CRYSTALLUM (The Primordial Principles Book 1) (5 page)

Alex popped to his feet and green light slid a row of cars across the parking lot, crashing into each other and careening toward Cole. Halting them with a flick of his wrist, Cole sent them back in Alex's
direction.

"Remind me what we're playing again?" he shouted
over the
screeching metal against metal, heading at Alex.
"Because I forget." Another swipe of his arm, and red light streaked in a hundred directions. Windows exploded, one after another, like gun shots.
Something warm trickled from Cole's eye. "I don't hear you, Alex. You still with me? Or did you decide you don't like this game anymore? We could play Checkers if you want? Monopoly? I'm wicked good at cards." He touched his eyebrow. Blood. Dammit. So tricky to control where the glass flew when he made things explode.

A streetlight shattered overhead raining down shards of glass. Cole sidestepped the falling debris just as Jake came from nowhere, wrapped Cole's body up, and slammed him on the concrete. Air
rushed from Cole's lungs. His head snapped back. Flesh scraped away from his arm, and
a surge of red hot anger welled. H
e hurled Jake into the side of a truck. Jake’s head made contact with a
sickening crack, and he slid down the door, landing on his knees on the pavement.

“Really, Jake?" Cole paced, so pissed off it took all the control he could summon not to launch Jake into the side of the brick building. "I fought alongside you in Crystalline; well, fought is a very broad
term in this situation, but this—
this
," he pointed at his bleeding
bicep, the shredded sleeve of his jacket. “Is my thanks? Having your boys track me? It looks like Freddie Krueger got me. I have to buy a new jacket now. This one was my favorite, too."

"I didn't ask for your help in the club." Jake glared, attempting to stand. "I could've handled both Nefarius."

"Don't," Cole warned. "Do not stand up." Blood oozed down his sleeve, his arm searing. "You didn't handle anything.
I
killed both of them
. I
tracked them here."

"You need to stick to your own." Jake's voice strained.

"My
own
?" Cole's blood pressure hit full speed. The last thing he needed was hearing Jake regurgitate warnings from the Ward. "Meaning? Enlighten me."

Danny strode through the parking lot, cuts on his cheeks and jaw, knuckles bleeding. His gaze landed on Jake's slumped body. "We done?"

"We're done," Cole answered.

"Nice face, Jake." Danny chuckled. "You think you can track the location of your boys? You guys are so stealth apparently." He wiped the blood off his hand onto his jeans. "We can make another game out of it. Here's a hint. One of them is over there." Danny pointed toward the parking lot he'd taken Kyle down in. "And the other one is back there somewhere." His finger redirected toward the donut place. "Good luck."

Jake didn't answer, and his face was bleeding badly. Part of Cole felt bad about it, until the stab in his arm wiped that guilt right off the map.

"Let's go." Danny gave a last glance toward Jake. "Maybe you should teach Kyle and Alex how to fight before letting them loose."

"Stay away from Kadence."

Cole stopped. "That's what this is about? A girl?"

"She's not just a girl." Jake stood, resting his hands on his knees, most of his weight leaning against the truck. "You know that."

"If claims have been set that I'm not aware of, please...speak up."

"You know the Doctrine, Cole. Why else would Kadence be with Giselle and Lindsey?"

He had a point. He also had to be wrong.

"I saw the way you looked at her." Jake righted himself.

"She
jumped me
in Crystalline.
Threw me to the ground.
" Cole grinned wide at the memory.
She was strong, too.
"How should I have looked at her?" He half-laughed. "We have Filios Daemoneum and the Nefarius to worry about, Jake, the Ward to defend, not to mention all the gateways, Shadow grounds, and Hives to deal with.
Danny and I have been tracking an Alveare for hours, doing
our job
, while you and your friends are partying at some random club, and you're trying to beat my ass because of how I looked at a girl?"
What a dick.

"Just stay away from her."

"Just kiss my ass, Jake." It would have been easy to say, okay. Keep the peace like they were supposed to do, but Cole hadn't jumped Jake in the parking lot with his back turned like a coward—so the words fell out of his mouth without regret.

