Stolen

by Ella James

  Cayne leapt at him, tackled him to the ground, and the two rolled, stabbing at each other wildly. Julia saw Cayne rip into Sam’s side, but Sam sliced Cayne across the shoulder. Drew brandished his sword and charged, but Sam pinned Cayne and caught the blade. He jerked it out of Drew’s hand and aimed it back at Cayne, but Cayne flipped the Nephilim king before he could use it. He caught Sam by his feet and slammed him to the ground.

  “Get her out of here!” Cayne yelled. “I’ll take care of him.”

  Drew turned, grabbing Julia’s arm. “Come on!”

  “No!”

  “Now!”

  “He saved your life,” she snapped.

  “He saved yours,” Drew retorted, “and I’m finishing the bloody job. Now come on!”

  Cayne and Sam were circling each other, still jabbing, and Julia could see that Cayne’s aura was dimming. She tried to reach him, to heal him like the last time, but it was impossible with Drew jerking her.

  “Leave me alone!”

  “You have to come now!”

  “No!” She elbowed him hard, and he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

  He was surprisingly fast, but Julia caught him with her fist at just the right spot on his side. He stumbled, and she wrestled herself free.

  She ran toward Cayne, and this time Drew didn’t try to stop her.

  “Train depot!” he called, and she had no idea what that meant. She didn’t care. Samyaza was standing over Cayne, and Julia wasn’t close enough. She focused on Sam, on his aura, dark and beautiful; deep hues, dark purples, midnight blues and inky blacks.

  Without thinking, she struck.

  Julia had never used her power this way, but she’d realized it was possible when she’d seen Cayne after his fight in Salt Lake City. She wasn’t sure exactly how she knew she could do it; it was almost instinctive. Or rather, it just clicked.

  She sent her aura snaking out, speeding across the grass, similar to how she might heal. But this time she worked it into a chain, roped it around Sam.

  He burned, searing, and Julia knew she couldn’t hold him but for a few seconds. But it was long enough. Cayne was able to flip the Nephilim king. He rammed his dagger quickly into Samyaza’s chest, then his throat, then his chest again, and then he jumped back, shielding Julia.

  But the Nephilim king didn’t stand again.

  All sound snuffed out, until all Julia could hear was Cayne’s gasping breaths and Samyaza’s raspy voice.

  “How have you done this? I am older than the human race. Demons feared me when they walked this earth. How is it that children could bring my end?”

  Cayne’s face was still, but Julia could see his aura flickering (the colors of confusion, anxiety, dread, regret). Then Sam said, “You are not Nephilim. You cannot be.”

  Cayne’s aura went wild. “What do you mean?”

  “I always had my suspicions. And now…” Samyaza smiled. “It seems you serve their purpose.”

  Julia felt her heart thud. She grabbed Cayne’s arm, and to her horror, he sank down to his knees. “Tell me what you’re talking about!”

  Samyaza laughed at him. “Do your duty, Cayuzul.” He took one last, gurgling breath, cast his drooping eyes frighteningly over Julia, and died.

  Cayne seemed stunned. Julia knew she was. The thing that murdered Harry and Suzanne, that had prompted her to join Cayne, was dead.

  Her first thought was Does this mean there’s no more need for Candidates? Her second was What does this mean for me and Cayne?

  When she glanced at him again, he had one hand over his face and he was breathing hard.

  “Cayne, are you…okay?” It was weird to ask. Weirder not to know. She had felt so in tune with him just—what, three days ago?

  She watched his shoulders rise and fall, and he lifted his grayish face to her. His eyes were tired—so tired and worried. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. About any of this. “But… we need to find Meredith and the rest.”

  Cayne nodded, dazed eyes still on Samyaza’s body. For some reason, Julia couldn’t look at it.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and they had only taken their first step when a loud BOOM shook the ground. An instant later, the parking deck collapsed.

  “No!” Julia ran toward it, barely aware of Cayne behind her. The entrance was blocked; most of it had caved in, but her eyes refused to believe it. Her gaze jumped frantically around, hopping from rubble to rubble to…

  “Oh, shit”—half gasp, half sob.

  She shook violently, so much so that her knees gave out and Cayne grabbed her waist. She grappled for her Sight, searched for their auras. Found nothing.

  Cayne’s voice was thick syrup. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, feeling dead inside. “I was only here for three days,” she murmured.

  Cayne’s fingers, on her shoulder, squeezed. “We need to go.”

  He gathered her in his arms, and they were off.

  Chapter 17

  By the time Julia and Cayne reached the abandoned train depot at the edge of a shifting forest, Julia’s numb calm was gone, and she was freaking out. Not an OMG-this-is-crazy kind of freaking out, but a jaw clenched, violent trembling, seeing-black-spots kind of freaking out. Like…maybe shock.

