Chapter 17: ❝ stop holding your breath ❞

(unedited)

I'm friends with the monster,

That's under my bed,

Get along with the voices,

Inside of my head.

You're trying to save me,

Stop holding your breath.

"The Monster"- Eminem ft. Rihanna

I've never really liked plane rides.

I've never associated them with good memories. When Jared and Haley died, I took a plan ride to New York to live with Blake and Avril. When they died, it was another plane ride to Sydcot, where Raine and Kaden lived.

I had gone on a couple vacations that needed a plane ride before, of course, but they didn't really measure up to my previous memories of airplanes.

Even with first class accommodations –pillows and blankets, and endless supply of drinks and mini-pretzels and Wi-Fi– I found myself getting restless. Sleeping was out of questions, since there was only a little more than half an hour left of the flight. Pretzels and sprite weren't exactly ideal at entertaining.

I had my laptop with me, but I didn't know what to do on it. I wasn't the social network kind of person; all I had was Skype, to talk to Raine and Kaden when they were away, or other family friends, and an abandoned Facebook, from when I was thirteen.

After my fifth failed attempt at beating Minesweeper, I decided to give up on finding distractions. Maybe it would be better to do a little thinking anyway. After all, I was meeting my birth mother.

Just as I was about to shut down my laptop, a Skype window popped up. Before I had time to read who it was from, the call connected. To my surprise, Vanessa's smiling face showed up.

"Hey!" she exclaimed, loud enough that several people turned to stare. I scrambled to plug my earphones in, wincing when they let out a burst of static. "Where are you?"

"I'm on a plane to New York," I replied. "Where are you?"

I didn't recognize the dark grey walls behind her, or the floor to ceiling bookshelves. All the walls, as far as I knew, in the Merrick house were a pale peach colour.

She grinned. "We're at Nathan's! Ashton left his laptop out so I'm using it." They're at the Ashton's?

"How'd you find my Skype?" I had never told any of them about it...

Vanessa shrugged. "It was on Ashton's list."

But I've never Skyped him before...

Anyone could call me on Skype; I had never gotten around to changing that setting since I didn't use it often and kept forgetting that I needed to change it. Still, though, how had he found me in the first place?

Before I could ask, a new voice interrupted, from Vanessa's end. "Who are you talking to?" No, no, no, no, no. I didn't want to talk to Jacen. I didn't even want to freaking see him.

Vanessa glanced at him. "Elena." She looked at me, then back at Jacen, then at the door. "I think I hear Ashton coming. You keep Elena entertained, I'll go distract him."

"Wait, Vanessa!" I started.

...And she was already gone.

Goddamnit.

Jacen sat down in the seat Vanessa had been in and raised an eyebrow, watching me expectantly.

I ignored him.

I wasn't going to blow up at him; I wouldn't give him that satisfaction and open a gaping weakness like that to him. He was probably expecting me to be angry enough to slip up, expecting me to show he had gotten under my skin. I wouldn't.

"So you're giving me the silent treatment then," he said.

I scoffed. "Did you expect me to flash a brilliant smile and pretend everything's okay?"

"Well there goes possible reaction thirty-three," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "You're overreacting."

"Are you kidding me?" I demanded. What the hell is wrong with him?

"I told you the truth," he said.

"You had no right to go digging around my past." I hadn't wanted to go back to it. I hadn't wanted to question everything.

Jacen rolled his eyes. "You're being a hypocrite."

"I don't use people's secrets against them." I kept all the secrets I guessed to myself, with the exception of Devon. Maybe it was bad to guess the secret tensions between two best friends, the guys who were sleeping with their best friend's girlfriends- but I would never use any of it against them.

"I had to," Jacen said. For a second, I was struck by how vulnerable he looked. But it was gone so fast I almost convinced myself I had imagined it. Maybe I had.

"You had to?" I repeated incredulously. "Why the hell did you think you had to-" I cut myself off. What if he meant that in a literal sense? "Someone forced you to?"

He didn't reply, just continued to stare at me steadily.

"What did you mean?" I demanded. His face betrayed nothing; it was a perfect blank mask that unnerved me. I was so used to being able to tell what people really meant that not knowing with Jacen made me nervous.

The Elite makes me nervous.

"Is someone forcing you?" I asked when he again, didn't reply.