"You have Tiffany, Cole. It's not an option." Jake's words poured gas on the fire already churning.

"Take care of that pretty face, before I do it more damage. I'd hate for it to fester." Cole walked away, ignoring Jake’s last words.

***

Kade made her way up the stairs of her house and onto her front porch, the cabin's wide logs squeaking underneath her boots. Half a dozen dead plants slumped out of terra cotta pots, the early onset of winter having killed off everything within a hundred mile radius of the Rockies. The mountains stood around Boulder, Kade's house, the
same way they had everywhere she'd lived, like ever-looming
sentinels. Always staring—always watching.

Unlocking the front door, she walked inside the house.

"Kadey?"

Kade smiled at the normal tone of her dad's voice, just as something assaulted her nose and eyes. Her dad came around the corner, eyeglasses askew, hair disheveled, and bathed in a gray cloud. Two half-charred oven mitts were on his hands, a smoking casserole dish held between them. "It's lasagna."

"It's really late, Dad." Coughing, she ran past him for the exhaust fan. A thick plume of smoke poured from the open oven. Shoving the door closed, she clicked on the fan, just as the smoke detector went off, piercing the house with a deafening blare.

Her dad dropped the ruined dinner on the stove top, yanked the oven mitts off, and bolted to the utility closet. "I'll get it."

The sound of the broom whacking the fire alarm touched her ears. Another whack, and it must have fallen to the ground because it stuttered and made a weak, dying squeal. Kade was surprised the thing still worked at all with as many times as her dad had pummeled it in the past month.

"Think it's time for a new one." Her dad held the broom in one hand and the busted up smoke detector in the other.

"Why are you making lasagna at this hour?"

"I had to work late." He put the scorched casserole in the sink, turned the faucet on, and shoved the oven mitts in the drawer. Although her dad always tried, he couldn't cook.

"Drive thru?" He grinned.

"Sure. Just let me put on my coat. It's freezing." On the way upstairs, Kade checked the thermostat. Sixty-eight degrees. Who ever said sixty-eight degrees was warm was on drugs. She hit the little up arrow button to seventy-two.

Her bedroom was the same as she'd left it. U-Haul boxes everywhere. Clean clothes dumped on her unmade bed, notebooks
and paper scattered across the desk, and her new Mac displaying nothing but a
black screen. Kade searched the floor for the power cord and
plugged it in. She'd need to learn to use it soon. It might be the only source of communication to the outside world when she took up residence in the common house.

Shoving her coat overtop the jacket she was already wearing, she stomped back down the stairs. Her dad stood by the front door twirling his car keys around his finger.

"You know, we could get you a new coat this year if you want? That one's last year’s and all that."

Kade ambled out to the front porch, into the freezing cold, down the front porch steps, slipped, and landed with a hard thump on her butt.

"Whoops." Her dad helped her to her feet. "Looks like ice is
forming early this year, too. Need to buy some salt."

"Yeah." Kade tried to brush off the freezing water, but it had already seeped through the denim.

"So? The coat?" Her dad unlocked the truck.

"Sure. Thanks." Climbing into the SUV, Kade cranked the heat.

"Excited to start school?" They backed out of the driveway and onto the half-paved road, tires crunching over loose rocks. The high beam headlights caused the pine trees to light up like an eerie Christmas display.

Kade shrugged. "Not really."

"I got new snow tires put on your car today."

"Thanks. Giselle and Lindsey are picking me up, though. So I don't look completely out of place, or get lost the first day." Her focus remained on the trees.

"That's thoughtful, but you met all your teachers at the open house. I'm sure it will be fine. I think this move will be better."

Kade hoped that was true, but doubted it. How could making your kid move into a boarding house with strangers be better?

"I know that look," her dad said. "What's wrong?"

"Why do I have to move somewhere with a bunch of kids I don't know? You'll be all alone." She stared at the distant porch lights shining through the trees.

"You know why. My new position at the hospital is going to require a lot of traveling. I can't leave you at home alone."

