The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) (5 page)

“Fuck,” I swore loudly.

I figured it could be anything, but if I had to guess? It was some sort of tracker. That meant I was going to have to remove it, and soon.

I turned my attention back to the task at hand. I’d take this one step at a time.

Entering the garage, I found exactly what I was searching for. A car. A means to get across the border. Only now as I stared it down, I had misgivings.

I chewed the side of my lip. If I drove and teleported again, I could die or kill someone, depending on where the car crashed. Luck had been on my side the first time it happened. I doubted I’d be so fortunate in the future.

What to do, what to do.

Hesitation is lethal.
Caden’s words came back to me, and my chest constricted at the thought of him.

Could I risk death trying to escape? Absolutely. Would death await me if I was caught? Probably not—not if I’d just woken up. But imprisonment—that was a possibility. I’d broken a lot of laws.

Could I bear the thought of letting down all those people who’d grieved for me only to find out I’d survived? I didn’t know.

“Ember.”

The voice sent a shiver down my spine, even as my shoulders hiked up in surprise. I whirled around.

Caden.

CHAPTER 5

W
hen I turned to face him, he was crouching, a single hand held to the ground for balance.

Slowly he rose, as though sudden movement might scare me away.

“Angel,” he murmured, taking in my appearance, “you’ve forgotten.”

I canted my head. “Forgotten what?”

His hands opened and closed. I knew that he desperately wanted to touch me, but he held himself back. Was he now afraid of me?

Caden’s eyes lingered on my face. “That you’re not alone in this.”

I furrowed my brows at his words, and then the memory hit me. The sharp, sweet smell of pine mingling with the bitter tang of my fear. It was the moment after Dane Richards had confronted me. My muscles still ached from exertion. I was a dead woman, and I knew it. And then Caden was there, asking me to share my secrets with him. My pain. Telling me that he loved me, telling me to let him in.

He’d wanted it all—he’d wanted all of me.

I didn’t realize I’d been staring at the ground until I raised my eyes to meet his. “I remember,” I whispered.

Then we were moving toward each other. His arms wrapped around me, and for a moment I felt safe.

Caden’s mouth met mine, and our lips moved over each other. My heart ached; I didn’t know whether I was feeling Caden’s loneliness, our circumstances, or if, deep in my bones, I could feel the time we’d spent apart. His lips parted mine, and I got my second sweet taste of him. Goose bumps danced along my skin as memories of our other kisses played out behind closed lids.

Caden’s tongue brushed against mine, and my hands tunneled through his hair. He groaned at the sensation, his hands beginning their own exploration, drifting over my back, my upper arms, my torso, then finally, the sides of my face. I got the distinct impression that he was reacquainting himself with me.

Just like with all our kisses, desperation tinged this one. It could be our last, depending how the next few hours played out. We were constantly having that final, parting kiss.

Caden broke away to lean his forehead against mine. “Tell me I’m not dreaming this whole thing up.”

“Would you dream me in nothing but an old man’s sport coat?” I replied, fingering the hem of my temporary outfit.

Caden gave a choked laugh. “Hell yeah, I would. Remember who you’re talking to?”

I smiled at that, but then my smile faded. “I need to escape.”

Caden put a finger to my lips. My eyes moved over his face, reading his expression. Someone else was listening to us. Of course. I nodded to let him know I understood.

Caden grabbed a small chip from the inside of his clothes and dropped it to the ground. Using the heel of his shoe, he crushed it.

“Should you be doing that?” I said, breaking the silence.

“No.”

I took that in stride. He was defying orders for me, and here I was, preparing to leave without him. Guilt swamped me; I’d choke on it if I allowed myself. It wasn’t my job to rescue anyone, especially not someone who’d remained at the very organization that had betrayed me.

“Are there any others?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow, a sly grin beginning to bloom. My breath caught when his dimples appeared. I’d missed those.

“If you wanted a striptease, angel, you only had to ask.”

I rolled my eyes, but I felt a smile tugging on my own lips, my stormy emotions temporarily ebbing away.

Seeing my expression, Caden began to remove his clothing in earnest.

“Caden . . .” I gaped when he lifted his shirt over his head and I caught sight of his torso. I couldn’t help it—Caden had gotten
ripped
. He had been muscular before, but this
. . .
He must’ve thrown himself into weight training since I’d last seen him.