He closed his eyes, and for a moment, I almost thought he had fallen asleep. I wanted to strangle him. "I can't tell you," he said, opening his eyes.

It's a good thing I'm on an airplane and a thousand miles away from him.

His answer had been neither a confirmation nor a denial. He might not be telling me because he really couldn't, and was scared of what would happen. Or, he was feeding me a load of bullshit and having fun watching me squirm.

And with everything I knew about Jacen -which I guess, wasn't much- the latter seemed more likely.

Besides, he was Jacen Winston. Who could be forcing him to do something he didn't want? He was rich enough that he could pay anyone to keep quiet several times over, and to be honest, he probably had enough money and contacts to bury and deny anything awful. There weren't many people who could force him to do anything.

"Why should I believe you?"

He paused. Opened and closed his mouth a couple times. Paused again. "I can't give you a reason to," he said finally.

Am I actually talking to Jacen or has something possessed his body?

I almost decided to believe in the possessing thing. Except I'm pretty sure only demons could possess someone. Though it was questionable which was crueler- Jacen Winston or a creature from hell.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" Jacen seemed to have a lot of those. I can't say I'll be surprised if this is another one of them.

"No!" Now it looked like he wanted to strangle me. "Goddamnit, why don't you believe me, Elena?"

He's got to be fucking with me. "How do you expect me to find a reason to believe you when you can't even do it yourself?"

He leaned forward. "I'm the only one who's told you the truth."

"Bullshit." The word came out loud enough that several people turned to stare or shoot me disapproving looks. "You tell me stuff I don't want to know."

"The truth hurts," he said. "Welcome to life."

"You're an asshole," I hissed, making sure to keep my voice down this time.

He suddenly looked very, very tired. "We've been over this. You need some new insults."

I shook my head, and looked away, waiting for Vanessa to come back. If she ever did. I had no idea what she was trying to pull with me and Jacen.

"I'm sorry," he said a couple moments later.

I looked up. "Don't even try that."

"What? Apologizing?"

I glared at him. "You switch personalities like you're changing clothes."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry you ever got sucked into this." I stared at him. He actually sounded... Sincere. And looked the part to. I almost believed him.

"You're the one who picked me for Ashton, you can't exactly say sorry," I pointed out.

He shook his head again, then, without saying another word, stood up and walked away.

What the hell?

Jacen Winston was the most infuriating person on earth, I swear. I didn't know what side of him to believe. It was possible that someone was forcing him to be cruel, but why to me? What had I done? It was also possible that his mean streak was really his personality, and that his whole apologizing thing was just an act.

I decided to give up on waiting for Vanessa and moved to edit Skype, then stopped at the sound of voices. They were slightly muffled, by a door, I think.

"-doing with my laptop?" Ashton was saying.

"Just Skyping Elena," Vanessa replied, her voice getting louder. Closer. "She's talking to Jacen right now."

"No, she's not," Jacen cut in. They sounded close; right outside the room the laptop was in, maybe?

"Did you just leave her hanging?" Vanessa demanded.

A pause.

A couple low hisses and whispers.

A smack.

"I need to talk to her anyway," Ashton said.

"You better go before she hangs up," Jacen told him.

"Wait, but I wanted to talk to her!" Vanessa protested. Another pause. "Fine. I'll come back in fifteen minutes. But I better not walk in on you guys having Skype sex!"

Oh my god.

I'm on a public airplane.

"She's on a public airplane," Jacen said flatly, almost as if he had read my mind from a couple thousand miles away.

"Maybe she's an exhibitionist," Vanessa replied.

OH MY GOD.

There was a strangled groan, then footsteps and a door slamming shut. Ashton appeared a moment later. "Hey."

I raised an eyebrow. "Hi."

"Did you hear any of that?" he asked.

I held my thumb and index finger a couple in he's away from each other. "Just a bit," I admitted, biting the inside of my lip to try and keep from blushing.

He grimaced, then changed the subject. "What did Jacen say to you?"

"Why does it matter?" I countered.

"You can't believe a word he says," Ashton told me.

I raised an eyebrow. He had said that about Jenna, too. "I'm getting the sense that you don't want me to believe anyone. About anything."

"I'm serious, Elena," he said, giving me a flat look.

"You know, Ashton, just because you think I'm stupid, doesn't mean I actually am," I told him.

"I don't think you're stupid," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Could've fooled me."

