The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) (15 page)

“Is that all Caden is to you? A teleporter?” I could hear it in his voice. Richards had separated us in his mind from regular humans. Not surprising, really. That was how one explained away all sorts of atrocities. It began with clinical detachment.

“I don’t have the luxury of getting attached to the men and women here,” Richards said, almost echoing my thoughts. I also knew he lied. Somehow he managed to hold two opposing feelings—love for Caden, the son of a friend, and a dispassion for teleporters.

“As you saw earlier, Caden’s acting up. It’s your responsibility to stamp out those tendencies of his.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You already know what’s at stake.”

My life. And perhaps Caden’s, if the Project couldn’t control him. Richards might care for him, but he cared for other things more.

“Is that all?” I asked.

Richards shook his head, as though I’d already disappointed him. “You’re going to fail at this. I can already see it. And I don’t want that for either of you.”

I stood, taking in the man across from me. For all Richards’s slick plotting and wicked intelligence, there was a certainty about him. He only functioned in a world where he was king.

I tapped his desk with the tips of my fingers. “Then you’re blind,” I said, leaning forward so that Richards could see the gravity that came with my words. “I will do whatever it takes to survive.
Whatever it takes.
”

CHAPTER 10

I
appeared inside a bookstore. As I glanced at the books haphazardly stacked on top of each other in piles, I realized it wasn’t
just
a bookstore. It was my favorite bookstore, the one my father used to take me to every Saturday morning since when we’d moved to San Francisco.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the musty scent of the place. It was the scent I associated with absolute bliss. For ten delightful minutes, I got to re-experience this.

That was the thing about teleporting. You could live in heaven and be forced to visit hell each night, but you could also live in hell and catch brief glimpses of heaven.

Independently owned, the bookstore sold new and used books, and on the weekends they served free coffee. We’d come so often, we’d become friends with the shop owner, Ingrid.

I walked behind the front counter and tore off a sheet of paper from a notepad. Grabbing a pen, I scribbled out a message:

Ingrid,

Please call my father and let him know I’m alive and the Project has me. He’ll know what this means.

XOXO,

Ember

PS I miss your coffee.

I wrote down my father’s contact information, including his e-mail address in case she couldn’t reach him via phone, and then I taped the note to her computer screen. I could only hope she’d follow through with my request.

Moving from behind the counter, I made my way to the travel section of the store. I first pulled out a map of California. I had a rough idea of where we were, but it didn’t matter. Even with only a general idea of the facility’s location, I could tell that it was miles away from any urban area. Caden and I would have to survive in the wild for days, and then we’d need to blend in. That would prove difficult. But it was a difficulty I’d planned for even before I knew there was such a thing as the Prometheus Project.

I grabbed an atlas that covered the region between Montana and California.

Flipping through it, I memorized the major roads that sliced across the states, as well as the interstate highways that would lead to either Mexico or Canada.

Paranoia was my middle name. Caden and I would never lay eyes on the Montana facility, so I shouldn’t be wasting my time studying the interstate highways that ran through Montana. Hell, I shouldn’t be looking up freeways running through California when Adrian had a jet lined up to fly Caden and me out of the country. I’d never need to know the information I was currently sponging up. That logic didn’t keep me from mapping out possible escape routes from Montana, though.

Fleeing from either location would challenging because there were only a few main freeways one could take. Few options meant that they’d be easier to patrol.

After I’d memorized the different interstate highways that funneled out of the US, I closed the atlas and placed it back on the shelf.

I’ll never need to use this information,
I assured myself.

But if that was true, then why did I have the strangest sense of trepidation?

I woke up in the middle of the night, my heart pounding and my skin covered in cold sweat.

Need to escape. Need to escape.

My muscles still ached from their recent overuse. Pushing myself during training the way I was couldn’t possibly be good. Knowing that didn’t stop me from throwing off the covers and lacing up my running shoes.

I had to move; my body hummed with the need. I paused, glancing at Caden, who slept next to me. Moonlight fell on his features, highlighting his strong jaw. He looked especially devastating, like something out of a fairy tale. More than anything he seemed at peace.

