Possessed Soul

Chapter 62

Chapter 62

When I opened my eyes I was just as exhausted as when I had closed them.

"Kaden," I moaned, shifting myself in his arms and resting my head against his clammy shoulder. "Kaden?" I repeated, when he didn't say anything. I didn't know what I wanted to say to him, but it would have been nice just to hear his voice. "Please talk to me," I pleaded with him.

"What do you want to talk about?" His voice was scratchy, and it was easy to believe that we were just waking up after falling asleep in his bed back at the Warehouse. We had come so far since then.

"Where are we?" I enquired, looking around. I was seated in his lap and his arms were wrapped protectively around my waist. His back was against a tree and from the way he watched me with tired eyes that were barely open, I realised he was just as tired as me, if not more so.

"Just outside the FBI compound," he replied.

"Won't they come looking for us?" This will be the first place that they look.

"I don't think that would be too much of a problem." Kaden gulped nervously and trailed a finger across my jawline. "There's something I have to tell you."

I shook my head, there would be time for that later. Right now I just wanted to leave. "Not now." I leaned against him; somehow his body was still radiating warmth, despite the cold air that surrounded us. "Can we please go home?"

"Yeah, okay." He rubbed the back of his neck and tenderly lifted me off his lap and set my body on the ground. While he was standing up, I scrutinized our surroundings. The tree we were leaning against was scorched, and the leaves were slowly turning to ash and being carried away in the strong wind. All the other trees were split down the middle or they were leaning precariously forward, as if gravity didn't consider them worthy enough to pull them all the way down.

"What happened?" I asked Kaden.

"It doesn't matter," he said as he grabbed my hand in his and began dragging me away.

"Where's my mother?" I kept up the stream of questions, hoping he would answer one of them.

Kaden shrugged and scrunched his forehead. His eyes were ghosted over with worry, and I detected a bit of remorse in his expression.

"Answer me," I ordered, trying to raise my voice but failing miserably. "Please tell me."

"She didn't come back out," he responded, as he placed a hand on my shoulder and stared straight into my eyes. His penetrating gaze held me in place, and I found myself unable to look away.

"WHAT?" This couldn't be happening. Although she wasn't my real mother, she was the only one that I had known. "We have to go back for her."

"We can't."

"Yes, we can." I pushed him away from me and felt guilty when he stumbled. Carrying me had probably made his injuries worse.

I slowly limped away from him and toward the direction I thought the FBI compound was in.

"Sage," Kaden called out as he ran to catch up to me; to shade me from a sight I wasn't prepared to see.

If I had thought the trees were bad, this was a million times worse. Nothing except a metal structure remained of the FBI compound. Steel pillars jutted out of the ground as if they were trying to stab the sky. The ground I stepped on was covered with a thick layer of black soot mingled with glass and blood, irritating the soles of my feet. People in varying stages of death surrounded me. Some had died on the spot with a direct blow to the head. Others were covered in third degree burns that made their skin look twisted and gruesome. There were signs of visible struggle- claw marks in the ground. But none of them had made it. Their eyes were wide open and stared up at me. Call me crazy but it looked as if some of the corpses still had emotion etched into their skin; fear shadowed their eyes and tear lines streaked their skin.

"Don't look," Kaden said from behind me, just as I was examining the face of a man whose skin was peeling away, revealing the white of his skeleton.

"Is she dead?" I asked him, not having to tell him that I was referring to my mother.

"I think she's the one who blew up this place." Kaden dodged my question. "She waited long enough for us to escape before she detonated the bomb. After the fire died down, I came down here to see if I could find her body, but..." He didn't finish his sentence; all he did was hang his head in shame, as if all this was somehow his fault. "And then I wanted to take you as far away from here as possible. I stopped to rest for a while, not meaning to fall asleep. I didn't want you to see any of this."

A sob escaped my mouth and I reached for Kaden just to have someone to hold on to.

"She knew they would keep coming for you," he mumbled into my hair. "She knew that this was the only way to protect you."

I collapsed to my knees and pulled Kaden down with me.

He held me against his chest, and for once I allowed myself not to feel guilty for seeking comfort from him.

"What did she tell you?" I sobbed, wondering what she had whispered to Kaden, why she didn't want me to hear it, and chiding myself for not telling her how much I loved her.

"She gave me the name of your biological mother," Kaden replied, rubbing circles on my back in a futile attempt to calm me down.

"Oh," I closed my eyes and rested my head on his chest, just above his heart, so that I could hear it thumping rapidly in my ear.

I didn't want to know who she was, partly because I didn't want to barge into her life and demand she take me in; and partly because it wouldn't be fair to her, whoever she was, since I would never be able to stop seeing Angela Foster as my mother.

"Grace," Kaden told me, against my will. "Her name is Grace Hanlet."