Prologue

“One…two…three…!” Caden Howell’s voice echoed loudly through the woods as a dozen pairs of feet scampered away from the tree that his face was pressed against. Giggling could be heard in the first few seconds of the game, but soon even the most excited of the kids running away from him fell quiet.

Hide-and-Seek was a time-honored tradition for Caden and his friends. At least as time-honored as anything could be when you were ten years old. But none of them were as good at it as Kyla.

Sprinting on her tip-toes with a grin on her face, Kyla James ran as far her legs would take her before she heard her best friend reach forty-five. Then she worked her way up into the branches of the most climbable pine tree in the woods around her. Caden had never been as good at climbing as she was, so even if he saw her up here, she knew he wouldn’t be able to tag her.

She was highly impressed with herself as she steadied herself securely on an upper branch and waited for the “Ready or not, here I come!” that Caden called out loudly in the distance. She saw him start off in the opposite direction from where she had hidden and forced herself to sit still, knowing she had to wait for the exact right moment before she bolted back to base.

Kyla waited excitedly, but then she realized her excitement was keeping her from being still, so she calmed her breathing and made an effort to line it up with the still evening air.

Kyla was very patient; more patient than most nine-year-old girls. That was why she was so good at this game. But patience didn’t always account for everything. Sometimes things happened that couldn’t be controlled…things that couldn’t even be explained. And when one of those things happened while Kyla was positioning herself carefully in the branches of that tree, no amount of patience could do anything to keep her calm.

Just as she positioned herself in a way that she could climb down easily and with the necessary speed, there was a shift in the air, in everything around her, enough that the smile fell from her face. Kyla felt a tinge of cold hit her skin and she looked down at her arm, seeing that it was covered in goose bumps.

That didn’t make any sense. It was the middle of summer.

She heard a noise behind her and whipped her head around. That was when she saw a flash of a shadow slip past her vision. Kyla didn’t know what to make of it, but it so startled her that she was knocked backwards out of the tree; too fast to fight it, too shocked to scream…too terrified to even breathe.

By nothing short of a miracle, she managed to catch herself on a lower branch. Sucking in sharply, she gripped it with her hands, hearing a snap and feeling it crack, though it was somehow able to hold under the weight of her seventy-one pound body.

Holding the branch tightly with her feet dangling beneath her, Kyla finally found her voice. “Caden!” she screamed.

At the exact moment the branch snapped off completely, her best friend broke through the trees and slid underneath her. Without hesitating for a second, he threw his arms open to break her fall.

Kyla shrieked in terror, her body weightless as she flailed through the air. Time wasn’t something she was able to grasp anymore; all she could do was scream and wait for it to be over. But when she collided with the boy on the ground who had thrown himself in her way, the impact jolted her silent.

Crashing into Caden, her breath was knocked out of her, and the branch that had fallen with her slashed across his forearm. It cut a deep searing gash into the skin just below his wrist.

Kyla rolled off of him quickly, gasping for breath and panicking when she saw that he was hurt. Crawling back over to him, she helped him as he struggled to sit up.

“Caden…”

He looked down at his arm and then back up at her. “Are you okay?” he asked her. He sounded twice as afraid as she was, but not about the blood that was pouring from his arm.

He was afraid that she’d been hurt.

Kyla didn’t answer him, mostly because she didn’t know how. She certainly didn’t feel okay. Holding the wound on his arm closed with her hands, she called through the woods for help. This would be so much easier if she hadn’t run so far off from the others. Blood poured through her fingers as she stared down at Caden, and flashes of the shadow she had seen in the tree reappeared before her vision. Kyla stared forward unmoving without the coherency to blink, and when Caden saw this, he became even more worried.

“Kyla…” he said, trying to shake her from her daze.

She didn’t answer him.

“Kyla!” he tried more loudly.

She didn’t even hear him. The third time he said her name she gasped and looked up at him, straight into his chestnut brown eyes.

When her gaze locked with his, she knew Caden could see the fear in her.

“What happened?” he asked her frantically.

Kyla felt herself shaking. “I…I saw something.”

“Just close your eyes and breathe a minute,” he told her when she didn’t blink for a full ten seconds.

She did what he said, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Kyla shook her head, trying to shake the image from her mind. But even more than the image, it was the feeling…the fear that had hit her when the shadow had passed.

She never wanted to feel that again.

That was when another thought hit her. Re-opening her eyes, she looked at Caden in question. “How did you get over here so fast?” she asked him. “You were on the other side of the woods.”

Caden hesitated and bit his lip. “I was already running,” he said.

Kyla stared at him for a long time, not understanding how that was even possible; but then as she watched his eyes and let the truth behind them hit her, she fell to a familiar awe.

This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to them. It wasn’t the first time Caden had been able to feel her like that.

It clicked in her suddenly, something like a survival instinct; only she wasn’t the one she was worried about surviving.

“Come on,” she coaxed him, tying to get him up.

He put his best effort into it and collapsed back to his knees. Kyla swallowed hard. She couldn’t let her fear get the best of her now. She had to try again.

“Come on, Cade,” she said again. “We gotta get you home.”

He nodded in agreement, but she could see by his expression how disoriented he was. His eyes weren’t focusing right and his head was moving in subtle, concentric circles like everything was spinning around him. Kyla thought he might throw up, and she was a little surprised when he didn’t.

Getting brave, she looked down at her hand, moving it away slowly and cringing along with Caden when she saw that it hurt him. But when she saw how deep the laceration went into his arm, suddenly he wasn’t the one she was worried about throwing up anymore.

“Oh God…” she breathed. She could feel the blood leave her face and she clamped her hand back over the wound again, determined not to let it go.

It was much worse than she realized.

Caden could see how freaked she looked and he tried to reassure her. “It’s okay,” he told her, but she could tell that he was afraid.

That was such a lie. This was anything but okay.

Kyla called out through the woods for help again, but none of the others could hear her. She had run too far in the opposite direction from all of them.

Why had she been so stupid?

She tried one last time to help Caden up and move him in the direction of his house, but he collapsed to the pine-needled floor.

Kyla held her breath. This wasn’t good.

Kneeling down beside her best friend, she stroked his back comfortingly. His head was down and his hair hung limply in his eyes, and by the look on his face he was already defeated.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized to her.

Still holding his wound closed, Kyla wrapped her free arm around him. “It’s okay,” she told him. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

Caden shook his head and the gesture made Kyla furious with herself. He had always done that; tried to take the blame when it clearly fell on her. She knew she was the reason they were stuck out here in the woods with no one anywhere near them. She also knew that whatever happened to him, it would be her fault.

No, Kyla wasn’t about to accept that.

Looking up and all around her, she prayed under her breath, “Help me, God.”

Her eyelids fluttered as she waited, feeling a heat surge through her, a strength that wasn’t her own. And once it came into her fully, Kyla knew it was time to try again.

“Hold on, Cade,” she told him, grabbing him securely by the arm and hoisting him up so she could drag him.

She was a little afraid that he might pass out on her since she wasn’t strong enough to carry him on her own, but he was fighting it enough that she thought they just might make it. She also felt a strength and a grace to be able to carry him that she shouldn’t have felt.

Caden tried to hold up his weight so he wouldn’t put the burden on her. He stumbled and staggered, but he tried his best, and the two of them managed to push their way through the brush. Then, as they approached a very distinct point in the woods where the trees looked stranger and the ground looked darker, Caden started to tremble.

Kyla noticed it when she felt him physically shaking against her, but she tried not to be afraid. “You okay?” she asked him.

No response.

“Caden?” she asked a little more firmly.

He couldn’t pass out now. They were finally moving in the right direction.

“Caden!” she snapped at him.

The boy sucked in a sharp breath. “Something’s not right,” he said. “I don’t feel safe here.”

Kyla was grateful to hear his voice, but something about the way he said it made her feel uneasy. “You’re almost safe,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I’m getting you home.” But she knew that wasn’t what he meant.

When they passed through a grove of aspens, there was one tree in particular that caught Kyla’s eye. Caden followed her gaze to its base and he winced at the sight of it. She wasn’t sure if that was from the pain in his arm or the strange-looking symbol that had been carved into its bark. Kyla didn’t recognize it. She wasn’t sure if she should have, but even in its unfamiliarity, the symbol made her shiver. Something felt strange about it. She didn’t know why, but whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

Then something else happened that she liked far less.

No sooner than she saw this symbol, another flash of black came before her sight, almost identical to the one she had seen in the tree she had fallen out of. Kyla froze in her tracks when she saw it. It jolted her, paralyzed her by the same fear she felt in those branches.

Caden asked her frantically, “What’s wrong?” but Kyla didn’t answer him. She couldn’t.

“Kyla!”

His voice shook her from her trance. Blinking hard, she pulled him back away from the tree and told him, “Come on. I’m getting you home.”

Caden looked like he wanted to press her, but he also looked as afraid of the symbol on the tree as she was. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

He struggled through his dizziness and the blood he had lost and all of his own weakness and did everything he could to help her get them both out of there. By some unseen miracle, Caden’s strength had started to come back to him, enough that he was actually able to help her.

It made no logical sense, but then prayer rarely ever did. Kyla knew it was nothing less than that that enabled him to put his arm around her shoulder and move with her as fast as he did through those trees.

She felt a cold fear flood her veins as they pushed through the woods. The darkness she felt surrounding them was like nothing she had ever felt before. It wasn’t even like anything she had ever heard of. It felt as if they were surrounded by a swarm of beings…dark beings that couldn’t be seen, only felt. And she felt them all around her. They wove in and out of the trees as phantoms, moving swiftly through the steadily falling night.

And then suddenly, they were seen.

They were flashes Kyla saw out of both sides of her vision; dark shadows that whirred past her, moving through the trees in every direction.

She screamed at the sight of them and Caden shouted at her, “Don’t stop! Keep moving!”

Kyla started hyperventilating.

“I can feel them too,” he told her. “Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

Kyla screamed at him in a panic, “I don’t just feel them! I see them!”

Caden grappled with that for a moment before he finally told her, “Don’t look at them, Kyla! Keep running!”

As they bolted for Caden’s house, the darkness increased around them as they ran, and Kyla’s fear along with it. She saw other symbols; some on trees, some laid out in sticks on the ground like an upside down star. And she almost threw up when she saw a rabbit that had its blood drained and spilled around it in a circle amidst the symbols.