Since I’d been back, he’d been happy, angry, concerned, lustful, but he’d never looked peaceful. How could he? He was a prisoner here, his day job demanded violence, and his girlfriend had been resurrected from the dead—and she’d come back with issues.

I released a shaky breath. I was going to ruin this, just like I had the first time around. I’d never live up to his memory of me—I’d never even come close. I sighed and slipped from the room.

Outside, the stars shone brightly in the sky, reminding me of how far we must be from civilization. They didn’t shine this bright in cities.

I jogged up one of the paths, slowly working my legs out. The burn began almost immediately, but I pushed through it.

As I climbed uphill, a series of unfamiliar twinges accompanied the movement. Even as my body wanted me to cease, frustration spurred me on.

I stopped when I realized I’d ended up at the lake. By that time I was wheezing, and my calves spasmed from being overworked.

I bent over my knees. My chest heaved as choked sobs came out of me. Such a weak, broken body.

I sat down, letting my forearms dangle from my kneecaps, and I stayed there for a long time, head bowed, mourning the way things used to be.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Caden’s voice came from behind me.

When I glanced over my shoulder, he’d stepped out of the woods. His eyes were pinched with tension. I hated knowing I’d caused that.

“Caden, what are you doing here?” I asked.

He ignored my question and walked up to me, extending his hand. I took it and rose to my feet. He didn’t let my hand go once I’d stood. Instead he tugged me to him, and I stumbled into his arms.

“You always seem to forget that you’re not in this alone,” he whispered in my ear.

“Maybe I don’t want you to see me when I’m weak.”

His arms tightened around me. “That’s when I want to be there most. So I can tell you that you are the strongest Goddamn person I know.”

I swallowed down the lump that had formed in my throat. I shook my head and stepped out of his embrace. “Why have you never asked me about the night I got spliced?”

Caden cocked his head at the subject change. The moonlight glinted off his eyes. “I was there.”

“Yet you don’t know some of the most frightening details about that evening.”

Even in the dark, Caden’s gaze seared through me. “Then tell me,” he said softly.

I shook my head. I wasn’t going to say anything
. . .
until I did.

“That night I knew the minute Emilio had ended the call that someone set me up.” I could feel my eyes growing distant as I fell into the memory. “He dragged me across the courtyard, and I realized then that no one was going to step in. That I was in this alone.

“And then Desiree’s expression.” I shivered. “I knew when I saw her that the Project wouldn’t save me. That’s when it really sunk in that I was going to die.” I blinked away the image and refocused on Caden.

Somewhere above us an owl hooted and the trees rustled.

Caden stepped up to me, and he placed his hand against the side of my face. “I’m so sorry, Ember,” he said. I could hear the remorse in his voice, deep and unending. Even now he managed to blame himself for my situation.
That
was why he hadn’t asked, I realized. It reopened this glaring wound that he’d been trying to heal for the past ten months.

“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to understand what I went through.” I asked for the impossible. We were all such lonely beings, carrying experiences with us that no one else could relate to.

Caden’s eyes searched mine, and then they widened. “This is not about that night,” he breathed as if the idea had just dawned on him.

I frowned. Had he not heard anything I said? I took a step back, putting some distance between us. “How can you say that after everything I just told you?” My insides squirmed.

“This is not about that night,” he repeated, never breaking eye contact. “That’s the lie you’ve told yourself. This is about you pushing me away in some misguided attempt to keep me safe.”

I glared at him. “How
dare
you assume you know what’s going on with me. The things I’ve been through
. . .
you cannot imagine.”

Caden ran his fingers through his hair. “You want to talk about things you cannot imagine? Try grief.

“The way it makes you choke on your own breath and everything inside you seizes. You feel like you’re going crazy, because who could live with that kind of pain for so long and still remain sane?” Caden touched his chest and rubbed it, like even now his heart hurt.

“You don’t get over it. Never. You just choose to fill your mind with other thoughts so that you can forget, for a moment, that nothing will ever be okay again.”

