Anomaly (Causal Enchantment #4)(48)

Caden fell silent for a moment, before switching gears and grabbing my waist to pull me into him. “I’m so sorry about earlier. I know you never would’ve been a part of that.”

“No, never.” I pulled his bowed head into the crook of my neck. “I really was just coming in with Julian to find Amelie. And Sofie lied to me. She looked directly in my eyes and she lied. How could she do that?”

Buried against me, he laid a gentle kiss. “Remember, way back when, I told you that our kind was not to be trusted? It’s our nature. She thought she was doing the right thing.”

I dared ask, “Do you think it worked?”

“I think …” He pulled away from me, his beautiful face a sculpture of grief, his lips pursed, as if the words he was about to say were going to cause him physical pain. “I think we lost the day we left Ratheus.” My eyes closed, not willing to face the guilt in his. “We will never win, Evangeline. It’s only a matter of delaying the inevitable.”

“And do you think we delayed the inevitable?” I hazarded.

“We won’t know until we go in and see.” His fingertips grazed my cheek slowly. “If we go in and see.”

What would be our other option? Walking away? “I don’t see how we can’t, Caden. We just dropped a nuclear bomb on our own country! We’ve turned the world upside down! We can’t jump ship now. What kind of chain reaction did we just cause? Plus, you know Julian needs that closure. I think the rest of us do too. We’ve come this far, and even if we don’t agree with Sofie’s methods, we need to just finish off the fledglings so we can move on. Maybe that can be the silver lining to losing Amelie.” It was so hard to see anything positive in what had happened. Even my small miracles—the little boy in the car, healing Julian’s anguish—were meaningless. Upward of eight million people had just perished.

Including that little boy, I was sure. What was the point in saving him at all? So he could have several hours to feel the consuming loss of the two people who loved him most? I should’ve just let him go.

“I’ll do whatever you want, but you’re not leaving my side for another second.”

Whatever I wanted. This was a change from the norm. I was always the one asking what we should be doing and Caden was always the one wanting to protect me from danger. Now, though, Caden was looking to me to make a decision.

It wasn’t a matter of want but rather need. “We go to New York as soon as it’s safe enough, kill the last of the fledglings, and then …” A deep furrow zagged across my forehead.

“And then we leave. We get the hell away from this,” he finished softly, his frown matching my own. “From her.”

“What if she did the right thing, Caden?”

“The right thing would’ve been staying out of the city in the first place,” he said. “We should’ve just blown it up right away. Then at least we’d all be alive. And Viggo would be dead.”

Viggo. I shuddered at the thought.

“I know.” Caden’s arms wrapped around to my back, his mouth finding the edge of my jaw.

“And he’s targeting you to hurt me,” I said. If he succeeded …

“It’s never going to happen because we now know he’s out there and we’re going to kill him first.” I almost believed him.

“I don’t know why he bothers. He has Veronique. Why doesn’t he just run?”

“Because he has nothing left to lose. Nothing to love. She’ll never love him.” When his gaze lifted to mine, there was a momentary sheen over his eyes. It was gone in a blink. “We have everything to lose. We have someone to love.”

A conflicting mix of happiness and fear blossomed inside. Caden was mine, forever. And forever truly meant … forever.

Suddenly he was pulling me into another tight hug. “I’m so relieved that you came with Julian into the city. If you hadn’t …”

If I hadn’t, Viggo would’ve found me. He probably would’ve killed me.

“So, we go in and get rid of the fledglings and kill Viggo. That’s the plan?”

“Yeah.”

“Sofie won’t like this,” I warned.

He snorted. “That’s an understatement. She’ll find some way to interfere. For our own good, of course,” he mocked.

I nodded in agreement. She would. I remember the lengths she went to keep Bishop pinned down after losing Fiona. It was for his own good, certainly. But when did that end? When had being with Sofie become more dangerous than being without her?

I bowed my head into his chest and let my hands glide along the curves of his sculpted chest. “I don’t even need to sleep anymore, but I want to. Just curl up in a ball, close my eyes, and enjoy the silence.”

“I know what you mean.” A hand brushed my hair off my forehead. “It’s what happens when you know you have to make a hard decision.”

*

Their low murmurs carried through the wide, low-ceilinged mine passage. Bishop sat with his back propped against one of the mossy stone supports that the miners had carved around, his fingers twirling strands of Fiona’s caramel-brown hair. She lay stretched out against the cold ground with her head resting in his lap, staring up at the ceiling.

Obviously lost in thought.