by Mason Sabre
Patterson glared at Malcolm but said nothing. He was like the school yard bully who’d just got his ass handed to him by the skinny kid. “One month and then …”
“One month, and we will meet again—if nothing is resolved.” Malcolm turned to Stephen. “Release him now.”
Stephen bent close to the Human’s ear. “We don’t get to play,” he scowled. He applied just enough pressure to the man’s hand so that the delicate bones beneath his skin cracked just a fraction. The man yelped in pain, and Stephen let go of him with a shove.
“Always a pleasure,” he smiled derisively at Patterson as they turned to leave.
Chapter Sixteen
It was like waiting for death and knowing that it was around the corner—just waiting for the right moment to jump out. Cade paced up and down his kitchen, stopping occasionally to stare unseeingly out the back door, then went right back to pacing again. He stared at the phone on the counter each time he passed it willing it to ring.
He lost count of the number of times he had gone back and forth, but the nervous energy in him just wouldn’t let him relax. A thud echoed through the house, bringing him up short. He was out in the hallway in the space of a heartbeat, taking the stairs two at a time to get to the boy’s room. He paused at the door, listening to sounds in the room. The boy was mumbling incoherently. This was the first time in days Cade had heard him utter anything. He cracked open the door and peered in. The boy was up and awake—properly awake this time.
Cade slowly backed out of the room and sprinted down the stairs to the kitchen. He had been waiting for Stephen to call him in connection to the samples they had taken of the boy’s blood for the tracer. The DSA had a database so perhaps they could find out who had bitten him. It was new and not even at beta tests, but maybe they could get a lead that way and bring the culprit to justice. It was the only way to save the child. They didn’t have access to everything, however, but Stephen was going to “procure” the master keys that gave them access to the labs from his father.
Cade yanked the phone from its cradle and dialled the Davies’ house. Gemma answered after one ring.
“He’s woken up,” Cade breathed down the line.
“Are you sure?” she whispered anxiously.
Cade leaned back and eyed the hallway, making sure the boy hadn’t come wandering down. “Yeah. He’s been mumbling something”
“Shit. What?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t make out a word.”
“Cade, why didn’t you call earlier?”
“He’s been out of it till now. He only just woke—like properly. I’m going to take him some food. See if I can make him stay awake.”
“Do you want me to come over?” she said softly. “You shouldn’t be there on your own.”
Did he want her to come over? God damn it, he wanted that more than anything in the world. He wanted to touch her, smell her, and fill his senses with her. But was it wise? He could barely keep his wits about him when she was around. And he really needed to be able to focus right now.
“Cade?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll be there soon. Okay?”
Despite his better judgement, Cade found himself agreeing. Upstairs, he could perceive movement. “Shit. I can hear him,” he muttered. “I need to go.”
“Okay. I’ll set off now. I’ll be there as fast as I can.” Gemma hung up before Cade could change his mind.
It had been five days since they had got the boy to the house. Five days of Stephen and Gemma popping in and dropping off live food. Cade didn’t dare risk leaving to go and hunt. What if the boy felt the hunt through the link? Cade had called in sick, but he had started to worry that somebody at the DSA would start to get suspicious. He had never called to miss a day at work, let alone five. Time was running out, fast—the boy had needed to wake up. It was a damn relief he was at last conscious. Anticipation bubbled through Cade, the clarity of a new day that holds promise of good things to come.
Snatching up a small rabbit from the darkened pantry, Cade wasted no time in killing it today. A quick twist of its head, and the rabbit died a quick, painless death. Working swiftly, he soon had the animal skinned, gutted and chopped into small pieces. At the back of his mind, the thought niggled that he didn’t have much fresh food left—fresh as in live. Maybe he’d be able to go hunting tonight, or tomorrow, if all was well with the kid. If the boy was still awake, he was going to eat like a wolf now. Cade poured him a glass of water, too, then stopped and stood staring at it. The boy had been Human; he drank Human things like juice and over-sugared carbonated crap. Maybe he still enjoyed those things. Cade didn’t have any of that in his house—all he had was coffee, beer and water. He could ask the boy later for his preference, Cade decided. For now, it would have to be water.