"But I'm almost eighteen, Dad, a senior, and you barely let me have any friends anyway. What am I going to tell people at this common house when they start asking questions?"
More lies.
"I can manage a few nights a week alone."

"Kadence, you know that's not an option. Student housing will be fine. You have a few weeks of living here before you need to settle in, and it's no
close
friends. Just tell the kids at the common house the same thing you tell them at school."

Lies.

"You're quiet anyway." He patted her knee. "Just keep it that way."

Kade shifted her gaze back to the window. Only a faint sliver of
moon was visible through the trees. When night descended over the mountains in the winter, it was as though a deathly blanket of shadows covered everything. There were no sounds, only stillness. It had to be one of the loneliest places on Earth.

"I heard talk," her dad said, "rumors at the hospital, that there
have been some fights around town. Gang related. Near the
abandoned coal mines."

"Yeah?" Kade pictured Jake and Cole arguing.

"Either of your new acquaintances know about it?"

"Not that they said. Why?"

"I just want you to be safe." He clicked on the radio. "You know the rules."

"The rules are stupid," Kade mumbled. "Why are we even talking about this? I'm not hanging out with anyone but Giselle and
Lindsey, and they know nothing about me. I don’t even ask them any questions, and I seriously doubt they were involved in any fights." She pictured Giselle with her high heeled boots and short
skirt throwing a punch. "And I wasn't near any mines. I'm not that stupid."

A flood of lights drenched the paved city streets in white, green, and red, as they turned onto the main road.

"No one said anything about you being stupid. And the rules are for your protection. For everyone's. Don't forget that." They rolled up to the drive thru window at the burger place. "The usual?"

"Yeah." Kade stared at the impending blackness in the distance. "The usual."

LINDSEY'S CAR WAS EASY TO TRACK
from Crystalline up the mountain. Besides the fact she always drove so damn slow, her Jetta ran on diesel fuel. Cole could've followed that horrible smell from Montana if he'd wanted to.

"You haven't had enough for one day?" Danny's brow furrowed.
"We've been to two states and a different country in just a few hours."

"Take my Jeep back to the common house if you're tired." Cole turned up the mountain road and switched on his high beams.

"This isn't your problem."

"The Shadow said, 'her.' He said the Patriarchae would come for
her
. I have to check it out."

"I'm not deaf. I heard what it said. It could've meant anyone." Danny yawned. "It also said we were all dead." He turned his hands over like he was inspecting them. "I don't look dead. I don't trust a damn word that comes out of any Nefarius' mouth. They're scheming liars."

"The scheming liars were hunting Kadence. Why else did she tackle me? She thought she was protecting me." The thought put a stupid grin on Cole's face.

"We don't know that. She could just be a klutz and a terrible dancer."

Cole eyed him. "Really?"

"Anyway, as much as I hate to admit it, even if the thing did mean Kadence, which is so damn unlikely, Jake was right. The rules are set."

Cole shifted gears. "Until we know where Kadence is placed, I'm not breaking any rules. I'm just making sure Giselle took her home."

"You like her."

"Giselle?" Cole smirked.

"Shut up. I meant Kadence."

"I talked to her for three minutes. If that. And I'm following a lead. That's what we do. It's my job. Yours, too. Get your feet off the dash."

"You drive a Jeep—my feet aren't hurting the dashboard.
Anyway...once we know who, what, where, and why, it's our job to keep an eye out, but until we do, Kadence isn't on the 'to do' list.
Watching her isn't following the lead on the crystal we found.
We don't even know this girl.
And
she was with Giselle. That's all the information we need on her.”

"I think she's a fledgling." Cole's gaze shifted toward Danny. "Kadence."

His brows hit his hairline. "Because?"

"She didn't know what I was—she freaking tackled me
to the ground
in a club full of people. Didn't you notice how out of place she seemed at Crystalline? Nervous? She doesn't know Jake well. Or Giselle. It was obvious."

Kadence could clearly see the Nefarius hunting her, possibly even know how to kill them, but Cole was pretty positive she didn't know much else. That alone was reason to break every rule the Ward had. The thought that Kadence had no idea what she was doing—or why, was disturbing.