Caden’s words cut off abruptly, and he glanced away to rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

My throat worked. “You’re right,” I said quietly. “I don’t know anything about grief.” I blinked away tears. “I don’t know anything about
you
anymore, and you don’t seem to know anything about me either.”

Caden strode forward, looking dangerous. “But I do. I know that every time you think of jumping, you really want someone to save you. And every time you run, you really want someone to chase after you.”

I backed up, and lake water lapped at my shoes. “Don’t project your own insecurities onto me.”

Caden’s jaw clenched. I’d hit a nerve. “I’m not denying it,” he said. “I’m fifty different types of fucked up. So are you. You just haven’t owned up to it.”

Sadness and anger had warred within me, but at Caden’s words, anger won out. My hands fisted at my sides.

Caden’s eyes flicked to them, then back to me. “You going to hit me?”

My nostrils flared. “Leave me alone.”

“What? So you can enjoy another pity party? Tell me, angel, did the one I interrupted make you feel good?”

My fist was swinging before I’d even made the decision to hit him.

He blocked it with his forearm, and it pissed me off how easily he deflected the blow.

“Feel better now?” Caden asked.

He eyed me. “Nope,” he said, answering his own question. “Looks like it just made you mad.”

I let out a scream and spun, launching a roundhouse kick to his side. This time he didn’t move; he didn’t even try to dodge it. He also didn’t flinch when I landed the kick.

“That the best you got?” he asked, blatantly baiting me.

I closed the distance between us, stomping on his instep and punching him in the solar plexus. He grunted at the hits, but he didn’t attempt to block them. Instead he scooped me up with one arm and began walking us forward.

I used the position to land a series of jabs to his kidneys.

Caden made a noise low in his throat. “For an angel, you sure are a vicious little thing.”

That patronizing statement only made me hit him harder. So focused was I on making Caden feel my anger that I didn’t realize he had walked us into the lake. Not until it was too late.

He let go of me, and suddenly I was falling. I yelped as I hit cold water.

I came up sputtering. “I c-cannot b—”

My voice cut off as Caden dragged my body up. And then his hot mouth pressed against mine. “Just shut up, Ember,” he said against my lips. “I love you.”

That was all it took for me to fall apart. My anger disappeared, as did my hurt. The man had played me like a fiddle. I tightened my hold on him and kissed him back, noticing as I did so that I was shaking.

Caden broke off the kiss briefly. “Do you feel better now that you’ve destroyed my kidneys?” he asked.

“No.”
Maybe
.

“Liar,” he breathed, and then we were kissing again.

He groaned into my mouth. “You are so much easier to deal with when you’re wailing on me than when you’re running.”

That was what our physical altercation was for? To flip my reaction from flight to fight? For a supposedly smart person, I was an idiot.

“Was the demonstration necessary?” I asked.

“Mhm,” he murmured. “Just like one I’m going to give you on how to properly make up.” He lifted me by the hips and wrapped my legs around his waist. “Would you like the demonstration here, or back inside the facility?” he asked, kissing me on the underside of my jaw.

“Awfully presumptuous of you to assume I want to make up at all,” I said.

He placed two fingers against the pulse point of my neck. “You’re saying one thing, and your body’s telling me another. So which is it?”

I answered by running my hands through his hair and finding his lips with my own. “I think you know,” I whispered against them, and then I kissed him. My mouth parted and his tongue caressed mine.

His fingers pressed into my thighs. “I think I do,” he agreed.

This is how it was meant to be.

He moved us deeper into the water as we began to strip, our wet clothes landing in the sand behind us. Now there was only water and skin.

I panted as Caden cupped a breast, his lips dipping down to take it into his mouth. I arched back as his teeth grazed my nipple, my hands tangling in his hair.

He let out a husky laugh against me. “Like that, angel?”

Tugging on the hair entwined between my fingers, I angled his head toward me.

“What do you think?”

“I think I’m rewarding bad behavior,” he said, brushing a kiss against my shoulder.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”