"So, you don't remember anything?" Dick asked Aiden for the fifth time, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

"No." Aiden's green eyes stayed fixed to the side of us, pointedly never looking at us directly. Even I couldn't deny it was a bit shady.

Dick opened his mouth again and I cut in, placing a hand on his shoulder to pull him back slightly. "It's fine, really," I said to Aiden before looking up at Dick. "Why don't you go check in on the others? I'll stay here." I raised my brows slightly, trying to silently tell him I could take care of this. He narrowed his eyes back at me, noting his displeasure.

"A word, please," he said quietly, lightly grabbing my elbow but leading me towards the door. I shot Aiden a reassuring smile over my shoulder while Dick ignored him altogether. He didn't stop us until we stood in the doorway, half in and half out of the room. "He's hiding something."

"Well if it isn't the return of Captain Obvious," I said with a roll of my eyes, leaning against the doorframe behind me. "I'm well aware he's hiding something, Grayson, but I think I have a better chance of getting him to tell me what if I'm alone."

"Why, because he has a crush on you?" Dick said dryly and I couldn't help the tilt of my lips at the words.

My arm reached up, my index finger booping him on the nose mockingly. "Somebody's jealous," I said with a wink, earning a scoff in return as he leaned in towards me, one hand on the frame above my head.

"Was the other night not proof enough that I have nothing to worry about where others are concerned?" his voice said gruffly against my ear, the heat of it warming my whole body as the memory invaded my mind. His lips on me, his teeth nipping lightly followed by the smooth brush of his tongue over my skin...

Times like this, the man was too sexy for my sanity.

I, reluctantly, pushed my hand against his chest so he stood straight again, watching me with an amused smirk as I tried to play off how affective his words were. Instead, I gave him an innocent smile, tilting my head. "Then there should be no problem in leaving me here with him."

The smirk disappeared. "The problem is, I don't trust him."

"The problem is, you don't trust him with me," I corrected, seeing I was right in the way his chin tipped up slightly. "The same way you don't trust anyone with me, not even Jason."

"I'm not worried about Jason--"

"I didn't say you were," I interrupted seriously. "Because it's me you're worried about. You're worried that if you leave me alone with someone else, they won't look out for me the way you would. Because you're worried about losing me." The tightening of his jaw was the only confirmation I needed as I brought my hand up to the side of his face, thumb working over the tightened hinge. "I'll still be here in the tower with you. I'll still be safe."

He closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, nodding reluctantly. When he opened them again, he immediately met mine. He pitched his voice even lower than before to be sure that Aiden didn't hear him. "Just keep an eye on him. He's hiding more than what he just saw; has been since he got here."

I wanted to argue that maybe he was just being overly suspicious, but I couldn't help but feel like he was right. Aiden was hiding things, and we didn't know how deep they went. Nodding, I gestured for him to leave and watched as he headed into the hall. He'd taken maybe five steps before he turned back to me and said in a normal tone, "Twenty minutes. Then I'm  coming back." Turning again, I could see the tension coiling in the muscles in his back as he fought the need to look back again.

Fixing a friendly smile on my face, I turned back to Aiden, surprised to see him sitting on the edge of the bed and watching me. "He's a little overprotective, huh?" he asked, leaning back on his hands. He was trying to seem relaxed, but I could tell he was still bothered by whatever he'd seen. His eyes seemed tighter at the corners, his smile tense.

"He has his reasons," I answered with a shrug, making my way towards him. "Don't take it personal."

"I'm not, it's just-- well, that's kind of toxic isn't it? That need to have you in his sights at all times? He's trying to control you."

Heat flared up in me and this time it wasn't the good kind. My eyes narrowed as I stopped just a few feet away from Aiden, his green eyes widening slightly like he realized he'd said something wrong and it was too late to take back. "No one is trying to control me. I want him around me as much as he wants to be there, so if there's any toxicity in that than consider it a mutual one. Now, I'm not here to talk about your uninformed view of my relationship. I want to know what you saw when you got that headache and passed out. I'd prefer if you told me willingly, but trust when I say that I'm more than fine with getting it out of you a different way."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to--" Aiden cut himself off as he seemed to read the anger in my face and decided to move on. At least he was smart enough to do that. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, more reluctant. "Is it absolutely necessary for me to tell you what I saw?"

"Unfortunately, if we're going to try and figure out what exactly happened, yes," I answered, crossing my arms. 

He sighed, pushing his hair messily from his face. "I saw...I was reliving the first time I teleported." He paused and I waited, knowing there was a lot more there that he needed to work through. "I was six and I'd been dreaming about the lake my parents used to take me to before my dad left. I didn't know I was dreaming until something pulled me under and I started screaming so loud in my sleep that my mom came in to check on me. She shook my shoulder to wake me up, but when she did I teleported us for some reason. We ended up in the lake I'd been dreaming about." Aiden closed his eyes, shuddering at the memory and swallowing hard before going on. 

