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But she can’t help stealing one last glance as she steps through.
Kade’s taken a few steps away and stopped, his shoulders hunched as he talks into his cell phone. He’s too far away for her to hear what he’s saying, but his frown is the deepest she’s seen so far. The opaque doors close, cutting him off, just as she makes out two words.
“It’s begun.”
3
Kade
Kade paces back and forth in the parking lot, his phone pressed to his ear. Edgy tension is coiling through his muscles as he fights the need to go back inside.
“You’ve done the right thing,” Guy says through the cell, his voice calm and reassuring. “You know why you can’t go back in the hospital.”
Kade rubs his forehead with his free hand, still fighting the urge. Elara shouldn’t be alone right now. He knows how terrifying this all can be.
“You weren’t even supposed to help her in the first place,” Guy says, his voice low.
Kade is already picturing the frown on the grizzled old werewolf’s face. After everything he’s done for him, Kade hates even a whiff of disappointing Guy. His mentor deserves better than that.
He clenches his jaw. “I know.” Yet, he can’t bring himself to regret it. Elara was hurt and terrified. He couldn’t sit back and do nothing.
Guy sighs, the sound heavy with layers. “I’ll call back later. See you home soon.”
The call disconnects and Kade lowers it from his ear, looking at the screen as it goes dark. As if this one lifeline, the one surety he has, is fading to black with it. He has no reason to doubt Guy, he’s been a steady and solid rock through his entire life. After losing everything, there was Guy. On bad days, Guy is there to make it better. He’s like a father to him, and as such, he should be trusted.
With a sigh, Kade sits on the hood of his sedan and opens up his social media, deciding to keep us his research to distract himself. Even if the happy faces are lightyears from how he feels.
Except someone’s posted a picture from the falls tonight. In the background he can see Elara and her friends gathered around each other. Elara’s face is lit up with excitement, her hands held out animatedly in front of her as she talks to her friends.
Kade growls under his breath and turns the phone screen off, momentarily considering throwing it across the parking lot. He imagines how satisfying it would be to watch the glass splinter and shatter, but he really doesn't want to explain to Guy why he’s broken another phone. Feeling guilty at the thought, he slips his cell back in his pocket and folds his arms over his chest to glower at the hospital.
He should be in there, by her side, making sure she’s okay. That’s what a good guy would do. But he’s not the good guy, is he? Not in the slightest. He’s been following Elara, watching her every move, making sure he’s got it right. He can’t be wrong, not again. The stakes are too high.
The guilt too much.
With one foot up on the hood of his car, he spears his fingers through his hair and lets out a frustrated huff. He wasn’t supposed to actuallylikeher. He was just supposed to watch, geta feel for who she is. But as more time went by, it was less of a job and more of a pleasure.
Watching her get up in the morning, bedraggled and bleary eyed to pour her coffee. Watching her work out in her dorm room, her T.V. blaring club music while she runs on the treadmill. It wasn’t easy to get a dorm across the alley from her, harder still to watch her unseen, but Kade has a job to do and he can’t let Guy down. Everything rides on this, onher.
The sound of screeching tires breaks Kade out of his inner thoughts, and he squares his shoulders as a sedan peels through the parking lot of the hospital and squeals to a stop in front of the emergency exit.
“We have to park the car!” a woman wails. It’s obvious she’s been crying.
“Let them ticket me, I don’t care! Our baby is hurt!” a man shouts as he jumps out of the driver's seat. They leave the car there, running, with the doors open as they race each other inside. “Elara Holloway! We’re here to see Elara Holloway! Where’s my baby?”
“Her parents…” Kade mumbles as the sliding glass doors hiss shut behind them. A new wave of guilty sadness rushes over him, one that he quickly pushes away again. There’s no time for feeling, no time for regret.
Pushing himself off the hood, he rounds around his sedan and slips into the driver's seat. The older vehicle roars to life after turning the key a few times. Kade grabs the shift to put it in drive, but he looks over at the seat Elara was in and freezes. There are blood stains on the arms of the seats. Dark, red, accusing.
Kade bares his teeth and slips the car into drive, pulling out of the parking lot just as fast as the Holloway’s pulled in. But it’s rage powering this car. Not concern. He slams his palm into the steering wheel a few times as he runs a red light and roars downthe road. He’s headed back to his dorm, back to the safety and anonymity he’s grown so comfortable with.
He doesn’t want to think about what lies ahead, about what happened tonight and what it will mean for tomorrow. No. He wants to go home, microwave a cup o’ noodles, and watch some boring T.V. show until he passes out.
By the time he gets to the dormitories his rage has abetted, and when he parks he’s breathing normally again. Casually, he steps out of his car and trots up the stairs to his dorm. He passes a group of freshmen girls who stare at him like starving piranhas and he forces himself to smile and wave.
Let them simper, let them desire. I will never be for them.
He can never be for anyone.
