Stolen (20 page)

Yeah, but he also held you while you cried.

And still, she didn’t know…

“Before we actually go to this place our Nephilim friend suggests, can we take a moment and consider why we have a Nephilim with us?” That was Drew. He pointed at
Edan
next. “And this guy. Why are either of them here?”

“I’m here to help,”
Edan
said.

“For Julia,” Cayne murmured.

“Aren’t we lucky?” Drew sneered, barely visible but definitely there, and Julia felt something in her head pop.

“Can we all stop arguing? Please? If Cayne thinks he knows a good place, he would know. He’s from here, and he hasn’t hurt anybody.”

“Yet,” Carlin said calmly. “But—and no offense, Cayne—how do we know that he won’t?”

“I think I would know,” Meredith offered. “I can’t read auras, but I can sense things, and I’m not getting anything weird from him. Plus he rescued us. From the Commons?”

Cayne looked away, like being talked about was embarrassing him, and despite her lingering Cayne ambivalence, Julia wanted to kiss Meredith for taking up for him.

There were nods all around, and
Edan
set off to “get” a rental car through means he assured them would leave no trace. (“I can do that,” Cayne had said, but
Edan
shook his head. “I don’t leave any prints.”)

As soon as he walked off, Carlin started asking if they should really trust
him
, and Meredith accused her of being suspicious only because she really felt “weird-super friendly” toward him (“I can tell,” she said smugly). Cayne excused himself to get a drink, returning about the same time
Edan
did.
Edan
dangled Mercedes keys, and Cayne passed Julia a soda she’d never heard of.

“You’ll like it,” he told her.

She straightened her weak knees and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Chapter 18

Drew stepped into the guys’ room outside the airport, by the curbside car rental area. Carlin took the keys before he could get back.

“Drew…not so good.” She shook her head. “I’ve been on enough holidays to this island.”
 

Her hazel eyes lingered a second too long on Julia’s, and Julia couldn’t decide if the girl she’d mistakenly thought shy was angry at her for bringing a Nephilim into their sphere, or if maybe she was apologizing for being suspicious of Cayne.

Before they’d walked outside the airport, Meredith had complained about her tangled hair. Though it wasn’t tangled—it was too straight to get really messy—Drew had offered to braid it for her, so the two of them called the middle seats in the tall, skinny van, whose interior was more tour bus than family vehicle.

Edan
was in front, with Carlin, and Julia quickly realized she and Cayne were left with the back seats, two armchairs that swiveled and seemed permanently inclined to face the rear of the vehicle. She made eyes at Meredith, desperate to avoid a tight squeeze, but her friend seemed not to see her.

Intentional?

Regardless, she felt an involuntary flutter of butterflies.

“Come on. I’ll help you back.” And Cayne’s fingers were on her arm, and it was too much, making her
hot
,
everywhere
. Julia was painfully aware of how much she wanted Cayne—the old Cayne.

She let him help her with the strange buckle—his hands in her lap made her head pound like a drum—and when he sank into his own chair without a word, she tried her hardest not to be disappointed. This was what she wanted, right? She needed space to figure things out—right?
 

She rested her head against the seat as Carlin grilled
Edan
on how he’d gotten the van. He claimed it was his good looks, and Julia thought bitterly how it was fine for Carlin to flirt with a seriously mysterious guy that anyone could tell was bad news, while
she
had felt judged for her history with Cayne—a guy she’d met before she’d known anything about Nephilim and Chosen.

Carlin’s driving wasn’t much better than Drew’s had been, so as they scooted down what looked like an American interstate surrounded by beautiful, modern, glass buildings, Julia’s stomach churned. Her senses were bamboozled by Cayne’s nearness. She barely curbed the impulse to reach out and touch him… Everything about him appealed—almost as if she’d been
bespelled
. Her straying gaze found the fibers of his blue jeans, and even his denim burned its stamp inside her mind.

She shut her eyes and clenched her jaw.

This guy beside her had killed Chosen. Chosen just like her. He’d killed alongside
Samyaza
. And he had lied. He’d made her think he was a friend, and, yeah, okay, he’d said ‘I’m bad,’ but he hadn’t even tried to indicate how bad he was—or had been. She’d thought he meant
Edward
bad. But he wasn’t a
Twilight
vampire. He hadn’t been running on blood lust. He’d simply killed. With Samyaza. Killed Chosen. With Samyaza.

She ran it through her head, over and over. Because it was easier than thinking about her biggest problem: how awfully small and sad and alone she felt, here in a van with her ex and her fellow Chosen. No better than being in group home, and she blamed herself for it. For ever trusting him. For not being able to wholly trust Meredith, when
Mer
deserved it.
 

The sky darkened as they drove, and Julia watched compact cars and tall, skinny vans like theirs skitter past, moving in the “wrong” lanes, making her flinch. The earth around the asphalt was rocky, vibrant green—so
Scottish
. Or at least what she’d always considered Scottish. After a few miles,
Edan
rolled his window down and propped his feet on the dash. A crisp breeze tossed up Julia’s hair.
 