  It was what psychopathic Dizzy had done; it was the massacre, the blood, the limbs, the faceless girl that looked like Anise; it was Nathan’s face pale at the mention of Cayne; it was the end of Samyaza. But most of all, it was the dead friends (acquaintances? friends).

  Cayne had touched down gently in a grassy clearing surrounded by tall pines, and he’d followed the scruffy wooden railroad tracks to the depot, which wasn’t very visible by dark but seemed maybe as big as Julia’s high school’s swimming pool.

  Limbs and leaves covered its roof; Julia’s mind made them into creatures, and her shivering increased. She felt embarrassed and she thought she wouldn’t have, were she and Cayne the people they’d been before. She would have felt grateful for his arms. Now she was unsure.

  He tried the door, then burst through it with his shoulder, the rotted wood splintering as the rusted hinges creaked; he pulled her gently inside and sat her on an old iron bench. He lifted her eyelids, snapped his fingers a few times.

  “You okay? You with me?” She nodded, though she wished she wasn’t. Being near him was making her feel worse by the minute.

  “Julia—” it sounded more like Joolia, now that he had his memories of Scotland— “they may have gotten away in one of the cars.”

  His face was a reflection of her freakedoutedness. He knew just how gone she was, and she could see how much it rattled him. His hands—both bloody at the wrists, one swollen and bruised—hovered protectively over her. His green eyes were wide and urgent.

  Despite herself, despite her anger and unease, she grabbed his unhurt hand. “That place…those people—I—” She raised her casted arm, her breathing jagged.

  Cayne put his hands on her cast, bringing his forehead down on it like he might kiss it.

  “Why are you doing this?” she groaned.

  His gaze flicked up to her, eyelashes shadows on his cheeks. “What?”

  “Why’d you help me?” She inhaled deeply, trying to slow the rush of adrenaline. “Why’d you rescue me? Do you really care?”

  Cayne recoiled. She watched his throat work, noticing the stubble on his grieved face. Looking at his face made her feel crazy—like she wasn’t sure what time she was living in: the earlier one, where they were bursting with affection and tied up in each other… Or this one. The one where they were both different.

  She blinked back tears, and he brushed the fingers jutting from her cast. “Julia…I’m so very sorry.” His face was grave, remorseful, and his remorse felt like salve for her heart. “I should have told you everything, right at the front. I didn’t think I could stand the—” He shook his head. “But there’s not an excuse. I was very wrong.”

  She looked at the top of
his dark head, the short hairs smeared with blood. “Why were you there? In the Commons. You didn’t…know about it?”

  His mouth flattened. “Know they were attacking? No. I was let out after they arrived.”

  Julia didn’t believe him. “Why would they let you out? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “He wasn’t Stained,” Cayne said. “I don’t think he was, at least.”

  He was telling the truth. She knew him well enough that she didn’t need to check his aura. Julia wondered who would—Wait a minute. Not Stained… “Did he have blond hair?”

  Cayne nodded.

  “Did he have gray eyes? Kind of a Roman-looking nose?”

  Cayne nodded.

  “What about his face? Was it, like, really angular?”

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Kind of. Or something.” Julia looked down at her legs. Her pink All-Stars were dirty. Stained with a spec of blood near one of the shoelace eyelets.

  For some strange reason, the sight of the cute sneakers reminded her of Meredith, and she felt a blanket of numb settle over her. She grappled for grief, but she couldn’t even find it. She was numb. Just totally numb.

  Cayne stared at her intently, saying nothing. Finally he ran a palm over her hair. He kissed her very gently on the forehead and squeezed her shoulder, looking like he wanted to do more but wasn’t sure if she would let him.

  She wondered idly if she would.

  She noticed his shoulder was still bleeding; almost his whole torso was stained with drying blood.

  She felt concern for him and wondered if that made her a traitor to the Chosen—her lost friends. She thought: This is Cayne—and she couldn’t make herself see him as an enemy.

  “Are you okay?” she asked. “Your shoulder?” She’d started shaking again, badly, and her words were little gasps.

  Cayne knelt in front of her, resting his hands gently on her knees; his earnest eyes met hers, and she was shocked to find them wet. “Julia,” he murmured. “I’m fine, but I can see you’re not.”

  Moving slowly, so slowly and carefully, maybe so she wouldn’t fear him, Cayne laced his bruised fingers through hers. Looking into her eyes, seeking her permission even as he moved, he rose on his knees and kissed her knuckles. Releasing her hands after a little squeeze, he wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his head on her lap.

  Oh, God.

  Something unclenched inside her. She started crying and she couldn’t stop, but it was okay because Cayne was there and he was holding her, and she wasn’t sure who he was but she knew that at that moment, she needed him.

  They stayed that way for a long time. She didn’t know how long.

  After a while he sat up, wiped her cheeks, then stood; he walked to one of the boarded-up windows, where he hovered, staring out a crack and occasionally glancing at her, while she stared at spot right by his feet, trying to figure out how she felt and finding herself…empty.

