Chapter 28 #2
Sean paused, struggling to steady his breath. He pressed his hands together and brought them to his lips, like a silent apology he couldn’t say out loud.
“Why?” I breathed, too shocked by his admission to ask anything else. “Why lie about this?”
“Our relationship with the United Chiefs was already rocky back then, with them pushing for the Great Exposure, and Crown resisting the consensus. If they’d found out what I did…
What Crown was responsible for…” He shook his head slowly.
“The whole Collective would’ve been branded Radicals without a second thought. ”
He exhaled hard, hands falling limply into his lap.
“When Caden saw yer arm, he went fuckin’ feral. I’ve never seen him like that. I thought he was going to kill me.”
“He told me he’d fix it. He made me swear to never tell anyone what really happened. He took the fall, made it look like it was his decision—an unhinged, cruel act by an unknown Radical—not a screw-up by Crown’s second in command.”
Finally, my best friend looked up at me, eyes glassy and raw. “He lied to protect me from the United Chiefs. To protect Crown.”
My mind was spinning.
“Saoirse didn’t know about my arm,” I said quietly. “When I told her last year…she didn’t know.”
Sean shook his head. “No one knew. Only me and him.”
A small ounce of relief coursed through me. At least Saoirse hadn’t been lying.
I was starting to understand. “Caden pretended to be Logan Stark so no one would know who was really responsible.”
Sean nodded. “He made everyone believe Radicals were the ones behind your abduction and only showed ye his face. Since James already knew what I looked like, Caden was afraid he’d recognize me from yer description. So he made sure ye never saw me.”
My brain was on full alert, chasing one impossible memory after another. “You… You came to Cyclos. After Maurice died,” I whispered, the image of Sean’s unexpected arrival flickering through my thoughts like a puzzle piece I’d overlooked.
He nodded again. “When James fought the Radicals at Crown with us, he told us about yer arm, about yer nightmares. I couldn’t stomach it, Emma.
I asked Caden to let me check on ye, made it look like a diplomatic mission.
But then we met, and ye were…ye. I didn’t expect us to become actual friends so fast.”
All the memories of Sean in Cyclos—his unexpected kindness, his concern—rushed back. Things I hadn’t understood now clicked into place.
“You wanted me to find out the truth about James…”
Sean let out a deep breath. “Ye wanted answers so badly, and I thought maybe if I helped ye get them…”
“You thought I’d forgive you for ruining my arm?” I snapped, my patience gone.
Sean winced as if I’d struck him. “I love ye, Emma. Yer like the sister I never had. And I will spend the rest of my life tryin’ to make this right.”
I shot to my feet, my heart pounding with rage and betrayal, emotions swirling so violently I could hardly breathe. I stared at him, my mind a whirlwind of memories and lies, anger and sadness.
Without another word, I opened a portal and stepped through, leaving Sean behind, his devastation etched into his face like a permanent scar.
I found Caden later that night in his quarters.
He was in the bathroom, the sound of the shower running behind the closed door. I waited—impatiently, anxiously—while standing in the middle of his bedroom with my face turned away, focus locked on the window as if it could distract me from the storm building in my chest.
Five minutes later, the water shut off. A moment after that, he walked out: dark jeans slung low on his hips, his upper body bare, steam still clinging to his skin like a second layer. That stupid, insane body on full display, as if the universe needed to make this harder.
He froze when he saw me. Blinked. Then rearranged his features in his mask of boredom.
“What are you doing here, Emma?”
Clearly still pissed at me for ignoring him. I didn’t reply, then turned my gaze back out the window.
“Emma. Get the hell out,” he demanded, his voice hard.
And just like that, the tears started. I hadn’t felt them coming. But they were falling, fast and hot and impossible to stop.
I turned around slowly.
The second he saw my face, wet and streaked, his anger twisted into shock, confusion, and something dangerously close to fear. He crossed the room in two quick strides, his eyes scanning me, frantic, checking for wounds like he expected to find blood.
When he reached me, his hands came up to cradle my face. His fingers were warm against my skin, anchoring me like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. His gaze darkened, until it looked almost completely black.
“Who?” he growled, the threat to annihilate anyone who’d dared to hurt me, clear in his voice.
I swallowed hard. “You.”
He recoiled like I’d struck him, stepping back as if the word had physically knocked the air from his lungs.
I followed, stepped forward and punched his shoulder, not hard, but hard enough to make a point.
“Where the hell do you get off lying to me for so long?” I shouted, not giving a damn who might hear.
“You told me you tortured me. That you experimented on me. I’ve had nightmares, Caden.
Months of them. Of you! Of what you did!
I hated you. I hated you for what I thought you did to me at Coastal. ”
He didn’t move while his expression remained unreadable.
“And now I find out it never happened? It was all an accident? You lied about it? About maiming me? Who the hell lies about something like that?” My voice broke, ragged with emotion. “Do you have any idea how fucking unhinged that is?”
I was shaking now. My heart felt like it was going to crack through my ribs.
“I hated you for this. I made choices because of that hate. I turned things down, I closed doors—I refused—” I choked, stopping myself.
