Page 203 of Cerulean Truth
And with those words, we parted.
FIFTY-SIX
EMMA
I was living through the worst weeks of my life.
A week after my talk with James, he helped me to sneak out of Cyclos to finally go visit my parents. I was grateful for his assistance, but it wasn’t enough to forgive him for lying to me just yet.
Contacting them had been difficult, though I’d never been more relieved than when I learned my parents had been out of the country when the Radicals had plucked me off the street.
My parents were utterly shocked and denied me being adopted, as I had suspected all along. They swore to me I was their biological child and took out all the pictures from my mom’s pregnancy and my birth in the hospital.
I believed them, but it was still a very emotional moment and we cried a lot.
Upon my return to Cyclos, I found James hovering near my dorm. I was still maddeningly angry at him for keeping all that shit from me, but I did want to talk to him about my parents. Who else was I going to tell anyway?
James was clearly relieved for me but my heart ached as he stood there before me, his handsome features, his gorgeous eyes, all ruined by his lying lips.
He and the Council could form their own lying little club of liars. They could organize club activities, like Misleading Mondays and Deceiving Thursdays.
I asked for some more time apart and he gave it to me, albeit reluctantly.
After a while, the sting of betrayal became unbearable, and the absence of James left a void so profound that it felt like a James-shaped hole was forming in my heart. There was no doubt anymore: despite everything I loved that man.
But trust… I couldn’t pinpoint when I’d started to distrust him, but I had. He had transformed from a guy I barely knew into the one I'd call to help dispose of my victims, and now, to a man who had lied to me more than anyone else in my entire life.
Until I could overcome that betrayal, I had no business confessing my feelings to him, even though I suspected he already knew. So, I spent my days with Julian, yearning for James and seething at the Council for putting us in this position.
A few daysafter visiting my parents, I found myself back in the Scola one afternoon with Julian.
"So how are you feeling?" he inquired, and I shrugged, reluctant to let all the emotions flood in.
"I'm feeling enormously betrayed by James and his crappy Council right now, and stupid for not finding out the truth ages ago," I admitted. Julian nodded understandingly.
"Did you sleep at all?" he asked softly, still clearly concerned about me. I shuddered, recalling the nights and the terrors they brought forth.
"I still have some nightmares. Whatever they did to me..."
"They sedated you," he explained.
I nodded, "Yeah, that... it was horrible. It was as if I was dead but not really. I can't explain it. I simply... existed. Then my arm. And then that clean room..." The shivers intensified.
He nodded. "When we find the one orchestrating all of this, we'll make him pay severely! Sedation is highly illegal. I can't believe they did that while they were still in the Human World, where they could be tracked. They had to know the risks of getting caught were immense."
"You know what I hated the most though?" I murmured, almost as if confessing. "That I couldn't do anything about it. I've been struggling with translation since I got here, but that's been over eight months already, and I've made barely any progress. Thank the gods for all those fighting sessions with James, or I would have been utterly defenseless!"
Julian halted abruptly. "I was actually talking to James about that a while ago."
I grunted, "Don't talk to me about James yet, please. I've been... struggling with him as well."
"Okay, well, without delving into that topic then, we did engage in a discussion about the possibility of the True Bond. Are you familiar with it?" he asked.
I furrowed my brow; it did ring a bell. "Yeah, isn't that like a permanent form of telepathy?"
Julian nodded, elaborating, "Something like that. One can access all functions of the brain of their partner, including translation. If someone were to form the bond with you, they'd be able to access all the corners of your mind."
"Sounds ominous," I quipped.
