The Ylem (41 page)

“They didn’t know Esha and I were
together.”

“Oh, so your thing with her was a secret?”
This bothered me even more. “Why did you do this to me, Tristan?
Why didn’t you tell me you were with her?”

“Because I wouldn’t have the—” He stopped,
clenching his jaw. Again, silence took possession of his beautiful
lips, deceitful lips. What else could he say anyway?

I still couldn’t believe I was looking at the
same Tristan, the one who’d risked everything to “be with me,”
who’d whispered tender words in my ear and kissed me so
passionately and sweet that I’d totally fell for it. How
stupid!

Anger was boiling in my blood. “I bet she
wants to kill me now,” I told him, locking my eyes into his deep,
solid stare. “You should’ve let Gavran do the job for her.”

He gasped, strode forward and squeezed my
arms with his hands, holding my body tight under his long fingers.
His abrupt motion was violent, but held sharp despair and
frustration. “Listen,” he said with a low, severe voice. “This
should've never happened. Stay away from me. Forget about me,
forget everything.”

My heart shattered. The anger and misery
vanished. There was nothing else left in me, nothing. I was empty
from head to toe. I didn’t even know how words came to my mouth.
“You don’t have to ask for it,” I snapped, wriggling free from his
strong hands.

I looked at him for the last time and stormed
away, leaving the pieces of my heart behind me, scattered on the
floor.

To my dismay, Esha was on the way, as if
she’d been waiting for me. Her arms were crossed and a wicked,
satisfied smile twisted her lips. “I just wanted to tell you
that…you were right, human. I do want to kill you.” She said with
that soft, corrosive voice of hers. “The only reason I won’t do it
is because of Tristan—and because you were obviously just a
fleeting recreation to him. I'm the one he loves, and it has been
like that for years.” The look on her face radiated dark delight.
“Besides, males are always males—if you know what I mean. It’s in
their nature to have fun from time to time. But in the end, they
come back to what truly matters—and that will be me. You’re
nothing.”

How could a creature so angelical and
beautiful be so evil and cold-hearted? But she was right to be
angry at me. I’d kissed her boyfriend—several times. And she was
right about everything, too. I’d been just a toy to him.

I walked past her and said nothing. Because,
what could I say to her? Sorry? I hadn’t even known he had a
girlfriend for sure when I’d been with him. I hadn’t done anything
wrong. The one who had though, was her boyfriend. He should be the
one on his knees, not me.

“Kalista, stop!” Lamia called as I rushed to
the doorway. “How are you planning to go back?” she asked, stepping
in front of me, blocking my hand from the knob. Like Shifters, she
was amazingly fast—certainly one of the advantages vampires
had.

“I have two feet, don’t I?” I told her with
watery eyes, breathing hard. If I didn’t leave this house, I was
going to dig my own grave. I needed to get out fast, really fast.
The idea of walking in the woods more appealing than ever, even if
bugbears might have been wandering around.

Oh please let them be
. They could come
and get me and finish with me once and for all. At least the pain
would be quick, not like the one whipping my insides right now.

“You’re not going by yourself,” Mingan said
from behind me. I turned to look at him. “Take me or leave it.” His
rigid tone left no other option.

“Fine.” I accepted. I had no more strength to
fight. I just wanted to leave, leave.

“Elan and Vince?” Lamia asked him.

“With Tristan,” Mingan said in a low voice,
pointing his troubled eyes to me. Troubled? Cold Mingan feeling
sorry for someone?

The vampire nodded and looked back at me.
“Take care of yourself,” she said, worried.

I turned away from her and pulled the knob.
Mingan followed. The first thing I saw was Vincent’s yellow SUV
parked in front of the house.

A fast car that’ll take me far away from
here quickly. Perfect
, I thought. For once, speed didn’t worry
me. I welcomed it with open arms.

I slipped inside the car and didn’t look at
anything other than the window next to me. Luckily, Mingan wasn’t
the chatty type, so the ride back home was quiet. It was only me
staring out the black window with a deep void in my chest that made
me wonder if I still had a heart left.

“We’re here,” Mingan’s hard voice announced a
few minutes later.

