Chapter 47
Old friends
My body aches with a deliciousness that makes me happier than I’ve been in a long time.
I get up and look down at my alphas; they are exhausted and look so peaceful in their sleep.
Jarek has hold of Cadel’s ankle, and Mordecai is curled around his back.
I bite my lip, a little entranced by how cute they are.
With a soft murmur of disgust, I grab a bottle of water and, using part of my shirt, manage to clean myself so I don’t smell like I’ve been dipped in a vat of omega pheromones.
There are piles of folded clothes in the corner. Where did they get new clothes and supplies? I’ll have to find out later, I’m just relieved I don’t have to get into my heat-drenched clothing.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
My head pops up, and I inhale, searching for a familiar scent.
For a moment, I forget everything, and I’m a fifteen-year-old again, racing through the streets of my neighbourhood.
He’s close, too close. Everything I remember is wrong. He can’t be trusted. I glance back at my sleeping alphas. They saved me.
Now, I need to save them.
The world is thudding with the sound of my pulse in my eardrums as I get dressed and slip out of my pathetic nest, leaving them safe. Three more bangs from closer. I grab a rock and run. When I get a good distance away, I find an ancient traffic light and bang my rock on it.
Three bangs as hard as I can. The vibrations run up my arm, but I ignore it, waiting and listening as hard as I can.
His answer comes almost immediately, and I realise he’s too close. I bolt in a different direction, leading him away from my sleeping alphas. It’s hard to try to recall the map that Legion gave me, but I keep my eyes peeled for signs as I run.
How he manages to stay close to me, I don’t know, but every time I bang my cursed rock, he’s closer. Sweat trickles down my back, and I start jumping at shadows, sure he’s going to pop out any minute now.
In desperation, I turn down a street and find that purple-flowered plant again.
Go home, the words explode in my mind. I hear my mother’s voice. So loud. So clear.
I run, and even though I shouldn’t, I know where I’m going. I recognise it, even though I’ve never been here. When I get to the building, I run up the seven flights of stairs and go straight to the door.
I pause, my hand on the handle.
An almost hysterical sob escapes me, but this crazy feeling won’t be denied.
It just drives me forward. I stare at the paint-flaked door that is warped from damp and weather.
Slowly, I shove it open, and I step inside.
For a couple of seconds, I wait on the threshold to see if anything is going to jump out and get me.
I count to twenty and then slip inside, closing the door behind me.
It’s covered in dust, heavy and thick, and it smells of animal musk, but there is something so familiar about this place that it is short-circuiting my brain.
I can barely move. I know the pillows are lavender and go on the cream couch that Mordecai loves to sleep on.
In the corner, there is a container that holds our cooking utensils.
It’s shaped like a green tree frog. There’s a calendar on the wall with a picture of a black and white dog.
I loved that dog.
I let out a bitter, hysterical laugh.
“What’s going on?” I whine, feeling my scent flood the space. Home, I think, spinning slowly. This is home. The image of white walls, laughter, our scents swirl and bloom before fading away completely.
Everything looks normal but for one thing that grabs my attention. It’s a book, and it’s covered in dust, but it’s sitting on the counter like someone was looking at it before they walked out and just never came back. I creep towards it, sliding around the counter and gently lifting the cover.
A piece of paper is the first thing I see, but I recognise my mother’s handwriting right away.
You know when I told you that you could be anything you wanted? I’m sorry, I lied. It was a wish from a mother to her daughter. I wanted you to have the world. I never wanted you to have to live like this. The way I have been.
Hunted. Vilified.
Kaida, my darling. I’m not going to be able to come home, so I came to the one place in this cursed city that you would remember as home to leave you this note.
I love you. And I am so proud.
I never hated you for the choices you made.
You were not to blame for their not honouring the terms of your surrender.
You were amazing, so strong, stronger than me, stronger than anyone, and I know the loneliness has taught you fear and that consequences will cost you everything, but you changed things. People saw you, and the Path lost some of the fear they wield so well.
This war is bigger than one world; it’s the gods themselves. So, I pass my torch to you, my child, with so much regret.
Because I wanted you to live in green years and worry for nothing but how deeply you can love.