“Don’t look at it!” Caden yelled at her. Then he steered her in the direction they had come. “Just run straight for where we came from!”

Kyla blocked everything else out of her mind and ran, telling herself over and over, Don’t think. Don’t stop. Don’t breathe. Just run. Don’t stop running until you’re safe.

Chapter One

Kyla’s mind was swimming. Deep pools of emptiness had replaced her fear, beckoning her to drown in their hollow escape. She wanted to let them pull her under, to get lost in the abysmal nothing that looked so appealing right now.

Nothing made sense to her anymore.

Driving up Highway 24 toward the Howell’s massive log home, Kyla James knew there was more that should be registering in her mind. The fact that barely twelve hours ago she had been trapped in the middle of a Nephilim battle-to-the-death, perhaps, or maybe that her mom and her little brother still had no idea where she was. Loni could have called the cops by now for all she knew, and even that thought wasn’t anywhere in Kyla’s head. She should probably be thinking of the ache in her chest, of the proverbial knife that had just been rammed through her heart; but she wasn’t aware of that either. She was only aware of the wind that blew past her as she drove up the mountain, sending tangles of long auburn hair in a frenzy around her face.

The hot Colorado sun beat down on Kyla’s back, which she had very intentionally covered up with a black zip-up jacket. Incoherent as she may have been, she knew there were scars all over her body that she could not afford to let anyone see…least of all the boy she was driving back to right now.

Oh, Caden…

Kyla cringed as the thought of her best friend jolted her out of her stupor. That was what she was doing here, driving his Jeep back up the mountain (which was the last place on earth she wanted to be going back to.) Kyla had to take it back to him and find some way to explain the insanity of last night.

She just didn’t know how she was going to do that.

The gravel in the Howell’s driveway crunched beneath the tires of Caden’s Jeep, enough that Kyla was afraid someone in the house might hear it. Cringing, she looked up at the front door, but no one seemed to notice; and even if they did, they obviously didn’t care. Maybe they assumed Caden had gone into town to get some breakfast or to meet up with the guys for an impromptu band practice, certainly not that Kyla had stayed the night in his bedroom, forced him into letting her take his Jeep and then driven to Falcon’s Rest to see the person who had started this whole mess…if “person” were an accurate enough term for Nathaniel Blake.

Halfway accurate, at least, she thought.

A familiar sick feeling started to make its way to Kyla’s stomach and she quickly forced it away. She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t think about him. And she definitely couldn’t think about everything he had just told her. She had to stay calm or Caden would see through her, and the last thing Kyla wanted was for him to do that, now more than ever.

It felt like having some form of explosive strapped beneath her shirt that was ready to detonate at the slightest pressure. The information she was carrying, it was easily that lethal, and if she couldn’t control it, there was no telling what might happen…to her, to Nathaniel, to all of them.

Even thinking his name, Kyla felt weak. She didn’t want her mind to go there, but she couldn’t stop herself from remembering his last words to her, his promise that he would come back for her.

Could he really have meant that?

Stop it! she scolded herself. The thought itself was asinine. She should be relieved that Nathaniel Blake was gone after all the pain he had caused her. She almost died because of him! But Kyla wasn’t relieved. She was sick. And looking up at the garage-converted-bedroom next to the main house on Winding Valley Road, she was also afraid.

Caden can’t know about this, she determined. Whatever she had to do to keep the truth from him, she would do it.

She had to protect Nathaniel.

When Kyla approached her best friend’s bedroom, she hesitated before going inside. Her hand was five inches from the handle of the glass sliding door, and somehow she couldn’t make it move forward to close the gap. But as it turned out, she didn’t have to. Caden stood up off his bed and walked over to the door when he heard her walk up, opening it for her without hesitating.

His expression was cold and angry, and Kyla could tell that he was completely closed off to her. She didn’t blame him for that. With everything she had and hadn’t done since he’d found her on the mountain last night beaten and shaken and paralyzed with fear, Kyla was surprised he hadn’t been a lot harsher with her than he had. If their roles had been reversed, she would have done everything in her power (and a few things out of her power) to get the truth out of him.

It wasn’t that Caden hadn’t tried; he had just seen through her shock enough to know that she wasn’t going to tell him anything, and he was smart enough to realize that pushing her would only close her off to him even more than she already was.

Funny how alike they could be at times. All the time, really.

At the present moment, Caden seemed to be taking her shutting down to him as mistrust on her part, and Kyla hated that. After all he had done for her, the last thing she wanted him to think was that she didn’t trust him. But looking into his glazed-over brown eyes, she realized that was exactly what he believed.

“Glad to see you’re still in one piece,” Caden said sarcastically when he opened the door. Kyla ignored the slight and moved inside after him, glancing over her shoulder to make sure no one had seen her from the house.

They hadn’t.

Being that she and Caden were both eighteen, it shouldn’t have mattered whether or not she spent the night over here or if anyone saw them, especially given the relationship they had always had. Even if Caden’s parents had rules against that sort of thing, their son was a technical adult and shouldn’t have been bound by them anymore. Not that Caden would agree with that. He believed far too much in honoring his parents (a concept that was foreign to Kyla since hers were either dead or insane.) But at that point it wasn’t about rules for her; it was about keeping anyone else from catching onto what had happened last night, to what was still happening now if what Nathaniel told her was true.

Caden probably didn’t understand how dire that was. He couldn’t have since he didn’t know what was really going on, and that wasn’t his fault. Kyla was going to do her best to make sure he understood the severity of this situation, though, or at least as much as she could without straight-up telling him that Nathaniel Blake was only half human.

Fondling Caden’s keys nervously (which she hesitated to give back to him in case she needed to make another quick getaway) Kyla waited for him to turn and face her. He didn’t. Instead he stood with his hands on his hips and stared at the opposing wall, too angry to even look at her. Or maybe he wasn’t turning around because she still looked like a rabid animal had mauled her in the woods.

That one actually wasn’t too far off from the truth, unfortunately.

Kyla trembled at the thought of Donovan, feeling the blood rush from her face as the horrific images from last night played over in her mind. No, that couldn’t be it. However atrocious she may have looked right now, nothing could compare to what she had looked like last night, and even that, Caden had been able to stomach; enough that he stayed up with her and held her all night.

Right now was all about his anger.

“Did you see him?” Caden asked her flatly. He was still facing the wall.

Kyla could see the muscles in his neck tighten as he asked the question, and the memory of the dark demented Naphil who had beaten her senseless and left her for dead in the woods last night was replaced by another string of images she could no more easily keep away.

The memory flashed through her mind of being with Nathaniel not even twenty minutes before; the confrontation, the arguing, the heated moments in his bedroom before he told her the truth. Kyla’s head was spinning as she remembered, enough that she had to steady herself against the frame of Caden’s sliding glass door.

She nodded in answer to his question; then she realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes,” she forced herself to answer him.

Caden squared his jaw before speaking again. “Are you gonna tell me about it?” he asked her. His tone was hardly gracious.

Kyla’s heart sped up at the thought. Just imagining what Caden would do if he knew what had happened (or what had almost happened) between her and Nathaniel terrified her. Of course she wasn’t going to tell him about it. But she also couldn’t let him know that she had something to hide.

“He’s gone,” she tried to say as emotionlessly as she could. The words were impossible not to feel, though. Sickness swarmed through her when she heard herself speak them out loud. Kyla tried to remain standing so Caden wouldn’t pick up on it, but her words caused him to finally turn around and look at her and see what a mess she was.

Confusion marked his face. Caden almost looked like he was trying to see if she was lying; not that Kyla could blame him for that. She hadn’t exactly been honest with him lately. As he looked at her skeptically, the reality of Nathaniel’s leaving her began to sink in to her, which placed Kyla all the more in danger of giving herself away. She really wished Caden would go back to staring at the wall, because she didn’t know how much more of this she could handle. The hollow in her chest was magnifying by the second, and the pain of that fact alone, of her knowing that Nathaniel wasn’t there to keep her safe anymore, that he wasn’t there to hold her, to kiss her, to touch her…oh God, this was becoming all too real.

Caden saw it when she started to lose her breath. She tried to control it, but her efforts were wasted. Kyla was combating a force that was infinitely more powerful than she was. After her breathing became shallow enough and erratic enough, she had to sit down on the edge of his bed. She hated that she couldn’t hide her weakness from him, but she knew if she didn’t sit down, she would most likely pass out, which would have been far worse.

It was a little disconcerting that Caden didn’t instinctually reach down and put his hand on her back. At just about any other time he would have. Rather than holding her and comforting her like he had all night last night, he just stared at her in disbelief.

“He left you?” Caden asked.

He looked completely baffled, but Kyla didn’t try and figure out what he meant by that tone. She was too busy trying not to lose consciousness.

“You’re this upset because that abusive bastard left you?”

She didn’t even bother getting angry this time. With the way the room was spinning around her, she had to focus all of her energy on not falling over.

That was when she realized she couldn’t do this.

“I have to get out of here,” she mumbled quickly. She tried to stand again and move to the door, but Caden stopped her.

The moment he grabbed her arm, Kyla flinched and jerked away from him, which immediately caused him to step back. She had never had that reaction to him in the ten years they had known each other, and she could see that it not only startled him; it hurt him, too. A lot.

Kyla tensed her jaw and tried to stay cold. She didn’t want to feel regret over hurting him right now; she wanted to be mad at him. Even if it wasn’t justified, she wanted to be angry over the assumptions Caden was making that she knew she couldn’t blame him for, and especially his not listening to her about Nathaniel. But looking at him now and seeing the pain in his eyes, she realized she couldn’t be mad at him. She needed him too much.

“Kyla, I’m sorry,” he told her. His tone was completely changed from what it had been only a moment before. Where he had been angry and frustrated, now Caden only sounded like he was in pain.

Kyla hugged her arms tightly as she stood before him, looking down at her feet so she could avoid his eyes. That did no good for her, though. She could feel him just as easily whether she was looking at him or not.

Taking a cautious step toward her, Caden tried to touch her again. He was more careful this time as he gently set his hand on her elbow, and even though she flinched on the contact, her reaction wasn’t as violent as before.

“Kyla…” he tried again.

She tensed even further, determined not to let down her guard since she knew what that would cost her. The second she opened up to Caden again, he would want to know answers. And that was something that she just couldn’t give him, even if she wanted to with everything in her.

