shut. "Yeah, she died....in the vision, she was older, I knew she lived out some of her life."

Hayden opened his eyes and sighed. He set his hands simply in his lap. "After I learned about her death, I started getting more visions. That's how she communicated with me. She told me she wanted something from me and....I couldn't say no. I couldn't refuse her, I couldn't ignore her."