“Neither of you come any closer.” I placed my hand on my wrist, ready to activate my demon blade.
“Calm down, my dear. We can explain.” Oscar lifted an arm as if he were trying to coax a wild animal.
I felt wild. Completely out of control. Betrayed. My heart twisted as last night’s tarot reading replayed in my head. The Three of Swords. A bad omen. A loss of faith. All true. Hot, angry tears sprang to my eyes.
“You can explain a video of Caden killing a man on his team? You can explain him being found guilty and sent away to some supernatural prison? He’s not my partner! Who are you people?” I forced myself to look at Caden. A tear slid down my cheek, and I swiped it away. “How could you do this to me? How could you play me for such a fool?”
His eyes drifted shut, and a pained expression filtered over his features. He stepped closer.
“I said, don’t move!” My shout bounced off the barren walls. I reversed the spell and wrapped my hand around the hilt of my dagger. Holding it out in front of me, it took all my strength to keep it steady.
“Graves, listen,” Caden pleaded with me. “Nothing that has happened between us has been a lie. The only lie has been not telling you about my past. It’s true. Well, most of it’s true. I was found guilty of killing a researcher on my team, and I did do it. You saw the video, but you don’t know what led up to it. You don’t know the truth of what’s happening deep inside the Spellwork Organization. It’s infested with evil. Rotten from the inside out.”
“You sound crazy!” I jabbed the dagger into the air. “Prove it.”
“I can’t. Not yet. They got to me. They got everything and put me away. My own brother turned against me. Oscar was the only one who helped me. Who believed me.”
I pressed my hand against my temple, trying to make sense of it all. “So you broke out of prison and what? Came here to pretend to be my partner?”
“We think it’s all related. The demon activity in Thornbridge, the Soulbinder—it’s all connected to what happened in my division. There’s something bigger going on, and I needed access again. You were the perfect target. New to a team, inexperienced, and you wouldn’t ask questions.”
“That hurts, Caden.” I forced myself to speak around the ache in my throat. More tears leaked from my eyes, and I hated every one of them for how weak it made me look. “I always knew I wasn’t cut out for this, that I was second best to Ivy, but did you have to say it? Did you have to make me look so stupid?”
“Elle, that was never my—”
“Who’s my real partner?”
Oscar clasped his hands together and said quietly, “We altered some records. Your real partner was never activated. He doesn’t even know what’s happening.”
“Oh my god. I don’t know what to say. This can’t be real.”
“I know it’s hard to accept, but this doesn’t have to change anything, Graves. We still have our case, your training. It’s all real. All of it,” Caden said, his voice going raw with emotion.
I shook my head, unable to sort through what was real and what was fiction. Not here. Not now. I needed space to think.
“No—everything has changed. How can I trust anything you say? I’m leaving, and I don’t want you to follow me. Neither of you.”
“Elle, please listen,” Oscar said, reaching out a hand.
A scornful laugh burst from my throat. “I expected better from you, Oscar. You spout metaphors on building strong teams, and it’s all meaningless. I wish I’d never met any of you. Stay away from me.”
“Graves, don’t do this, please,” Caden urged. “It isn’t safe for you to separate from your team. It’s what they want!”
“What I want is to be left alone until I decide how to handle this. Don’t follow me. Don’t come to my dorm.” I moved around the edge of the room, waiting, blade extended, until Oscar and Caden stepped out the way.
I walked through the rest of the house as if my legs were encased in mud and kept going, out the door and across the overgrown walkway to my car. My fingers clenched the steering wheel like a life preserver as I stepped on the gas and sped through the gate.
The tears came unchecked then. Foolish tears. Heartbroken tears. I glanced down at my paint-covered clothes, lips trembling at the thought of what I’d been building with Caden. Maybe it hadn’t all been a lie. But did it even matter if it was built on a cracked foundation?
I drove absentmindedly through the streets, surprised to find myself parked in the student lot in front of my dorm. The past twenty minutes were a blur, and I spent the next twenty watching people come and go from the building. Funny how the world kept turning for everyone else when your world was tilted off its axis.
This couldn’t be happening. What was I supposed to do now?
A fist pounded on my window, and it nearly stopped my heart. I turned to peer through the glass and spotted Zoe swaying slightly next to my car. Her eyes were bloodshot, hair tangled around her face. I rolled down my window, and she leaned in, balancing heavily on the doorframe.
“Elle, there you are. I was looking for you.”
“Zoe, have you been drinking?” I scrunched my nose at the scent of liquor on her breath.