Swallowing hard, Caden closed his remorse-filled eyes. “It’s okay,” he told her, keeping his hand on her elbow.

Kyla stayed cold.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I just feel so helpless, not knowing what happened.” He struggled to keep the emotion out of his voice. “I hate the thought of anyone doing that to you. You don’t even know how much.”

Kyla’s emotion faltered. She almost slipped up and let him see it, but she got it under control again before he could.

“I want you to know it’s okay,” Caden told her. “I’m here as long as you need me and I won’t push you anymore until you’re ready to talk. I’m gonna try my best not to get angry, too.”

Kyla frowned. “But you suck at not getting angry.”

That made Caden laugh.

In spite of the seriousness of the moment, they were both smiling now. It felt strange, but also relieving, like a thousand tons had just been lifted from both of their shoulders. It only lasted for a second, though. Faster than it had come on her, Kyla’s smile faded, and as it did she got brave and looked up at Caden.

The way he was looking at her, sad but hopeful, it wrecked her. She could see the love in him, just like she had always been able to, but she didn’t know how to cope with it. That was when she remembered what Nathaniel had told her, that she needed to go to him. She remembered the look on his face when he’d said it…the agony it had caused him.

Kyla still didn’t understand.

“He told me to come to you,” she said abruptly.

Caden’s smile faded and confusion took its place. “What?”

Kyla hesitated. “Nathaniel told me you would keep me safe.”

She had never seen her best friend more confused, but then as he waited there, trying to understand, something seemed to hit him; some level of discernment only he could see into.

Suddenly Kyla was afraid at what he might be thinking, or even worse, what he might know. Whenever Caden got that look on his face, he tended to know a lot more than any person should.

“Caden?” she asked him nervously.

“Come on,” he told her. His voice was more affirmative than it had been, like he knew what he had to do now. Walking past her, he made his way to the door.

“Where are we going?” she asked him.

“To fix this,” he said. “To make it right.”

Kyla didn’t get it. “Fix what?” she asked him. “What are you talking about?”

Caden stopped and turned back to her. “I am going to help you cover this up.”

. . . . .

It was ten in the morning when Matthew got the phone call from Alexa Howell letting him know that his sister and her best friend Caden (who also happened to be Alexa’s older brother) had just walked out of Caden’s bedroom and were headed toward the driveway. It wasn’t early by any means, but considering how little Matthew had slept the night before, it may as well have been five AM.

“Kyla should be home soon,” Alexa told him. “Caden’s taking her now.”

Matthew wrinkled his forehead. He didn’t know what was going on here, but whatever it was, something was off. Actually, a lot of things were off from what he could tell.

“Don’t let them know that I’ve talked to you,” Alexa instructed him. “You have to act like you’ve just been worried and you didn’t know where Kyla was last night.”

That wouldn’t be hard. Matthew was worried and he didn’t know where Kyla was last night. He still didn’t like what Alexa was suggesting. He wanted answers; he didn’t want to play stupid games. He wanted to confront his sister and Caden directly…but he also trusted Alexa enough to know that he should listen to her.

Shaking his hair out of his lightly freckled face, Matthew told her, “Fine.”

Alexa had to know he was frustrated, but she didn’t say anything about it. Matthew didn’t expect her to.

“I don’t like this, Lex,” he said.

“You need to trust me,” was the girl’s only response.

Matthew looked toward the front door, wishing Kyla would just hurry up and get there already. “Yeah, I know,” he said tensely. “Just like I have to trust you when you tell me you can’t explain anything yet, and when you tell me my sister’s in danger but you won’t tell me why. Oh, and let’s not forget about her new friend Nathaniel…”

“Matthew…” Alexa cut him off.

Matthew sighed. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“I need to know that you can handle this,” she told him. “It’s really important.”

“Why?” he asked her. “Why is it so important? Can you at least tell me that much? I mean, if Caden and Kyla are hiding something from us, don’t you think we’re more likely to find out what it is if we tell them what we already know?”

“No,” Alexa stated. “I don’t.”

Matthew could have guessed she would say that. “Why not?” he asked.

“Because I saw something.”

Matthew fell quiet. He never took it lightly when Alexa said those words. “What did you see?” he asked her.

“Not a vision,” she clarified. “I saw something in Caden…when he came and found me this morning.”

That was news to Matthew.

“What did he want?”

Alexa wasn’t eager to answer that question, and Matthew had a few guesses as to why.

“He wanted to know what I’ve seen,” she told him.

Matthew muttered under his breath, “That makes two of us.”

“Matthew…”

“I know, I know,” he grumbled. “You can’t tell me that yet.”

Alexa had given him that excuse so many times he was using it for her now.

“Something isn’t adding up,” she told him. “I have to figure it out before we do anything.”

“You know, if you would just tell me, I could help…”

“No.”

Matthew scowled.

“Caden is still too hostile,” she said. “My guess is they both are. We can’t get straight answers from them by asking anything directly. That will only put them on guard. We have to be very careful here.”

“And why are they hostile?” he asked her. “What do they have to be so defensive about?”

Alexa hesitated. Matthew knew what she was thinking. She didn’t have to verbalize that for him to know. He knew there had been a rift between Alexa and her brother since Nathaniel Blake had shown up. Matthew just didn’t know why. He could feel the distress it caused her, which was far more than anything like that should have distressed an eight-year-old girl. But then, most eight-year-olds didn’t have the relationship with their nineteen-year-old brothers that Alexa had with Caden. In all the time Matthew had known them, he had never known anything to come between them like this.

The way things appeared, Nathaniel Blake had something to do with everything that had been happening around here lately. In one way or another, all of it seemed to be revolved around him, and Matthew knew Alexa knew more about why than she was letting on. In the past she would have at least tried to let him in on it, but things were different now. It was like there was some part to it that she was trying to protect him from, or maybe that she was just afraid to be honest with him about.

Matthew was used to Alexa not articulating herself, to having to navigate through their sparse conversations to figure out what she really meant or what was really going on in her head. But her holding out on him like this wasn’t normal. She usually trusted him more.

“You don’t have to worry,” Matthew told her. “I’m gonna play dumb with them.”

“Thank you,” Alexa said.

Matthew kept his eyes fixed on the front door even though he knew the two of them were still a good ten minutes away. “I’m just glad Caden’s here to keep her safe now,” he said.

Alexa was a little quieter on that one than he expected her to be. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Me too.”

Matthew could tell she was thinking beyond the words she volunteered to him, but he decided not to question her on it. It would be pointless right now since he knew she wasn’t going to give him anything else.

“Lex?” he asked. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Alexa said after a moment. “I have a feeling that a lot of things are about to change.”

Matthew frowned. “What’s about to change?” he asked her.

Alexa hesitated again. “Everything.”

. . . . .

It took work for Caden and Kyla to come up with a story that Loni would believe. Explaining why the Civic that the woman hadn’t driven in two years (but still retained the title for) had to be towed to the body shop in Manitou Springs wasn’t a thrilling endeavor; especially considering that Caden didn’t even know the real story of what had happened last night. It was about to drive him out of his mind, too.

Not a single part of it added up, but he knew he couldn’t push Kyla any more than he already had. She was so fragile right now that he was afraid she might do something drastic if he were to keep pressing her for the truth. That was why he told her what he had, that he would wait until she was ready.

But that hardly meant he was letting it go.

It wasn’t as easy smoothing things over with her little brother. After Caden and Kyla put a bottle of vodka in Loni’s hand and steered her in the direction of the basement of the James’ condo, she was pretty much taken care of. But Matthew was a lot more aware than his and Kyla’s broken excuse for a mother. That was where Caden really had to come in, assuring the boy that despite what it looked like, his sister was fine. Everything was fine.

The lie tasted bitter in Caden’s mouth. He had never been a fan of lying, even though he’d been doing it to Kyla for years. Still, there was a significant difference between telling a ten-year-old boy that his sister wasn’t in danger (when clearly she was) and his hiding from Kyla all these years what she really meant to him.

From what Caden could tell, Matthew believed what he told him, and that only made it worse on him. The last thing Caden wanted to do was abuse the boy’s trust, and yet that was exactly the position he had been put in. Matthew meant a lot to him, and he hated that he was forced to deceive him…by Kyla, yes, but mostly because of Nathaniel Blake. Whoever he was. Whatever he was hiding.

Caden shook off the thought so he could appear normal in front of Kyla and Matthew where he sat with them in their living room. He would find out about Nathaniel later. Right now, he had to keep things stable.

“I’m tired,” Matthew told them. “I’m gonna go to bed.” Mid-morning or not, it was pretty clear the boy needed rest. Staying up all night would do that to a ten-year-old.

Kyla cringed when she realized how worried he had been, and Caden could tell she felt awful about it. “Do you want something to eat?” she offered her brother as he made his way toward the stairs.

“Later,” he mumbled.

Kyla frowned and looked at her feet. She cringed a little when the door to Matthew’s bedroom closed, and Caden felt an instinctual compulsion to comfort her. He stayed where he was though, resisting the urge. He was still too defensive to do that.

“Thank you,” Kyla told him. Her eyes were still cast to the carpet.

Caden made a face. He didn’t want to be thanked; he wanted an explanation. But he knew a thank you was all he was going to get from her.

Once Matthew was in his room, Caden glanced toward the kitchen and then back at the exhausted girl in front of him who looked barely able to stand. “When was the last time you ate?” he asked her.

Kyla bit her lip and tried to think back, obviously to no avail.

That was all Caden needed to know. Standing up, he told her, “You stay put. I’m gonna cook for you.”

Kyla laughed like she thought he was joking. “Please,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Caden gave her a look, ready to take the challenge. He’d had a year of living on his own in Nashville to teach himself how to cook. Sure, it had taken about seven months and him developing an abrasion to Hot Pockets and Ramen Noodles to push him to learn, but he had finally buckled down and taught himself. Or at least he’d tried to.

Caden rummaged through the refrigerator and Kyla watched him curiously. “I haven’t shopped in a while,” she told him. “I’m not sure you’re gonna find anything in there.”

Caden was a little worried that he might not either when he opened the refrigerator, so he shifted his focus to the pantry and found a glass container of oatmeal. Excited, (since he actually had a relative idea of how to make oatmeal) he put it on the stove. Kyla watched him with an amused smile, and when he tried to serve it up and saw that it looked like a blob of congealed paste, he frowned and furrowed his brow.