“So this is the Scotland,” she mumbled to herself.

Cayne, who’d looked asleep, lifted an eyelid and nodded.

“It’s pretty,” she said.

“You should see the Highlands.”

His eyes searched hers, and she could tell he was asking permission to talk to her. She couldn’t answer him, so she leaned her cheek against her headrest and turned her attention to Meredith and Drew. Apparently
Mer
had found some nail polish in the van’s console. She was calling it Puke-a-
licious
Pink and refusing to let it anywhere near her “fine fingertips,” but Drew was insisting they could all use the fumes as a distraction. Carlin was on him about the dangers of drugs, and
Edan
was probably smirking his sultry
Edan
smirk.

Julia inhaled deeply, projecting herself into the seat beside Meredith. Anywhere away from the heat of Cayne’s body. Every little shifting of his legs sent a shockwave through her, and she was still wrestling with the question of how she should feel about him. It was getting exhausting. As if a genie was granting her a wish, someone cut the interior lights, and she heard
Mer
say something about being tired. Her friend’s hand touched Julia’s shoulder, and her mouth brushed Julia’s ear.

“You okay? Want to come up here with us?”

Even if Nephilim hadn’t had exceptional hearing, Julia would have been embarrassed—simply that Meredith could sense her discomfort.

She shook her head. “Thanks, though.”

“No
prob
, Bob.”

*

Carlin stopped at the Scottish version of a mini mart—it seemed to have a tiny mom and pop restaurant attached—and returned to the car with a detailed map, a gnome-sized flashlight, and a bag of treats, including homemade shortbread, some kind of candy bar (
Aero
, the wrapper said), and a bunch of soft peppermint sticks.

When the bag was passed to Julia, she passed it back without taking anything. (She was still just holding her cola—too off-balance to want to drink it). A second later, Meredith’s arm dangled the bag toward Cayne. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him take a small piece of shortbread, the sight of those big, capable hands making her stomach clench.

So he ate now?

Except, as they set off again, winding around the residential-looking loops Carlin called “round-
abouts
” in a misty rain, Julia watched Cayne bring the shortbread to his nose. He inhaled deeply, shut his eyes, and sank deeper down into his chair.

Julia got a strange flip-floppy feeling in her stomach, and had another almost overpowering desire to reach for Cayne’s hand. She didn’t let herself. She stared at his fingers—he still had blood under the nails—and imagined them breaking someone’s neck.

She glanced up, caught him staring at her. He lifted one side of his mouth in a wrenching non-smile and nodded, like he didn’t blame her at all for giving him the silent treatment.

And he shouldn’t, she told herself firmly.

Julia wondered if when they left for Zurich, she should leave him behind. If she asked him to stay, she thought he would.

*

In the dream, she was climbing—bare feet and sweaty hands clinging to a net of silken gold. Somewhere far below, beyond a vast and misting fog, she heard a warbling voice, the echo of an old boom, dimmed by age. She couldn’t hear the words with her ears; they came into her mind, some kind of mental shortcut that made her head ache terribly.

Keep climbing
, he ordered. She could see his long, white beard. It vibrated with his words, which also caused the water to brim with waves.

My feet hurt. And I have a headache
.

Yes, but someone’s waiting for you.

Julia looked down, between the rungs of the net, past the fluffy clouds that leaked gray rain over the spinning globe.

I can’t see anyone.

Oh, he’s there.

Somehow, she just knew he was talking about Cayne. She saw the charcoal wings before she saw his familiar form—wide shoulders, curling hair. But his face… His face was pale and dead. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth bled, from where his teeth bit down on it.

She saw him at the bottom of a well. Inside a well of glowing stone. She saw him knock an arrow, pull his bow back… She screamed as it flew toward her heart.

Chapter 19

By the time they arrived at the Margaret Macdonald House, Julia was so tired and shaky, she’d decided to pop open her soda, which tasted like a cross between vanilla Coke and a Shirley Temple. She’d managed to thank Cayne for it, although her throat was still dry from her nightmare. Stupid nightmare. Stupid Cayne.

Carlin parked the van somewhere that looked illegal. Julia could hear her shaking
Edan
awake. Night had fallen down around them, and in the posh urban neighborhood, Glasgow seemed nothing but light.

“Our directions say it’s across the street,” Carlin said. “Is that right, Cayne?”

He nodded. Cleared his throat, sending shivers up Julia’s spine. “Yep. Housing for a college, also a hostel.”

“Great.” Carlin nodded, opening her door, and Meredith and Andrew started out the side door. Cayne waved Julia out first, and her body felt too hot, knowing he was watching. He walked behind her the whole way to the check-in area.

There a handsome strawberry-blond college guy confirmed the prices were good but there were only two twin beds per room. It was quickly decided that the girls would bunk together, leaving two rooms for the guys to divide however they wanted.

The guys were on the third floor, the girls the second; in the privacy of a narrow hallway, Cayne protested this arrangement, but Drew insisted any attackers would come from the sky, so they’d have to come through the third floor to get to the second.
Edan
asked if Cayne could sense other Nephilim, and he admitted that he could.