Chapter 29

Darren was on his way to the field when Marcus DuLaurent walked out of Aiden's office. Ducking inside the medbay, Darren watched Aiden stand still and clutch the place above his elbow. Aiden did it whenever he was nervous, though Darren didn't think he was aware of it. More importantly though: what was Marcus doing here now? The timing was awfully suspicious given the latest developments in Darren's life, worrisome too until he caught a glimpse of Aiden's dejected expression.

A rush of strange excitement coursed through him. It wasn't because Aiden looked like he was suffering from both the worst headache he'd had and a mental breakdown; it was because if Aiden looked so torn, then that meant Darren still had a chance.

He didn't let himself explore what kind of chance he really hoped for, jogging over to the warden's office just as Aiden shut the door. He knocked and waited to be invited before he slipped inside, finding Aiden sitting behind his desk. He looked up from whatever he was typing, said nothing, and returned his attention to the screen.

Darren took his usual spot on the couch, draping an arm over the backrest. Even from here, he could see the effort it took Aiden to maintain his mask of composure when he was anything but. Darren was on edge himself, not quite sure where they stood now that he didn't have to hide the truth anymore, but wherever it was, it was definitely complicated.

After minutes of just charged silence between them, Darren's nerves couldn't take it anymore, so he cleared his throat. "Well, Aiden Kesley. Did you find your answers?" It came out more hostile than he'd meant it to, but there was nothing he could do about it.

The look Aiden gave him was venomous, a quick flick of his gaze that shook Darren to his core. "Not nearly enough of them to make up for the mountain of new questions." He threw another loathsome glance Darren's way. "Sir Barnaby Albus II."

"Not here," Darren hissed, scanning the room. He didn't see anything out of place, but he wouldn't know for sure if Marcus had left a listening device unless he did an actual sweep. "Shall we go inspect the renovated area?"

Seeming to catch onto his concern, Aiden nodded and turned off his computer. He led Darren to the fields outside and once they reached the edge of the enclosure, they claimed a bench along the span of glass separating them from the cold, suffocating embrace of space. Darren sat on one end and Aiden on the other. It felt like they were on the opposite sides of that window. One was inside, one was outside, their worlds not any closer than they'd been before Darren had sent Aiden to hunt down an old fairytale no one even remembered.

Despite the sting of sadness thinking about the past brought forth, Darren smiled, picturing the easy smile of the girl in the red dress. He hoped his gamble had paid off. He hoped that the truths hidden on that asteroid had shaken Aiden's world, exposing the lies it had been built on.

It was cruel, but it was also the only way. Breaking Aiden all over again was the only option Darren had if he wanted to survive this. To live.

"I assume you met the lovely princess. She is quite the force of nature, isn't she?" he said, trained his gaze on Aiden's profile, and waited.

Aiden stifled a smile at the mention of Sara. The friendly girl with her red dress and cap and her teas and biscuits had been the most advanced AI he'd ever interacted with. He'd thought about her on the way back from Mars, today too during his commute to Horizons, but he still had no idea how something so human-like could exist.

Who'd built such an AI and for what purpose? How come the Global Nations didn't seem to know about it, considering the resources it must've taken to develop?

"Would've made for a fearless queen one day," he acknowledged, keeping his gaze on the cluster of rocks passing by on the other side of the glass. He could feel Darren's eyes on him, but he wasn't ready to meet them.

"She would have," Darren agreed, longing lacing his words.

Darren would have known Sara while she was still alive. He was one of her knights, so maybe he'd lived in the mansion as a boy. Maybe he'd even hung out with her and her younger brother, drank tea that actually tasted of something.

Imagining Darren as a boy brought on the memory Sara had shown Aiden. He didn't want to relive it. He'd been avoiding it, shutting it down whenever it tried to resurface, the tragedy he'd lived through in Sara's VR not something he could handle when he was barely functioning. Darren must've been around the same age, maybe he'd even been in the house too, hiding in some other room and hoping he'd make it out alive.

"Do you know where the heir is?" Aiden prompted, changing the topic. He doubted Darren would give up the location so easily, but he had to ask anyway.

Darren chuckled, the sound carrying genuine amusement and a note of… Mockery? Or maybe it was bewilderment. In any case, a smile accompanied the laugh too, and when Aiden scowled at Darren, he also noticed a spark of something in the man's indigo eyes, something raw… but in a new way than before. It wasn't hostile, and certainly wasn't meant as a seduction this time. Whatever it was, Aiden couldn't exactly decipher it.