"It was the winter, so when I teleported us I ended up teleporting us under ice... We were drowning. Everything was so cold and I was so scared, I kept panicking and screaming even though it was making me take in more water. My mom was panicked too, but she was managing it better than me. She started punching and kicking at the ice, trying to break a hole for us to get through but it was too thick. We were either going to freeze or drown to death and I knew it was my fault but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I just wanted to go back home, back to my bed where I was safe..."

"And you teleported again," I said softly and he nodded.

"But that time it was just me, no mom." 

I remembered what Gar said about Aiden growing up in and out of the foster care system and I knew what happened. He hadn't just been forced to relive the first time he teleported but the night that he accidentally drowned his own mother. I didn't even want to imagine what it was like to live with something like that, let alone be reminded of it against your own will.

"I'm so sorry," I couldn't help but say, watching as he looked up at me with a forced smile. 

"Why? You didn't drown my mother," he said with a dry laugh, his hands curling into fists behind him. 

"Neither did you. You were a kid and you didn't know what was happening--"

"And yet that didn't stop it from happening, now did it, Emmy?" 

My entire body went cold and tense at the voice, not wanting to turn and see him smirking at me. I could hear it in his voice, the amusement he always seemed to have when he made an unfortunate visit to my day. It'd only been a couple of times in the last few days but it was already too much for my liking.

"Don't lie to him to try to make him feel better," Roman went on. "He knows what he did."

I was trying my best to ignore him, managing to keep my eyes on Aiden while my own hands curled into fists against my biceps. I didn't want to deal with him and whatever ultimatum he was prepared to give to me. I just wanted him to think he was too weak and I couldn't see him. Surely, that would make him go away.

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for someone else to acknowledge him.

Aiden's head turned fast so that he was looking across the room, his face paling as he jumped to his feet. His eyes darted over to me, almost accusatory. "What the hell is he doing here?"

My own eyes felt like they were going to bug right out of my head as I looked between him and Roman who stood by a window looking pleased with himself. "Wait, you can see him?"

"Your asshole brother who's been trying to kill me? Yes, I can see him!" Aiden answered. I could see a vein throb in his neck, his body twitching slightly like he was about to teleport out. Without thinking, I reached forward and grabbed his wrist firmly, forcing him to look at me.

"Hey, relax okay, he's not really here. You don't have to go anywhere, he can't hurt you here. He's just a projection," I tried to say reassuringly. It wasn't like I was lying; Roman was an astroprojection. Just because he was a particularly annoying little shit, didn't make it any less true.

"Yeah, kiddo, I'm just an astroprojection," Roman repeated mockingly, eyes gleaming with amusement. His smile was so wide and bright, it made something uncomfortable swirl in my gut. "I can't... Well, I was going to agree with the whole 'can't hurt you' thing, but really, I'm trying to cut back on my lying." He placed a hand over his heart like he was trying to show sincerity and I rolled my eyes. "I can do plenty of damage."

"If you want to kill yourself quicker, sure," I said offhandedly, trying to show Aiden I wasn't concerned so he didn't need to be either. Truthfully, that was the only upside to another visit from Roman; knowing he was stretching himself thinner and possibly bringing his death that much closer. A horrible thought to have about your brother, I know, but it was more than well deserved. "You're wasting a lot of yourself with these little visits, are you sure they're worth it?"

I saw Roman's eyes harden at the corners while he kept the smile in place and stepped towards us. Aiden's arm in my hand flexed like he was gearing up to pull it away from me and make his escape. I felt the green tickling at the edges of my mind, ready for anything.

"Isn't the better question how am I doing it? How am I not keeled over in the fetal position, withering away while you're out playing vigilante and whoring yourself to the first man to show you interest?" His smile widened as he noticed my fingers curling into my palm tightly, the glare on my face too obvious to ignore. "Yeah, I know all about you and your Robin, whether that's what he goes by now or not. A little perk of that mind explosion of yours earlier; though I really could've done without the down and dirty details." He shuddered as if reliving whatever he'd seen and a cold knot tightened in my stomach, making me sick.

Not only was that memory headache from earlier him, but somehow it let him see a lot more than that in my head? I flinched slightly, not wanting to think about the intimate moments he'd creeped on and instead focusing on something more worrisome.

Did he know everything Dick and I had been discussing before it happened? 

Something about the way his jaw tensed as he stared me down, told me that he did.

"You're just the perfect big sister, aren't you?" he said sarcastically, dark eyes boring into mine. "So willing to sacrifice yourself for everyone but me. Mom and Dad would be real proud."

