by Ella James
As they waited in the security line, where Cayne ended up having to use his power of suggestion one more time to convince the personnel not to ask for anyone’s ID, Julia thought how strange it was—to be fleeing the Chosen, now. To think that they were the hunters, now. But she no longer felt afraid. She’d had her nerves exorcised by life. She’d seen friends die. She’d seen family die—by Samyaza’s fire. Anyone who came for her now—anyone who might force her into a life she didn’t want… Julia would fight them.
How strange that that included Cayne. Metaphorically, anyway.
So far, he’d kept his nose clean among the group. He was being surprisingly decent to Drew, and he hadn’t once glared back at Carlin, who couldn’t seem to stop staring accusingly at him. It was weird, because Julia definitely felt possessive over him. She just didn’t know what else she felt. She was tired—so tired—of not knowing what to think. For most of her life it had been wondering about her current foster family: How long would they last? Would they be good or terrible? And about herself: Had her real, biological family had the same…quirks? More recently it had been the Chosen—although she thought Stained was a more appropriate name. Now, in the midst of dealing with that crushing disappointment, she had to wonder about Cayne.
The really horrible thing was, she didn’t hate him because he’d killed Chosen. She should have, and Julia attributed her lack of strong reaction to some sort of problem with her moral compass. Because she cared about him, still…like, as much as ever. Once she admitted that, her discomfort and unease around him lessened.
Clearly the girl’s got problems.
More than one. As they walked through the terminal, she wondered about another girl with problems. Dizzy. Had she survived? Julia hoped not, then felt terrible for it.
She also wondered if Nathan had made it; she definitely hoped so. Meredith’s aura was tinged with worry and heartache. Julia felt awful for her friend.
By the time they got to first class, she was feeling more melancholic than ever. She longed to be in the comfort of Cayne’s arms, but he felt miles away. She settled herself beside Mer, on the row behind Carlin and Drew, not caring that Cayne might not want to sit beside a stranger or that she sensed his aura, flickering with regret and pain. Correction: She cared very much about his pain. She just wasn’t sure anymore where the lines were with them.
The seat beside him remained open until the stewardesses finished tucking luggage away. Then the last passenger swaggered in.
Edan moseyed to Cayne’s aisle and stopped there, resting his weight on one leg and looking like some kind of cowboy. “This seat taken?”
*
He sat before Cayne could reply.
Drew turned around, looking something between exasperated and rattled. “Who the hell is this?”
Cayne’s eyes met Julia’s—confirming Edan’s role in Cayne’s jailbreak. When he turned his gaze to Edan, it was hard. “What are you doing here?”
Edan chuckled; even his chuckle sounded like trouble. “I let you out of that hellhole, and that’s the welcome I get?”
“Thanks. Now tell us why you’re here.”
“Haven’t I earned at least a modicum of trust?”
Julia turned in her seat, careful to keep her voice low. “Why would you think that? And yes, I know you helped me, too. Or offered to anyway.”
Cayne looked at her again, but she didn’t meet his curious gaze. “He works for The Three,” Julia said.
Everyone’s eyes widened, and Edan held up his hands. “I said I was a consultant. I don’t work for them, and I’m not here on their behalf. Go ahead, look.”
He meant Julia. She looked, and found that he was telling the truth—technically, anyway. She couldn’t find a lie, but she noticed something else: Edan looked different from anyone she’d ever seen—even Cayne, who also had a unique aura. Rather than pulsing wreaths of color (like the gentle, expanding stain of watercolor paints on a napkin), Edan’s aura colors were more…solid, and much brighter. They reminded her of a normal aura gone…radioactive or something. His colors were so vibrant she could drown in them. And they were hard to name. She saw some red—but it wasn’t red, exactly. More like…grape juice stain, with a little dash of crimson. For the most part, his aura was that weird non-red, a magenta which was oddly yellowish, and green. Envy. …Strange.
“He’s not lying,” Julia said. “He’s also not human.”
“A Nephilim?”
“No. I’ve never seen an aura like his.”
“What are you?” Cayne demanded.
“Man, you guys are tough. Okay, okay. Julia’s right, I’m not human.”
What he was, he said, was the failed product of a fallen angel mother and a human father. Their genetic material had been mixed by Chosen scientists in an attempt to make some kind of super-Nephilim weapon.
No one believed him, but it didn’t matter. The captain’s voice was crackling over the intercom system. Then the plane lurched forward, and they were taking off for Scotland.
Somewhere over Iceland, Julia was drifting off, her head on Meredith’s shoulder, Mer’s pretty alto voice saying, “It’s okay. You’ll get it figured out, with him.”
Julia nodded, struck by a surge of shock…that she actually had a girlfriend. Shock and appreciation. She gave Meredith’s shoulder an awkward little nuzzle. “I hope you feel better, too.”
By which she meant she was sorry about Nathan.
When an hour passed and neither she nor Mer had actually gone to sleep, Julia gave in and whispered into her black hair, “Was Nathan okay?” Meaning, alive?
