The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) (13 page)

I didn’t see Caden for the rest of the morning. We both kept our distance, which was probably for the best. Caden’s earlier words still made me want to throttle him.

After I’d grabbed lunch from the dining hall and prepared to scram, Jeff followed me out. “’Ey, yo, Ember!” he called, catching up to me. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure,” I said. “I have to swing by my room—”

“In private,” Jeff clarified.

“Um, okay,” I said, my gaze moving over him. “Where do you want to go?”

“We can talk in my room.” Now Jeff looked nervous.

Curious, I followed him back to his dorm. His place was a mess, which was to say that it looked like almost every other guy’s room I’d been in.

“So,” I said, perching on the edge of his bed, “what did you want to talk about?”

Jeff rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t bother to hide that he looked immensely uncomfortable. My stomach started to drop before he spoke.

“I’m no good at these things,” he said, “so I’m just going to tell it to you straight.” He took a deep breath and met my eyes. “You almost killed Caden.”

CHAPTER 9

N
ot what I was expecting him to say. Then again, I didn’t know what I was planning to hear come from his lips.

“I did?” I asked, incredulous.

“After you
. . .
left
,” Jeff said.

Ah. After I’d gotten spliced. “What happened?”

He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know what was going on with you two before you were spliced, but Caden fell apart afterwards.”

I swallowed.

“He wouldn’t eat for a long time, and he began sleeping in your room—wouldn’t leave the damn place. He and Serena—Eric’s pair—sort of gravitated together for a while, since both had lost their pairs. But that didn’t last, thank God. Fucking depressing, the two of them together,” he said more to himself than to me.

Caden and Serena?

“And then, I don’t know, something changed. Whatever it was, it brought Caden back to life,” Jeff continued. “He began to eat again, if only to build muscle at the gym. Some people turn to alcohol—Caden turned to working out. He moved his things into your room. In spite of that, I thought he was finally getting over you.”

Jeff shook his head. “Over time it became clear he was hoping you’d return—especially once Eric did. When you didn’t he slipped again. He took on more missions, pulled riskier stunts.”

I closed my eyes, my brows pinching together in pain. I didn’t want to hear this, didn’t want to know I’d caused it. Especially not while I was still mad at him.

“Eventually it caught up with him, and he met the business end of some terrorist’s knife. It’s a miracle he didn’t get spliced. Still, he nearly got himself gutted.”

“What?” I said, my voice barely a whisper. I hadn’t realized how close to death he’d been.

“Almost lost my best friend.”

“How—how had a wound that bad not spliced him?”

Jeff shrugged. “With teleporting, it can go either way,” he said. “It might expedite the healing process—even on severe injuries—or
. . .
it exacerbates the wound. The worse the injury, the worse the odds of recovering from it.”

“When did Caden get stabbed?” I asked.

“Last month,” Jeff said.

I winced. “Why tell me this?” I asked.

“Caden’s my best friend, and he’s in love with you, a girl with an expiration date.”

I started at Jeff’s words.

Before I could ask he explained. “No one told me about the conditions of your release, but I know someone scared you good. I can see it in your eyes.” Jeff pointed two fingers at them.

Seemed like everyone here could see it.

“You don’t believe this second chance at life is going to last,” Jeff continued. “And Caden knows it too.”

Everything about me stilled. “You think so?”

“I know Caden’s tells like the back of my hand. He might not say it or act like it, but he’s freaking out. He thinks he’s losing you all over again.”

After my hellish start to the day, I had no intention of showing up for my counseling session. Debbie, however, wasn’t a psychologist for nothing. Five minutes after our scheduled appointment, someone banged on the door to my room. When I didn’t answer it, I heard the sound of a key slotting into the lock, and then the door opened.

Two men in fatigues stood on the other side of the threshold. “Dr. Fields requires your presence,” one said.

“What happens if I decide not to go?”

“We forcibly remove you from the room,” the soldier replied without missing a beat.

I was supposed to be on good behavior, and already I was slacking off on that front. So even though the thought of speaking with Debbie caused me to gnash my teeth, I stood up and followed the men out of the room.

“Thank you for the escort service,” I said to Debbie not five minutes later when I entered her office.

She pushed away from her computer. “The mere fact that you needed it says more about your intentions than it does mine.”

I walked over to a shelf of books near her desk, ignoring her words. Scientific journals and diagnostic manuals stared back at me. “No
Chicken Soup for the Sou
l
?” I asked.

Debbie watched me the entire time, her eyes narrowed. She didn’t rise to my bait.

I moved to her framed diploma. “Debra Anne Fields, MD,” I read aloud, raising my eyebrows. “‘MD’? You’re a psychiatrist, Doc?”

“The sooner you sit down on the couch, the sooner our session can begin,” she said smoothly. She’d already taken a seat across from me.

I could only waste so much time. I walked over to the couch and collapsed on it, kicking my legs up on the armrest just like my mother hated me doing. Judging by the flicker of annoyance on Debbie’s face, she hated it too.

“So, Doc, what do you want to know?”

“How are you doing?”

I ran my hands through my hair, marveling again at its length. “I’m fine.”

“How has readjusting to the facility gone?”

“As good as can be expected.”

“It must be strange, coming back here after all this time.”

