Stolen (22 page)

Julia stared at him blankly, then she said, “
Oooh
, I thought you said…something else.”

He held the cab door for her, and she plopped down with a sigh. He told the driver to drive. Julia rubbed her head again and made an expression that twisted her beautiful face. He rubbed his own eyes, glancing at her through his sore fingers. “Julia, are you okay?”

“Just a headache.” She forced a smile, and he noticed her red lipstick. Felt a swell of desire, a bite of remorse. “Are you sure?”

She looked out the window. “I don’t know.”

The cab turned a corner, and Julia shook her head. “No, don’t take me home.” They weren’t headed toward the hostel yet—the cabbie hadn’t gotten any instructions—but she must not have noticed. Julia grabbed his hand. “Can I go with you? I don’t trust you,” she said bluntly, “but I don’t want to be by myself. It’s more sad.”

She
sounded
sad, and he felt like the world’s biggest ass.

“Where to?” the driver called.

“Loch
Tay
,” Cayne said.

They drove, the highlands climbing out the window, Cayne’s body weighted with memories.

“Don’t trust me?” It came out soft. His throat was tight, his voice hardly working. “I can’t say I blame you.”

Julia pushed at her hair, piled up on her head. “I’m glad you don’t…blame me. I don’t like to be blamed.” There was a little pause, in which she seemed to come around a bit. “You know, you did lie to me. Kind of. But you also told me I should stay away from you. So you didn’t really lie. Just kind of. But a kind-of lie is a not all the way truth, you know?”

“I didn’t do the right thing,” he said. “If I didn’t have the nerve to tell you, I should’ve left you.”

He wanted to meet her eyes, but Julia had folded her arms around herself and was looking unhappily at her knees.

The road wound on, tying knots around the vast mountains. Clouds drifted over the moon, sending shadows skittering across the cab’s hood. The air through the vents stung with the scent of ground and moisture—taking him back. Taking him further than he wanted to go.

He could feel Julia’s body heat, radiating from the seat beside his. He looked her over, head to foot, aching to touch her. Hold her. He should leave her alone. Do her the service of remaining silent. But he cleared his throat. “So you wanted some company?”

“What?”

“You came for the company? So you wouldn’t be alone?”

He watched her mouth move—deciding what to say. Her hand flitted, again, to her head, and her eyes found his. “I wanted to be with you,” she said, her voice high. “I miss you, even though I shouldn’t…or whatever. I don’t think I really…know you, and I shouldn’t feel the way I do about someone I don’t know.”

He felt an awful tug inside his chest, like someone had sewn stitches into his heart and was pulling on the strings. “You still… like me?”

She shrugged. “I did. Until I started hearing all that stuff.”

His pulse was pounding, but he made himself meet her eyes. “What did they tell you…the Stained?”

She flinched, her mouth drawing up like a sour fruit. “See?
Stained
.” Her eyes had widened. “You think of me as ‘
stained
.’”

“Of course I don’t.”

“You didn’t say Chosen, did you?”

“Chosen.” He scoffed a little. “More like Stolen. Look at me, Julia.” She did, those beautiful brown eyes deep, sad pools. He had forgotten that. How sad she could be. “What do you think of the Chosen? Were you happy with them?”

“No,” she said, hanging her head. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You know I wasn’t.” She rubbed her eyes, raking her fingers back through her hair and slanting him a funny look. “I’m still
kinda
drunk. It’s over-rated.”

“So many things are.”

She was looking down again, rubbing the tips of her shoes together. “Not everything, though.”

Something about the way she said it made him…restless. Wanting things he shouldn’t want. “Will you return to…the Chosen?”

She shook her head. “No way. It was
creepy
.”

“In what way?”

“Every way. It was a cult, except without the cool aide.”

“What did they make you do?” He had obsessed over trying to imagine what Julia was doing while they had him.

“They said I was a Candidate, and they made me—”

“A what?”

“A Candidate. Have you heard of that?”

Cayne felt his stomach curl into a knot. “Yes.” It was some kind of bullshit prophesy, for Stained. From what he’d heard, the final candidate was supposed to sacrifice themselves in some kind of struggle. Reluctantly, he told her so. “At least, that’s the version I heard.”

But she was already shaking her head. “Stupid Chosen. Using all of us. I would be better off in a lousy freaking foster home.”

His chest squeezed…with what? Hope? “I’ll take you anywhere, so long as you’d be safe.”

“No way. I don’t want to go back to the foster system, dummy.” She sighed, a low, harsh sound. “I just want to disappear.” She looked into his eyes. “But that’s not right. Maybe everyone else should. Especially you.”

He smiled wryly. “That wish has never been granted, at least not for me.”

 
She tilted her head sideways and pressed those pretty lips together. “I don’t really wish that, Cayne.”