Kyla laughed at his expression and walked into the kitchen to help him. Caden kept the frown on his face as she put the blobs of oatmeal he’d portioned off into their bowls back into the pan. He really had no idea how she planned to redeem what he had massacred, but if anyone could do it, he knew Kyla could. She was just amazing like that.

Watching her add vanilla soy milk and cinnamon and a dash of salt to the pan (a thought that never would have struck Caden) he made a face and asked her, “Soy milk? Really?”

Kyla told him to “shut it,” and chopped up a couple of fresh peaches that she pulled from the basket on the counter while the oatmeal simmered on the stove. Spooning off the now much better-looking oatmeal into their bowls, she sprinkled some slivered almonds on top and drizzled a honey-looking substance over the top of it that she said was called “agave.”

Caden made another face. “Soy milk and agave? You really expect me to eat that?”

“Stop being a baby and try it,” she told him.

Caden took a spoonful of it grudgingly, and he was a little upset when he liked it. He wished it hadn’t tasted so good because then he wouldn’t have to admit he was wrong. He didn’t know how she did that; how she could take something as awful as the oatmeal monstrosity he had created and make it into something this amazing. That was just what Kyla did, though, with everything in life. She took nothing and made it spectacular…like a blank sheet of paper and an unused piece of charcoal. Like a scared little boy on a playground who didn’t know who he was…

Caden shoved away the thought and took another bite of his oatmeal. “I guess it’s edible,” he mumbled, pretending it was just okay. Kyla saw through him though. And at that point, seeing her smile meant enough to him that he didn’t even care if it came at the expense of his pride.

When Caden glanced back at her and gave her a smirk, he could feel her starting to let her guard down. He could also pinpoint the exact second that she noticed.

Quicker than she started to let him in, Kyla pulled back from him again. Looking down at her oatmeal like it was the most putrid substance she had ever tasted, she told him, “You’re right. The soymilk ruined it.”

Caden frowned. He wished he could see whatever thought just passed through her head. He hated it when she did that.

Kyla took their bowls away and she was about to toss them in the trash when Caden stopped her. “Don’t!” he objected. “I like it.”

She set both of the bowls back down in front of him and told him, “They’re all yours then.”

Caden saw that sick look get even stronger on her face and he didn’t understand. “Kyla, please,” he said, “you need to eat. You’re starting to scare me.”

“I don’t feel well,” she told him. “I need to sleep.”

He was practically twitching he wanted to question her again so badly, but he held to his promise and agreed to let her go upstairs.

Once he heard the door to her bedroom shut, Caden clenched his fists in anger. He was so mad he debated smashing his bowl of oatmeal against the wall; but in hopes of avoiding any loud noises that might rouse Loni where she slept in the basement (and create a mess of mushy oatmeal and shattered ceramic pieces that he didn’t want to clean up) Caden got out of there fast.

Yes, smashing something would make him feel good right now, but it would make him feel even better to find out the truth. The time for him letting things stand in his way was over. There was too much at stake for him now, too much that he wasn’t willing to compromise.

Whatever it took, whatever it cost him, Caden would learn the truth about Nathaniel Blake.

Chapter Two

Nathaniel was reeling. There wasn’t a way to describe how disconnected he was from himself, but descriptions weren’t necessary when the glazed over look in his eyes said it all. After his unexpected, not-so-chance meeting with an angel in Highgate Cemetery who called herself “Aria,” it was all Nathaniel could do to force one foot in front of the other and walk forward. Following the paved Oxford road that would lead him to his uncle’s flat, he told himself in his mind to breathe.

This is normal, he said. You shouldn’t be panicked by this. After all, you are half-angel yourself.

Nathaniel’s thoughts did not reassure him. Nothing could take away from the sobering awe he had felt in Aria’s presence. Nothing could deter him from the realization he had just made about how much farther the boundary lines of this battle extended than he had let himself believe.

She’s on your side, Nathaniel told himself as his memory of Aria’s eyes burned into him. Somehow he had a hard time believing that. Not because he suspected the angel to be someone other than she claimed, something other than good, but because he still didn’t know where he fell on that spectrum. Nathaniel didn’t know where any of them did.

Nathaniel shook his head as if to shake away his fear. He had to stop thinking like this. He had to stop thinking period, because none of it was doing him any good. The only thing he needed to do right now was find Caleb. Everything else could sort itself out later.

Caleb Holcomb was not Nathaniel’s brother by blood. He was his brother by something stronger, something deeper, something more sustainable through any trial or test of fire. Caleb Holcomb was his brother by covenant. And that was a thing that neither life nor death could stand against. Maybe to some, such a covenant could be abused, but to Nathaniel and Caleb it was marked on them. It wasn’t just a promise they had made; it was an identity they wore.

Brothers live and die together.
Brothers fight side by side.
Brothers never leave their own behind.
Brothers lay down their lives.

That was the code of the Resitore, the brotherhood that Nathaniel and Caleb had both sworn themselves to. The brotherhood Nathaniel could no longer trust.

With all that had just happened in Woodland Park, Nathaniel wasn’t sure what he could trust anymore. He wasn’t even sure if he could trust himself. But there was one thing he knew: He could trust Caleb.

After their leader, Seth, had threatened him and Ethan had burned him and the newest recruit to the London faction of the Resitore, Justin…well, Nathaniel knew nothing about Justin yet. But that didn’t make him any less suspicious of the lanky, dark-haired boy with the wire-rimmed glasses and the 185 IQ.

Malachi, the ancient of the ancients in the world of the Nephilim, had sent Nathaniel to Woodland Park. He was the one who had instigated this madness and now was the one who was furious over it. The hypocrisy angered Nathaniel. A great many things angered Nathaniel right now. That was why he had to find Caleb, so he wouldn’t do something in his anger that he would later regret. Everything around him could crumble and fall, but Nathaniel knew one thing for sure: Caleb would never fail him. As rash and impetuous as the boy could be sometimes, Nathaniel trusted him with his life. And that was not an easy claim for this Naphil to make.

As Nathaniel made his way toward the flat that his uncle owned (which he and Caleb lived in while they studied at Oxford) he found his brother already making his way toward him with intent.

Caleb had discerned his presence. Nathaniel didn’t doubt that the boy had felt it the moment he returned to London. Caleb had always had an abnormal ability to discern his location that way. It was one of the particular abilities he carried more powerfully than the others did. Most of the Nephilim had an extraordinarily heightened discernment, which would channel in each of them into different things. But none of them could operate like their own personal SONAR quite like Caleb could.

Nathaniel didn’t have time to speak a word. Embracing him on sight, Caleb exclaimed, “Nathaniel!” then he pulled back a little and asked him, “What are you doing here?” The way he said it, it was like he hadn’t expected Nathaniel to show up.

Nathaniel was confused. Caleb looked around them to see if they were noticed, which was a ridiculous action in itself. These two were always noticed. No human could carry the grace and the beauty that the Nephilim did, but the meandering tourists and Londoners around them didn’t understand that. That was why they gaped when the Nephilim came into their presence. That was why Nathaniel and Caleb had to be more careful than this.

Clearly, they were not safe in speaking at this location. Caleb motioned with his head for Nathaniel to follow him and the two of them made their way onto the almost-deserted Oxford campus.

Once they were out of earshot of any passersby, Nathaniel told him, “I was ordered back here by Seth.”

Caleb had a worried look on his face. “This is bad, Nate.”

“What are you talking about?” Nathaniel asked him.

The look on Caleb’s face did nothing to reassure Nathaniel. “Justin convinced Seth that you’ve gone rogue,” he told him.

“What?!” Nathaniel exclaimed.

Caleb winced and told him, “It gets worse.”

Nathaniel tried to brace himself.

“Seth lost it, Nate. I mean, he lost it! He completely snapped when you didn’t come back, and he let Justin convince him that you were defying his orders. I don’t know where he went, but my bet is he went after Malachi.”

Nathaniel stared at Caleb in shock “That’s insane,” he said.

Caleb shook his head, “No joke. Honestly, Nate, I’ve never seen him like this. I’m legitimately worried about what he might do.”

Nathaniel tried to grasp in his mind what all of this meant, and as he reached for an answer or some sort of understand, all he could think of were Aria’s words to him: Do not wait for Seth to lead you in this. His interests are not your own.

What did she mean by that? Did she know this was going to happen? So far she had all but claimed to be the driving force behind every chance encounter he’d had, everything that had happened in Woodland Park, everything that was happening to all of them right now. But could an angel really have that much power? Could anything?

Nathaniel wanted to tell Caleb about seeing Aria, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Something inside of him said not to. She didn’t outright say that he couldn’t tell anyone about their meeting; it was more an understanding that had come over him as he stood in her presence. Somehow he just knew it wasn’t safe to mention it yet. But even given that, something still felt off about all of it. Nathaniel didn’t know what to trust aside from the terrified boy in front of him.

“We have to find Ethan and Justin,” Caleb insisted. “They have to know they were wrong about you. It’s the only way we can get Seth back. If we’re not together on this, we’re all as good as dead.

Nathaniel nodded in agreement, not because he wanted to agree with a thing like that, but because it was the truth. In spite of this, though, he was thankful that Caleb was so preoccupied in his concern about Seth that he didn’t see through what Nathaniel was keeping from him about his encounter with Aria, or even that he was keeping anything from him at all; which was strange for the boy. Normally Caleb could see anything he was withholding, which showed Nathaniel how much stress he was under right now.

“Was it really that bad when you saw him last?” Nathaniel asked him of Seth.

Caleb winced and shook his head, “So much worse,” he said.

Nathaniel frowned.

Turning a corner behind an unfrequented building on the campus at Oxford, he and Caleb were brought to an unexpected halt when they came face to face with Justin, the newest recruit to their faction of the Resitore. The sight of him startled Nathaniel and Caleb both, but neither showed their reaction.

Justin stood waiting for them with his arms folded. “Tell me, Nathaniel,” he said as they approached him, “are you completely out of your mind or do have a purpose to this madness?”

Though he was surprised by Justin’s blatant rudeness, Nathaniel wasn’t intimidated. Quite the opposite, actually. “My purpose does not concern you,” he told him simply.

Justin didn’t like that.

Getting right up in Nathaniel’s face, he glared into him with about as little intimidation as he’d ever shown. Apparently this was what Caleb was talking about when he told him what Justin was really like. Funny that he should wait until now to show his true colors.