"Oh, fuck off," I huffed out, pushing my annoyance to the forefront of my mind. "It's a two way street, Roman. You're just as willing to give me up, so don't act otherwise."

"I told you how we can both have our way," he retorted, his eyes glancing over at a stunned Aiden briefly before dragging back to me. "Whether you believe me or not is entirely on your own paranoia. If you knew what I had to stoop to to be able to hold out long enough; to realize it was the better deal--"

A harsh gust of wind blew through the room, cutting off whatever else he was about to say. Between one blink and the next, Conner had sped into the infirmary and laid out a groaning Jason on the bed beside us. 

My eyes widened, panicked, as I pushed Aiden aside and momentarily forgot my homicidal brother still watching from a few feet away. 

Stepping around Conner's broad frame, I came to a stop beside Jason, noting the blood smear down the side of Jason's head and the way he curled slightly in on himself to the left. "What the hell happened?" I demanded, looking between the two teens, waiting for an explanation.

"Nothing, I'm fine," Jason grunted, eyes closed but face contorting in a wince.

My eyes focused on Conner who was staring hard down at Jason, moving down the length of him with his eyes. After a minute, his attention seemed to return to him and he answered, "He had some kind of attack and passed out during the mission. Cracked his head pretty hard on the pavement and might have another concussion, so we're gonna have to keep watch. He's lucky though, his skull didn't fracture; it's just a gash across the front side of his head just under the hair."

"I'm not going to have a bald spot, am I?" Jason tried to joke and groaned when I shoved into his side. "What? I can't mess with the hair, man, it's what the ladies love."

"Shut it," I snapped before speaking back to Conner. "What else?"

"My scans didn't show anything else, really," he answered. "Just a few bruises on his ribs from where he was hit with the shotgun and where they kicked him."

"Jesus."

"Bruises and concussions come with the job, it's not something we don't all already know," Jason scoffed, eyes finally opening to look at me. Before he could fully focus though, I saw them dart ahead to a spot across from his bed, looking confused. Then as if someone had slapped him in the face, he launched himself into a sitting position, grunting as he leaned on his side and glared straight ahead. "What the fuck?"

If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was looking at Roman. 

The hand curled across his abdomen suddenly flew forward and I noticed one of his R darts flying across the room; going through Roman's laughing projection and embedding in the wall at the other end. The confusion seemed to take over Jason's face, like he was warring with what was reality and what wasn't. His blue eyes finally turned to me, almost accusingly, and he said, "Dude, what the fuck?"

I had a pretty good idea what he was reacting to at this point, but I needed to hear him say it anyway. "What is it?"

"He can see him," Aiden said from somewhere behind me, followed by Dick's strong tone.

"See who?"

I turned to look at him and found his dark gaze darting between me and Jason.

"So, I'm not fucking crazy, that is your whacked out, psycho brother standing at the foot of my bed?" Jason demanded from me and I sighed, frustrated. 

That made three of us who could see him and yet, somehow, Dick and Conner couldn't. Or at least, I assumed they couldn't since neither of them mentioned him in the slightest. I didn't know why, but something about that felt important.

Dick's shoulders tensed at Jason's question, looking around the room for a moment, probably expecting to see Roman appear out of thin air. I saw the moment he realized that wasn't going to happen, but he looked at me questioningly anyway.

I felt Conner's eyes on me too, but I stayed focused on Dick, not really knowing what to say.

"Your fake brother is a bit rude," Roman said tauntingly. I could practically hear his smile widening as he went on, probably a reaction to whatever look Jason was giving him. "Yes, asshole, I am real; you aren't hallucinating me. I mean, not technically."

"Man, what the fuck do you want now?" Jason spat.

Dick's eyes stayed trained on me as he spoke to Jason. "You see Roman in this room? Right now?"

"It's what I said, isn't it?"

"Madds, do you see him?" 

I nodded silently and his shoulders twitched. "Aiden too." 

He finally looked away from me to look over at Aiden who nodded awkwardly like he was caught in the middle of a fight between his parents. I was honestly surprised he hadn't bolted yet.

"I don't know whether it hurts or helps, but I'm not seeing anyone but us," Conner added over my shoulder and Dick let out a sigh. 

"Yeah, I didn't think you would."

"Gee, I wonder why that is," Roman laughed to himself and I felt my nose flare. Dick immediately noticed the reaction, eyes narrowing infinitesimally without a word. "Should I leave your little brain trust to figure it all out or should I tell you myself? Decisions, decisions."

"Just fucking tell us," Jason snapped.

"Tell you what?" Conner asked, confused.

Aiden was the one to reply, his tone sounding distant. "He's not talking to you, he's talking to him."

