Journey
He was following closelybehind me. I heard every easy stride he took, and with each step, my heart raced faster. The hate had slowly dissolved over the last few days, and it scared me. I had hated Cade for reasons that weren’t true. Would anyone else be angry that the person they trusted the most had hidden something from them that was vital to their well-being? Maybe. But I couldn’t deny that I knew Cade well, and deep down, I knew he hadn’t been the one to attack me. Part of me wanted it to be true. If he had hurt me then, then he couldn’t hurt me now. He’d be all out of chances, but he stood me up that night because someone had threatened him. Hewas trying to protect me, not hurt me.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t irked that he just conned himself into joining me on my escapade. Let me come with you, and I’ll give it up. Such a Cade thing to do. He was always so sly and devious, slipping in like a villain, using stealthy tactics to get what he wanted. Typical.
The crunch of the snow under my boots grew increasingly louder as I stomped my annoyance out. I was going to have to keep my guard up while at the psych hospital, even more so with Cade lingering in the background like a ghost. And what does that paper say? There was a very small, twisted part of me that still lived and breathed, begging me to use my own sly ways. I could stealit from him. I pictured myself spinning around, backing him up to the tree, and kissing him so hard he’d be forced to react and put his hands around my waist. My fingers could slip inside his pocket, steal the paper he was holding over my head, and be done with it.
But I couldn’t.
There was a fine line that lingered between my morals and ethics, and crossing that to trick Cade felt wrong in such a dirty way. I cared what he thought of me.
“No.”
My foot stayed hovered above the snow mid-step as Cade’s bark-like refusal hit me from behind. “No, what?” I asked, turning around and seeing him standing in front of our snowy castle-like school like some righteous king. His black hood was pulled up over his head, and his hands were in his front pocket as he stood lazily against the icy iron gate. I was mistaken before: he wasn’t standing there like a righteous king; he was standing there like the villain of a fairy tale. All dark and brooding and utterly attractive with a sharp jaw and full lips.
“You’re not going there.”
I kept my face steady and crossed my arms across my chest, ignoring the way I wanted to shiver from the cool air. I played stupid. “Going where?”
“You are not going back to the Covens, Journey. Nope.”
I pulled back, anger fueling my annoyance. I may not have hated him as much as I did two days ago, but he was going to need to learn that I wasn’t the same girl he was used to. “You were the one that wanted to come with me. I’m going one way or another, and you won’t stop me.” I huffed, trying to reel in my irritation. “I don’t need your permission, Cade Walker.”
The lift of his lip warmed my body. Ugh. I spun around, irritated that my breath caught at the sight of his dimples.
He caught up quickly, slowing his pace to walk beside me as the school disappeared behind our backs. “I like this new version of you.”
“Lucky me,” I said dryly, wanting to keep my head on straight as I traveled along the same path that Tobias and I had used to run away from the very place I was heading back to.
Cade laughed under his breath, and I sliced a fiery gaze over to him. His kissable lips smashed together below the pink tip of his straight nose. A bundle of white breath left his mouth as he turned his head away. “Why are you going back? It’s shut down.”
The Covenant Psych Hospital had shut down right after Tobias and I ran away. As soon as the Rebels found out that Gemma had been taken there for punishment, it was made apparent that the psych hospital was much more than a hospital. It had been turning convicts into black-market killers underneath the main floor—like Tobias. Although, he wasn’t a convict; he just got the raw end of a shitty deal. But once the FBI and ATF came to the scene, they swooped in and placed the patients elsewhere, and numerous arrests were made.
Butthere could still be something there that related to me. A file? Notes? Something. There had to be. Why was I kept there on suicide watch for months? Why didn’t anyone believe that I had been attacked? And why did Sister Mary tell Headmaster Ellison that I was going to be placed with a foster family after my treatment? There was no treatment. All they did at the hospital was trap me in a room and feed me drugs. Nothing made sense, and I was determined to figure it out, mainly because I was pretty sure my life depended on it.
“Journey.” Cade’s voice startled me as his warm breath hit the side of my face. We were at a standstill, neither of us taking another step. “Is there something there that you need?”
I stayed quiet, thinking over what I wanted to tell him. His eyes stayed locked on mine, and he blew out another breath that seemed more like a frustrated huff. “You think there’s going to be answers there?”
Putting my cold hands in my pockets, I shrugged. “There weren’t any here. Not really, anyway. Nothing that I wasn’t already aware of. Someone wanted me dead or…”
“Or sent away, at the very least,” Cade finished for me.
I nodded, inhaling a gust of cool air.
Cade reached into his pocket and pulled out the paper he had teased in front of me just a little while ago. My heart leapt in my chest, and I almost darted forward to grab it. He flicked his eyes up to me over the brim of the paper and began reading what was written on it. “Journey Smith - assumed birthdate: 10/18/2004. Arrived at Clemency Orphanage as a newborn on October 18, 2004 (given birthdate) bundled in a pink blanket with a note that read: In danger - keep safe and do not tru—”
I gasped as I reached forward and snatched the paper from his hand. Our fingers brushed along each other, but I ignored the jolt as I read over the rest of the contents with my hands shaking so hard the paper began to crumple. “What the—” I whispered, lowering my shoulders. My mouth suddenly began to dry out, and I blinked so many times my eyes began to sting.
“I suspect whoever hurt you has nothing to do with you, but something to do with where you came from.”
I found his piercing gaze full of concern and worry. “You think someone tried to kill me because of something with my birth parents?”
He nodded to the shaking note in my hand. “Seems like you were in danger before you were even born.” Cade reached out and placed one of his warm hands over mine, pulling the paper out from my tight grasp. “At first, I thought the threats had something to do with my lifestyle. I’d thought that from the very beginning. But now—”
“And what is your lifestyle?” I countered, hating that I wanted his hand back in mine.
Another tight breath left his puffed-up cheeks as he angled his head to the nearly hidden cottage just over the hill. He waited until I took a step beside him, and then, in silence, we walked over to the very edge of the hill. And before I could even attempt to take a step on my own, his arm shot forward, and he stopped me. “Let me go first. Walk in my footprints so you don’t fall.”