Air: Elementalist Book 1 by Rebecca Wolf (christmas read aloud .TXT) 📗

“Ouch. Penny, what’s with the passive-aggressive behavior?”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” said Penny, grimacing, “I think I’m just really freaked out by this whole situation. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

“Ok,” I said, struggling not to feel hurt.

“I’m sorry. Say something mean to me. Then we’ll be even.”

“No,” I said, turning up my nose with a half-joking expression “I’d rather you suffer with the guilt for a bit.”

“Ouch,” said Penny, “well, I guess I deserve that.”

I felt the last of my anger dissipate. We could never stay mad at each other for very long.

The bodyguards showed up shortly after we opened, looking disgruntled but resigned to being there. All-in-all, it was a pretty uneventful night. Everyone in town had heard there was a break-in. we expected more customers than usual to come and check out the place to see if there was any evidence that they could gossip about. It was almost a given that when anything big like this happened in the neighborhood, everyone would rubberneck for cheap thrills. Barely anyone showed up. It was strange. Those who did come were disappointed that they weren’t able to find anything. There was literally nothing left to find. The bar looked exactly as it normally did. I was coming to realize more and more, that Aiden was nothing if not thorough. He was definitely a difficult man to outmaneuver.

At the end of the night we pulled Jerry’s information, and we resolved to visit him after we closed up. If Aiden got wind of what we were doing, he was likely to do something completely insane. We decided we would slip out after going home, as that would be the time the guards would least expect us to leave.

They watched us like hawks as we got into their SUV. We did the same routine we had done when leaving Aiden’s house. Two of the guards got into the van with us and the other one drove Penny’s car home. We waited again while they checked the house, and when we received the ok, we got out. We went to our respective rooms, and that’s when I encountered the problem.

Chapter 17

Aiden was in my room. Where my window used to be there was a metal sheetת and he was in the middle of soldering it to the window frame. “Real classy,” I said angrily. This is what came of involving Aiden in our issues. We should never have called him for help. I’d rather deal with two-faced Jerry, than an over controlling Fiancé. He turned at my comment.

“Hi sweetheart.”

“What the hell is this?” I asked, glaring at him.

“This is an extra security measure.”

“Aiden, my room is on the second floor, this is not to keep me safe, it’s to keep me confined.”

“Were you planning on going somewhere?” he asked, facing me directly. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the new security feature, a knowing look on his face. “Maybe to see a certain someone named Jerry?”

“Oh, so you’re spying on me now?”

“Sweetheart, I don’t need to spy on you. You left the paper with the written conversation you had with Penny on your bed. It was out in the open for anyone to see.”

I silently cursed my own stupidity.

“Aiden, my room is private. What were you doing in my room in the first place if you weren’t here to snoop?”

“I was notified that you had a broken window and a busted door lock. I came to fix it.”

“Neither of which would have been broken in the first place if you had just respected my right to self determination.”

“I understand that you find it difficult to trust me, but how you could think that I would stoop to hiring a gun toting duo is beyond me. And right after our engagement party? Please,” he scoffed, “I am so much more calculating than that.”

“Well, at least you admit it,” I sneered.

“If you are determined to go see Jerry, we can go see him together,” he offered.

“That defeats the whole purpose Aiden, which you obviously already know since you read the damn paper!”

“Sweetheart, I could have easily called him before you got home and warned him about you coming.”

“So you’re saying my witness is compromised, and there is no point in going?”

“On the contrary, I think you should go and see for yourself that I was uninvolved in this whole fiasco.”

I felt like somehow I was being manipulated, but I couldn’t pinpoint how. His sudden transparency regarding the situation made everything seem even murkier. He really was a devious mastermind.

“Ok, lets go.” I decided, feeling like there was nothing to lose at this point. “But only if you take off the steel sheet from my window.”

“Only if you promise not to go anywhere without your guard,” he countered.

“Only if YOU promise they will let me go where I please.”

“Only if YOU promise to stay at my house. Your going to be living there with me in a month anyhow, why not just move in now?"

“My autonomy is important to me, stop trying to take it away!” I said vehemently.

Aiden fell into step beside me, “ok,” he said simply.

“Ok what?” I asked, confused by his sudden capitulation.

“Ok, lets go,” he said, which clarified nothing.

We walked out together, somehow ending up taking his car instead of mine.

He knew the way without me giving him the address, or plugging it in to GPS, which I found extremely suspicious. We pulled up to a nice middle-class house on the edge of an elite neighborhood. Close enough to get into their public schools, far enough away to be considered an outsider.

It must suck to be Jerry, never quite fitting in with the haves or have nots. I would have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t such a sellout. The only reason he was in this limbo state to begin with, was because he sacrificed the lives of his lower-class brethren to climb his way