Cade (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

The chances that the boy’s real name was Phoenix were slim—but Cade couldn’t blame the boy. If he had woken in a strange house, with a strange man, he’d give a fake name, too. Lord knows the boy was probably frightened enough without the worry of being identified and sent home. The name could come later. The real challenge was to get the boy up and keep him up. The name was fitting, at least—the Phoenix rises from the ashes of its old life. And he certainly had.

Phoenix kept a hold on his empty plate like some kind of source of comfort, but his eyes remained on Cade. “Are you
Other
?” he finally asked nervously.

Cade nodded. “Yes. I am the same as you. I am
wolf
.”

Another moment of silence as Phoenix took that information in. He was choosing his questions, Cade supposed, and he probably had many of them, too.

“I’m not
Human
anymore?” The question was brimming with sadness, tugging at Cade’s heartstrings. The boy was neither, really, but how would he break that to him? His face was one of innocence—an innocence that had no doubt been thrown into the cruel world when he was far from ready, but yet he had survived and got this far. That had to count for something.

His face had pretty much healed. Only the scar that went through his eyebrow remained, and it probably always would. Maybe it was just as Gemma had said—the internal wound had to heal first, and then the external wounds would follow. But then again there were some wounds that would probably never heal, and maybe this was one of them.

“Not anymore. Now you’re …” Cautious blue eyes stayed fixed on him as Cade tried to find the right words.

“
Other
?” Phoenix probed. Cade realised that the boy had a southern accent. He really was far from home.

“No. Not
Other
, either.” Cade didn’t want to lie to him. The boy needed to know the truth about what he was. “We call what you are half-breed. Because you used to be
Human
, and now you're not, but you’re not born this way, either.” He paused, letting the boy digest that piece of information first. Then he added, “Someone bit you and you became like this?” He made it a question rather than a statement. If Phoenix knew who had done this to him, they’d not need the tracer to track him down. Rather than nod, the boy’s face flushed red and his eyes brimmed with unshed tears. It was a question for another time perhaps. Through their bond, Cade could feel the sadness welling inside. It wasn’t shame the boy was fleeing, he realised, it was heartache. “Do you want to get up?” Cade tried to change the topic. “Maybe move around or something? You have been lying in bed for a while. It might do you some good. Come downstairs and eat? Get a shower?”

“I’d like to shower, please,” Phoenix replied weakly. He wiped at his eyes and looked away, trying to hide the tears there.

Cade smiled and pretended he hadn’t noticed. “Sure.” He got up from the chair in the corner, but took care to keep his movements slower than normal. Phoenix was still watching everything he did like a scared, little bird. Cade kept a distance, but held his hand out to the boy as he crouched in front of him, unwilling to tower over him so much. What he really wanted to do was to grasp the boy’s hand. He would gain so much from the contact, especially now that they were bound, but Cade didn’t dare to force it. The boy would have to come in his own time. “Do you want me to help you get up?”

“I think I can do it,” he said. He slid himself to the edge of the bed, letting his scrawny legs hang over the side. “These are your clothes?” he asked, glancing down at himself as if he had just realised what he was wearing.

“Yours were pretty ruined. We had to put you in something.”

“We?”

“Me. I mean me. We can get you something for yourself tomorrow if you can manage it.”

Phoenix nodded quietly. Maybe if there was a promise of tomorrow the boy would stay. As he pushed himself up from the bed, there was a knock on the door and Cade cursed at Gemma’s timing. The boy’s eyes went wide and he scrambled back onto the bed and into the corner again.
God damn it, Gemma
.

“It’s okay. I promise. It’s just my friend.”

Phoenix shook his head and wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them up and resting his chin on his knees, his hands trembling. He looked so small and vulnerable curled up there. It pained Cade to see. He had lost weight these past few days, too, since Cade had found him. That was all due to his change and his
wolf
—his
Human
body unable to deal with the energy consumption it now needed to maintain itself.

“It’s just my friend.” Cade crouched down at the side of the bed so that he wasn’t towering over Phoenix. Cade was a tall man, so for a child, his height could seem intimidating, especially when that child was already feeling afraid and defenceless. Holding out his hand, his arm on the bed and palm upturned, he said, “Take my hand.” He was unsure how it would work. There was comfort in touch for
wolves
, but it was different between him and Phoenix—they had a bond. Would it be stronger? Would he need it as much—or more?

Phoenix stared at his hand as if it were going to attack him. “It’s just my friend,” Cade repeated gently, reassuringly. “She has been coming over and helping take care of you. She cleaned you up when we got you here and helped me get you to the house. We swam across the river … she was there. Do you remember?”

“I swam?”

“Yes,” said Cade. “We had to get you here and the roads were blocked.” He omitted the part about the
Humans
looking for him. It was best not to completely freak the child out, he thought. When Phoenix said nothing, Cade withdrew his hand, trying not to let his disappointment show. “I have to go and let my friend in, okay? You can use the bathroom, get a shower. I’ll leave some clothes on my bed for you. My room is next door, and the bathroom is just opposite this room. If you want to come down, you can.” At Phoenix’s uncertain look, he added, “She’s a friend; she’s here to help us. I promise. But I have to go and answer the door or she’ll start to get worried, okay?”

“She is
Other,
too?”

Cade nodded slowly. “We are all
Other
. And we all just want to help. I’ll just be downstairs. Okay?”

It killed Cade to see him curled in the corner, afraid to death of everything and everyone—but he understood it. He was in a world he didn’t understand or know. All he probably knew was how to hate them. What it must be like to wake up in a new place with a new life. He had to mourn, too, because there was no going back to what was. His body had survived the change—but would his mind? Cade hoped so, because the fight was far from over. It was just beginning.

