Catching Feelings

Chapter Twenty-Six: Aidenn's Return

early update to maybe make your Monday a little less sucky

Chapter Twenty-Six: Aidenn's Return

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I glare at Aidenn and drop to my knees beside Derek.

A crowd of people starts to form around us, curious as to what's going on. Aidenn flicks his wrist before I can stop him, and transfers all four of us all the way outside the mall and right in front of my car.

My eyes widen, "are you insane, do you realize how many people just saw that?"

He shrugs; his eyes just as heavily laced with arrogance as they were two months ago, "thanks to me, they won't even remember you being there. Come on, Skylar, I'm not that stupid."

They way he says my name sends a shiver down my spine.

"Could've fooled me," I growl, shaking Derek while making sure he's still breathing. I look over at Aislinn to see her face completely pale, my car the only thing keeping her upright.

She seems to recover from her trance when Aidenn lays his palm on her arm and violently shrugs him off, "don't touch me!"

She takes a step back and I can see the pain forming in Aidenn's eyes. He may have completely fallen in the deep end but the one thing that hasn't changed about him is the huge amount of love he has in his heart when it comes to his sister.

"I'm not the bad guy here," he says calmly, his voice deep but just as threatening.

"It really doesn't seem that way," I say, my voice turning to ice as my fists curl and my nails press into my palms painfully.

I grow angrier as each word comes out, "you disappear for two months without any of us knowing where you went or when you were coming back, your sister gets into an accident and you don't even have the decency to show up to even make sure she's okay, then you fly completely off the radar, not letting anyone of us know if you're even alive. And now you waltz in here like it's no one's business, punch my boyfriend in the gut, use magick to whip us out of there, and you think you're not the bad guy?" I scoff, "You're pathetic."

I feel a hand being laid on my shoulder and look down to see Derek trying to calm me down. "It's okay," he whispers in my ear, "I'm fine."

"Ooh goodie, you're not dead," Aidenn says sarcastically.

He smirks and wipes his hand across his forehead in a mocking way, "if I were to be honest, I didn't think you were going to make it out alive."

Aislinn stares at him in disbelief while my anger continues to grow.

His smirk falters, "what? Too much?"

I shoot him a look, deadpanned.

Aidenn sighs, sounding every bit sarcastic as he says, "I'm going to explain everything, I promise."

"You bet your ass you're going to explain everything," Derek growls, pulling me closer to him in a misguided attempt to protect me, not knowing that I'm no longer in need of his protection; that I never really was.

"I will," he snaps, his eyes lingering on Derek's hand, which is attached to my waist, "but we need to go somewhere where it's-"

I laugh bitterly, cutting off whatever he was going to say, "you must really be insane if you think we're going anywhere with you until you answer every single one of our questions." I cross my arms over my chest, fighting to control the darkness inside of me and losing, quickly.