As he carried the plate and glass upstairs on a tray, he could hear the boy moving around in his room. Cade hoped that he’d remain conscious. It had been five days of cleaning him up, feeding him, and setting animals loose in his room when the wolf was awake, allowing him to sate his need for the hunt, as well as his hunger. But was it possible that the wolf could go too far—take complete control? Could a half-breed live in the balance like pure-bloods did? Please come through the other side, Cade prayed. He wouldn’t be able to hide the boy if he remained incapacitated in this way.
The door to the bedroom was still open when he reached it, and he wondered if it was fear or ill strength that had kept the boy from venturing out. Balancing the tray in one hand, Cade opened the door further, not wanting to cause the child any undue distress or upset. His heart lightened at the sight of the boy sitting up. He sat huddled in the corner of the bed, eyes wide open as he stared at Cade.
“You’re awake,” Cade said, unable to keep the relieved smile from his face. “I brought you something to eat. It’ll be easier now you can feed yourself.” The words sounded stupid, even to Cade, but he didn’t know what to say to the frightened-looking boy who stared at him with terror in his eyes.
“Feed myself?” His voice was hoarse, and he coughed as he spoke.
Cade stepped into the room, but was cautious to keep himself at the door. “You were half-starved,” he said. “You can’t go that long without food. You are wolf.” Cade moved forward, but the boy tensed up, prepared to fight to protect himself. The sight tore at Cade’s chest. What he must have been through to get here—to have made it this far and not to have been caught and killed already. “I’m just giving you this. I'm not going to hurt you. You’ve been here almost a week now.” Cade placed the tray on the end of the bed, making sure to maintain his distance so as not to spook the kid.
The boy’s eyes remained fixed on Cade—untrusting, wary and ever-ready. But, in spite of his distrust, he reached for the food. He hooked his finger over the edge of the tray to slide it towards himself. “I've been here a week?” he whispered.
“Pretty much,” said Cade, offering him a warm smile to help him calm. “Eat, though. Then we can talk. Eat slowly.”
The boy pulled the tray onto his lap. With each passing moment, Cade felt a little more hopeful than the last. Maybe the boy had come out to the other side just fine after all. Maybe this was it—maybe he had survived the change in his body. God, he hoped so.
“It’s just rabbit,” Cade said after a moment. “It’s what we’re allowed to hunt here.” He wasn’t sure what the boy knew about the laws and ways of Others. He wasn’t sure what the Humans taught their children. He could take a guess and would assume that it was nothing flattering by any means. It didn’t matter, though. The boy just stared at the food, making no move to eat it. Cade had brought a fork this time in the hope that he could feed himself. “You can eat it. You need to.”
The boy glanced at the food warily and then back at Cade. He was watching, cautious, and that was good. Cade made sure to keep far enough away from him so that he knew there was no threat.
After a while, the boy picked the meat up and brought it slowly t
o his mouth. He didn’t take his untrusting eyes from Cade as he did. Cade moved toward the chair and removed the boy’s belongings, placing them where he had placed the tray. Perhaps knowing his things were there would make him feel more at ease. Maybe he would know he wasn’t stuck or a prisoner. Cade sat on the chair in the corner and watched as the boy bit down on the meat. His eyes flared with the same bright white Cade had seen before. His wolf was there, and he was fully awake. He ate slowly at first, and then, when the taste rolled through him, he dug in until he had devoured the entire thing. He didn’t stop until it was all gone, but even then, Cade was careful to remain seated and let him grow comfortable with his presence there, realising he was not a threat to him.
“Better?” he asked.
The boy nodded eagerly this time, surprising and pleasing Cade.
