Page 108 of Marked
He starts to rise and I don’t wait for him to find his feet. I run.
It’s cowardly. Stupid.
But I put on a burst of speed and the colony house blurs around me. Out through the front room, down the stairs, into the foyer, and onto the sidewalk before the manor.
I need time to process, and I can’t do that here.
“Hey.”
I turn.
Caine leans against his cherry red viper, bandages from his neck to his arms and dark circles around his eyes. “Thought you’d be out eventually. Want a lift?”
I look behind me as something clatters in the house prior. Ruin’s roar sets me into motion.
“Let’s go.”
He climbs over the door and I slip in beside him. Slamming the car into gear, he speeds us out the barely opening gate and onto the street beyond.
No one follows.
Sagging into my seat, I don’t give Caine a direction, but he seems to understand that I don’t have one. Instead of going toward Lock Lake, he makes a left and we zip out onto the interstate.
The cities are luminous as we pass them, the sky illuminated by millions of stars, but it’s never been so bright. So vibrant.
But so cold. So eternal.
“Bit different, isn’t it?” he asks into the silence.
“What is?”
“Life on the other side of humanity.”
I nod. “It’s a learning curve.” I glance over. “How’s Raina?” I ask into the surprisingly easy quiet.
“Bruised, but fine. Her and the baby both.”
My world shimmers, but I ignore the passage of hot tears as they roll down my face. I simply nod because if I speak, I’ll cry.
Even pregnant she tried to protect me. At the risk of herself and her unborn child. Just like Caine did. The evidence is under his bandages.
A flash of Draven, bloody knife in hand, tears through my mind. I clamp my lips closed to hide the whimper.
“Ruin’s gonna be pissed for a while,” Caine adds, almost gently. “But he’ll calm down once he realizes you have every reason to freak.”
I huff and cross my arms, eyes locked on the city beyond the quiet interior. The mood swings are hard to grasp, but considering I died ... “He can stay angry.”
Caine laughs. “You’re pissed he thrust you into our world, not that he saved you.”
“What’s the difference?” I grumble.
“You wanted to live despite it all, but you didn’t expect it to go this way. Now, everything you have hated ... feared … You’re one of us, and that scares the hell out of you. That’s why you’re angry. You think you will go bad like the others you grew up around.”
My mouth opens to argue, but I shut it again.
Caine is right.
It’s not being a vampire that scares me, it’s my past.