“It doesn’t seem like ‘all this time’ to me,” I said, staring at my roughly clipped nails, proof that until a few days ago I was comatose. “To me it’s as though I was killed last week.” I glanced up at her as I said this.

It wasn’t quite the truth. I could sense the passage of time deep within me. The memories I woke up with had that murky, time-decayed feel to them, like they’d rotted away while I’d been unconscious.

“What does that feel like?” Debbie asked, looking vaguely bored. And she probably was. My life made no real difference to her. Her job and life ticked on regardless.

“You couldn’t imagine it even if you tried,” I said.

She nodded, agreeing with me. It was utterly infuriating—her casual acceptance of my trauma.

Trying to discuss with Debbie exactly what I’d gone through wasn’t just frustrating—it was insulting. She could never understand because she’d never had to survive what I’d had to endure. She’d never been isolated from her family, forced to manipulate and hurt people. She’d never been spliced and kept somewhere between life and death for the better part of a year.

“How does remembering make you feel?” she tried again.

That’s what she wanted—to get to my feelings. “I’m never going to tell you, Debbie.”

“Would you tell Caden?” she asked.

I sat up a little straighter. The question came out of nowhere. Something about her tone and her body language made me think that much rested on this answer.

“Yes,” I said. “I would.” Maybe. Definitely not today.

“And have you?” Again the question seemed weighted.

Had I? No. He hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t thought to explain.

“Yes,” I lied, looking her straight in the eye as I did so.

She scribbled something in her notebook. This felt an awful lot like a game of Russian roulette. And I’d just fired the loaded round.

I stood inside a dimly lit restaurant. The clatter of silverware, the low murmur of conversation, and several swift gasps welcomed me.

Across the room Adrian sat with another man whose back was to me. Adrian must’ve felt the weight of my stare, because he looked up from his guest, his gaze locking with mine.

I could see shock register on his face, but when his companion leaned forward and placed a hand on his forearm, he covertly covered the response.

“Excusez-moi?”
A waiter appeared next to me
. “Mademoiselle?”

I glanced at the waiter before returning my attention to Adrian. He’d left his table and was making his way toward me.

“Excusez-moi,”
the waiter said a little more forcefully.

Adrian reached us just then. He rattled off something in French that seemed to appease the waiter and steered us out of the restaurant.

“You know French?” I asked, impressed.

He shrugged. “I’ve picked it up since I’ve been here.” Placing a hand on my lower back, he guided me down the street.

Out here the evening air had a chilly bite to it. “Where, exactly, is ‘here’?”

“Switzerland.”

“Oh, are any chocolate shops still open?” I asked, taking in the low glow from streetlamps illuminating the street. “I love Swiss—”

“I’m not buying you any chocolate,” Adrian said.

I sighed. It was worth a try. “Is your friend going to worry that you disappeared for ten minutes?”

“I told him I needed to make a call.”

“Oh.” I rubbed my arms. I’d appeared in a thin cotton shirt and jeans, which were no match for the cold evening here. Adrian absently placed an arm around my shoulders.

“A friend of mine owns a jet, and he’s agreed to arrange transportation out of the States for you and one other.”

My gaze snapped to him as our feet clicked against the damp sidewalk. “Really?” I asked. That happened fast. Then the rest of Adrian’s statement sunk in. “What kind of friend is this?” I asked, suspicious. In my world everything came with a price—usually a steep one too.

“One who’s helping fund my research.”

Definitely a steep price. “What does he get out of it?”

“He’s a part of the organization I work with. His goals align with my own.”

“Do they?” I said, assessing Adrian. I might not be as distrustful as Caden, but mama didn’t raise no fool either.

He glanced down at me. Reading my thoughts from my expression, he replied, “This isn’t some nefarious organization, Ember.”

“Yeah, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Adrian and I walked to the end of the block and were now making our way back to La Petite, the French restaurant we’d so recently left. Around us people bustled by speaking a myriad of languages.

“Why is it that I keep finding my way to you?” I asked.

Adrian stuck his hands in his pockets, and for a moment I thought he wouldn’t answer me, especially since he’d kept quiet last time I’d asked him this.

Instead he pulled out a familiar object from his pants pocket.

I gasped, snatching it from his hand. The lodestone glittered under the warm light of streetlamps. I socked him on the arm. “Don’t ever send me on another mission without first asking me.”

Adrian cursed, rubbing his arm. “What the hell was that for?”

“The mission at the Smithsonian to retrieve the lodestones.”

I balked at his confused expression. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t.” Carefully Adrian took the lodestone from me. “This was one of the stones my father left in his vault—the one you opened last year.”

The memory of that night surfaced. The small cache of lodestones and Dr. Brent Sumner’s notes.

“What happened on this mission?” Adrian asked, now curious.

I was still recovering from the possibility that Adrian
hadn’t
sent me to retrieve the gems. “I was instructed to steal lodestones.” I held up the one he’d given to me to make a point. I left out the part about flushing them down the toilet. Some details just didn’t need to be shared.

“And you followed the orders?”

“I did.”

Adrian looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet. And okay, maybe I was.

“Listen,” I said, “I assumed you were behind it. That’s why I did what I did.”

Adrian shook his head. “It wasn’t me or my team.”