Caden’s tone was low, but intense. “Refused what?”
“Fuck this,” I muttered, then turned back to the exit.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he snapped, stepping forward and slamming the door shut before I could reach it. “You came in here ready for war, so let’s have it out.”
“Fine,” I sneered, then whirled to face him. “Everyone I’ve met since I landed in this world has lied to me. Every single person. But you—you were the exception. The one person who never sugar-coated anything. You were the wolf in sheep’s clothing who turned out to be the only one honest with me.”
The words cracked. My whole body did.
“I trusted you, Caden.”
Tears spilled over, fast and furious now. I was crying for real, full-on sobbing.
“Do you know how confused I was when I started to get to know you? The real you? How much it hurt to try and make sense of you? I couldn’t understand how someone so kind, so patient, so good, could have done that to me.
I had to convince myself on some level you must’ve hated me.
That somewhere deep down, you despised me enough to justify what you did. ”
Caden’s expression crumbled. The anger drained from his face, replaced by…regret.
“Why?” I asked, shaking all over. “Why would you lie about that?”
His reply came softly, barely more than a breath. “It was the only way to protect Sean. Crown. Even Stephen and his plan. If our Leader had found out… If the United Chiefs had known…”
He paused, his expression going rigid. “They would’ve branded us Radicals without hesitation.
No questions. Back then, we couldn’t tell them about the future we’d seen, we couldn’t risk it.
Even though I gave you the name Logan Stark, there was still a chance you’d recognize me eventually.
And if that happened, worst case? They’d come after me… not Sean.”
I nodded slowly, the truth sinking in. “And me hating you was the easy price to pay.”
His nostrils flared, his voice rising fast and hard. “Easy price to pay?” He stepped toward me, every word sharper than the last. “Easy price to pay?! That’s what you think this was for me?”
My chest tightened at the sight of his rage, but I didn’t back down. “Easy enough to lie to me for more than a year, apparently.”
“Because you needed him!” Caden shouted, as the tension rose in the room.
“You needed Sean. You needed a best friend. Godsdamnit, Emma, when we met in Switzerland, you were drowning! Everyone had lied to you. You had all that power and no idea how to control it. You’d just found out your childhood friend had mind-raped you.
You were hanging on by a thread. You were so desperate, you even followed me back to Crown!
And Sean was the first person you trusted. ”
His chest was heaving. “I wasn’t about to take that from you. I made a choice not to tell you when you were at Crown. And if it meant you hating me, then fine.”
“What about you?” I shouted back. “I trusted you too! You were the one person who made sense! I could’ve had…you!”
Caden’s eyes turned to ice. “You did have me. More than anyone ever has.” He took another step, towering over me now. “I was there. I’m always there, every fucking time.”
His jaw flexed once, breath ragged. “Even when you freeze me out for weeks, like I’m some kind of mistake you can’t bear to admit.”
I felt the sting of guilt in my stomach, but I was too far in now. “Oh, fuck off, Caden. That’s not what this is about.”
He laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “No? Because it feels a lot like you finding yet another reason to keep your distance from me.”
“Don’t put this all on me!” I yelled. “You lied to me! You let me hate you—”
“Because you needed someone to blame!” he roared over me. “And now you’re standing here, acting like I’m the one who broke you, when you’ve been breaking me for weeks.”
Then he let out another bitter, humorless laugh. “Hell,” he said. “I’ve been breaking for months.”
My heart stuttered, breath catching hard in my throat.
His voice dropped, quieter now, as if the fury had thinned, but the truth underneath was heavier than anything he'd thrown at me.
“You want to know the real reason you’re angry?” he said, eyes burning through me. “It’s not because of what I did. It’s because of you. Because you feel something for me. And it scares the living shit out of you. So instead of dealing with it, you fucking run. Every. Single. Time.”
My hands shook. “That’s not—”
“Why did you leave Crown?”
I blinked. “What?”
“You left Crown,” he repeated, his stare boring into mine, “told me it was to find your way back to James. But you didn’t.”
He took a step closer. “Then you said you were attracted to me but told me again you had to find your way back to him. And you still didn’t.”
Another step. “Then you come all over my fingers and disappear all over again until you get to be angry over this. So, it seems to me... This United Chiefs bullshit, your history and future with Walker, whatever happened at Coastal… It all gives you the perfect excuse. The perfect out. Because you don’t want to face the fact that what you feel for me is real. ”
I took a step back, the pressure in my chest folding in tight, like the air was too thick to breathe. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Then leave,” he said coldly.
I turned to grab the door handle, my heart pounding so hard it echoed in my skull.
But right as I opened it, Caden slammed it shut with one hand, fast, and final.
I stood frozen, staring at the wall, my back to him.
His voice was a low growl behind me. “Run all you want, Nightcrawler, you’ll only end up right where you started.”
I turned, slowly, ready to fire back, but his face had already gone flat. Cold.
Without another word, he opened the door, pushed me out—
And slammed it in my face with so much force, it made the floorboards shake.