I opened my eyes—even if they were open
already but didn’t felt like they were—and saw my porch waiting
peacefully for me. I pulled the handle in a robotic manner and
opened the door. “Kalista,” he said when I put my foot on the
ground. I stopped. “I’ll stay until your father returns.”

No. Alone. I want to be alone
.

“That’s not a good idea,” I muttered faintly,
placing my other foot next to the other.

“But Tristan as—”

“I’ll be okay,” I cut him off. “I'm not a
kid.” I pushed my body forward and closed the door behind me. I
dragged my feet across the grass without looking back.

Once I awoke from the numbness, I was inside
the house, in my room. A rainbow light touched the corner of my
eye. I turned and saw the pristine crystal, catching rays of light
on its facets. I sat down on the floor. Deep sobs broke away from
my open mouth and I cried, cried, cried and cried, until all my
body felt completely drained.

Memories of the last time I’d been like this,
shaken by sadness, came down on me. The reason had been entirely
different, but its foundation had been the same: betrayal. Both
persons had betrayed me. Tristan had tricked and used me. And
Cay—the one I’d taken inside my heart as a brother—had made a
promise to me and killed it a few days later, shattering an
eight-year-old girl’s illusion.

I didn’t know if Cay had an idea of what he’d
done to me, of what he’d caused inside of me. Yes, my dad’s
brainwash on men had added the last pinch of salt to my distrust
toward guys. But what had really built the abysmal gap between the
opposite sex and me, what had really triggered my lack of trust in
them, had been Cay’s lie. Ever since he’d stepped outside of my
life, my faith in men had cracked, leaving chasms only Steve and
Tristan had been able to fill. Chasms that not a long ago had
reopened, carving irreparable fissures of unfathomable depth.

It seemed every time I said “I love you” to
someone, that someone decided to leave or push me away, as if my
love meant nothing—except for my dad. He was the only constant
presence in my life. The only one I could really trust.

I don’t know how much time I spent like this,
curled on the floor, thinking. A black curtain had already fallen
from the sky and the crystal wasn’t beaming anymore. When my dad’s
voice suddenly called me from downstairs, it was as if an
electroshock hit my body, bouncing me up off the floor.

I realized that somehow the Kalista he’d left
yesterday wasn’t the same one today. And I didn't want him to
notice. He couldn’t know what'd happened.

“Honey!”

I walked up to the bathroom and went to wash
my face. I squared my shoulders and schooled myself to the old me,
checking my reflection in the mirror. The girl behind the glass
looked the same, everything was in place. But deep down, I wasn’t
the same Kalista everyone had seen yesterday. I was stronger. A lot
stronger.

I wasn’t a Shifter, but I’d transformed.

Tristan had said something about survival
instinct. Well, this was me, surviving. A phoenix rising from its
ashes. I wasn’t going to be defeated by pain. Or anyone. As I’d
said to Cay once, we are the writers of our own life. I took the
decisions. It was only up to me how the story was going to unfold.
And I was sure as hell not going to write a story full of tears and
mourning. I deserved better. A lot better.

“Honey!” He kept calling me.

I walked down the hallway, trying to draw a
smile on my lips. But a subtle lyrical whisper caught my ear and
stopped me. I waited a long second to see if I’d imagined it, but
only my dad’s voice streamed through the air. I started moving
again, thinking I was delusional, when another subtle whisper flew
around me. I stopped again and frowned at the sound. It was
unintelligible, so soft and childlike at the same time.

It stopped.

I decided I was going crazy and headed down
the stairs. My dad was at the bottom, smiling at me with eager
eyes. So much excitement threw me off for a second. He looked too
happy, way too happy. But then, without giving me time to think, a
familiar figure emerged at his side, shocking me and erasing the
smile I’d worked so hard to put on for him.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Steve.

“Hey Kal,” he smiled.

30. PLEASE

Somewhere in the Rocky
Mountains

CALEB

This cave was perfect. It was as if Mother
Nature had built it to provide a shelter to whoever stepped into
this side of the mountain. I was pretty sure that our father,
Balthazar, had placed it in our way. We happened upon it after
hours of running—we had crossed the border and were now somewhere
in Colorado. The entrance was veiled with branches growing from a
couple of trees nearby, making it almost indiscernible to the human
eye.

