Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Twenty-Four - Stay or Go

Back at her room she threw her uniform into a heap on the floor, then tugged on the jeans and t-shirt she'd been given on her first day. The tears that rolled over her cheeks frustrated her; she didn't want to feel betrayed or hurt. She didn't want to feel sad that she'd lose the few friends she'd already made when she fled. It shouldn't matter. After five years alone, she shouldn't need anyone else. Yet she'd enjoyed spending time with Isemay, Zhak, and Alad. More than that, she'd enjoyed her time with Dunstan.

A choking noise escaped her when she thought about the tattooed and pierced Staff Sergeant, and that only made her angrier still. Their... whatever it had been... had always been temporary. It shouldn't matter that leaving meant leaving it and him behind. It shouldn't matter that it was the only intimacy she'd experienced in half a decade. Dammit, she was used to being alone! Alone felt safe! Alone meant not being hurt!

Snatching up her backpack, she headed for her bedroom door, ripping it open and barrelling straight into Eorl himself. He grabbed her shoulders to stop her falling when she bounced off his chest. The concern in his expression might have been touching if it didn't cause another pang of hurt in the centre of her chest, and she wondered if he'd felt her fracturing mental state though their bond. Had he cared enough to come and find her when her felt her tumultuous emotions? Did it matter?

Dunstan's gaze dropped to the backpack in her hand and he frowned, understanding exactly what decision she'd made. When his beautiful amber eyes refocused on her face again, he only asked, "What happened?"

"Maloney happened," she spat in fury, directing her anger and hurt at him because he was the only person available. "You can ask her what happened, but I'm leaving. I didn't sign up for this. I'm better off on my own."

"Kallie, wait," he ordered when she tried to push past him, and he didn't let go of her shoulders. "Please, I felt magic. Yours and someone else's. Tell me what happened."

But she didn't want to. She didn't want to see mistrust in his expression when he too refused to believe what Maloney had so much difficulty accepting.

"It doesn't matter. People here don't trust me and I can't trust them. You were right; I'm not a team player. Let me go, Sergeant," she begged, desperate for him to let her pass while she still had enough anger left to keep her feet moving.

"I don't believe that," he retorted, shaking his head. "You put yourself on the line defying Menahem to give us the clue about the owl. You were willing to risk a superior's ire to help the team solve an active case. You wanted to work with us. Whatever just happened doesn't erase that. Look, why not tell me what happened? If you still want to leave after that then I promise I'll give you a lift to wherever you want to go."

She sighed, her shoulders sagging. Why did she care that he wouldn't believe her? If she left either way then it wouldn't matter what he thought, right?

"We were doing about portals," she admitted, not meeting his eye. "Seònaid... the grey woman with the blond hair..."

"She's a fuath... A type od water maiden native to Scotland," Dunstan filled in.

"Well, she made a portal; a stupid rippling disk that felt like ripping through reality. I don't know why, but it felt wrong... like someone tearing a hole through the Mona Lisa or chipping the paint off the Sistine Chapel," Kalyna explained. "Then, in my head, I heard millions of people speaking languages that don't even exist on earth, and the calls of animals that we don't have here. They reminded me of memories, although that's impossible. I know it all sounds impossible...

"Anyway, I felt like it would be better to fold the veil, to draw two parts of it together and slip from one part to another, rather than tearing holes through it to create an artificial threshold. It's a permeable force field. It doesn't need holes stabbed through it!