"You just don't know enough," he continued.

He had to remind me. "You can't really blame me for that." Ashton wouldn't tell me anything. Neither would Kaden. Or Devon. Or Jacen, or anyone else who might have the slightest clue what was going on. They were giving me rocks, and expecting me to find my way out of a dark cave.

All I could do was throw them ahead and hope I wouldn't fall into a pit of vipers.

Except, I had a feeling I had already tripped, with the Elite being the poisonous snakes.

The world didn't see the dark secrets they kept. They only saw an exclusive, privileged group of teenagers that could away anything they wanted.

Anything.

I had no doubt about the Elite's power.

Kaden had confirmed it, and Ashton and basically the rest of the world, as well.

"If you keep going like you are, you're gonna get hurt." He paused. "Or worse."

Wait, did he mean... I glanced around, lowering my voice. "You think someone wants to kill me?"

He sighed. "The note has to mean something. And someone tried to, didn't they?" I opened my mouth to deny it, then stopped when he continued. "It was at Vanessa's. The second time. You were dripping wet and bleeding."

How did Ashton know? I hadn't told anyone. Not Kaden or Raine, or Devon, or Vanessa, or any of the Elite. I had kept it completely to myself.

"Do you know who?"

"No." There was the faintest tremor in his voice. A tiny crack in his composure.

"You do."

"No, I don't."

"You're lying. I know you are," I insisted.

He finally gave up the act. "I can't tell you."

"Why not?" He knows someone's trying to kill me and he knows who it is but he can't tell me? What kind of logic is that?

"Because you'd give it away."

I tried not to show that his words got to me. "I wouldn't."

"You would. I know you would."

I but down on the inside of my cheek. Hard. "How?" No screaming, no tears, keep yourself in check, Lena.

"Because I would. Kaden would. Anyone in your position would," he said. "I told you, there's a lot you don't know."

"Then you could tell me, instead of letting me stumble around in the dark and getting mad when I trip!" I had to actually work to keep my voice down. It was the second time today that I wanted to strangle someone. I dug my nails into my palms, hard enough to leave solid prints after I relaxed my hands.

"It's not that simple!" He dragged a hand through his hair. "I just need you to trust me, Elle."

That fucking nickname.

"I barely know you," I told him quietly.

"What do you want me to do to get you to trust me?" he asked. This seems almost like déjà vu. I just had a conversation with another guy from the Elite who wanted to know why I couldn't trust them.

"Tell me something. I need something to believe," I said. "Just tell me... Tell me why." I had never talked to any of the Elite before now. Why would one of them want to kill me?

He froze. Grimaced. Hesitated. Opened his mouth, then closed it. Sighed. Leaned forward.

"It's not-" He cut himself off, going completely silent. He glanced somewhere behind him, then turned back but didn't continue.

"Not what?" I asked, trying to get him to continue.

"I don't like you like that, though." His tone had changed completely. It was harsher now, colder, more like when I had first met him.

"What?"

What the hell was he trying to do?

He shot me a look I couldn't quite read. It was sort of like a 'play along' look, but I had no idea what he meant by it. What did he want me to play along to?

"Wait, Ashton-"

An interruption from my side cut me off.

"Ladies and gentlemen we are now preparing for descent. Please fasten your seat belts, store any electronics and return all seats and trays to upright position. Thank you."

"Looks like you have to go," Ashton said.

"This conversation isn't over," I told him before reluctantly shutting down my laptop. I stored it in my backpack, then leaned back in my seat, thinking about what had just happened.

He had changed so suddenly, like he hadn't wanted whoever had entered to know what we had been talking about. Almost like he had been scared.

­...Or controlled.

What if he was being controlled somehow, like Jacen supposedly was? It would make sense why they were so similar. It was possible that Ashton had been telling me something he shouldn't have been, he looked like he had been about to whatever had interrupted him.

There was only one person I could think of who could have complete control over both Jacen and Ashton. Jacen, because she was his sister, and Ashton, because she was dating his brother.

Keira.

-- ♡ --

Thank you AwesomelyBlaze for the banner---->

Teaser: She glanced around, then leaned forward, lowering her voice so much that I had to move closer to hear. "Elena, they did something to her. I know it. The Elite hurt her."

QotC (Question of the Chapter): Do you think Jacen and Ashton are being controlled?

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