Carnal

Chapter Eighteen - What Have I Done?

"Ella..."

I looked up from the soup that was on the table in front of me to see Daniel staring at me intently as he hovered over his own bowl.

"Why are you not eating?" He asked.

I looked down at the untouched bowl in front of me that was no longer steaming and the clean spoon that laid next to it.

"I guess I'm not hungry," I told him.

He sighed, dipping his spoon back into his own bowl.

"What's wrong?" He asked, giving me his full attention.

I looked around us at our audience, the busy kitchen where the chef and a few others were bustling their way around to prepare dinner for everyone else.

"Listen," Daniel said, "I understand that you're having a hard time..."

My head snapped back to face him and I leveled a glare.

"You understand?" I asked him. "You understand what it's like to be exposed to another dimension of reality that goes against every presuppositional belief you hold? You understand what it's like to find out that you have a predetermined soulmate, the likes of whom children around the world have nightmares about? You understand what it's like to be lied to for your entire life about what and who you are?"

He drew in a deep breath.

"You actually want me to believe that you understand?" I asked him.

"I can't say that I relate to you on every level of this situation," Daniel admitted. "But I can tell you that I do know what it's like to have a deep bond of trust broken. I do understand what it feels like to be lied to. But you know what? I also understand what it takes to heal that relationship and rebuild that trust. And guess what, Ella? I didn't do any of those things by sitting around and throwing a pity party for myself."

Daniel's angry tone had me at a loss for words.

"You want to make things right?" he asked me rhetorically. "You have the power to do it. So, get up and go do it."

He reached forward and put the spoon into my bowl before picking up the bowl itself and handing it to me. As it took the bowl from him, stunned, he stood up from his chair.

"I refuse to sit around and watch you sulk and starve yourself just because you were dealt a shitty hand. Don't be selfish enough to believe that you're the only one having a hard time with all of this. Have you stopped to think about how hard this might be for Cain?"

With that question looming in the air, he turned around and left the kitchen.

After finally recovering from the brutally honest verbal attack that he gave, I looked around and saw all the people in the kitchen looking at me.

The look on their faces said it all: Daniel was right.

Deep down, no matter how much I wanted to come up with another excuse to justify my feelings, I knew he was right.

Half embarrassed and half emboldened, I stood up from the table. The bowl of soup was still in my hands as I left the kitchen.

Daniel had already disappeared down the hallway, but I wasn't going to find him.

I ventured up three flights of stairs to that all-too familiar door.

I stopped in front of it, nervously shifting the bowl of soup in my hands.

It had been three days.

Three days since I'd seen Cain. Three days since I had seen Zak.

I had tried to see Zak the night that he had been locked away in that cell, but I was refused entry. The guard told me that he had been given strict instructions not to let me inside. That fact, however, didn't stop me from trying to see him every few hours for the past three days. But, despite my persistence, I still couldn't get in.