Inside the black silence of the cave, the
temperature was cool and humid. The walls were cold and damp, and
stalactites hung from above, as if the ceiling had melted into rock
icicles. Through a long canyon passage, a large dome could be
found, and to both sides, more passages that led to different
chambers. Some of them with natural skylights, like the one where
we were now.

“Why won’t you ever listen, Caleb?” Gavran
hissed once I let him down on the ground. He leaned back against
the wall for support and sat down with a grimace. His legs had been
broken in the fight. While bone had not pierced skin, one foot was
still bent at an unnatural angle. It would take some time to heal
itself. “I thought I was clear when I told you to stay behind.”

“You wouldn’t be here if I would’ve done it,”
I told Gavran.

“You would’ve joined Massimo and Ben—and the
others,” Nick stated, looking at Gavran with deep sunken eyes, the
dirt in his blond hair dulling it to washed-out brown.

Everyone had died in the fight, except for
the three of us. Nick had only gotten a dislocated shoulder and a
broken wrist. They’d already healed. I didn’t know what I would've
done if something would've happened to him. I still didn’t know
what we were going to do without Massimo and Ben. I still hadn’t
fully grasped their deaths.

“I couldn’t let you die there, Gavran,” I
said, desperate, with a shake of my head. “We still need to find
the book. We need you—Balthazar needs you.”

I was the only one who didn't get hurt.
Despite the anxious bites that were eating my stomach during the
rumbling combat, I managed to stay put in my covered position—one
of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I watched and heard,
glaringly, how little by little all of my brothers fell down like
dominoes, and after a few agonizing minutes, my inner battle became
more raucous than the one that was unfolding before my eyes. But
when Massimo and Ben hit rock bottom, the strident noise inside of
me came to an end. I stopped struggling against me and launched
myself into the mayhem.

A moment later, I found Gavran lying on the
ground, unable to move. Without thinking it twice, I lifted him off
the ground and took him with me, sending a sign of retreat to
Nick’s mind. Then, we were escaping, running away as fast as we
could from Ruidoso.

“You could’ve ruined everything, Caleb,”
Gavran said. “Everything we’ve accomplished.”

“But I didn’t,” I shrugged. “Nothing is
ruined yet. We still have a lead. We can’t let all of these deaths
be in vain.”

Finally, as if accepting the situation,
Gavran nodded. “You’re right. Our brother’s sacrifice won’t be in
vain. We’ll find the book. The girl knows where it is. I saw it in
her eyes.”

“Did you see the Shifter protecting her?”
Nick arched his eyebrows. “Of course she’s involved. That guy was
on a whole other level. I’ve never seen anyone like him.”

“The boyfriend?” I said with an angry snort.
“That prick killed Massimo.”

“He fucking electrocuted him, Caleb,” Nick
emphasized. “He summoned lightning from the sky and slammed it on
Massimo like some Greek god—what was his name? Zeus.” He snapped
his fingers when he remembered. “He’s like a freaking version of
Zeus. I bet the sudden storm was his doing, too.”

“We couldn’t even smell him,” I noted,
frowning. “Maybe it’s related to that weird skin color of his. Is
he even a Shifter?” I asked as I sat down on a bulky rock under the
gaping hole that worked as a skylight. The warm sunlight touched my
shoulders, soothing the goose bumps his image had brought to my
skin.

“He’s a Shifter,” Gavran answered, confident.
“But a different kind of Shifter—a unique kind.” He narrowed his
eyes in thought. “And he’s a Pure Blood, like almost all the
members in his pack.”

The strength and stamina of Shifters born
with the genes was usually higher than the ones who weren’t born
with them—like me and all of my brothers. The genetic material had
been transmitted to us by a bite, which had rewritten our DNA code.
When we bump into Pure Bloods, we could tell the difference right
away. “They surely kicked our asses,” I said through my teeth. I
hated to admit our defeat out loud, but I hated even more the idea
of losing Massimo and Ben. “Next time it will be us shoving their
cocky faces to the ground. They’ll pay for what they did—especially
that lightning-pulling prick.”