He also had new scars. Many more. They licked their way up his arms and branded his chest and abs. I hid my frown. Weight training wasn’t the only thing Caden had thrown himself into.

His hands drifted to his zipper, and my thoughts quickly shifted from war to love. My cheeks flushed at the idea of him naked, but I didn’t look away.

“Is someone embarrassed?” There was a lightness to his voice that I hadn’t heard since I’d first seen him.

“You’ve changed,” I said, eyeing him up and down.

“So have you.” He unceremoniously dropped his pants, pulling his boxers down with them.

And I forgot to breathe.

Grabbing his clothes and the crushed listening device, he sauntered off, presumably to dispose of them and grab something else to wear. I stared at his backside, ogling the rippling muscles of his back and his tight ass.

“Ember,” he said, not bothering to turn around.

“Huh?”

“It’s rude to stare.” I could hear the humor in his tone. He knew exactly what he did to me.

Focus. I took a quick inventory of the house. Most of what I’d need would be in the garage and the kitchen.

Caden came back wearing the homeowner’s gym shorts. “What were we talking about again?”

“I have to leave.” My hands were starting to twitch with the need to pack and head out. And my emotions
. . .
They flickered from guilt, to anger, to lust, to fear, to happiness as my memories returned and I processed my past and present situation.

“You’ve been teleporting during the day,” he said. Not a question.

I cocked my head to the side. “How do you know?”

“You visited Desiree right after you visited me, and now you’re here.” He’d connected the dots much faster than I currently was. Something was wrong with that—with me. I rubbed my forehead. I’d been doing that a lot, like I might be able to massage my mind back into working order.

“Ember
. . .
why did you attack her?” Neither his eyes nor his voice contained any judgment.

I stared at him unflinchingly. “I was settling a score.”

“You beat her bloody.”

“It was less than she deserved.”

I could tell he was intrigued by that, but I could also tell he thought I was the unstable one. Not her.

I pushed away my hurt. I knew how this looked. How I looked. I was the one on the run after all.

I stepped away from him. And like any other genetically modified teleporter, he read into that single, physical action. Just like he’d been trained to do.

“Ember.” Caden reached for my hand.

I pulled it away before he could touch me.
“Don’t.”

“I get that you’re confused,” he said.

I laughed, and some of the understanding in his eyes gave way to annoyance.

“Caden, you’ve been reading people for longer than I have. Surely you know her injuries weren’t a result of my
confusion
.” Please.

“Then what made you do it?” he asked. Calm. He was too calm.

I took another step back. More sirens in the background. Time was slipping through my fingers. “She set me up that night.”

Caden stilled.
“What?”

“Did you think I blew my own cover?” I asked.

His silence spoke for him.

I sighed. This was why I did things alone. I began to move, walking to the kitchen to collect the items that I’d need to cross the border.

“Don’t push me out, Ember. Help me understand,” Caden said, following me. “I’ve had a lot of time to suspect a lot of things. At some point you become a conspiracy theorist, and I just couldn’t do it. Not on top of the grief.”

“There’s nothing you couldn’t figure out on your own,” I continued, now thoroughly annoyed. “Clearly, you’ve chosen not to.” I pulled a package of rubber gloves out from under the sink, then a screwdriver and a small hammer from a junk drawer.

Caden growled, “Fine—you’re right. But fuck, Ember, have some perspective. You
died
, and I was the one who couldn’t save you.”

I turned in time to see him bow his head and run his hands through his hair. “I was the one who held you those last moments.” His voice cracked as he looked up.

Our gazes met, and I could tell that he was barely holding it together. Barely.

His red-rimmed eyes beseeched mine. “I’ve been trying to forget that night ever since.”

I hesitated only for a moment, and then I walked into his arms. He crushed me to him. “I’ve missed you so Goddamn much,” he murmured into my hair.

What do you say to something like that? I couldn’t feel the weight of the time spent apart. I couldn’t possibly understand.

But I did understand that I’d been given a second chance at life, and I’d be damned if I wasted it.

“I have to run, Caden,” I said into his chest.

His arms tensed around me. “I can’t let you do that, angel.”

I drew back from him only to realize that he wasn’t loosening his hold. “They sent you to capture me,” I stated.

Pain flared in his eyes. “Yes,” he breathed.

“And you’re going to follow orders, even after what they’ve done to me—what they will do to me?”