Kaida, do you remember our warning system? Look for it as soon as you finish reading this.
Farewell my daughter,
Until we meet again.
Your loving mother.
I blink back tears and move the paper, looking underneath, only to freeze at what I’m seeing.
I’m sitting on Mordecai’s lap, smiling so widely. I’m wearing shorts and a singlet, and he’s wearing jeans and white shoes. Jarek is leaning in, kissing my cheek, and he’s got an earring of a moon.
I grab the photo out and shove it in my pocket, only to see there are more. I turn the page, watching our happy lives. School games, in cars, at beaches, in parks.
We were happy until the world ended.
I grab the book and slide it in the drawer, only to freeze when I see a purple butterfly drawn on the side of it.
I slide the letter and photo into my pocket with the others and carefully move towards the right, away from the side of the drawer where the butterfly is. There’s a balcony within reach. If I can get there, I might have a chance of escaping.
Dust motes spin across the air in a frantic flurry, and I know it’s too late.
“Do you remember what you said to me the first time we met?” His voice is calm and deep, still with that edge of boredom but more like the version of him I knew.
I scowl into the dark corner of the laundry. “Of course, I thought the gods had given me a gift. I said that you must be a present from the alpha gods because you were so pretty.”
Walker steps out of the shadows. His expression is flat, but the black clothes and black sword on his hip are intimidating enough with his snow-white hair. I suck in a deep breath because it always hurts when I see him, even when I know it’s coming.
“I wasn’t a gift,” Walker says and shrugs as if he’s sorry.
“No, you weren’t,” I murmur, looking him up and down. He looks healthy. “I can’t hate you, I try. But I can’t. Why is that?”
He comes closer, and I circle away, spotting another butterfly on the ceiling. I can’t quite figure out what my mother is trying to say, but I move away from where the butterfly is pointing its antennae.
“Why did you do it?” I ask desperately. “Why did you go to the Path and tell them what I was?”
He scowls, slamming his hand down on the counter, sending dust into the air. “Why did you turn yourself in to save all those people?”
“Our friends? Our family?” I scoff. “Because they would have done the same for me.”
“They were never mine,” he says bitterly. “And no, they wouldn’t have.”
“They were yours!” I snap back, stepping back from him as he advances around the counter.
He shakes his head and takes another few steps. I back up until I’m in the middle of the room. I spot another butterfly on the front door. A big one. No exit.
Right, I can’t get out of here from that direction. I can’t even fathom how my mother knew all this, but sometimes, she knew things instinctively. I try not to think about it too much. She was never wrong, a voice inside my head whispers.
Walker opens the drawer and pulls out the book. He flips it open and looks down at the photos of us. It’s violating. I don’t want him looking at my alphas.
“There’s only two,” he murmurs.
“So what!” I snap at him. Cadel is my alpha. I don’t care what anyone says.
He lifts his head and looks at me. “Why did you do it? I need to know why you did it.” His voice is urgent, desperate.
“What do you mean, why?” I shout at him. “What a stupid question.”
“It’s not stupid,” he shouts back, finally showing some emotion. “I need to know why you bartered for all our lives.”
“Because, you absolute idiot, you were my family, and I loved you. You were my brother, if not in blood, in soul. You were my best friend, my confidant, the person who got me, who I could tell all my secrets to. Walker, don’t you understand? You made the world safe and better.”
He stares at me, and, for a moment, he looks almost stricken, but then the expression fades behind his usual mask.
“That was stupid,” he says, but he’s shaking. I can see it.
“Yeah, I guess it was,” I say bitterly. “It never occurred to me that you, you of all people, would be the one to do that. I trusted you!” I say in an agonised cry. “My mother trusted you, Aunt Rae trusted you.”
Walker turns and looks out the window. I know I should run and leave, but I need to have this conversation. It’s five years coming. Besides, there’s a butterfly on the window.
“Why are you still in the city? Why didn’t you run away with everyone else? Do you enjoy making this harder for everyone?” he says savagely. “Why didn’t you run, Kaida?”
I stare at him. “Careful, Walker, it almost sounds like you care.”
“Moonbeam, if I cared, I wouldn’t be hunting you all over the city.”
