Chapter 20 #2
“Don’t you worry about Caelan, sweetheart.” The endearment should be kind, but the voice is cruel. I frown, blinking up at the stranger.
Green eyes, a long Mohawk, tattoos running down his neck and disappearing under his shirt. The light is too bright, though, and I can’t see more than a flash before I have to shut my eyes again.
I push through the fog, struggling to remember what I need to tell them.
“I did…”
What did I do? Have I already said this?
The words flit through my brain, half of them tumbling out of my mouth while the other half fade away. “Downstairs… He’s—I had to—had to give him.”
What am I trying to say?
I have to give Caelan a warning. That’s it. I have to stay awake. Warn Caelan when he gets here. Tell him to try another night.
I’ll be fine. I can survive in this house a while longer. As long as he’s safe, that’s all that matters.
The hands holding the light turn rigid.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
That voice. I know it somehow. I just heard it somewhere. In my dreams?
No. In the hall.
Silas. That voice belongs to Silas, and the other belongs to Gav. The one with the deep voice that sounds like rocks tumbling in a jar.
Rocks tumbling like my thoughts are tumbling.
I giggle, imagining my thoughts as a million pebbles turning over and over, bouncing off of each other and the sides of my skull in a chaotic jumble.
I shake my head, trying to clear it.
“I said,” Silas growls, “What the fuck did you just say?!”
I frown. I don’t like how angry he sounds. He’s so mad. Just like father. Father is always mad. Unless he gets what he wants. Even then, he’s always mad at me.
“Father wanted—” I try again, but the thoughts—the words—scatter. Just like the pebbles Gav shakes around in his jar.
I wonder if he can open the jar and scoop out my pebbles.
He can read them, so I don’t have to keep struggling to speak.
“He was trying to—going to—what he wanted. So mad…”
“Gav,” Silas’ voice is cutting. “Are you hearing this shit?”
There’s a long pause that feels heavy and suffocating. I have the strange sense that the entire world has stilled on its axis, waiting for this male to speak.
Someone exhales, long and low and full of disappointment.
“I heard,” Gav answers. “I fucking heard. Damnit.”
“We should—”
“Get her in the shower. Wake her up. I want to hear her say it again when she’s more coherent.”
Strong hands grab me under the arms and haul me upright. The pain in my head intensifies, the world spinning behind closed eyes. Everything tilts as I’m dragged across the bathroom floor.
The butterflies return, landing soft as wishes.
I try to catch them, but my hands pass through the air as they slip away.
This time, they flit from pebble to pebble like blue and purple and silver smoke.
As they move, the pebbles spin and fall and bounce against each other, but the butterflies don’t mind.
They collide and fragment, then turn to dust between one breath and the next. The butterflies drift on, indifferent. They flap their wings and the dust scatters and rises, caught in currents of air I can’t see. It drifts away, chasing the butterflies into a dark night sky that’s vacant of stars.
I reach out my arms, desperate to follow the dust, or the butterflies, or both.
I only need to rest, just for a little while.
Then they’ll come back.
The shock of cold water hits me like a wall of ice.
I gasp awake, spluttering, choking, trying to breathe. My lungs seize as freezing water pounds down on my head and shoulders. The nausea I hoped might be gone reappears with a vengeance, and bile surges up my throat.
I turn my head to the side, gagging.
“Oh, hell no. Absolutely not. I’m a sympathetic puker, I can’t do it.” Silas sounds frantic and irritated in equal measure. “Nope! I’m out!”
I blink my eyes open, trying to make sense of what’s happening.
I’m in the shower. Someone turned the cold water on full blast.
Why would they do that?
My body aches. My bones feel brittle and weak. Everything hurts from my head to my feet.
I move my arm with all the urgency of a dying animal and push my soaking wet hair out of my face. Someone’s turned the lights on, and they glare down on me.
The water sluices down my face and body. It turns bright red, then pink, as it circles and swirls down the drain.
Blood. So much blood.
A rough hand grabs me by the shoulder. Another one squeezes what smells like my soap all over the front of my dress before roughly scrubbing it all over me.
Up my legs, over my ribs, down my arms. Whoever it is doesn’t take off my clothing, for which I’m grateful, though I can’t help but wish they’d be a bit more gentle.
Fates, why can’t I keep anything straight in my mind? At least I remember telling them about Caelan. Did they send someone for him?
“Is he alive?” I mumble. “Did it work?”