Meredith shrugged, a tiny jerk, and Julia felt sick. No freaking way. It wasn’t possible. Not Nathan.
“He’s alive, I think,” Meredith whispered finally. “I tried to get him to leave with me—but he wouldn’t. He told me even if there were…problems, we needed to stay and deal with them. He wanted me to stay.” A silent tear ran down Meredith’s cheek, and Julia tried and failed to imagine her friend having such an intimate conversation with Nathan.
As if reading her mind, Mer said, “He’s different with me. But I kind of wish he wasn’t.” Her voice cracked, and she plucked up a magazine, fanning her face. She looked at Julia out of the corner of her eye.
“You want to know something else?” Another tear ran down her cheek.
“Sure,” Julia whispered.
“He kissed me.”
“No way.” Nathan, Mr. I’m a Shepherd, See My Staff. Insane.
But Meredith was nodding. “And you know what else?” She breathed a small half sigh. “He was kind of good at it.”
*
The problem, they determined during the rest of the flight, was that Nathan was a Tool and Cayne was Morally Ambiguous and Shady, and the two of them probably needed to find new guys. Trouble was, that declaration didn’t change Meredith’s aura, and it didn’t remove Cayne from Julia’s mind, either. Especially when he was right behind her, shifting and breathing and stirring up Cayne-ness. Reminding her of his sweetness in the train depot. Making her ache to talk to him again.
They landed in Glasgow at midday local time and filed out of the plane into the airport, which looked slightly dingy compared to the one they’d flown out of, but was filled with friendly Scots who smiled and made jokes and were generally nothing like Cayne.
Carlin used a fraction of the huge amount of cash she’d withdrawn from the ATM to buy a beanie to cover her head from the cameras she felt sure were monitored by Illuminate-like Chosen, then asked an airline attendant about the timing of flights to Switzerland. They had thought about a Zurich connection, but it really didn’t matter. It was two fifteen, and all flights to Switzerland had flown.
“Come back tomorrow,” the woman told them. “You should make your reserves now.”
So Drew had been right. Maybe they would spend some time in Glasgow.
Julia suddenly realized, standing there in the lobby by a water fountain, that as they’d filed off the plane, they
’d followed Edan past the customs area; no one had ever asked to see their IDs, and wasn’t that a little weird?
As if on cue, he appeared in front of her, looking unarguably hot in straight-legged jeans and the kind of loose plaid shirt that rock guitarists wore. His caramel blond hair rolled in wild waves into his face—sleep-messy or just wild? She didn’t know. Scratch that. Didn’t care. “So J, what up?” He held out his hand for a high-five, but Julia dodged it. Carlin gave him the evil eye.
“I still don’t trust him,” she told Drew.
“Me either.”
“He’s alright.” That was Cayne, and Julia was surprised to hear him say that.
“You know, we don’t really trust you either,” Drew said.
Hr shrugged. “You’re stuck with me.”
“And if we don’t like it—”
“You don’t have to. I’m here for Julia only.”
Cayne was good at the dead-eyed stare. Drew tried his best to return it, but Julia could tell it was hard for him. “Drew, he won’t hurt anyone.”
Harm anyone, rather.
Before Drew or Cayne could say anything else, Julia raised her hand. “I nominate myself as group leader, and here’s my plan: Let’s stay in downtown Glasgow tonight, somewhere busy, where they would notice people with wings or blue fireballs, and we’ll come back tomorrow and figure out what to do about the tickets.”
Cayne nodded, clearly satisfied, but Edan didn’t look as sure. “If they’re coming, they’re coming. Don’t you think?” he said to no one in particular.
“You would know, spy.” Carlin glared at him, but Julia thought it looked a little forced.
“If you’re a failed experiment, why do they keep you around?”
He shrugged. “To see if I amount to anything, I guess.”
Again, there wasn’t anything in his aura that said he was lying, but Julia wondered how reliable his aura actually was.
“I don’t have a place,” Edan continued. “I’m on my own. All alone. Until I met you people.” He cocked his head, wearing an expression that made him look charmingly apologetic.
“So the Chosen, like, bred you?” That was Meredith—looking fifty percent disgusted, fifty percent shocked.
Edan shrugged, his face twisting. “I don’t know much about it. Happened before I was born, you know.”
Juila’s eyes wandered to Cayne, who was glancing down at his right wrist, still swollen and bloody, now wrapped in gauze—the wound presumably from a blood dagger since it hadn’t healed. “I know a place off the M8,” he said. “Clean, cheap, easy to defend.”
“I don’t think they’ll come yet,” Drew said. “They can’t fly, and we haven’t left much of a trail.”
“That’s a good thing,” Julia said, remembering the zombie freaks who’d broken her arm.
“Isn’t anywhere easy for a Nephilim to defend?” Carlin asked Cayne.
He shrugged and glanced at Julia, and she could sense his aloneness within the group; she looked down at her shoes, unwilling to bring him into the fold. Even if she felt totally A-okay with the Chosen-killer thing (which, of course, she never would), he’d still betrayed her. Lied by omission.