“Hey,” Caleb said, stepping in and putting a hand on Justin’s chest in an attempt to keep things from getting physical. “Watch it.”

Nathaniel didn’t break from Justin’s eyes. “Give me a reason,” he dared him. “That’s all I need.”

Caleb gave his brother a look. “Come on, Nate,” he said. “I’d like to hit him too, but that’s not the way this is gonna go down.”

Suddenly, there was another that dropped from the roof of the building, landing firmly on his feet as he crouched to the ground; then he slowly righted himself and looked at them. It was Ethan…the one who had turned Nathaniel in.

Nathaniel was fuming as he stared down him down, and Ethan wasn’t shy in meeting his glare. The four of them stood off in silence, their tension strong and their anger well-evident, but before any could make a move they all knew would end badly, they simultaneously looked up to the figure that approached them.

Enter their fearless leader.

Caleb, Justin and Ethan immediately stepped back when they saw him, but Nathaniel stood unmoving, ready to match Seth at whatever he pulled. He knew he couldn’t show any weakness right now, that he couldn’t let himself be moved…but he also couldn’t have braced himself for what happened next.

Seth didn’t say a word to him. Instead, he hauled off and backhanded him across the face, hard enough that he sent him to his knees.

Nathaniel caught himself, his palms pressed into the cold hard ground; then he looked up at him, shocked.

The others were speechless as well, gaping at this that had never happened before. Seth had never hit any of them.

Grabbing Nathaniel by the collar of his shirt, Seth screamed into his face, “Do you have any idea what you have done?!”

He threw Nathaniel again to the ground, but Nathaniel didn’t fight it, despite that he easily could have. He was too stunned to respond or to even resist gravity at the moment. All he could do was stare at Seth in awe, not believing the intensity of the fear behind his eyes.

Caleb was the first one brave enough to step up. “Seth, what happened?” he asked.

Their leader flashed his eyes toward him fiercely and Caleb was afraid. He stepped back instinctively in a more submissive way than Nathaniel had ever seen of his youngest brother.

Seth ignored Caleb and turned back to Nathaniel, who was still kneeling on the ground. “Do you even dare to explain yourself?” he challenged.

Nathaniel was quiet for a long time, and he could tell that Caleb and the others were holding their breath.

Finally he told him, “No.”

Seth was so enraged he was shaking. “Why did you come back here?”

Nathaniel thought better of telling him that he’d returned only to demand that Seth let him go back to Colorado. “You ordered me back here,” he reminded him.

Seth scoffed at him in disgust. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that? That you’re suddenly acting in obedience?”

Nathaniel was worried now. He eyed Seth curiously and glanced up toward Caleb as if to ask what was wrong with him. “I’m here, Seth,” Nathaniel told him carefully, trying whatever he could to calm him. “And I am at your charge. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Caleb was still holding his breath, and neither he nor Ethan had moved a muscle. Justin had, though not much; just enough to grin in approval as he watched the fight unfold.

Seth took a long time in answering him. His eyes bore into Nathaniel’s intently, and Nathaniel could see it in him that he didn’t know what to do. Seth was masking his uncertainty with anger, when the truth was that he had never been so shaken.

It didn’t add up. Nathaniel knew Seth had every right to be upset with him for defying his orders and breaking the rules he had vowed not to break, but the measure to which he was going off the deep end did not make sense.

“We are not safe in speaking here,” Seth told him. “We reconvene tonight.”

Without another word, he turned and walked away from them, leaving Nathaniel and Caleb looking at each other, both of them disturbed.

Justin and Ethan left after him, but not before giving Nathaniel glares of intense disapproval.

And then Caleb and Nathaniel were alone.

“You okay?” Caleb asked him once the others were gone.

Nathaniel shook his head. “You weren’t kidding,” he said. “He really has lost it.”

“What should we do?” Caleb asked.

Nathaniel dropped his head and furrowed his brow. “I don’t know.”

. . . . .

To say that Seth was upset would be a drastic understatement. What he was moved beyond upset, beyond furious, beyond anything there were human or inhuman words to describe. He could feel his blood burning in his face and his whole body quavered as he moved mechanically forward. But as soon as he was out of eyeshot of the others, he stopped beside a stone archway on the campus, resting his hand on the side of it.

Hanging his head, he envisioned the look on Nathaniel’s face when he’d hit him, feeling the pain of the blow even more deeply than he had. And then another face came to his mind:

Rachel’s.

Seth’s hand trembled as he held his eyes closed, as the image of the memory lingered in his mind.

“I promise you Rachel,” he remembered himself telling her. “I promise you on my life, I will always protect your son.”

With a bitter taste in his mouth, Seth looked up from the stone wall his hand was still pressed into. “I don’t know what to do, Rachel,” he spoke aloud in a voice strained with guilt. “I don’t know what to do…”

. . . . .

Nathaniel had to separate himself from all the chaos around him. Everything was moving too fast, too uncontrollably and with no seeming pattern of predictability. Everything was going insane. And as much as Nathaniel may have been able to cope with these sorts of situations in the past, he wasn’t like he was before. That was why he went to the Carfax Tower that night, to separate himself from all the madness and try and sort through everything that had happened. He had to determine what he was going to do, and he couldn’t do that when he was surrounded by a pack of rabid Nephilim who all had very strong opinions on what course of action he should take; Nephilim who wanted to protect him and wanted to protect the brotherhood, whose intentions were good, but who didn’t know the entire story.

That was a dangerous place to be. Nathaniel understood that, but they didn’t; because they hadn’t seen what he had seen. And at this point, they didn’t trust him enough to take his word for it. Not when what they “knew” and were so sure of was so solidly set in their minds. Unmovable, really…which put them all in danger in one way or another.

In some circumstances, that kind of assurance and stubbornness could be a good thing. In this one, it was deadly.

Looking out over the fog-laced city lights, Nathaniel thought on everything that Aria had told him. He was fondling the key she had given him as her words rang through his mind, the words that explicitly told him he had to go back to the very place he had been ordered away from. To do a thing like that would go against everything Nathaniel was; he was fully aware of that. Thus the inner turmoil he found himself in on the Watchtower.

Yes, he had disobeyed Seth more in the past month than he had since the moment he was first taken under his leader’s wing, but there were limits to it, and this was one of them. If Nathaniel were to defy Seth to the measure of breaking a direct order, there would be no going back. So what could he trust? An angel or his brothers? A dark Nephilim lord or the one he considered his father…who, if Donovan was right, could be keeping from Nathaniel the very truth of who he was?

Donovan had told him they were all keeping the truth from him…Malachi, Samuel, Seth. But then Donovan said a lot of things.

Nathaniel looked down at the small piece of metal he held in his hand. What did this key unlock? Certainly nothing here in London, he thought. Aria wouldn’t have told him to go back to the root of everything if that were the case. But what did she mean by “the root” anyway?

Nathaniel frowned. He hated all of this cryptology. It was useless to him, because there was always a loophole or a possibility of misinterpretation in every way he looked at it. Almost a guarantee for error…an assurance of failure.

Thinking on the word, an unwelcome image flashed into his mind. He was struck by the sight of Kyla as he had abandoned her in the trees, the look in her eyes when he told her he was leaving her…when he knowingly broke his promise to protect her with his life. The moment that he had failed her. And at the same time, Nathaniel had seen the same look in Seth’s eyes.

Either way he went, he was hurting one of them, which left him at an impasse, struggling to make an impossible decision that he knew would result in pain. It wasn’t right.

This couldn’t be right…

Suddenly Nathaniel felt a shift in the fog-laden air. He didn’t move or acknowledge the one that he felt approach him; at least not with any physical gesture. But as Caleb came up from behind him, Nathaniel asked without turning around, “What are you doing here?”

“Thought you might be able to use some company,” Caleb told him.

Nathaniel pocketed Aria’s key and looked away from his brother. Caleb was trying to read him, and because of this, Nathaniel kept his eyes very intentionally set over the city. The last thing he wanted was to be read right now.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Caleb said. “Don’t try and make this decision alone.”

“Why do you think I have a decision to make?” Nathaniel asked him.

Caleb smirked in response. “Don’t give me that,” he said. “I can see that in your eyes even when you look away from me. I know everything about you, Nate.”

Not everything, Nathaniel thought. But then, that wasn’t Caleb’s fault.

“So are you gonna tell me what’s really going on here or are you going to make me guess?”

Nathaniel wrinkled his brow. “What did Seth tell you?”

With a look of disbelief in his own leader’s account, Caleb told him, “He said you fought Donovan…again.”

Nathaniel cringed and Caleb gaped. “So it’s true?” he said.

“Caleb, he was going to kill her!” Nathaniel told him helplessly. “If I hadn’t done what I did, Kyla would be dead right now.”

A look of complete awe fell over the boy’s face. Something about it unnerved Nathaniel. Part of him wanted to know what Caleb was thinking, but the other part didn’t.

“You were really willing to risk death for this girl?” Caleb asked him.

Nathaniel felt sick when he remembered how much more he had been willing to risk than that. But the fact that he had bowed his knee to Donovan and forfeited his oaths to the brotherhood to keep Kyla alive was something he could never tell Caleb. He didn’t know how his brother could cope with that kind of treachery. He didn’t know how he could cope with it, himself.

At the core, Nathaniel knew that Seth’s witnessing this was what caused him to snap and go after Malachi. Suddenly it wasn’t so difficult for him to see how Seth could believe Justin when he suggested that Nathaniel had gone rogue.

Nathaniel was grateful that Seth hadn’t told the others that part of the story, but it wounded him, seeing that betrayal in his leader’s eyes, knowing what that must have done to him. Nathaniel didn’t know how Seth would ever be able to trust him again, and he didn’t blame him for that. If he chose to go back to Woodland Park, to go back to Kyla, he would be forfeiting that trust forever. He would be forfeiting all of them.

“It has to stop, Caleb,” Nathaniel told his brother. “I don’t have any control over the things she makes me do.”

Nathaniel’s mind flashed back to his bedroom at his uncle’s house, to the fire that had come over him when he had Kyla beneath him. There was an animalistic passion that had taken him over, both when he was with her and when he was fighting for her, that danced on a very fine line between righteousness and evil. And Nathaniel had felt it all too powerfully how easily that force could be pushed away from righteousness.