"'Him'?" Roman nearly cackled, enjoying himself way more than he should for someone on death's door. "Who am I, 'He Who Must Not be Named'?"

"More like 'He Who Must Fuck Off,'" Jason answered and I couldn't help my snort of amusement as I finally turned from Dick to look at my brother.

"Is there an actual reason you're here or are you just that bored?" I asked irritably, watching his eyes narrow as his lips spread in a wider smile. "Because if you're going to tell us something, then by all means, please do and get the fuck out."

"You always were impatient," he said with a disapproving shake of his head. He followed it up with a shrug that made me want to punch him repeatedly in the face. For the moment, I almost wished he really was here so I could do just that. "I'm only showing myself to the three of you because it's easier to do since I've been in your heads. I could try the other two, but that would be a greater waste of my already dwindling recharge."

"Recharge? What does that mean?" Jason asked before Roman spared him a glance.

"Let's just say that mental attack you experienced wasn't exactly intentional on my part, but to keep me going I have to do what I have to do." His focus shifted back to me, his eyes landing on Dick briefly behind me and I couldn't help but wonder what he saw as his face twitched slightly out of its mocking expression. "But since you know a bit of my pain, maybe now you'll take me a bit more serious about my suggestion from before."

"What's he saying?" Dick's voice was full of annoyance and frustration as he spoke, hating every second he didn't know what was going on. I knew it was eating at him not being in control.

"Basically, he's a prick who doesn't know how to keep his powers in check which is why I have a massive lingering migraine," Jason huffed out, just as annoyed.

"You're welcome," Roman taunted, earning a middle finger from Jason.

I cut in before they could argue any more; I just wanted this all to be over with. "You already know my answer to your suggestion. Not admitting it to yourself doesn't make it any less real."

This time the smile and amusement fell off of his face entirely, something darker seeming to take over. I could almost see it in his eyes; the urge to tear me apart where I stood, no matter what he needed me for. I tilted my head up confidently and his nose flared, taking it as the insult I intended.

"Right back at ya, Emmy." His voice was lower, deeper as his glare focused solely on me. His hands were clenched at his sides and his jaw tightened. "Because we both know what your answer really is, though apparently you want me to force your hand and make it look like you had no choice. That's fine, I'll play that game. Just remember it was you who started it."

"Hardly," I said shortly.

"What are you two talking about?" Aiden asked and I looked over to see him looking between us suspiciously. "And why do I have a feeling it has something to do with me?"

"Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out," Jason mumbled, the accompanying eye roll evident in his tone.

"Can someone fill us in here?" Conner asked around the room.

"Madalyn," Dick said low behind me, his fingers grazing my spine to get my attention. My back arched away from him but I otherwise didn't acknowledge his touch.

"Here's the new deal on the table, sis," Roman said, ignoring everyone else in the room. If it wasn't for the intent way Jason was glaring in his direction, I'd think he was just projecting himself to me. "You give me Aiden or, every night until I get what I want, me and my friends will be out on the streets killing whoever the hell we feel like. And believe me when I say that we'll make them suffer first." I heard Aiden suck in air and threw my gaze his way to make sure he didn't make a run for it. I could feel the green ready to wrap around him if necessary, though I wasn't sure they would stop his teleporting.

"I think you're forgetting the option of you dying first," Jason commented, drawing Roman's fiery gaze.

"I think you'll find that if anyone is going to die first, it'd be one of you," he sneered before looking back at me. "That is my new offer, Emmy. Aiden for the lives of innocents. If I have to make another offer, it'll start with the death of one of your beloved little Robin's." 

Jason cried out in pain, drawing everyone but my attention. My eyes stayed fixed on Roman who smirked at the pain he was clearly inflicting on Jason; but his murderous stare was on Dick.

My body tensed at the obvious threat, adrenaline instantly pushing through me and ready to kill him where he stood. But seemingly satisfied with his results, his presence faded away, leaving me only with an address emblazoned on the backs of my eyelids.

A/N: This one went a little longer (and in a completely unexpected turn of events) than I originally intended, but I gotta trust the process sometimes. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 

Maddie has some new things to consider and Aiden is clearly going to have to prove his worth if he doesn't want to be hand delivered to his death any time soon. There are still so many mind games to come and if that wasn't enough, NightDahlia are going to have some other distracting information dropped into their laps pretty soon. 

What does that mean for the next chapter? Not entirely sure which way I'm going to go yet, but it'll definitely be between more closed door conversations/ activities and late night dangers 😉

As usual, let me know what you all think! I know this chapter was a little eh but I'm really trying to make everything in my head work for this book, haha. It's already edging to be longer than BLACK DAHLIA which is slightly terrifying to me 😂