Merely Human

Chapter 16

My mind went slightly blank as I heard that and then I turned to him in confusion.

“Boston?!” I cried out. “You’re taking me to Boston? No! Stop the car and let me out.”

“Stop squirming.” He ordered, but then seemed to realize his tone and he added on a begrudging, “Please.”

“No, why do we have to go so far away? I don’t trust you enough to be in a car with you for the 45 minute drive there and back. I don’t like you enough for that!”

Caden’s face hardened at my words and his hands shook slightly while the rest of him was completely tense.

“Tough.” He said. “We can’t talk in town where certain…undesirable people might interrupt us.”

“Undesirable people?” I asked bewildered. “Like who?”

Caden shot me a disbelieving face. “Your boyfriend, for starters.”

I jerked back slightly in shock. “My… boyfriend? Who’s my… you mean Jason? Jason as in my Jason, the vampire Jason? He’s in Salem?!”

Caden looked over at me, studying my face as if to see if I was joking. His lips twitched as if he was amused when he saw I was being completely serious.

“You didn’t know he had followed you? Wow. Some trust issues going on there…” he snorted. “You know, that’s the first sign of an obsessive boyfriend is when they stalk you.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Mr. Hack-into-my-emails.” I muttered.

Caden was silent for a moment.

“You’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I was going crazy when you didn’t show up for your classes. You never miss a day, usually. I went to your apartment and asked the witch whe-“

“Trish.” I stated.

“What?” Caden asked, sounding confused.

“Her name is Trish, not ‘witch’.”

“Fine. I asked Trish where you were and she wasn’t helpful at all, telling me you and the vamp had left, and that just made me more worried. So I had Ben find you.”

The mention of Trish suddenly made my eyes widen.

            “Oh my God, no wonder Jason’s here!” I laughed. “I’m so stupid, I completely forgot! I’m going to have to make this one up to him.”

“What?” Caden asked sharply, sounding a bit alarmed.

“It’s nothing.” I waved off. “I just forgot about a bonding spell between the two of us. It must have been a bit surprising when he suddenly remembered it as well, when he was forced to follow me to Salem.”

“A bonding spell?!” Caden demanded. “Dammit why the hell would you agree to that, how stupid are you? Now our going to Boston is pointless.” He added on as a mutter. But he continued his way down the highway regardless.

We drove in silence for a bit and I could tell that Caden was getting himself silently worked up over this new piece of information. I think he might have thought we’d done the spell on purpose as some sort of lover’s agreement.

After 15 minutes of the shaking in Caden’s hands slowly getting more agitated, I finally decided that our little ruse to piss off Caden was doing more harm than good right now. His jealousy was quickly becoming dangerous for Jason, and he’d probably find out eventually now that I had been marked since Jason and I never did anything physical.