No, Aria had to be wrong. Either that or he’d misinterpreted her instruction.

That has to be it, Nathaniel told himself. You just didn’t understand what she was saying. But nothing inside of him honestly believed that.

He knew the real choice being made here was all his own; Kyla or the brotherhood. There was no middle ground. And Nathaniel couldn’t listen to what his heart wanted him to do, because as far as he knew he didn’t actually have one, which meant that his motivations were rooted in something that was most likely dark and selfish and destructive. He had to shut himself off to what he wanted, to what he felt, and make the responsible decision to keep his vows and protect his brothers. It didn’t matter if it felt like the ultimate betrayal to him; right and wrong were never about feeling. They were about straight-forward fact, detached from any emotion that might possibly twist the truth.

“Are you sure?” Caleb asked him uncertainly. “I mean, are you really sure that what you feel for her is a bad thing?”

Nathaniel answered him mechanically, slipping back into the identity that for years had kept him alive. “Yes,” he answered emotionlessly.

Caleb didn’t look convinced.

“I have to stay here, Caleb. I have to show Seth that I can be trusted. I have to make this right.”

Caleb was about to say something else to him when he got a text on his phone. Closing his mouth (which he’d opened to speak) he looked down at the face of it and then back up at Nathaniel.

It was Samantha Ross.

Chapter Three

The cavern walls dripped with moisture from the recent rain, echoing every step that was taken by the girl who walked the Undergrounds. Her jet black hair was hidden beneath the hood of her cloak, her piercing green eyes illuminated by the light of the torch she held in her hand.

Val Linley was not here for games tonight.

Nestled between the cliff dwellings of Manitou Springs and the cave system that ran all through the mountain, the Undergrounds had been claimed by a witch coven in Manitou; a coven that Val was determined to become the thirteenth member of.

The position had been promised to her for quite some time. She was frustrated by that. Every time she would come close to being inducted and complete the tasks that were assigned to her, there was always something else that she was given to do.

That was the way Donovan worked. He loved to string them along; her more than the rest of them. Absolutely everything was a game to him.

The first few times he had pulled that on Val, she had chosen to submit and not put up a fight; but after she had recently delivered Kyla James to him on a silver plate, Val had finally had enough. She had executed her orders to perfection. She had done everything she was asked to do, and still Donovan had denied her what she was owed.

It wasn’t enough that he was holding her position in the coven for her. Val wanted it now. She was not about to let someone else come in and take what was rightfully hers; not when she had given so much for it. She would spill blood before letting that happen.

Unfortunately, what Val wanted and what she actually got were two very different things. If the witches were the ones in charge of this operation, there never would have been a hitch from the start. But the witches weren’t the ones in charge; the Nephilim were. Sick, depraved creatures who were only half-human. Selfish, vindictive beings whose blood ran red but who were hardly men. Their power was to be feared and their anger, even more. No man could hold the lust or the jealousy of these. The destruction they could bear wasn’t something to be grasped, for they were birthed for vindication, the cataclysm of all things. Angry retribution. Children of wrath. There was nothing dark enough to describe what the Nephilim were.

And they were so frighteningly beautiful that the mortals couldn’t help but be drawn to them.

Most of them were, anyway. There were a few Nephilim half-breeds (like Donovan’s slimy informant, Cerin) that gave “deformed and unfortunate” a whole new meaning. But the pure Nephilim, the children of angels and the daughters of men, these were more stunning than any human could grasp. That was why it was so easy for them to manipulate and control…because humans were enslaved to physical beauty.

Val knew how to use that to her advantage.

Her blood may have proved her humanity, but she refused to let herself be defined by such a weak and limited race. What she operated out of, what she could do, it didn’t do justice to call her human. She may not have been half-angel, but she knew how to wield power that few mortals ever could. She just hadn’t been permitted to step into it yet.

Tensing her lips as she walked into the chamber, Val was careful to keep her eyes fixed on the ground. She was not permitted to make eye contact with the others; not until she was officially inducted. Just one of the many things she resented Donovan for.

Val was almost certain that he reveled in her humility. He took every chance he got to put her in her place. Everyone knew she should have been the first witch to be inducted into the Manitou Coven, and yet no one spoke up to let Donovan know it. They were all too afraid of him.

Pathetic, sniveling cowards, Val thought. She kept her eyes on the floor.

The rocks hung heavy on the walls tonight. There was a weight there, despite Donovan’s absence, an uncertainty that made everyone who had gathered feel out of control.

Witches did not like to be out of control; Val less than any of them.

She stood along the wall with her hands folded in front of her as the twelve took their place at the circle at the center of the chamber. Jealousy burned in Val as she watched them step forward, these witches and warlocks who appeared on the outside as normal everyday people. They were not the sort that anyone would suspect of something so dark. They were normal. They were average. Not a single of the twelve stood out in any way.

Val was more powerful in the art of dark magic than all of them combined. It was in her blood; her life force…her existence. She had sold her very soul to this darkness, and as a result, she had access to what the others did not. That was why it didn’t make sense that Donovan would hold her at bay instead of utilizing her power. There wasn’t another witch or warlock here that could touch what she had.

Trying to hold back the disgust on her face so that no one could see it, Val scanned the room discreetly to see who was there. The twelve, she expected. They were not permitted to miss a meeting, even one that was called in the absence of their worshipful leader.

Val couldn’t hide her disgust any longer when her eyes fell to Balak, the towering, ebony-skinned Naphil who stood like a gargoyle at the entrance of the room. He walked slowly back and forth across the width of the chamber, his hands behind his back and his chin lifted up in picturesque arrogance.

The display was almost sad. Balak took far too much pleasure in giving orders when Donovan was gone, especially for one whose words carried so little weight. Val didn’t know why Donovan wasn’t back yet from whatever it was that he had to leave to accomplish, but his absence frustrated her all through this miserable excuse for a meeting. Listening to Balak, Donovan’s second-in-command speak to them as if he had all of his leader’s authority was irritating at the very least. Val had a difficult time standing still and keeping herself from showing what she really felt as she watched him. Balak didn’t have Donovan’s authority; he didn’t have any authority. And the fact that he was standing here acting like he did made Val want to gag out loud.

She resisted the urge, knowing it wouldn’t be worth the trouble it would cause her. Balak didn’t do well to any disrespecting him. None of the Nephilim did.

Dropping her eyes back to the stony cavern ground, Val forced her mind away from the dozen or so things she would love to say to Balak right now to knock him off of his pedestal. She also forced herself to let go of her resentment toward Donovan for leaving them here with this fool.

Donovan had called it “business,” whatever he was doing in London. To him, that could have meant anything. From what she had heard, he was dealing with some witches out there that they needed for God-only-knew what reason. Val didn’t have any idea. It made her nervous that Donovan was seeking aide from another coven instead of using the one he had the most direct charge over. Not that Val could blame him for that. Looking around the chamber at the ones who stood here, it was all she could do not to cringe in embarrassment. These twelve didn’t know how to practice dark magic any better than a junior high girl at a sleepover with a Ouija board.

Val had never been so eager to get out of the ritual chamber. Balak’s meeting had been insufferable, but it was more than that that drove her away from here. The last thing she wanted to do was face him right now. She didn’t want to talk to him.

Unfortunately, Balak did.

Val wasted no time in slipping out the entrance, but it didn’t do her any good. She had only gone ten steps when a towering Naphil who was infinitely stronger than she was grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into a hideaway room in the cave system that served as a storage space for the coven. Val gasped, but she didn’t scream. She had trained herself not to in moments of surprise. Besides, Balak’s grabbing her like this and forcing himself on her was not that surprising.

He wasn’t as careful as he normally would have been. He knew Donovan was gone, and the fear Val worked so well to control in herself nearly spiked out of control when Balak slammed her against the rocks behind her. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, but sometimes he didn’t have to try. Balak, much like the other Nephilim, often underestimated the extent of his own strength, especially in instances where his adrenaline was suddenly heightened.

Holding her down, Balak kissed her neck. “I was about driven insane in that meeting,” he breathed to her. His grip on her tightened with every word he spoke. “I wanted nothing more than to ravage you the entire time.”

Val trembled nervously and forced the tensest smile she had ever worn. Her heart skipped in abnormal fear when she felt the strength of Balak’s grip.

“I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he told her. “If Donovan hadn’t called you to that meeting, I never would have stopped…”

That was what it took for Val to shove him off. “Stop!” she hissed at him. “We have to stop this…”

Remembering back to what she had seen in Donovan’s eyes last night when he had spoken to her here in these caverns, Val was afraid of more than the forceful grip of the Naphil that was pinning her to the wall.

Balak did not look happy when she resisted him.

“If we keep this up,” she explained to him, “it’s only a matter of time before Donovan finds out.”

“He won’t find out,” Balak assured her. He grabbed her again and moved back to her neck, and Val put out her arm to block him.

“You can’t be naïve enough to believe that,” she said. “You know as well as I do that Donovan’s discernment supersedes all of ours.”

Saying it out loud like that, Val realized just how foolish she had been in taking this risk. At first it had been about gaining what she wanted from Balak, toying with that power and reveling in every minute of it. But that was before she and Donovan had gotten involved. Now she feared what he might do if he were to find out. Donovan took just about anything as betrayal, and Val knew how he dealt with traitors.

“We have gotten too close,” she told Balak. “It’s time we stop playing with fire.”

Balak didn’t agree with her. That was obvious by the way he grunted under his breath and pushed her back up against the cold stone wall. Val could feel his anger at the suggestion through his grip that held her. She didn’t want to be here anymore. More than anything, she just wanted to break free from his iron hands and get as far away from these caves as she could. She might only have known in part, but she knew what the Nephilim were capable of when they became angry, and she didn’t want to be close to that. They didn’t exactly have the best self-control when these situations presented themselves.

“Balak, please…” she said in a small voice.

Ironic that that would be the one thing that caused his grip to soften.

Balak didn’t say anything else to her as he turned away and left her there, and as Val walked away from him, she shook off her fear and told herself it was unfounded. Balak wasn’t going to do anything to her. He needed her too much. If he were to kill her, he couldn’t coerce her into sex again, and as dumb as he may have been, she knew he would realize that.

In other words, she owned him.

No, Val didn’t need to concern herself with fear over this primordial Naphil doing something rash. She had more important things to worry about, like staying unreadable to Donovan when he returned and following through with the last assignment he gave her: Causing an unbridgeable rift between Kyla James and the boy she had never deserved.