"I do," Darren said, looking away first as he laced his hands together atop his knees.

"And I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me," Aiden followed up with, even if he knew it was pointless to press the issue.

Darren's shoulders sagged, displacing a few of the longer locks of his raven-black hair. They fell forward and curtained his face, but he didn't seem to be bothered. "What is it to you?"

Aiden's fingers itched to tuck Darren's hair away, so to stop himself from acting on that urge, he rolled back one of his shirt sleeves and started massaging his wrist. He also pretended he didn't notice Darren's eyes following the movements of his fingers.

"You have a point. Whatever happens to some forgotten prince is none of my business," Aiden said, trying not to sound bitter about it.

"Unless you make it so," Darren countered, his gaze snapping up to Aiden's face.

Electricity sparkled along Aiden's nerve endings, the determination in Darren's voice and eyes speeding up his heart rate. Swallowing, he bit back, "I'm afraid that is not something I intend to do."

Darren's scoff filled Aiden with brewing irritation. "The princess would be disappointed in you, Kesley."

"Warden Kesley."

"Tell me, warden Kesley, why was Marcus DuLaurent here earlier?"

"You saw him?" Aiden narrowed his eyes. Had Darren been watching him?

"Happened to walk by."

Aiden contemplated answering, but the question he'd had on his mind since leaving the hideout poured out of him first. "Why did you kill Claudia?"

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt the molten flow of anger and sorrow trickle down his throat. His heart closed in on itself in a futile attempt to protect whatever little of it had remained intact. Too many secrets and too many lies made up his life, and just trying to comb through them caused his brain to pulsate uncomfortably.

"I told you. She came after me."

"She didn't even know who you were when she went to Mars chasing rumors. You could've run." Aiden balled his hands into fists, squeezing so hard his knuckles went white. "I read the messages. You didn't have to kill her. You could've walked away and hid. But you chose not to. You chose to kill her. You chose to be a murderer."

Aiden didn't know why it mattered so much to him to hear Darren say it. He could pretty much guess the reason, put the pieces together, and arrive at Darren's motivation. Did that excuse Darren's crime? Not at all and neither would saying it out loud change anything… yet he wanted that confession all the same.

Darren smiled, a resigned, sad smile that betrayed a deeper emotion. Anger… but not at himself for what he'd done. It was aimed at Aiden for stating what both of them knew to be true—that, despite doing it to protect an heir on the run, Darren had made the conscious choice to end Claudia's life.

"Your fiancée," Darren said in what sounded like practiced detachment, "was Marcus' best agent. The only one to get that close. I don't think that you really knew her and what she was capable of." He sounded regretful, though Aiden wasn't sure if it was because of how close to capturing him she'd gotten or because Aiden had been unaware of that side of her. He chose not to speculate. "I had to get to her or…"

That red-hot anger rose in Aiden, demanding to be let out. To hurt, to break, to make Darren pay for—

Darren's words replayed in his brain, something clicking into place.

I had to get to her.

He sprung up from the bench and grabbed Darren by the collar of his jumpsuit, dragging him up. "Did you lure her there?" he panted, eyes wide and head splitting. No, no, no. This… this couldn't be. Darren couldn't have done something like that…

Darren turned his head away, averting his gaze.

Aiden's heart froze all over and sank to his feet. No. He shook with anger, vibrating as an earthquake of a tremor started out from his chest. He was breaking, he could feel it. He was going to lose it and kill Darren Howe with his bare hands right here and now.

Shoving Darren to the side, Aiden stumbled to the glass and placed his forehead against it, trying to steady his breathing and heart.

"I wanted to—"

"Leave," he snapped, his voice a croak among his wheezing exhale.

"Ai—"

"Leave I said!" Aiden shouted, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing all his willpower on keeping himself rooted to where he was standing.

Darren cursed and then said something—a protest maybe, or perhaps an excuse. But Aiden didn't really hear him. Couldn't, not when it was taking everything he had in him to resist the heart-gutting urge to put an end to Darren Howe's life.

After he got no response, Darren eventually stormed away. Aiden didn't leave his spot by the window until long after the sound of prisoners playing football behind him ceased reaching his ears.

