Free Evolution by Kelly Carrero

know his name. She wouldn’t tell me when I asked her a couple of days ago. I saw her getting into some hottie’s car. She looked pretty friendly with him. Didn’t she tell you?” She directed the question at me. When I didn’t respond, she said, “I thought you guys told each other everything.” Chrissy seemed to be relishing the idea that she knew something about Chelsea that I didn’t.
    “Yeah, I did too.” I was surprised that Chelsea had kept this from me. But I was also hurt, as was Ben who looked like he had just had his heart ripped out and stomped into a million pieces.
    I looked over at Megan, wondering if she knew anything about the guy Chrissy said she saw Chelsea with, but she just shrugged her shoulders.
    Once Chrissy was satisfied that her shock revelation had done what she’d hoped for, she went back to her conversation with Megan about their plans for the weekend.
    Aiden leant over and pretended to kiss me on my neck. “She’s lying,” he whispered in my ear. “She only said it to get to Ben. She saw the two of them together yesterday after we left and, to put it nicely, she is not happy.”
    My mouth dropped open. How could she do that? For all we knew, Chelsea could be missing, and all Chrissy cared about was trying to manipulate the situation for personal gain. I couldn’t take it anymore. This time she had stepped over the line. Without thinking things through, I turned around, raised my fist, and slammed it into her face. I moved so fast that she never saw it coming.
    The cafeteria went silent. Everyone turned, mouths wide open, staring at where she lay. She had flown back with such force that she had broken the table behind us when she landed on it.
    “Oh my God,” I said, bringing my hands up to cover my mouth. I couldn’t believe what I had just done. She looked like she was unconscious—or dead!
    Megan scrambled over to where Chrissy lay. “Someone get help,” she yelled, shaking Chrissy’s body in an attempt to wake her.
    She wasn’t waking up. Fear rocked my soul at the thought that I may have actually killed her.
    My eyes darted to Aiden. I was met by a reassuring look in his eyes, then a voice in my head said, “Don’t worry, you didn’t kill her. She’s just unconscious.” But it was not my subconscious speaking to me—it was Aiden.
    My head started spinning. This was all too much. How was I supposed to function at school with all that was happening? Chelsea’s disappearance, me turning into Supergirl. Oh, and I had just knocked out my former best friend, even though she became a bitch from hell and deserved it. It was all too much. Everyone was staring at me, trying to work out what had happened. Maybe they had seen me do it, and I was going to have to add assault to the list of things I had to deal with. I needed to get away from all those prying eyes and the scene of what I had just done.
    Suddenly, everyone in the cafeteria came to life.
    “Come on,” Aiden spoke in my head again. “Let’s get out of here.” He pulled me to my feet.
    We made our way out of the cafeteria as students and teachers rushed over to Chrissy, who was still completely out of it.
    Once we were in Aiden’s car and away from any prying ears, I turned to him, trying to make sense of what I had just done. “I…I…” I could not finish my sentence—I could barely even start it.
    “You don’t have to say it,” Aiden said. He laced his fingers through mine and brought them to his lips, sending those feel-good endorphins of his pulsating through my body. “Remember, that’s one of the benefits of my abilities.”
    I looked into his eyes; they were so intense, yet so caring. Just being in his presence seemed to make all my worries go away. I wondered what I would do if I didn’t have him in my life, how would I get through all of this?
    Once again his voice was in my head. “Don’t worry, you will never have to go through this alone.”
    “How is this possible?” I asked, not