Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Aiden wasn't a soulless.
I watched as he walked down the hallway at Oak High, watched as he spoke with Ashlyn, Emma’s little seeker friend.
I’d asked him to get closer to Emma and her group of friends, and he was doing what I had asked him to do.
He was getting homework help from Ashlyn.
He didn't need it, but his deception had worked.
I leaned against my locker as I continued to watch Ashlyn speaking with Aiden. It was very subtle, and I almost missed it—but I heard it—his melody. I stared at him, eyes squinting as I wondered why, and how he had infiltrated my band of soulless and did my bidding.
If he is not a mindless soulless–what is keeping him with me?
I sighed, irritated with myself. Would I have realized it sooner if it had not been for the fact that my melody and emotions were running rampant, taking me over completely?
Yes. I would have.
The boxes and files inside my brain worked pretty well at shuffling through both my and Shadrict’s memories, but I still had a lot to figure out.
I hoped there was a way to remove Shadrict’s memories from my melody entirely.
That would solve all of my problems. Because with each passing day, Shadrict became a stronger force in my mind.
Aiden and Ashlyn turned down the hallway out of sight.
I went over the pros and cons of confronting him.
Could it be that he is working for Emma and Ryker?
Had they sent someone in to find out information about me?
About my plans? If so, why hadn't the irritating knight come to attack me, along with all of the soulless whom I had created, used, and buried?
No, it couldn't be that. I kept making lists and numbering the ideas and options placed before me.
I subtracted my emotions from the equation and decided upon a plan of action that would best suit me.
I walked in the opposite direction, away from Aiden and Ashlyn, doubling back around to meet Aiden when he came out the other end of the hall.
As I walked, the bell rang, and I saw Aiden wave to Ash, then walk down the hall toward me.
His melody sang for just a moment before he stuffed it away, along with his hands, into his pockets as he came closer.
“Ah, Aiden,” I called, motioning him to come over to me.
“Yes, Sire,” he answered, whispering that last part.
“You can cut the ‘sire’ part. Here, Aiden, it’s Cade.”
“Yes.”
“Anyways, I was wondering how things are going with Ashlyn. Any information?”
“She’s a nice girl, she goes by Ash. Emma and she are good friends.”
I stood up straight. I had about a head of height on him. I looked down and folded my arms across my chest.
“Well, we know all that already, don’t we?”
“And Ash likes me,” he said with a proud look on his face.
“You like her?” I asked, waiting for him to deny it.
“Yeah, even soulless have feelings, for a time anyway. Or maybe they are only the urges. I cannot tell anymore.” He shrugged. Another lie, but I would pretend to buy it.
“True, and how old of a soulless are you? You must be coming to your time soon; do you mark it like some of the others have? Will you curse my name as your eyes grow entirely black?”
“I do not keep track—so I am not sure—I was changed a week after Kara.”
“Kara, do you know her? I mean, did you know her before you came to live with me?”
“Kara? No. I had no one—I was alone. If you hadn't found me when you did, who knows where I would be.”
Perfect answers to all of my questions, able to keep eye contact, no fluctuating mood swings, no bleeding.
Aiden, indeed, was not soulless, which again puzzled me.
Oh, I knew he, of course, did know Kara before.
That whole thing about having no one was an utter and complete lie.
I wondered if, perhaps, Kara could give me the answers that Aiden did not wish to share.
If her mind was even hers anymore, of course.
“Well, get to class—we don't need the humans here asking for a parent-teacher conference—I would not make a good father.” I raised my brow.
He nodded and walked away.
I had a soulless girl to speak with.
“Kara!” My voice echoed through my house as I waited for her response.
She came up the stairs—seemingly having just woken up.
Her dark, almost black, hair was tied behind her back with a few stray strands curled messily around her face.
Her eyes were so dark black—with such irritation in them.
I assumed that it was because I had interrupted her slumber.
“I am here; you don't have to yell so loud,” she said, leaning one hip against the doorframe from the basement entrance.
“How are you doing?”
She looked at me, anger and annoyance radiating from her.
I smirked.
“How am I doing? You haven't spoken to me once since you brought me here, and now you want to shoot the breeze?” She rubbed her eyes and trailed her hands over her face.
“You don't have much time, Kara, do you?”
“Maybe two months. I am still young, okay—not like those old ones you had—some of them were alive for six months after they became soulless.”
“Okay, good to hear,” I said, again unable to hold back a smile.
“Can I go to bed now?”
“No,” I answered, walking over to her and lifting her chin so that I could look directly into her eyes.
The whites of her eyes were still there; she didn't have the blood loss yet, just the mood swings, and most likely, a personality change.
She pulled away from me and shoved at my chest. Or maybe she was always that standoffish, hard to know.
“Now, now—no need to be so aggressive.” I held up a finger as if scolding a child.
She glared at me.