Did I help? Did anything I do keep him safe at all?
That isn’t what they hear, though.
The hands that are scrubbing me still their movements. Fingers flex and dig into my shoulder and ribs so hard I whine in pain. It’s a pitiful, keening Omega whine, and for once, I don’t even care if it proves how weak I am.
Right now, I am weak. And tired. And so incredibly confused.
“Did it work?” Silas repeats the words, echoing like a gunshot in the confined space. “Did what work, little liar?”
Liar?
I shake my head. Water streams into my eyes as I try to explain what I mean.
“I knew he’d come,” I whisper. “I knew he’d come and I tried—”
I tried to stay awake. I was afraid that my father was planning something. He promised he’d come back for me, and I was going to warn him away.
I don’t get to finish my thought. Later, I’ll realize that in that moment, all they heard was “I knew he’d come,” and believe I set a trap for him. Lured him in, then sat back and watched my father attack.
“You knew,” Gav’s voice is barely a whisper, but I feel his disappointment down to my bones. “You fucking knew what would happen to him. Fates, I didn’t actually believe it, but it’s true.”
I whimper. “No, I was going to warn him. Father was going to—”
“Going to what?” Silas digs his fingers deeper into my shoulders and shakes me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “Finish the fucking sentence! Finish explaining how you lured our brother to his DEATH!”
I can’t. Not because I can’t remember, but because the moment I open my mouth, the pain hits. I know immediately it’s not mine. It’s Caelan’s.
It slams through the Bond, and agony flares through my veins. Bright, hot, and full of menace, like someone doused me in gasoline and lit a match.
There’s no helping it. I scream. The pain is so intense I can’t think through it. Can’t breathe through it. My mouth opens wide, my back arches, and my hands fly to my chest where I tear at my clothing with trembling fingers.
Some primal part of my brain is convinced that if I can get it out—if I can claw through skin and bone and muscles and rip it out—that I can make the pain stop.
Then, my Mate Bond pulses. An electric spark hums through me, and like a blindfold’s been ripped from my eyes, I suddenly understand.
This isn’t random. It isn’t some random punishment.
This is Caelan’s agony, reaching out and searching for a place to go because he can’t hold it anymore.
He needs relief, and no matter how desperate I am for the pain to stop, I won’t deny the Bond.
If it’s pushing his agony to me, that means Caelan’s at his limit.
He physically and mentally can’t handle it any longer.
He needs a break, and the Bond is offering me a choice, as well as the knowledge of what I’d be taking on.
Terrified, shaking, I don’t hesitate to make my choice.
I wrench open my side of the Bond and allow it to pour his agony into me.
The fire crashes through me, pulling me under the tide and drowning me in fire.
I’m shaking, screaming in agony, but I don’t let go.
I hold on and take everything I can. As I wrap myself around our Bond, something about the way this feels sparks a memory.
I suddenly remember feeling this exact same pain minutes—hours? Days?—ago.
When Caelan’s life was slipping away, I pushed all the strength I could gather down our Bond, fighting back against the poison. At first it hurt, but I’d quickly fallen unconscious, so it hadn’t mattered for long.
I don’t get the same mercy this time.
My father did this to him. My father is doing this to him right now, and I can’t do anything to make it stop. I can only carry what I can, and hope his friends will do what I can’t:
Find my father and make him stop.
“Father! Father, please!” My back arches so violently I fear my spine might snap. My body shakes, making my words tumble and trip over themselves as I try to explain to someone, anyone, what’s happening. If I can just make these males understand, they can stop it.
Stop it and save Caelan.
Using what’s left of my waning willpower, I make myself focus through fire so hot it feels ice cold and push past it, digging deep into my soul.
There.
I find the thread of our Bond, silver and shimmering and alive.
I wrap both hands around the thread and latch on. Then, with everything in me, I push.
I gather all the tattered pieces left of my soul. Every ounce of strength, every flicker of life, and memory of love I possess, and I shove it down our connection—
And into Caelan.
For a brief, wonderful moment, the pain dulls. The thread lights up, shimmers, and pulls taut, pulsing with renewed life.
I exhale in relief. A soft, grateful smile tugs at the corners of my mouth.
I did it. He’s going to be okay.
It doesn’t matter that I can feel my body shutting down. It doesn’t matter that my strength is fading to nothing. I hold on to our Bond and keep pushing. Keep funneling my energy to Caelan, knowing that little by little, it’s healing him.