He was shaking his head as I spoke, his eyes shining. “No. I’m going to help you, and this is the best way I know how.”

This wasn’t happening. I squirmed against him; it didn’t do any good. “
Please,
Caden, let me go. If you love me, then give me this one thing.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m doing this
because
I love you.” He opened his eyes. “I can’t risk you gambling your life trying to escape. Not when you’re teleporting while awake.”

I was starting to lose it. “I can’t go back, Caden.” My voice shook. “I’d rather die.”

“Don’t say that,” he whispered.

“It’s the truth.”

Caden tensed his eyebrows, and I saw ferocity in his eyes. “You want to run, we do this together.”

That drew me up short. I scoured his face.

“I’m not asking you to go back to the facility to stay. You think I’d want you to continue to go on missions and face down certain death?” His eyes moved over my face, the look in them tender. “I’m asking you to go back so that we can do this properly.”

I stared at him for a long time as I thought over his words. If I was being honest with myself, I knew that in my current situation, making it to Mexico would probably be impossible. Authorities already knew roughly where I was; they’d warn border patrols if they lost me. Not to mention that I likely had a GPS tracker embedded beneath my skin.

But going back and facing the same people who betrayed me—
depending
on them—that seemed impossible.

“Please, Ember. Trust me.”

My eyes searched his. This was a man who’d protected my life numerous times. He’d do it again, of that I was sure. I also needed to admit to myself that I’d run out of options.

I nodded reluctantly. “Okay.”

Caden’s entire body relaxed. “Thank you, angel,” he repeated over and over again. Agreeing to stay with him, to subject myself to the Project, had meant more to Caden than he let on.

All the while a cold, numbing dread took up residence inside me.

Less than a minute later, I heard several cars pull up outside the house. I flinched in his arms.

I stepped out of his embrace. “They were coming anyway,” I stated. My eyes begged him to deny it, but he didn’t. “You wouldn’t have warned me.”

Caden opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he was about to say was lost as military personnel stormed in.

“There she is,” one of them said.

They rushed me. I cried out as someone shoved me to my knees and yanked my arms behind me.

Caden began to reach for me, but two men clad in fatigues restrained him.
“What are you doing?”
he shouted at the men holding me down. He strained against the soldiers who held him back, and I could see by his captors’ clenched jaws and the way their lips curled in that they were having a difficult time restraining Caden.

I struggled against the hands that held my wrists. As a reward for bad behavior, someone pushed me down to the ground. “Stop fighting,” the man behind me barked.

“This is not what I agreed to!”
Caden’s face was red and beginning to shine as sweat beaded along his brow.

No one answered him.

The room began to blur as tears gathered. I could feel Caden’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. So instead I stared at nothing and let the military personnel manhandle me.

“Ember, I’m so sorry. Please don’t look like that,” Caden begged. “Come back to me.”

I haven’t gone anywhere.
That was the problem.

“Angel, please.”

My eyes finally flicked to Caden. “This is what you wanted,” I said, and he flinched at my words.

“Not like this,” he said, his voice broken.

Then something behind me caught Caden’s attention. “Don’t fucking hur—”

Poof.
Caden was gone. And now I was the one alone.

A soldier yanked my hand up, and I felt the cool touch of a cotton swab against the crook of my arm.

They wanted to sedate me. I’d only recently woken up, and now they wanted to put me under again.

Permanently?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And then I bucked against my captors, kicking out with my unrestrained legs. I hadn’t woken up just to be put down again. My foot caught someone in the knee, and they let out a small yelp.

The man holding me down grunted and slammed my torso into the ground, my teeth clacking painfully together.

I brought my leg up and kneed him in the crotch with enough force to make him sing soprano for a while.

His hold on me loosened, and he just kind of rolled off me. I scrambled to my feet and began to run.

Military personnel shouted at me to stop. Naturally, I didn’t listen. I made it as far as the backyard before I was tackled to the ground. Now a group of men in fatigues held me down.

“Hurry, get me the syringe!” one of them called. I struggled against them. A hand shoved me harder into the grass.

Turning my head to the side, I caught sight of what looked like a medic pulling a syringe from his breast pocket.

I screamed and began to thrash. Still no one said a damn thing to me. The medic grasped my forearm, his hold on me tightening with my struggles. I saw him remove the needle’s cap with his teeth and felt the prick of pain when he slipped it into my skin.