I laughed. It was entertaining to annoy her.
“What do you want—you already ruined my life.”
“I ruined your life? You did that all on your own, sweetheart.”
“Really? Oh, I didn't remember that part, where I took my own soul.”
“What about the part when you became corrupted? You remember that little part, sweet?”
“It was only a little. I could have come back from it.”
“There is no coming ‘back from it,’” I said, glaring at her, then, for being so naive.
“You came back.” She raised her hands, motioning to me. “You have your entire soul now. Aiden said that there has to be a way.” She stopped herself and turned around.
With that revelation, we were finally getting somewhere. I needed to know more about Aiden’s motives.
“Yes, I have noticed that you and Aiden are good friends. How good of friends are you two?”
“It doesn't matter. We are the only two competent soulless here, now—it makes sense that we would become close.”
“How close is ‘close’?” I turned my head to the side, studying her responses more intently. “My dear, I am not buying it—you knew him from before—but oddly enough, Aiden isn't a soulless.”
She turned around, worry in her eyes.
“Free of any corruption at all, to be exact; nice melody, that one has.”
“Don't you dare take his soul—”
I cut her off.
“Oh, come now. I have my standards. I do not take clean souls; that would be a waste of my time.” I waved a hand at her large, worried, black, soulless eyes.
She did seem to have quite a bit of time left, as she could still hold to a conversation.
A stronger soulless, perhaps? No, probably just more stubborn.
“Don’t hurt him. He only did it to help me.
He is such an idiot, and he never listens to me, ever.
” She paced back and forth, her speech too fast to fully understand.
If she had a melody, I could have read her emotions and intentions and could have understood her—but she was a soulless.
I reached out my hands towards her and took her shoulders in my grasp.
“Hurt him? That I cannot promise, but I do promise that I could be persuaded not to hurt him if the two choices presented themselves, if—you do me a favor.”
“What does that mean?” she said, stepping back so that my arms fell from her shoulders.
Maybe my words are too complicated for her soulless state, I wondered for a split second, for that is all I allowed. I wondered what she had been like with a soul, but before I could dwell on the compassion running through me, I pushed it away.
“Tell me who he is to you, and why he is here, and I promise to try ever so hard not to hurt him.”
“You are scum,” she spat at me.
I wiped off her spit from my cheek. Emotions rolled from within me, and I tried to tame them back, but I really wanted to hurt her—because she had hurt me and my pride. Spitting on someone was the biggest insult. Does she not know that?
I pulled out the information from my brain about Kara: when and why I had turned her into a soulless. As I remembered, I smiled.
“You are going to die soon, Kara. Do you want to know why? Not because I stole your soul—no, you are going to die soon because, you, dear girl—” I reached out to cup her face in my hands.
She tried to move away, but I held her firm in my grip. If I just turned only slightly, I could’ve put her in a chokehold, and she would have been dead within seconds. Maybe I should have done it—from the look on her face, the fear in her eyes, she wanted it.
“You—what was it again? Oh yes—you killed your own sister.” I could see the tears brimming behind her eyes. Her body was shaking. I pushed her back, and she fell against the wall and onto the floor.
“I didn't kill her.”
“Your melody reeked of death. Does Aiden know what you did? Does he know that you murdered your own sister?” She leaned her head against the wall, and silence stood between us.
“Aiden can't know, please?”
“Tell me then, who is he to you?” I leaned over, crouching down to meet her black, soulless eyes, offering her one last chance.
“Aiden is my brother—and he is trying to find a way to restore my soul.”
“I see, so family—you killed his sister, too, then.”
“It wasn't like that—it wasn't my fault,” she started to plead.
“Can you even remember?” I asked, moving further away from her, contemplating what such information meant.
It meant that Aiden wasn't working for the enemy.
He was simply on a futile mission to save his sad excuse of a sister.
It didn't bring any harm to my plan, whatsoever, and I did have someone competent in Aiden.
It was best that I leave things as they were for the time being.
Let him live out his hero fantasy of attempting to save his sister and serve me.
“I only remember bits and pieces. It wasn't my fault.”
“Believe whatever you would like, Kara. I have little time for your guilt and your ‘did I’ or ‘did nots’–, I will keep your secret, and you will keep mine.”
“What secret?”
“That I know your brother's mission, and that I know he is not a soulless.”
“Fine,” she agreed, standing, her head drooping.
For a moment, I felt bad for her—but then I shoved that feeling down.
She was corrupt. It was as simple as that.
I knew corruption tended to grow, that it grew, it festered; it was better that I had cleansed her of it when I had, rather than to wait until later, and have her soul lost to the corruptor.
No, I was justified in my cause. I watched as she slowly descended the stairs into the darkness of the basement.
I was hoping that her mind would remain intact enough so that she wouldn't tell her brother what I knew.
That was something I had to take a gamble on.
I so hated not having control, but I let it be.