Greys III - Revelations

Chapter 8 - Rooftops & Invitations

I didn't fully understand or comprehend what we were searching for, what a victory meant until we were on the other side of the door, until I saw James' hand reaching for the handle, felt the hesitation in his mind, saw him flex his fingers to rid the shake. He was afraid, this was one of the rare times he didn't know what the reaction of the other party would be. James, my Pair, my leader, a Half, unsure. It put a cold feeling in my stomach.

I hadn't considered what we would do if Kael didn't react as we thought he would, hoped he would. What if he regretted leaving me the call, what if it had been a desperate last attempt at saving himself and Nevaeh, but now that he didn't have hunters at his heels, he had found his anger again, his disgust with what we were.

I had been so focused, so obsessed, with finding him, figuring out his message, that I had blocked the rest from my mind. I told myself it didn't matter how they reacted if we couldn't find them. But now that we were actually there, so close, now that I was sure this was where they were waiting, where I would see them, speak to them, for the first time in months, the fear was crippling.

We had spent more time apart than together, they had presumably hated me for longer than accepted me. That thought bit like the winter winds that had quickly faded with our travels south.

I touched James' arm, just lightly, just to remind him I was there too, to tell him that if I could forgive him, surely Kael could as well. In some ways I couldn't even imagine Kael angry with James, his brother, but then I'd realize how foolish that was. Kael wasn't some puppy, he was a darkling who had been tricked by his savior, his leader for their entire relationship. He was a Darkling who probably had more blood on his hands than any other of his kind I had met, besides my Pair. I bit down on my teeth, taking a deep breath as James made to push the door open.

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It took me longer than I cared to admit to decipher what Kael's message had meant, where, and more importantly when, he wished to meet us. We had gone back to our shabby motel to brainstorm, to research, to see if there was any Niabe, or Heaven-related places in the city, anywhere that their message could connect to. Within just a few hours we had exhausted every possible option. There was nothing, the city was as dull and ordinary as any. But still, Kael had left us the message, a plea for help. He had reached out to us and I couldn't accept that there was no way to answer him.

We searched for two days, following even the slimmest of leads, the most unlikely of associations, the most stretched, convoluted connections to what he could have meant, and we knew it, but we couldn't stop looking, couldn't face the possibility that maybe we wouldn't find them because someone else had found them first. Because they were already dead.

Sometimes I almost knew they were, knew they hadn't gotten away, knew we were too late, that they had been hunted down and killed, one and then the other. All because James and I had taken too long to care, because I had taken too long to forgive him. Sometimes I knew it was my stubbornness that had gotten them killed, but we still searched. We couldn't stop, that felt like giving up, like admitting there was no one to search for.

Sometimes I just walked around near their hotel, near where I thought they might be because I had seen them there, in James' vision. Sometimes my walks were more for me than for them, I knew they wouldn't be there but I couldn't idly wait in the hotel room, couldn't feel like I was doing nothing. It was on one of those walks that the answer found me, staring at me as I turned a corner, sitting on the stone steps of a pompous bank.

I knew it wasn't Kael, the build was all wrong, and the man was much too old, but the hair was long and dark, and he was smoking. I sat on the steps, the opposite side from the man, as far as I could be while sharing the same entrance, and closed my eyes.