“Yeah, but I would have been dead already,” I snap back, and the truth of that statement hits both of us. Why hasn’t he killed me?
“I have plenty of time to rectify that,” he says, but it lacks heat.
He turns back to me with a crooked smile that I can’t help but return because it’s like nothing has passed between us. We’re still just the same.
“We should have been friends for the rest of our lives. You and me together forever,” I whisper.
“The world is a trash pile. It would never have allowed us to be friends. We would have had to have gone our separate ways at some point.”
“You aren’t supposed to be my enemy.”
“Yet here I am.”
“Are you going to kill me, Walker?”
“No, I’m not allowed. I want to so I can save you from the horrible things they want to do to you, but I can’t. So, I’m to capture you and take you back.”
I swallow hard, nodding. “I see. Is the Fang really mad?”
“Oh, exceptionally. He’s now been embarrassed by you twice. It’s a bad look for him. I think it would be best if you died before he ever even lays eyes on you.” He pauses and shakes his head, his shoulders slumping. “Don’t get caught. Get out, disappear. Run.”
“Does it occur to you that I’m trying? That I want to live and be happy, that I want to go back to how things were.”
“Of course, it has, but we don’t get the things we want. Oh, and a word of warning, moonbeam. If they find out those alphas are your mates, crawling won’t be the worst that happens to you. The worst will be watching what they do to your alphas.”
I stare at him. “Don’t threaten them.”
He holds up his hands in a gesture of innocence. “Not me. I’m not trying to hurt them. I don’t care about them.”
“Who do you care about?” I shout and shift. I see a butterfly on its side, the symbol my mother used for exit in the bedroom.
“No one,” he says bitterly. “There is no one that I care about.”
“Walker, you’re on the wrong side of history here,” I warn him.
“I know. I am but a servant to the Goddess,” he whispers bleakly.
“Come with us, give it all up and come with me.” I’m clutching at straws without a hope of being able to make it okay. He’s the most well-known, most hated member of the Beta’s Path, and I am the most hunted omega. We can never be free.
I don’t know why I offer it; the Resistance would never forgive him. He’d be murdered on the spot, but maybe I can find a place, and we could…
“Kaida Keres, will you stop trying to save people?” He laughs bitterly. “Half our problems wouldn’t have happened if you had just stayed at home where you were told to and stop this self-sacrificing bullshit.”
I stare at him. “At least I can look at myself in the mirror and say I did everything.”
“Can you? Because your scars tell a different story,” he says cruelly.
I let out an enraged noise. “You are an idiot.”
He smiles, and it’s beautiful and transforms him. He shakes his head, but he can’t hide himself from me.
“I know.”
“You were my whole world, Walker.”
“I know that, too.”
“Why did you do it?” I throw his words back at him.
He presses his lips together and turns away. “Because I wanted to live.”
“Is this living, though? Is this the world you want to live in? What about a family?”
“Family is overrated,” he mutters.
I stare at him, bitterly wondering when he got so far lost on his path that he became someone I don’t recognise.
“If you get a chance, you should kill me,” Walker says with a wry smile. “It will be interesting to see if you can.”
I stare at him, completely aghast. “How can you say that?”
“I can say that because your family is dead. No, sorry, our family is dead, and it’s my fault, so seize that wicked temper of yours and kill me, moonbeam.”
He takes a step towards me and closes his eyes. Trap, my mind screams, but thanks to my mother’s warning, I’m already aware. I run into the bedroom, ignoring the way he screams my name.
I throw myself out onto the balcony and fall down three flights through a hole that I didn’t see. I land heavily, but after a moment, I can move enough that I take off, racing along the balconies until I find another butterfly and disappear into the building. My mother guides me out.
It takes me twenty minutes to escape, and I make it onto the street just before a Beta’s Path patrol races into the building.
Walker and I are both alive, again. We keep meeting as enemies, but we can’t fight each other. I can’t kill him, and I know he can’t kill me.
I stay hidden, pressed up against the rusted-out shell of a car and stare at my best friend as he stands there until his horse gallops out of the dark. He mounts up and rides away, leaving me sitting in silence, and with my horrible miserable thoughts.
I don’t know where it all went wrong.
And I hate that I miss him.