Yeah, but he also held you while you cried.
And still, she didn’t know…
“Before we actually go to this place our Nephilim friend suggests, can we take a moment and consider why we have a Nephilim with us?” That was Drew. He pointed at Edan next. “And this guy. Why are either of them here?”
“I’m here to help,” Edan said.
“For Julia,” Cayne murmured.
“Aren’t we lucky?” Drew sneered, barely visible but definitely there, and Julia felt something in her head pop.
“Can we all stop arguing? Please? If Cayne thinks he knows a good place, he would know. He’s from here, and he hasn’t hurt anybody.”
“Yet,” Carlin said calmly. “But—and no offense, Cayne—how do we know that he won’t?”
“I think I would know,” Meredith offered. “I can’t read auras, but I can sense things, and I’m not getting anything weird from him. Plus he rescued us. From the Commons?”
Cayne looked away, like being talked about was embarrassing him, and despite her lingering Cayne ambivalence, Julia wanted to kiss Meredith for taking up for him.
There were nods all around, and Edan set off to “get” a rental car through means he assured them would leave no trace. (“I can do that,” Cayne had said, but Edan shook his head. “I don’t leave any prints.”)
As soon as he walked off, Carlin started asking if they should really trust him, and Meredith accused her of being suspicious only because she really felt “weird-super friendly” toward him (“I can tell,” she said smugly). Cayne excused himself to get a drink, returning about the same time Edan did. Edan dangled Mercedes keys, and Cayne passed Julia a soda she’d never heard of.
“You’ll like it,” he told her.
She straightened her weak knees and mumbled, “Thank you.”
Chapter 18
Drew stepped into the guys’ room outside the airport, by the curbside car rental area. Carlin took the keys before he could get back.
“Drew…not so good.” She shook her head. “I’ve been on enough holidays to this island.”
Her hazel eyes lingered a second too long on Julia’s, and Julia couldn’t decide if the girl she’d mistakenly thought shy was angry at her for bringing a Nephilim into their sphere, or if maybe she was apologizing for being suspicious of Cayne.
Before they’d walked outside the airport, Meredith had complained about her tangled hair. Though it wasn’t tangled—it was too straight to get really messy—Drew had offered to braid it for her, so the two of them called the middle seats in the tall, skinny van, whose interior was more tour bus than family vehicle.
Edan was in front, with Carlin, and Julia quickly realized she and Cayne were left with the back seats, two armchairs that swiveled and seemed permanently inclined to face the rear of the vehicle. She made eyes at Meredith, desperate to avoid a tight squeeze, but her friend seemed not to see her.
Intentional?
Regardless, she felt an involuntary flutter of butterflies.
“Come on. I’ll help you back.” And Cayne’s fingers were on her arm, and it was too much, making her hot, everywhere. Julia was painfully aware of how much she wanted Cayne—the old Cayne.
She let him help her with the strange buckle—his hands in her lap made her head pound like a drum—and when he sank into his own chair without a word, she tried her hardest not to be disappointed. This was what she wanted, right? She needed space to figure things out—right?
She rested her head against the seat as Carlin grilled Edan on how he’d gotten the van. He claimed it was his good looks, and Julia thought bitterly how it was fine for Carlin to flirt with a seriously mysterious guy that anyone could tell was bad news, while she had felt judged for her history with Cayne—a guy she’d met before she’d known anything about Nephilim and Chosen.
Carlin’s driving wasn’t much better than Drew’s had been, so as they scooted down what looked like an American interstate surrounded by beautiful, modern, glass buildings, Julia’s stomach churned. Her senses were bamboozled by Cayne’s nearness. She barely curbed the impulse to reach out and touch him… Everything about him appealed—almost as if she’d been bespelled. Her straying gaze found the fibers of his blue jeans, and even his denim burned its stamp inside her mind.
She shut her eyes and clenched her jaw.
This guy beside her had killed Chosen. Chosen just like her. He’d killed alongside Samyaza. And he had lied. He’d made her think he was a friend, and, yeah, okay, he’d said ‘I’m bad,’ but he hadn’t even tried to indicate how bad he was—or had been. She’d thought he meant Edward bad. But he wasn’t a Twilight vampire. He hadn’t been running on blood lust. He’d simply killed. With Samyaza. Killed Chosen. With Samyaza.
She ran it through her head, over and over. Because it wa
s easier than thinking about her biggest problem: how awfully small and sad and alone she felt, here in a van with her ex and her fellow Chosen. No better than being in group home, and she blamed herself for it. For ever trusting him. For not being able to wholly trust Meredith, when Mer deserved it.
The sky darkened as they drove, and Julia watched compact cars and tall, skinny vans like theirs skitter past, moving in the “wrong” lanes, making her flinch. The earth around the asphalt was rocky, vibrant green—so Scottish. Or at least what she’d always considered Scottish. After a few miles, Edan rolled his window down and propped his feet on the dash. A crisp breeze tossed up Julia’s hair.