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My body vibrated with uneasy energy, feeding into me like a poison I wished I could escape. I stood from my chair, pacing to the back of the room to find anything to look at besides Vanessa’s weighted stare. I finally stopped when I got to the area by her desk, a landscape painting of what looks like the Vapalles coast at sunset.
“Kasha?”
“When he didn’t believe me,” I whispered, my eyes still tracing the pattern of the painting, arms clutched around me, fingernails digging into the soft fabric of my shirt. “He didn’t stand behind me when I…brought the, um…with the investigation.”
“That must have been hard. To have someone who was a constant in your life not believe what happened,” she said, the honesty and support laced in her voice sending a shiver up my spine.
She didn’t use the typical language I heard from other people. She didn’t say “alleged occurrence” or “your side of the story”. She accepted what had happened as if it was complete fact…as if I hadn’t shattered my whole family dynamic because I spoke up, because I told the truth.
“It was heartbreaking.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “My father, it wasn’t even that he didn’t believe me or not, he just hated the—as he called it—shameI brought to the family over bringing my ‘personal problems’ into the public eye.”
“That wasn’t Caleb’s reaction?” Vanessa asked.
My skin crawled. Why was I talking about this?
Oh, right…because some weird part of my instincts was telling me to.
“Partially, yes, it was. Caleb has always been one to follow my father wherever he goes. His perfect little soldier.” A bit of bite laced through my words; I rubbed the back of my neck. “But he was also friends with um, with…him, um, Logan.”
“Really?” Vanessa said.
“Yes, they worked as Deltas together for years.” Tears pricked at my eyes. I had never said these things out loud. I didn’t talk, I kept it all in.
“So when he had to choose a side to believe, he chose his friend?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah, I suppose.” I shrugged as if it didn’t bother me to the core, tainting me with sadness and anger.
A part of me hadn’t even been surprised, and it pained me to admit that. Logan and Caleb were best friends, they were brothers not born from blood but forged through struggles and strength. It was why I had once been close to Logan, too; it was part of the reason why I had enjoyed working with him for almost four years, why I had been proud to be his second.
And all of that had been taken away, stripped into nothingness in one night. One night when Logan showed me and the rest of the Faction who he truly was. And when I’d decided to bring that truth to light, Caleb didn’t believe me. He chose Logan, not me. Every time I thought about it, I was smothered by shame and rage all over again.
He had been there for me through everything, so why couldn’t he have been there for me through this? Why wasthisthe condition that made his love for me disappear?
I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the answer, to know the truth. So, I shoved the questions back into the depths of my mind, praying to Lunestia that eventually I would forget them. Caleb and Logan were the past, and I wanted to focus on the future.
“It doesn’t even matter.” I swallowed back the tears, tampering down the tangled web that Caleb always seems to bring out of me. “I have too much to handle right now, we have a big case and that is much more important than Caleb being a bad brother.”
“Oh, well, that certainly sounds like extra stress.” Vanessa shifted in her seat, tapping her stilo against her notebook.
“Unfortunately. But working on cases actually helps calm me down.” I finally settled back into my chair, the tension slowly easing from my shoulders.
“Why is that?”
A smile tugged at my lips. “I like solving things. Bringing together pieces, discovered clues and using all of that detailed information to create theories and ideas that ultimately lead to helping others or catching some evil creep.”
“You like the control,” Vanessa pointed out. “And helping people. No wonder you adore the Guard so much.”
“Even as a Legacy, I’ve never doubted my desire to follow the path of my family.” I said, my heart twisting.
Even with everything that happened this past year, one thing I knew for certain: being in the Onyx Guard was always my destiny, and I would hold on to it for as long as I could.
Chapter Seventeen
My eyes were still heavy when I parked my cycle at the Compound the next morning.
After my talk with Vanessa, I could barely sleep, riddled with vivid dreams bringing me back to days and nights I never wanted to relive. I didn’t remember waking up at all, but when my day started, I was convinced I’d barely slept a wink. I hated these mornings, my muscles sluggish, my mind foggy, making it quite obvious that I would need a few extra cups of coffee to make it through. Bless Lea’s kind soul, the hearty breakfast and strong coffee she made were the exact thing I needed, and we’d enjoyed it over our typical conversation of what our days would look like.
I made my way past the Barracks that housed the rest of the Faction before emerging into the office circle. My Comms buzzed in my pocket, the vibration zinging up my leg; I pulled it out, a smile forming on my lips when Ollie’s name appeared on the screen.