“I’ll bring you some more in an hour or so. You have to let that settle first.” In truth, Cade wasn’t really sure. He didn’t want the boy to gorge himself and then end up bringing everything up. Nor did he want to give the boy so much meat that he just craved it until he went crazy. He had to learn that food was rationed and that hunger had to be controlled. “My name is Cade,” he said after a moment. “What’s yours?”
The boy blinked, keeping his eyes closed a little too long. Cade stiffened, ready to catch him if he were to pass out. But then he opened his eyes again, and Cade sagged with relief once more.
“My name?”
Cade nodded. “What is your name?”
The boy glanced around the room as if he were searching for something. His eyes fell on his notebook and he stared at it for a long minute. “Phoenix,” he finally whispered. “My name is Phoenix.”
Chapter Seventeen
The chances that the boy’s real name was Phoenix were slim—but Cade couldn’t blame the boy. If he had woken in a strange house, with a strange man, he’d give a fake name, too. Lord knows the boy was probably frightened enough without the worry of being identified and sent home. The name could come later. The real challenge was to get the boy up and keep him up. The name was fitting, at least—the Phoenix rises from the ashes of its old life. And he certainly had.
Phoenix kept a hold on his empty plate like some kind of source of comfort, but his eyes remained on Cade. “Are you Other?” he finally asked nervously.
Cade nodded. “Yes. I am the same as you. I am wolf.”
Another moment of silence as Phoenix took that information in. He was choosing his questions, Cade supposed, and he probably had many of them, too.
“I’m not Human anymore?” The question was brimming with sadness, tugging at Cade’s heartstrings. The boy was neither, really, but how would he break that to him? His face was one of innocence—an innocence that had no doubt been thrown into the cruel world when he was far from ready, but yet he had survived and got this far. That had to count for something.
His face had pretty much healed. Only the scar that went through his eyebrow remained, and it probably always would. Maybe it was just as Gemma had said—the internal wound had to heal first, and then the external wounds would follow. But then again there were some wounds that would probably never heal, and maybe this was one of them.
“Not anymore. Now you’re …” Cautious blue eyes stayed fixed on him as Cade tried to find the right words.
“Other?” Phoenix probed. Cade realised that the boy had a southern accent. He really was far from home.
“No. Not Other, either.” Cade didn’t want to lie to him. The boy needed to know the truth about what he was. “We call what you are half-breed. Because you used to be Human, and now you're not, but you’re not born this way, either.” He paused, letting the boy digest that piece of information first. Then he added, “Someone bit you and you became like this?” He made it a question rather than a statement. If Phoenix knew who had done this to him, they’d not need the tracer to track him down. Rather than nod, the boy’s face flushed red and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. It was a question for another time perhaps. Through their bond, Cade could feel the sadness welling inside. It wasn’t shame the boy was fleeing, he realised, it was heartache. “Do you want to get up?” Cade tried to change the topic. “Maybe move around or something? You have been lying in bed for a while. It might do you some good. Come downstairs and eat? Get a shower?”
“I’d like to shower, please,” Phoenix replied weakly. He wiped at his eyes and looked away, trying to hide the tears there.
Cade smiled and pretended he hadn’t noticed. “Sure.” He got up from the chair in the corner, but took care to keep his movements slower than normal. Phoenix was still watching everything he did like a scared, little bird. Cade kept a distance, but held his hand out to the boy as he crouched in front of him, unwilling to tower over him so much. What he really wanted to do was to grasp the boy’s hand. He would gain so much from the contact, especially now that they were bound, but Cade didn’t dare to force it. The boy would have to come in his own time. “Do you want me to help you get up?”
“I think I can do it,” he said. He slid himself to the edge of the bed, letting his scrawny legs hang over the side. “These are your clothes?” he asked, glancing down at himself as if he had just realised what he was wearing.
“Yours were pretty ruined. We had to put you in something.”
“We?”