He got up to leave the room but paused at the door. “Just shout if you need me. I’ll hear.”

Phoenix made no attempt to move as he listened to the sounds of Cade walking down the stairs and opening the front door. He heard voices, except they were louder than what they should have been. It was as if they were talking in the next room rather than on another floor. It disorientated him because he couldn’t quite work out where Cade was in the house.  It didn’t hurt his ears with the extra clarity, but it was like they had been blocked all of his life, and now, suddenly, he was hearing things.

After a few minutes, when he felt sure that no one was coming up the stairs or to the room, Phoenix shuffled to the edge of the bed again. His clothes were still sitting at the end of the bed, where Cade had placed them. He reached for his shirt on the top of the pile and let it fall open. It was torn and stained—ruined, just like Cade had said. He stuffed it to the side and took his trousers from the pile. They were just the same. He checked the next piece and another. Everything was ruined. Not just his clothes, he thought. He had ruined everything in his life, too.

He placed the t-shirt on his lap and glanced around the room. It was bare, nothing in it really apart from the bed. Even the walls were nothing but bare plaster. It was a stark contrast to the room he was used to. The walls of his bedroom at home had been decorated in colours his mother had chosen. The matching bedcovers and curtains, the brightness of his room with his things and his space—that room now represented someone else. Someone good—someone that his father loved. Not him. Not this monster he had become. That room belonged to a boy called Eric—and Eric was dead.

Phoenix pushed the shirt from his shoulder to look at where the bite was. He hoped it would be gone, the reminder erased from his flesh. But the skin remained puckered and pink. He lightly ran a finger over where the darker dints were from the other boy’s sharp teeth. He slapped his hand down over it, covering it so that he couldn’t see it. Why had he let Robert bite him? His mother would still be alive if he hadn’t been so stupid. He closed his eyes and dug his fingers into his shoulder until he felt the sting of his nails breaking the skin. He felt blood well, but when he looked at the damage he had done, he watched in amazement as the small welts slowly closed back up and disappeared to nothing more than indistinct marks.

Taking a deep breath, Phoenix let his eyes close. He could feel Cade, that warmth when there is another person close by—it was so strange. It was as if he were in the room with him. Phoenix’s eyes snapped open, half expecting the man who had been helping him to be there. But he was all alone in the room. He frowned, wondering if he was just going crazy. “Get up,” he muttered to himself. “Get up and move.”

He pushed his thoughts away and slid off the bed. There was a window to the side and he tiptoed over to it, his legs unsteady as he moved. He pressed his face against the glass, cupping his hands around the sides of his face to block out the light so that he could see outside. It was dark out there, but he had no idea what time it was—his body clock was totally off now. It had to be evening, though, he thought. Cade had a visitor, and visitors didn’t come late. Did they? He reminded himself that these were not
Humans
he was dealing with. They were
Other
. He remembered his dad’s warnings as he was growing up, how
Others
came out after dark, and that was why they had to stay indoors—like prisoners.
Others
made it so that they couldn’t go out after dark. His father hated
Others
, like every adult he knew. They were vermin allowed to germinate on the outskirts of town was what his father had claimed.

Did that make him vermin now, too?

Banishing the thought, he looked out into the darkness and was surprised to find that even his vision was better. Like some kind of super night vision, he could see everything. The room below was lit, and the glow from the window created a circled of yellow light outside on the grass, but beyond that, into the darkness, he could still see. There was just a mass of overgrowth. His mother would have loved this garden, he thought. She’d have made it nice.

No.
He couldn’t think about her. He blinked away the sudden tears and tried to focus on the now. There were no other houses that he could see—he was in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it should scare him, but for some reason, it didn’t. He felt safe here, even though there was no logic as to why he should.

He turned his back on the outside world and leaned against the windowsill. This was his room now, he supposed—or it was if Cade let him stay. Maybe he would throw him out into the rain, too, like his father had. His eyes fell onto his bag lying in one corner. His legs a little steadier than before, he made his way towards it and tore it open. The putrid scent of urine and blood blasted him with memories.

The boy.

Oh god. Phoenix reeled back, slapping his hands over his mouth as bile rose inside. Stumbling backwards, he landed on the floor against the wall at the other side of the room. He remembered now. He remembered it all.

The boy in the square. What had he done? The flesh between his teeth, the blood that ran down his mouth and chest, the soul-piercing screams. He had killed that boy. He had bitten him and taken his life. Phoenix fought the urge to vomit.

Those boys … they had beaten him and were going to kill him. They were
Human
and he wasn’t. He was … half-breed. Isn’t that what Cade had called him? He was a nothing, that was what he was. Just a thing between the worlds that no one wanted.

He dragged himself out of the room and reached the bathroom just in time to vomit everything he had eaten into the toilet bowl. When the heaving had stopped, he slumped back against the wall panting. He listened to the sounds below hoping that they hadn't heard him and that no one would come up. If he could hear them, surely they could hear him. His shoulders sagged in relief after a few moments when he realised no one was coming up.

Phoenix closed his eyes and let his stomach sit, the thoughts slowly subsiding and sudden drowsiness taking over. When he opened them again, he had no idea how long had passed. He was still in the bathroom, but he was lying across the floor. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he took in the bathroom—he hadn’t had time to before. Like the bedroom, this bathroom wasn’t like what he was used to, either. It was much different. There was a bathtub supported by four legs in the middle of the room. A showerhead rested on the taps and a toilet was in the corner. The sink was set within a small table, and it looked more like a bowl than an actual sink. The floor was bare like his room’s, and the walls were just plain plaster. No neat blind adorned the window, but instead, a piece of fabric draped down from where it had been tacked to the wall. A small lamp sat atop one of the two chairs in the room, while the other held a pile of towels.