Chapter 35 Kaian #2
Then he drags himself through the shattered back window and spills out onto the asphalt, landing on his back.
The sky above him is a brilliant, indifferent blue, so painfully clear that it makes the whole world feel obscene.
He cannot stay here. He has to find somewhere to hole up, somewhere dark and empty enough to think about his mates, to grieve Quinn, and perhaps to find, at last, the courage to walk into the ocean and not come back out.
He pushes himself upright, staggers, and catches himself hard against the smoking side of the vehicle.
The SUV has come to rest in the parking lot of a defunct gas station, sun-bleached and half-collapsed, with weeds shoving up through the cracks in the concrete. He looks inside the smoking vehicle.
Denise is dead. Her eyes are blackened hollows in her skull, her mouth stretched open in a rictus of agony that makes it look as though she keeps screaming even after death.
Gregor lies sprawled on the asphalt ten feet away in front of the SUV as though he has been thrown clear, his neck broken and his limbs bent into angles no living body could survive.
Niall still hangs inside from the front passenger seat by his seatbelt, blood dripping down from a wound at his temple, and his wallet hanging half out of his pocket.
Kaian sees it and moves before he can think better of it. He snatches the wallet free, then turns and runs for the back of the gas station just as sirens begin to roar in the distance and voices rise behind him.
One foot in front of the other, one arm clamped tight to his side, Kaian makes it over a rusty fence and into the parking lot behind a café, then cuts down the alley as the sirens begin to fade behind him.
Bursting out onto the sidewalk, he turns right and passes boarded-up storefronts, a tattoo shop, and a string of convenience stores with sun-bleached signs in their windows.
The unfamiliar glow of The Plain, which he usually keeps under the heaviest of locks, soothes some of the pain in his shoulder, and he pulls on it harder, letting it insulate him from thoughts of Quinn.
He uses it to blunt the ache of wanting Connall and Soren, Elias, and Isaac, and the raw need to find them and fold himself back into the shape of a pack. They must be grieving, too.
He dodges around pedestrians and keeps moving, putting block after block between himself and the crash and anyone else who might be looking for him. He stops only when the light changes, and when he crosses, he finds himself standing in front of Oscar’s diner.
The lights are already on, and the big man is moving behind the counter, a smile on his face as he jokes with customers.
He pours coffee for one man and slides the card reader over for payment to another.
It feels like Kaian has lived an entire lifetime since Oscar gifted him a full stomach and the dignity of earning his way with a job, no matter how short-term.
After the customer pays, he pushes through the glass door, and Oscar’s gaze follows him out, only to meet Kaian’s through the window.
A welcoming smile crosses his face, and Kaian feels a rush of relief that at least Oscar is not annoyed or angry that Kaian had seemingly ignored his kind offer and their handshaken deal that Kaian would return.
Oscar lifts the coffee pot in encouragement, and before he knows it, Kaian’s feet are moving again.
Not down the street and away, but up the two short steps and into the welcoming diner.
“Hey, stranger.” Oscar is already filling his mug and pushing the bowl of sugar packets toward him before Kaian can find the same seat as last time.
“Hi, Oscar.”
Oscar’s nostrils flare, and his eyebrows lift.
It reminds Kaian of the first time they met and of Oscar’s cryptic words.
Understanding lands a beat later, and Kaian realizes Oscar is Were.
He wants to ask to be certain, but Soren and Quinn had said that Humans do not know, and landing himself in a holding cell would surely be a fast track to meeting Niall’s father.
Kaian drops four sugars into his mug, and when he raises it to his lips, his stomach revolts even through the numbness. The Plain is still insulating his emotions, but the grief over Quinn punches through, anyway.
“Glad you stopped by.” Oscar doesn’t wait for Kaian to answer, just disappears into the back for a few minutes.
The man at the end of the counter drops a twenty on the counter and shouts his goodbyes. By the time Oscar appears with a plate of toast, cut-up fruit, and two sausage patties, it’s just the two of them.
“You okay?”
He’s surprised to hear himself say, “Not really. My…my mate died.” The words are like agony.
Maybe Oscar will understand. Maybe this kind man, who he has known for less than an hour—the man who carries on his wife’s work in her name—will understand this shape of grief.
Kaian cannot tell him the rest of it, cannot explain about the Obscura or why he can never live the life he wants with the rest of his pack.
But maybe Oscar can help him survive the next few minutes, the next few hours, the next few days, until he can be brave again.
Oscar drops the plate he is clearing into the bin with a startled clatter. “Your mate? You found your mate, and now they’re gone?” He comes around the counter, flips the sign to Closed, and locks the door. “What happened?”
Kaian swallows around his tears and finds Oscar’s dark eyes gone soft with grief when he takes the stool beside him.
“I don’t know.” He cannot force the words any farther than that.
He is too afraid that the moment he gives the memory shape, The Plain will answer by bursting Oscar’s windows and blowing every piece of glass in the diner apart.
Oscar’s eyes go far away, his lean fingers twisting the wedding ring he still wears. “I’m sorry you have to go through that, son. You don’t need to tell me more.” He pauses, grief moving quietly across his face. “And you being alone with it…Goddess, that’s not right.”