“Me. I mean me. We can get you something for yourself tomorrow if you can manage it.”
Phoenix nodded quietly. Maybe if there was a promise of tomorrow the boy would stay. As he pushed himself up from the bed, there was a knock on the door and Cade cursed at Gemma’s timing. The boy’s eyes went wide and he scrambled back onto the bed and into the corner again. God damn it, Gemma.
“It’s okay. I promise. It’s just my friend.”
Phoenix shook his head and wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them up and resting his chin on his knees, his hands trembling. He looked so small and vulnerable curled up there. It pained Cade to see. He had lost weight these past few days, too, since Cade had found him. That was all due to his change and his wolf—his Human body unable to deal with the energy consumption it now needed to maintain itself.
“It’s just my friend.” Cade crouched down at the side of the bed so that he wasn’t towering over Phoenix. Cade was a tall man, so for a child, his height could seem intimidating, especially when that child was already feeling afraid and defenceless. Holding out his hand, his arm on the bed and palm upturned, he said, “Take my hand.” He was unsure how it would work. There was comfort in touch for wolves, but it was different between him and Phoenix—they had a bond. Would it be stronger? Would he need it as much—or more?
Phoenix stared at his hand as if it were going to attack him. “It’s just my friend,” Cade repeated gently, reassuringly. “She has been coming over and helping take care of you. She cleaned you up when we got you here and helped me get you to the house. We swam across the river … she was there. Do you remember?”
“I swam?”
“Yes,” said Cade. “We had to get you here and the roads were blocked.” He omitted the part about the Humans looking for him. It was best not to completely freak the child out, he thought. When Phoenix said nothing, Cade withdrew his hand, trying not to let his disappointment show. “I have to go and let my friend in, okay? You can use the bathroom, get a shower. I’ll leave some clothes on my bed for you. My room is next door, and the bathroom is just opposite this room. If you want to come down, you can.” At Phoenix’s uncertain look, he added, “She’s a friend; she’s here to help us. I promise. But I have to go and answer the door or she’ll start to get worried, okay?”
“She is Other, too?”
Cade nodded slowly. “We are all Other. And we all just want to help. I’ll just be downstairs. Okay?”
It killed Cade to see him curled in the corner, afraid to death of everything and everyone—but he understood it. He was in a world he didn’t understand or know. All he probably knew was how to hate them. What it mus
t be like to wake up in a new place with a new life. He had to mourn, too, because there was no going back to what was. His body had survived the change—but would his mind? Cade hoped so, because the fight was far from over. It was just beginning.
He got up to leave the room but paused at the door. “Just shout if you need me. I’ll hear.”
Phoenix made no attempt to move as he listened to the sounds of Cade walking down the stairs and opening the front door. He heard voices, except they were louder than what they should have been. It was as if they were talking in the next room rather than on another floor. It disorientated him because he couldn’t quite work out where Cade was in the house. It didn’t hurt his ears with the extra clarity, but it was like they had been blocked all of his life, and now, suddenly, he was hearing things.
After a few minutes, when he felt sure that no one was coming up the stairs or to the room, Phoenix shuffled to the edge of the bed again. His clothes were still sitting at the end of the bed, where Cade had placed them. He reached for his shirt on the top of the pile and let it fall open. It was torn and stained—ruined, just like Cade had said. He stuffed it to the side and took his trousers from the pile. They were just the same. He checked the next piece and another. Everything was ruined. Not just his clothes, he thought. He had ruined everything in his life, too.
He placed the t-shirt on his lap and glanced around the room. It was bare, nothing in it really apart from the bed. Even the walls were nothing but bare plaster. It was a stark contrast to the room he was used to. The walls of his bedroom at home had been decorated in colours his mother had chosen. The matching bedcovers and curtains, the brightness of his room with his things and his space—that room now represented someone else. Someone good—someone that his father loved. Not him. Not this monster he had become. That room belonged to a boy called Eric—and Eric was dead.