. . . . .


Falling face-down on her bed once she shut the door behind her, Kyla covered the back of her head with her pillow so it smashed her into her covers. She wanted to scream, but she knew this flimsy pillow wouldn’t muffle the sound, and as good as it might feel, it wouldn’t be worth having to explain to Caden why she was losing her mind. He already had enough questions about that.

It was so stupid. Kyla knew better than to let him get that close to her again, especially now when she was emotionally and physically screwed up on every imaginable level. She hadn’t meant to do it; Caden just had a way of getting to her like that. And as far as she was concerned, right now that really sucked.

Kyla didn’t know why it was still so hard for her to trust him, especially considering how he had so continuously proven his loyalty to her since he had returned from Nashville. But after the gaping hole Nathaniel had just gouged out of her heart by leaving her when he told her he would keep her safe, Kyla didn’t think she could take another hit like that; especially not from Caden. In so many ways, he was all she had left. So naturally, she pushed him away.

It was backwards and stupid, the logic that compelled her actions, but she could no more control it than she could control anything else. That was what frustrated her now as she sat in her room with her head pressed against the cold hard surface of her desk. She couldn’t control any of this. Nothing. And there was no feeling that left Kyla more panicked than that. As soon as control was stripped away from her, that was when bad things happened. That was when she was abandoned. That was when people died. That was when she lost whatever trace remains still existed of her heart.

Kyla isolated herself like that for days. She still went into work, but kept an intentional distance between herself and whoever she happened to be working with on any given shift, be it Val or their new manager, Morgan, or Cody Fletcher (who had just gotten a job there with her help.) Kyla was starting to regret that now. Being in close proximity or proximity of any sort with someone so connected to Caden did not make her feel any safer. But luckily they were still training Cody, so they had plenty to keep them busy without any lulls that would encourage conversation. Still, by the second training shift Cody worked, it managed to come up. Kyla’s direct avoidance of Caden’s phone calls probably didn’t help with that.

She did a pretty bad job of dodging Cody’s questions about it. Actually, she didn’t really dodge them at all; she just sort of walked away and didn’t answer him. It wasn’t like Caden didn’t deserve the silent treatment from her. After all, how long had he gone in Nashville avoiding her phone calls?

Kyla felt guilty, linking this to some sort of payback. That wasn’t what it was about at all. She had already forgiven him for that…or at least she told herself she had.

Making a face at the unpleasant thought, Kyla resumed scrubbing out the blenders in the hot soapy water at the back of the coffee shop. Doing things like this methodical, mindless scrubbing and going through the motions of any pointless, typical day helped her to cope with the sting in her chest. That was why she had picked up so many shifts since Nathaniel left. The worst times were when she was alone, which was a little ironic for her considering that that had always been what she naturally retreated to. It was also ironic that she was pushing away the people who wanted to be there for her now; Caden, Matthew, even Cody. As much as she wanted to let them close to her, she couldn’t. They weren’t safe because they couldn’t know the truth.

Actually, Kyla would prefer to stay here in the coffee shop with the girl she despised above all things than to be with anyone she loved right now. There was some kind of safeguard there with Val that she didn’t understand, something that enabled her to switch into robot-mode and go numb to it all. Even in that place, though, Kyla couldn’t escape her memory. Every moment, the image of Nathaniel’s face plagued, and every time she saw it, that sickening worry rose up in her again.

She just wanted to know that he was okay. She didn’t want to deal with anyone until she knew that. In hopes of avoiding that stabbing fear she felt at the thought of him, Kyla told herself over and over that she shouldn’t care, that Nathaniel leaving was a blessing and the safest thing for her.

He isn’t human, she reminded herself over and over. That’s the only thing that should matter. But it didn’t.

Kyla knew he was dangerous. She knew what he had told her and that he had almost gotten her killed. But no matter what Nathaniel called himself, she still only saw him as an angel.

. . . . .

Caden was agitated. He knew he had to do something, but he didn’t know what his first step should be. He had to find out what Nathaniel Blake was hiding. He had to find out what really happened on that mountain. But he also had no idea how to accomplish either of these things.

Interrogating Alexa had only gotten him so far, and even if she had backed up Kyla’s claim that Nathaniel wasn’t the one who had beaten her and left her bleeding on the trail in the woods, Caden knew from the deepest place inside of him that Nathaniel was still to blame. That one, even Kyla couldn’t deny.

Driving down Highway 24 and into the city limits of Woodland Park, Caden paid next to no attention to the way he was driving. His mind was moving faster than the wheels on his Jeep, and it wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Through every scenario he had thought through and every idea he came up with, Caden had concluded that the only play he had at this point was to talk to the one other person who wanted to get to the bottom of this as much as he did. He had to talk to Matthew James…but he needed an excuse to do it.

That was why he was speeding down the highway, trying to come up with a reason to show up at the James’ condo. He could always use the excuse that he was stopping by to see Kyla, but Matthew was smart, and chances were he would see right through that.

So what if he does? Caden thought to himself. Even if he straight-up told Matthew what he was up to, the kid would probably be more than eager to help him.

Caden knew Matthew was frustrated by this situation with Nathaniel. He was counting on that. That was why he decided to drop by the condo “to see Kyla” that night, hoping she wouldn’t actually be there so he could question her little brother without her breathing over his shoulder.

Judging by Matthew’s frustration the last time Caden saw him, Caden didn’t think it would even take effort on his part to get something out of him. Chances were, if he gave him the opportunity, Matthew would probably spill everything he knew. Caden was counting on that too. What he wasn’t counting on when he went down there was Loni answering the door.

Caden couldn’t remember the last time he had actually stood face to face with the woman. It certainly hadn’t gotten any less disturbing over time. Loni eyed him skeptically where he stood on the porch, and he thought he might have been more comfortable treading water in a shark tank.

“Is…Kyla home?” Caden asked nervously.

Loni narrowed her eyes even further. Surprisingly, she looked more sober than she normally did. Not that it improved her personality much…

Loni mumbled something to him that sounded like a “no” and without explaining any further or telling him where Kyla was, she walked back over to the basement door and trudged down the stairs, leaving Caden standing there confused.

“Okay?” he said out loud to himself as he stepped cautiously through the door.

Caden looked around to see if Matthew was there, but he didn’t see him anywhere. Then he heard the shower upstairs. It struck him as fortune when he took the variables of this situation into account. He could wait for Matthew to get out of the shower, and in the meantime he could do some investigating in Kyla’s bedroom that even her little brother was unlikely to permit. Caden didn’t give himself time to question the morality of this decision. He just slipped up the stairs and into her room as quietly as he could and started looking around for something, anything that might give him a clue about Nathaniel Blake.

Unfortunately, he found nothing.

Kyla’s room was immaculate, for one, which forced him to rummage through drawers and look through her closet, but even then he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Shutting the top drawer of her desk in frustration, Caden looked around him, desperate to find something so he wasn’t doing this in vain. His guilt was starting to catch up to him, but he kept telling himself, She forced you into this position, to try and make himself feel better about it.

Kyla was the one who wouldn’t tell him the truth, and in order to protect her, he had to know what was going on. That was why he was doing this. Even rationalizing it to himself that way, Caden still felt dirty; enough that he stopped looking altogether. That, and he wasn’t finding anything.

Seeing a notepad and a pen on Kyla’s desk, he started scribbling out a note for her to let her know that he had dropped by. Somehow he felt a little better about the whole thing if he had that excuse. Caden shook his head as he wrote on the notepad. That was a lie and he knew it. Writing her a stupid note wasn’t going to make him feel any better about the fact that he had completely violated her trust. Or about the fact that there was no trust between them at all anymore.

. . . . .

As the warm water from the shower ran over Kyla’s scarred and scathed body, she wondered if this feeling would ever go away. She tried to fight it, the images that appeared in her mind when she closed her eyes, but she couldn’t really fight what she didn’t want to lose. Those memories were all of Nathaniel Blake she had left, and even if they cut her, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting them go.

Kyla wrapped a towel around herself when she stepped out of the shower. She tried not to let her eyes pass over her reflection, but they caught the edge of the mirror anyway and made her want to wretch. The water had washed away the makeup she’d been using to cover up her scars, and when it wasn’t in place she looked particularly atrocious. Putting it into perspective, Kyla knew she shouldn’t be worrying with anything so vain when the alternative would have meant her death, but she still found herself wondering if they would ever fully heal.

Glancing down both ends of the hallway when she peeked around the corner, she saw that the coast was clear and ran for her bedroom. Slipping inside and attempting to shut the door closed behind her, Kyla screamed and missed when she saw the boy standing over her desk.

Caden jerked his head up, his face flushing a guilty shade of red when she backed up self-consciously and held her towel securely in place.

“I’m sorry,” he rambled quickly. “I didn’t know where you were so I was just leaving you a…” He stopped mid-sentence when his eyes fell on her shoulders.

Kyla could feel his gaze as it burned into her skin, and when she realized what he could see, she felt her face go white.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped at him.

“I…” Caden tried to explain, but as he stared at the scars over her chest, he seemed to have lost the rest of his words.

“Get out!” Kyla demanded. She tried to cover herself up even though she knew the effort was wasted.

Caden didn’t argue. In fact, she’d never seen him so eager to get out of her room.

Sitting down at her desk shakily once he left, she rested her forehead in her hand, telling herself she could find a way to explain this to him. Then she thought of the night of the attack when he found her on the mountain, of how adamant he had been to find out the truth and how reluctantly he had agreed to let it go.

Looking down to see what Caden had left on her desk, Kyla found a note scribbled in his chicken scratch that read:

Just stopped by to see how you were. If you need me, you know where I am. -Cade

Kyla frowned and looked out the window, watching him leave quickly. She did not know how to make this okay.

. . . . .

Caden was trembling as he drove, so shaken he could hardly keep his eyes focused enough to drive in the lines on Highway 24. His emotion was rising to the point of near-incapacitation. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to cry. So he did both.

Punching his steering wheel hard enough to make his knuckle crack open and bleed, he jerked the now-bloodied steering wheel to the right and pulled his Jeep over on the side of the road. Helplessly, he slumped over as his breath began to fail him. He could feel water filling his eyes, even if he was determined not to blink so he wouldn’t let it fall; but after the picture of Kyla’s body flashed through his mind again, he couldn’t stop it.

