Stolen

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ember

It was mine. I knew it was without even knowing how I knew. The bracelet laid on the floor at our feet, not a soul moving to touch it. Slowly, I bent down and picked it up. It felt like I had just found a part of me that had been missing. I smoothed my thumb over one of the heart shaped charms.

"This is mine...where did you find it?" I breathed.

Knox glanced around nervously as if he wasn't sure how to even answer the question, "It was with your things."

He was lying again. Anger boiled dangerously high inside of me.

"Carrson gave this to me." I said through my teeth. I could see it, the memory of it. I was sitting in the library on the window bench, and he had given me the box with the bow on top. It was an old-world holiday, something that most people didn't celebrate anymore, but my family had. I could remember the sadness that consumed me on that day. I could remember the feeling I had when I opened the box. "I never took this off."

"Carrson did not give that to you." Knox snapped.

He moved to take the bracelet from my hands, but I pulled away, clutching it to my chest. "Yes, he did! This bracelet was the reason that I fell in love with him!" I yelled. People turned to look at the commotion that I was making but I didn't care. "Why are you trying to take that away from me? Isn't it enough that you are trying to pin my abduction on him and now you're trying to replace him!"

Knox stepped back like I physically reached out and struck him, "I-" he started but I couldn't hear it. I couldn't hear anything over the roar of anger that had washed through me.

"Don't! You keep lying to me, when does it end? Do you even know what's a lie and what's the truth anymore? Do you even care? Or is this all some twisted game to you? Mess with the broken girl. Let's see how far we can twist her up before she really cracks. I'm done! I'm done with the lies, I'm done with the games, and I'm done with you."

Knox reached for me again, but I flinched away disgusted at the idea of him touching me, "Don't touch me! Don't ever fucking touch me again!" I screamed. I didn't stick around to give him the chance to say anything else. I turned on my heel quickly and retreated back up the steps and out of the room. I didn't stop moving until I was inside of the comfort of my dorm room. My breathing was labored as I fell to my knees on the ground. I couldn't feel anything but anger and loss. Why was he doing this to me? Why couldn't he just stop lying to me? I held the bracelet to my chest as images of Carrson sitting in front of me with anticipation played over and over in my mind. I'd lunged into his arms when I'd seen the gift. The memory of that day had the same haze over it that all of my memories of Carrson did. I could see my hands threading into the short brown hair at the back of his head, holding him to me tighter. I could feel the wetness staining my cheeks, but it was not tears of sadness, they were tears of gratitude. When I pulled away, it wasn't Carrson who was watching me intently. It was Knox. It was Knox's strong hands that wiped my tears away, worried that he'd done something wrong. It was Knox who clasped the bracelet around my wrist as I insisted that it was the most perfect gift I'd ever received. It was Knox that I wanted to reach out and kiss.

A scream erupted from my lungs as the despair struck me to my core. My mind was splitting into two. The girl with Carrson was not the same girl that was with Knox. I didn't know what was real and what was fake anymore. All I knew was that this agony was never going to end.

Knox

I felt the tremor first. It wasn't physical. One look around the room told me that no one else had felt it. Instinctively I knew that it was her. The full blast of the energy surge struck before I could say anything to Rhett or Maya who had been looking at me with pity. Ember had stormed away leaving me to pick up the pieces of my shattered heart. She'd said that the bracelet was the reason she had fallen in love with him. But what she meant, what she didn't know, was that it was my gift to her that had made her fall for me. She had told me the exact moment that her feelings had shifted to something more. I couldn't get past it but Rhett was begging me to let it go. How was I supposed to do that? How could I stop fighting for her?

The blast was enough to knock me off of my feet. Pure despair hit the academy like a tidal wave. Desks flew and people collided into one another as the blast shocked the room we were in. I landed hard against the stair railing, and I knew there would be a bruise there tomorrow from the impact. The lights flickered twice overhead before the recruits around us began to rise back to their feet. Their faces were a mixture of fear and awe. It happened too quickly for us to be prepared but somehow Rhett had managed to shield himself and Maya against the blast. A golden circle of sunlight enveloped them in the middle of the room. When it lifted, Maya was staring at Rhett like she couldn't quite believe it herself.

"Shit." Rhett muttered under his breath, taking in all of the people who just witnessed him for what he truly was. The light bearer.

"What was that?" Maya asked, stepping away from Rhett.

"Ember." I breathed. I felt it. I felt her inside of my chest again. The tether to Ember had woken back up during the blast. She had thrown her despair out like a raft, and I had used it to find my way back to her. "She's in the dorms." I managed, feeling the familiar pull of electricity towards her.

"Don't." Rhett began to say but Ember's emotions were taking over. I could feel every ounce of her discomfort and agony like they were my own. I couldn't stop my feet from moving. I couldn't stop myself from trying to get to her. I had to fix it. Rhett was in front of me in a blink, his fist colliding with my jaw.

"Knox, stop!" he growled, pulling my shoulders to face him again, "What you're feeling isn't yours! You. Can. Not. Fix. This." He separated each word like it was its own sentence. His blue eyes were wild as he pleaded with me, but her pain was too overbearing. I pushed at him to get him out of the way, but he held firm. 

"I'm so sorry" he muttered before a blinding light circled around me, holding me prisoner in my place.