That’s the thing. I didn’t get a chance to figure out the details.He sits there, studying me pointedly.He seemed so normal, like the person I knew before it all went to shit.
So he just asked for your help and let you go? No explanation?
Not exactly. Before we could really get into it, something changed.Hechanged,I admit.Honestly, for sure I thought I was gonna have to fight my way out of there.Which is barbaric to think, but in some capacity, that’s what I did.
Going over the dream—turned nightmare—over and over again, I almost miss it. But as I stood there, watching Callum turn into the person I’d been running from, something flipped insideme, like it was snaking to the surface from feeling theimposing threat.
My elbows rest on my knees as I push my palms into my temples. I’m not sure who is the true master of disguise—him or me.
There was a blip between the Callum who tortured me and the one who trained me to protect myself.
Funny that he’s the one I ended up needing to protect myself from.
That was the moment, though. That crack in the matrix is what I have to believe is the real Callum. He tore the imaginary world apart at the seams and flung me back to reality.
My eyes swing to Voraxis, who’s watching me curiously.I think I believe him.
What’s there to believe? All he told you was what you already knew.
That’s not true. I didn’t know about the compulsion. The tubes, the vials, the creatures, all of that is a part of something else. Something bigger.My mind races with the new realization.This is all about control. This is about building an army.
TWENTY-NINE
Kallie
Odeyssa sits up, stretching from a full night’s rest, while my eyes stay glued to the top of the cave. After Voraxis and I finished our conversation—which I’m still shocked Odeyssa never woke up for—we collectively decided to sleep while we could. There wasn’t anything either of us could do then anyway.
But sleep never came. Constant thoughts and different scenarios ran through my head all night and bled into the early morning. And from the looks of things, Voraxis didn’t get much rest either. It could’ve been from his own thoughts, or maybe mine were too loud. But it doesn’t do anything to calm my nerves. Instead, it only heightens them, knowing neither of us are going to be at our best.
“Good morning,” Odeyssa chirps blissfully. “I trust everyone is well rested.” I tilt my head back, straining my neck to look at her beaming face.
Annoyance bubbles in my chest. Clearly, she can’t read theroom.
Voraxis grumbles something under his breath, and I don’t have the energy to care enough to figure out what it was.
“It was a long night, to say the least.”
She looks at me puzzled. “I’ll explain later. But maybe take the peppiness down a few notches.”Or all of them. Voraxis huffs out a laugh.
The exhaustion is imminent as my head immediately begins to pound as I sit up. “You got the necklace?” Without responding, I take out my dagger and pull out the amulet that was resting at the bottom of my sheath and hold it out to her.
“All this trouble for that?”
“You’re telling me.” I put it back where it was, placing my dagger on top and securing it shut.
We should get going,Voraxis suggests, and although my body begs for sleep, that’s unfortunately not an option.
I tell Odeyssa, and she agrees with a firm nod. We both pick up the blankets we grabbed from one of the pouches on the saddle, toss them back where they belong, and single file out of the cave that offered us shelter when we needed it most.
But looking back at it now, and what the cave brought us, it seems more fate than chance.
Outside, the forest is gloomy, air stifling with humidity, causing my leathers to stick to me more than they already were. “I would do anything for a shower right now,” I state longingly, imagining how it would feel to have the scalding-hot water beating down on my dirt-ridden skin.
But then that entices a memory to surface—one that I would love nothing more than for it to be wiped from my mind for good. But the more I try to push it away, the more it presses forward, like this is the perfect moment to relive it.
My cheeks heat instantly, remembering how at peace I had become with life. Content. And although there had been talk ofthe war, it never truly sunk in until I was thrown into the deep end without a lifejacket.
“Everything okay?” Odeyssa inquires, her voice carrying a lighthearted chuckle of amusement.