Tears streamed down his face as he slammed his eyes closed, wanting the image to disappear…wanting this all to go away or at least to understand.

What was happening to her?

. . . . .

Kyla didn’t have to work very hard to avoid Caden the next day. He didn’t even try to call her. At one point she actually thought she would have preferred that he would make the attempt, even if she only would have blown him off again, just so she could know that his mind was in the same place. Right now, she didn’t know where his mind was, and the thought of that scared her senseless. Especially after what he had seen.

When Kyla came downstairs that afternoon, she found Matthew playing a videogame. She hesitated for a second when she saw him and thought about going back upstairs, not wanting to face him again yet since that had been so awkward and uncomfortable every time she had since the night on the mountain; but Matthew did something he almost never did and paused the game to initiate conversation with her.

“Why won’t you talk to Caden?” he asked her point blank.

That caught Kyla off guard. She was working up what would probably end up being a really trite answer to give him when the phone rang.

It was Melissa Howell.

“Hey sweetie!” she greeted Kyla in her motherly southern drawl.

“Hey,” Kyla said back nervously. She wasn’t nervous to talk to Melissa, just nervous about what she might want.

As it turned out, she wanted Kyla to come up and babysit that night since she and Randy had a press dinner of some sort to attend in Denver and the neighbor who was going to sit for her had bailed at the last second when her own kid got sick.

Kyla hesitated, but then Melissa said, “I would have had Caden do it, but he’s at band practice with the boys.”

That changed things for her. “What time do you want me up there?” Kyla asked.

Melissa was more than grateful to have her help. When Kyla hung up the phone, she looked toward the living room and asked Matthew, “Wanna come with?”

Matthew looked toward the basement where Loni had holed herself up again. He shut off the videogame he was playing and stood eagerly to his feet.

Kyla wasn’t looking forward to the car ride up to the Howell’s with Matthew, but no matter how awkward things were between them, she still loved her little brother and had no desire to leave him there alone with Loni…at least not at any point that she didn’t absolutely have to.

The second they got into the car, Kyla decided to deal with the awkward tension that was sure to be there between her and Matthew by cranking Sleeping Giant and rolling down the windows. Matthew didn’t complain. He was becoming more and more partial to Sleeping Giant, even the heavier stuff they had that he couldn’t stand at first. That was just the way that band grew on you, though, and the reason Kyla loved them so much. Sure, there was a lot about them that tied her to her past, but she had an uncanny ability to block out things like lyrics and pretend the songs weren’t about what they actually were. Caden wouldn’t like it if he knew that she did this when she was listening to them, but then Caden didn’t like or approve of a lot of things she did. If Caden had his way, she would open up to everything again, at the cost of her getting her heart ripped out like it was before. If he had his way, she would tell him the truth about Nathaniel Blake…

Kyla shuddered at the thought. No, she told herself. That is never going to happen.

As soon as they got to the Howell’s, Melissa shoved Sadie in Kyla’s arms, kissed her cheek and thanked her profusely as she and Randy bolted out the front door. She didn’t even both with instructions since Kyla had babysat the kids so many times before, and since Melissa trusted her so fully.

Walking into the living room, Kyla saw that the twins, Jackson and Jaime, were busy fighting over who got to play with whatever toy Jackson had pulled from their toy chest, and when Kyla went over to settle the dispute, that was when she saw the little blonde girl she had been slightly afraid of seeing lately sitting at the kitchen counter watching her.

The look on Alexa’s face left Kyla unsettled; not unlike it usually did, but even more so than normal. The sideways glance the girl shot Matthew right after that was even further unsettling. Kyla tried to ignore it, but it wasn’t easy. Addressing it wasn’t an option since she the last thing she wanted to do was bring to light anything that had been happening lately that might make Alexa look at her like that. But the more Alexa studied her that night no matter what she was doing, the more tempted Kyla was to call her out on it.

She acted strange like that the entire night, and what was worse, Matthew was acting just about the same way. That was what really made Kyla uncomfortable. She was used to this from Alexa; not her little brother. She didn’t know what was going on with either of them.

After Kyla fixed macaroni and cheese for the kids (the Spiderman-shaped kind that made Jackson and Jamie go ballistic) she put Sadie to bed and put a movie on for the boys. And it was as she was setting up Finding Nemo that Caden came home.

It startled her to see him walk through the door, but it startled him even more to see her there in his living room. Clearly, he had been expecting their neighbor to babysit; not Kyla. That was obvious by the unreal amount of tension between the two of them from the moment he walked in. It was weighted there in the air, thick and constricting. She hated it.

Caden was polite, but he didn’t go out of his way to talk to her, and he didn’t waste any time in the house. He just grabbed a chilled bottle of A&W root beer from the fridge and took it to his room.

Kyla knew she needed to run damage control. As terrified as she was of confronting Caden right now, she was even more terrified of leaving it alone.

“Matt, can you and Lex watch the twins for me and keep an eye on Sadie for a bit?” she asked as she watched Caden walk across the backyard.

Matthew gave Alexa a glance as if asking her whether or not he should agree to it. That bothered Kyla.

Alexa didn’t make an affirmative outward gesture like a nod or anything, but something in her face must have told Matthew “yes,” because he agreed to it when he looked away from her.

“Sure,” he told Kyla. “Do whatever you need to do.”

She looked away from the window long enough to give her brother a questioning look, but she didn’t waste time with that. She just took a deep breath and made her way outside to Caden’s room.

He was sitting on his bed picking at his guitar when she walked in, and she stood there, waiting for him to say something to her.

He didn’t.

“You gonna talk to me?” Kyla finally asked him. She knew she should have started with something less abrasive, like “hey” or “how was band practice?” but his ignoring her and messing with his guitar was already doing a number on her more irritating defense mechanisms.

“I’m not the one shutting you out,” Caden said, still not setting his guitar down.

“Funny,” Kyla mumbled. “It sure feels like it.”

He didn’t respond, just kept playing, and it wasn’t a song she recognized.

“What song is that?” she asked him.

That was what finally made him stop strumming and set his guitar back on its stand in the corner of the room. He didn’t answer her.

“It’s good…” she told him.

Caden smirked and shook his head as if she had told some kind of joke.

“Caden, I’m sorry,” Kyla said. It was hard for her to force the words when she only wanted to be defensive, and he didn’t give her much grace, considering.

“I’m not looking for an apology, Kyla. I’m looking for an explanation.”

She frowned.

“Seriously, what’s with the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine?” he asked.

Her frown turned to a cringe and she told him, “I could try to explain, but I can’t make any promises.”

Caden didn’t like that. “Since when has the truth been so hard for you?” he asked her.

Kyla mumbled, “Since it got really complicated.”

He was quiet for a moment as he stared at her, read her. Then finally he said, “You can’t tell me this isn’t about him.”

Kyla tensed up at the mention of Nathaniel and she knew that the expression on her face gave her away, but she couldn’t hide it.

Caden grunted under his breath in frustration. “I know I told you I would back off,” he said, “but things have changed a little since that point.”

Kyla twitched uncomfortably, her eyes darting back and forth across Caden’s room so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

“I would really like it if you could tell me what happened,” Caden said.

She was surprised at how calm he sounded and she knew he had to be working hard at it. “What changed?” she asked him.

That about drove him insane. Caden looked up from where he was pressing his fingers into his head with disgust on his face. “You want to know what changed?” he asked her.

Kyla wasn’t so sure she did anymore.

Caden stood up and walked over to her with a stone cold expression on his face. Then, grabbing the zipper at her neck of the jacket she was wearing, he jerked it down, pulling it off of her shoulders. “That’s what changed!” he exclaimed.

Kyla’s eyes grew wide as she stared forward in fear, but she didn’t pull away from him. She knew he had seen her scars and she knew that covering them up now wouldn’t do her any good, so she didn’t move a muscle.

Caden was fuming. He ran his fingers through his hair and paced back and forth like he always did when he was really, really mad, but Kyla couldn’t tell if he looked more like he was going to yell at her or cry.

“You’re seriously going to stand there and tell me he didn’t do that to you?” Caden asked her in a voice so strangled and choked it hardly came out.

“He didn’t,” Kyla said.

Caden pressed his lips together and shook his head. He slowly forced himself to look down at her body, and as he did he brought a shaking hand up to her. Tracing the scars at her shoulders with his fingertips, a tortured expression came onto his face. “Then Kyla,” he said, “who did?”

She flinched away from him at the thought of Donovan, at the memory of his hands all over her and his venomous breath in her face…of the pain she had felt that night as he crushed what must have been every bone in her body.

“I told you…” she tried to say.

Caden cut her off. “Yeah, and I know that was a lie. No random hitchhiker did this to you or you would have let me go to the police.” Kyla fell quiet again and Caden begged her helplessly, “Who are you trying to protect?”

“I’m not trying to protect anyone,” she insisted. “I just don’t think you would believe me.”

“You might be surprised what I would believe,” he said.

Kyla made a face and turned away from him. Seeing that he was causing her pain, (and seeming to realize for the first time since he’d jerked her zipper down that she wasn’t wearing another shirt underneath this over the black sports bra she had on) he pulled her jacket back up over her shoulders and carefully zipped it up again.

“I’m sorry,” Caden said when he realized how exposed he had left her skin. Obviously he hadn’t counted on her not wearing layers tonight. The fact that it was well over ninety degrees today should have given him an idea of that, but he was a guy and guys didn’t think about that sort of thing.

Kyla still didn’t move and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. Seeing how angry it made Caden to see her like this, she couldn’t help but imagine what he would do if he had seen her before Nathaniel had healed her.

“Kyla, you can talk to me…”

She felt sick at the thought of pulling Caden into this twisted nightmare with her, just as she had told Nathaniel when he suggested that they do so. Without even wanting it to come, Kyla remembered what Donovan played through her head that night on the mountain, the images of Caden’s slow, torturous murder; and that was all it took for her to make up her mind. She knew she couldn’t risk that. Kyla could bear almost anything more than the thought of something happening to him.

“I need to get back in and watch the kids,” she told him.

“They’re fine,” Caden argued. “Matt and Lex are in there with them.”

Kyla dropped her head. “Caden, I just can’t…”

He pressed his lips together and nodded robotically, looking like he wanted to put a hole in his wall. But he let her leave.