“You should.”

“I can’t just un-like you, dummy.” She drew her leg up under her, picking at her All-Star with the fingers of her casted hand. The other reached up to cradle her head. She looked at him through her fingers. “Why? Why did you do those bad things? You’re…
good
, so why were you bad? It doesn’t make any sense.”

He knew what she was asking. He wanted so much to look out the window, but he met her eyes—and held them. And he did her the courtesy of being honest.

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “I’ve thought about it.” He rubbed his face, scruffy from not shaving at the Stained compound. “I was young when
Saymaza
found me. It’s out that way,” he said, nodding out his window. “Ben
Lawers
. I’d been…living up there for a few weeks. He came and…I told you what he said,” he lowered his voice. “That I was Nephilim. And I was…normal…for a Nephilim. What I did, to the village men, was normal. I had nowhere else to go, so I went with him.

“He trained me, and eventually when it was time for me to hunt…” Cayne shrugged, because there really wasn’t a convincing reason. He hadn’t been wronged by Stained in any way. “He said they were our enemies, that they would kill us if given a chance. So I just did it.”

Now he did look out his window. Shame rippled through him.

Then her hand came down on his elbow. For a wild second, he thought of stopping the cab and getting out. Disappearing right there.

He turned to her, feeling like a wax doll beneath her gentle hand. “I was a coward. Even as a boy, I was afraid, and I did things I could never be forgiven.”

“So that’s it? You just won’t ever be forgiven?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re sorry for it? You regret it?”

“Eventually…” He shook his head. “That’s why I left. Samyaza. I…” He laughed, a strange, dry sound. “I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

 
“Loch
Tay
,” the cabbie said, slowing, and Cayne looked out the window. Water was all around them, and a blanket of stars above them. He heard Julia draw in a breath. “This is beautiful.”

“Could you…would you continue on to
Killin
?”

The cabbie turned, meeting Cayne’s eyes. “
Killin
, you say?”

He nodded.

“
Killin
?”

“Do you not run there?”

The cabbie’s face darkened. “Oh, I would take you there, but there’s no
Killin
.”

“What?”

“
Killin
— it burned down two-hundred years ago.”

Chapter 20

“Keep going,” Cayne said. He sounded choked.

“Go on then? There’s nothing there, you understand?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t look at her. Didn’t move as the cabbie drove them another mile, to a place where the road ended in grass.

Cayne opened the door and climbed out into the brush, never looking back at Julia.

She wasn’t looking at him, either. She was looking all around her, at the lush grass, swathed with fog; at the trees rustling in a nippy breeze, their shadows shifting over puddles, giving the impression of ghosts. At the great hills rising from the stony land, rising almost to the moon. The air was heavy, wet, the moisture burning the cold into her bones.
 

The cabbie made a huffing sound, and Julia jumped a little. “Shall I wait here for ye?”

“Please,” Cayne said, parting tall grass with his hands.
 

He was gaining speed, his arms still out, his head turning left and right—scenting something, like a blood hound. Looking at him from behind, she saw only a dark shadow—wide shoulders, tall form swaying with the wind.

She looked out across the field—so many textures framing Cayne: mountain, stone, hill, bramble, grass, stream, fog, cloud, sky. He looked like a silent film character stalking toward some climax.

Was he the hero or the villain?

As she wondered, lagging with her thoughts, a tree-garbed outcrop rose, pearly in the moonlight as the fog parted, and Cayne was lost.

She picked up her pace, eyes on the stony, soggy ground, arms wrapping around her waist as she thought
this is it, we’re here, where Cayne is from
. The fog parted then, closer to the ground, and she saw him, a dark, slumped shadow, reaching for one of his ghosts.

A few steps forward on frozen feet and she saw the sign. It was worn and leaning, weathered wood that looked older than Cayne. He stood before it, still and tall, hands clasped, head down—a criminal awaiting judgment.

She called his name.

He didn’t move.

She reached his side, her eyes running over the dark, carved words:

-1812-

In the winter of 1812, a rare astrological event sent a catastrophic meteorite into the peak of Ben
Lawers
, wiping away all of
Perthshire
area (
Siorrachd Pheairt
)
. The area was burned, many inhabitants perished, and today only vegetation remains.

…And that was it.

For the longest time, she wondered what to say to Cayne. What did the information mean? She was staring at her All-Stars, listening to the shifting of the wind-swept grass, feeling the air cold on her neck, but more than anything she could feel him. Feel his sadness. His anger. His questions.

It had something to do with him. The “meteorite” had something to do with Cayne. She didn’t have to ask.

Anger formed a lump in the back of her throat. Anger that nothing could ever just be normal. She’d spent her whole childhood wishing for it, and yeah, she understood no one and nothing was truly “normal,” but did it have to be like this?