But he isn’t alone with it—not really. That is the part that keeps snagging inside him, even through the numbness. He has other mates. They’ll be suffering too. Maybe already are.
“Did you have other mates when your mate died?”
Oscar stills for a moment, then shakes his head.
“No. There aren’t many packs these days.
” His thumb drags over the ring again, slow and absent, like he does not realize he is doing it.
“But I had my boy, so I wasn’t alone in it.
” His gaze lifts to Kaian’s face, dark and steady and far too understanding. “Are you saying you have a pack?”
Kaian looks down into his coffee. The surface has gone still, black and glossy enough that he can almost pretend it is a hole he could drop straight through. “I think so,” he says, and his voice comes out thin. “Or I did. I don’t know what I have now.”
Oscar is quiet for a beat. “That sounds like a yes to me.”
Kaian lets out something that is almost a laugh. “It’s complicated.”
“The important things usually are.” Oscar leans one forearm against the counter, giving Kaian room instead of crowding him. “Do they know where you are?”
Kaian’s throat works. Connall. Soren. Elias. Isaac. The names move through him like ghosts, each one dragging hurt behind it. “No.”
“Will they be looking?”
That answer comes fast, despite everything. “Yes.”
Oscar nods once. “Then you’re not as alone as you think you are, son.” He sighs and puts a hand on Kaian’s uninjured shoulder.
When Kaian doesn’t say anything, Oscar gives him a tiny shake.
“Look, son, I don’t know what has you on the run from your pack, especially now.
” He doesn’t look away, as if he wants Kaian to really hear what he says next.
“Weres are the same as Humans in a lot of ways. Loss still tears the same hole, but for Weres…” His mouth tightens.
“The hurt goes deeper. And once you’ve found each other… well, there’s no going back, you know?”
Kaian looks down at the cold toast in his hand and finally takes a bite, if only to stop the whole story from tumbling out.
He could tell Oscar about who Connall is and about how he found Soren and Quinn.
He could even tell him about all the things Niall had said in the SUV—about the Obscura.
He could even confess that he’d been hunted his whole life.
But now he has been found, and so have they. Soren. Elias and Isaac. Connall. And even without knowing everything there is to know, he has seen enough in the past few hours to know that once the Obscura knows a weakness, they will keep pulling at the thread until the whole thing comes apart.
The truth hits him like a tsunami. If he runs now, he will not be saving them.
He will be leaving them vulnerable without him, exposed to enemies who already know exactly what they mean to him.
The Obscura will not see them as people.
They will see them as leverage. Kaian feels the truth of it settle into his bones.
The time for running is over. He has to stay. He has to protect what is his.
“Son?” Oscar asks.
Kaian is on his feet before he knows he’s moving. “I have to find them.” Before the Obscura does.
Oscar nods once, like he knew that was coming. “Then don’t waste another minute.”
This time, when Kaian walks out the door, he does not turn toward the bus stop. Despite his aching shoulder, he breaks into a run, his feet carrying him toward All’s End.
By the time he gets there, he is breathing hard. The bar looks different in the light of day—shabbier somehow, except for that beautiful sign—but he runs right past it, only stopping at the mouth of the alley where he’d found Soren passed out and where they’d waited for Quinn.
The handle on the door marked Staff doesn’t budge.
He doesn’t know what time it is, but it has to be late morning.
With nowhere else to go, he slides down to sit on the concrete, wishing Soren were there so he could lean his head against that broad shoulder and maybe give in to the cry The Plain has been holding off for him.
His lucky coin is still in the pocket of his jean jacket.
He digs it out and flips it into the air, catching it against his palm as the questions keep circling.
What if Connall isn’t here? What if Niall’s father lands and comes looking?
Should he try to find Quest, and maybe they can help him find Elias? Should he—?
Footsteps cut into what is working up to be an epic spiral.
Someone rounds the corner, smaller even than Isaac, blond, wiry, and neat in tailored brown trousers, a button-down shirt, sweater vest, and bow tie.
He looks about Kaian’s age and also somehow like a harried accountant from 1952, one hand fumbling with a real briefcase while the other presses a phone to his ear.
He pushes his wire-framed glasses up his scrunched-up button nose.
“Don’t call me Oliver, Beau. You know how I hate that…yes. I have everything well in hand. Honestly, you’d think I was new—” He breaks off with a quiet laugh at whatever Beau says. “You just worry about finding his missing magic user. Did you try the bus station?”
Then he sees Kaian. He stops dead.
“Um.” Kaian pushes himself up too fast, pain flashing through his shoulder. “Don’t freak out, okay? My name is Kaian Noa, and I need to find Connall O’Daire.”
The man’s mouth drops open. For a second, he just stares, then lifts the phone back to his ear like he’s forgotten he was already holding it.
“Did you say—?” he asks faintly, still staring at Kaian. When Kaian nods, Oliver grins, soft cheeks breaking into a huge grin. “Beau? You are not going to believe who is standing behind the bar.”