  A thud near the door made both of them whirl. Cayne’s blood dagger was in his hand. As he lunged, the hinges squeaked, and Drew, Carlin, and Meredith burst in. Well, Meredith and Drew carried Carlin, who looked pale and tired and had her left foot tucked up under her.

  When they made it through the door, Meredith pushed Carlin into Drew’s arms and launched herself at Julia. Her hug was tight enough to hurt—and Julia tried her best to match it.

  “Julia!” Her voice broke slightly, and she gave Julia another squeeze. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Ditto,” Julia said, more sob than word. “I was soooo worried. I thought you were dead!”

  “Andrew saw us here with you!”

  “But the parking deck—”

  “We didn’t even make it,” Meredith said. “There were guards there, looking for all the Candidates.”

  “Did they chase y’all?”

  Drew nodded, smirking for a second at y’all. “Not much, though.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “Super Woman Carlin,” Meredith said. “She flew us halfway here.”

  “She overdid it,” Drew said. His eyes lifted and moved around the huge room. His gaze hardened when it found Cayne, but he steered it back to Julia. “Do you have any kind of plan? We need to stay moving.”

  “Switzerland,” Meredith said.

  Drew and Carlin both had reactions that told Julia they knew what Meredith meant and weren’t thrilled with the idea. “Why Switzerland?” Julia asked.

  “There’s another group of Chosen—”

  “They’re rebels,” Drew said.

  “Oh my God, really?” Meredith made a big show of rolling her eyes.

  “That’s what they are!”

  “Guys!” Julia interrupted.

  “It’s a group of Chosen who left this group a while ago,” Meredith explained. “Clearly they were onto something. And I know it’s legit because Monte told me about it. He said he knew someone who had been there.”

  Drew scoffed, and Meredith said, “He’s not the kind of guy that just makes stuff up.”

  “Does anyone know if he made it?” Carlin asked suddenly.

  Blank faces, then somber faces.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Drew said. He looked down at his pants and shoes—soaked crimson. “All I know is we need to move. I don’t want to see how long it takes them to find us.”

  “Then Switzerland,” Mer said.

  “No,” Drew said. “Scotland.”

  “Why Scotland?”

  “I saw us there.”

  “Oh B.S.,” Meredith said. “When?”

  “A while ago. I didn’t mention it because it didn’t make sense. We were in Glasgow, I think.”

  “Was I there?” Cayne asked.

  “Actually, for some reason, yes.”

  Cayne looked at Julia, brows raised. “Is he ever wrong?”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Good,” Mer said. “Let’s get out tickets. First Glascow, then Zurich. It was probably a layover anyway.”

  *

  It took them three hours to get to the airport: Dulles International in Virginia.

  First they needed a way to get there, which required Cayne to appropriate someone’s car—a blue Ford Explorer with tinted windows—which raised Drew’s eyebrows and Carlin’s ire. Julia appreciated that Meredith didn’t seem to care.

  “Desperate times,” she shrugged.

  Julia quietly asked Cayne whether using his ability might get the Chosen’s attention, and he simply said, “No.” So it only drew Nephilim, and it was strange to realize that Samyaza would never send them after Cayne again.

  “But someone else might,” Cayne said darkly, “so I won’t do anything more for a while—” his breath hitched, and very softly he said, “if you want me to stay with you.”

  She nodded, unsure if she was saying ‘okay’ to what he’d said, or agreeing that she wanted him to stick around.

  When Drew climbed behind the wheel of the Explorer, Julia braced herself for a fight about Cayne—whether he was coming, and she felt awful because she felt a tiny bit ambivalent about whether she wanted him to. But his presence was accepted, at least until it wasn’t, and the only sticking point was where Cayne would sit.

  “The front seat,” Drew insisted. “I won’t have you behind me while I drive.”

  “Can you drive?” Mer asked. Drew glowered, and she said, “England, then Chosen Undergrounds? Where’d you get the chance?”

  “I can drive,” he snapped. “But only if he isn’t behind me,” he said, pointing at Cayne.

  “Just sit up there. Please?” Julia asked.

  Cayne nodded, and Julia ended up in the middle seat, healing everyone’s wounds except for Cayne’s; he insisted he was fine.

  Not wanting to push their luck with Cayne’s persuasive powers, they elected to use Carlin’s trust fund for the tickets and some truck-stop clothes. She had one of those, and they figured a one-time withdrawal from a random ATM not near the airport wouldn’t re
ally give up any valuable information. After all, no one knew they were together—unless of course they did, and that was a problem they would simply have to deal with if it came up.

  The airport was huge, overwhelming—Julia had never been to any airport—and as she walked close to Carlin, all she could think about was Cayne’s heavy footsteps behind her. How shameful; she should be thinking about Marilee. Or Herbert. Or Anise…