The amount of whiskey Aiden chugged down that night was far above his usual consumption levels. It went straight to his head, making the world around him swim in blurry stills of his apartment. He tripped at least a dozen times before he reached his bed, somehow managing not to smash his nose on the beige tiles. He didn't even bother crawling under the blanket and just flopped on top of it, still clothed in his impeccable slate suit. He dreamed about Sara in the dark room, and then about the bar on Mars, about Claudia visiting it and looking for Darren because Darren had lured her there. He wanted to stop her from going, but every time he tried, something prevented him from going after her as if he was physically chained to their apartment on Earth.

Sometime later, Aiden abruptly woke up in the middle of yet another iteration of the torturous dream. He was sweating and panting and didn't know what time it was exactly, nor where he'd tossed his phone or bag. He was also shivering, feeling a chill in his bones from the cool evening breeze whooshing past him as it slipped into his bedroom through the open windows.

Aiden's attention shifted to his bedroom door and the darkness beyond it. He must have left an open window in the lounge, too. The light fabric of the curtains rustled softly, ushering him to close his eyes again. He gave in, not in the mood to deal with the horrible headache he was suffering from, just as a thud sounded from somewhere in his apartment. A door closing because of the wind, he assumed and ignored it, burying his nose in his sheets.

A muffled thump came a few heartbeats later. Then another one. He ignored those too, or at least tried to until he started wondering if maybe he'd not closed the water faucet properly. Or had he left a tap running?

More thumps reached his ears, then a shuffling noise… like there was some animal pacing about in the living room. Rats, maybe? No… Something bigger.

The thud sounded again, this time clearer to pick out.

An icy chill sobered him up. These were a person's footsteps.There was someone in his apartment.

Aiden's blood froze. His eyes shot open, his mind suddenly impossibly sharp despite the alcohol. He strained his hearing, hunting for even the smallest of sounds.

Someone had broken into his place in the middle of the night.

Heart hammering, he stood up, taking extra care not to make any noise. The paralyzing gun he kept for self-defense was in the nightstand on the window's side. He'd not thought he'd ever have to use it, but he was glad he had it charged all the same.

Crouching lower, he made his way to the nightstand while not taking his eyes off the bedroom door. Once he had the gun in his hand, he felt less exposed, less defenseless, because he could protect himself from whoever was about to discover that Aiden's apartment held no valuables worth stealing.

Why hadn't the alarm system been set off? It was configured to recognize only him and to alert him if anyone else entered his apartment. He'd also checked that it was on out of habit before getting completely smashed, yet it had failed to alert him. When it shouldn't have, not unless whoever was here had been added to the device's authorization list…

A shiver ran down Aiden's spine, but not because of the cool wind grazing his adrenaline-pumped body.

The misplaced supplements and pills from yesterday.

Movement at the door snatched his attention, but it was hard to make out anything in the pitch black there. His bedroom, on the other hand, wasn't as dark, the light streaming in through the gaps in the curtains giving furniture and walls a sickly orange glow. It was sufficient so that the trespasser couldn't have missed Aiden's braced form.

Realizing that sneaking up on the intruder wasn't an option anymore, Aiden aimed the gun at the door. "Show yourself."

When no reply came—and no movement—he took a step forward and let some of the adrenaline show in his voice. "Show yourself!"

Shit. How many were there? He was mostly in shape because of his semi-regular gym visits before starting the warden job at Horizons, so he could handle one or two men. Even if they were armed. More than that would prove difficult. It had been too long since he'd been in actual combat.

Long moments of nothing but Aiden's labored breathing passed. Perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him, too jumpy because of stress, exhaustion, and intoxication. Just when he was about to lower the gun and head out to the corridor to find out if he'd gone crazy or not, a shadowy form darted in front of the door, disappearing before he could really see it.

There really was someone in his apartment, and it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him.

Fear bolted through Aiden, making his lungs work overtime. He squeezed the gun and lifted it up again. He narrowed his eyes and focused on the door, slowly placing one foot in front of the other in a measured advance toward the middle of the room. From there, he would have a better view of the corridor and, hopefully, the intruder.

Halfway there though, his toes bumped into something solid lying on the fluffy carpet. He squinted at the grenade-like object, realizing it smelled like lavender and was making a hissing noise. It sounded like one of those ancient gas hobs or—

Aiden's legs went numb before he'd managed to kick the object away. He collapsed to the floor with a grunt and then didn't really get to do anything else as the paralysis spread through the rest of his body, bringing with it a lavender-flavored blackness he couldn't stave off.