Soul Lines (Completed)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven
Kaden's POV

Two hours later, after returning from the forest, I found myself in Jacobi's room. He white-knuckled his bed as I yanked the blanket away, and as I gripped him by the scruff of the neck, the metal legs groaned against the hardwood floors. He struggled so much that I had to snap his clenched fingers away from the headrest.

He looked like the grim reaper had rejected him for death. Sweat matted his hair against his pasty skin, and his eyes were dulled, staring lifelessly as I hauled him across the room. 'Jesus, Jacobi.' I grunted, shoving him into the bathroom and twisting the knob so jets of cold water pulsed from the showerhead. 'You've got ten minutes.'

I stood in the room, disgusted by the state he'd gotten into. The laundry hamper was piled with clothes so high the lid sat upright, caught between the wall and the mountain of washing. His pillow was stained with drool, the white now splotched with seeps of yellow and brown.

I ripped the bedsheets from his mattress and tossed them onto the precipice, flinging crumpled clothes across the room, mild disgust fueling my need for cleanliness. I had an outfit laid out for him and most of the rubbish cleaned up before he stumbled from the bathroom, hardly awake, in a zombified state of consciousness.

'What do you remember?'

He groaned, massaging his temples with tense fingers. Pain pinched at his nerves, and he undoubtedly felt like someone had wrapped their hand around his brain and squeezed. 'Not much.' He mumbled. 'I remember dancing with Inna and Wells. I think Barbie Girl was playing.'

'I missed that.'

'I know.' He sighed into the mattress, his whole body going slack. 'You left with her just before, and it all gets a little blurry.'

I clenched the edge of his desk, rocking forward in tandem with the pain that constricted my chest. Air wheezed out of my lungs, dizzying my head. 'I didn't leave with anyone.'

'I'm not stupid, Kaden.' He squinted through one eye, his face scrunching with pain. 'She left, and then you followed her like a lost puppy. It may have taken you half an hour to follow her, but I know what happened. I can put two and two together.'

Rasping for air, I was overpowered by the sudden need to hold her. The need to make sure she was safe seized me, flushing my body with heat. 'Did anybody else notice?'

'No one else knows what I do.'

The air trickled back into my lungs, relief slowly inflating my chest. My fingers twitched, reeling to hold onto her. I ignored the shudder of dread that brushed down my spine and dug the heel of my palm into the cheap-plywood desk.

'I didn't expect to see her.'

Jacobi peeled himself from the mattress, clutching his head tightly as he grasped for a silver sleeve of ibuprofen at the top of the drawer by his bed. The packet was half crumpled; I watched as he shot back the last four tablets, and I felt the dry chalkiness of the tablets in my throat as he winced, tossing the foil towards the bin across the room. 'I wasn't expecting her either. She told me she wasn't coming.'

'I'm not upset that she came, she'll always be welcome on pack lands, but I'm worried that Rylan might know more than we think. I froze when I saw her, and he didn't ask me a single question about why.'

'Serves you right. It would be best if you told him years ago that he's part of your Concilio. He has a right to know.'

'Too many people know already.'

He snorted, lifting himself from the mattress with a groan. He shuffled towards the door, holding it open for me. 'One and two.' He gestured between us. 'That's not too many.'