Through the Dark Teaser Scene Ten: "Tell The Truth"

Caden waited until they were in his bedroom with the door closed behind them before he said a word. But once that door slid shut and the lock clicked in place, he didn't hesitate for a moment. 

“How does that man know who you are?” he asked Kyla so quickly his words rambled together. “Where have you seen him before?”

   
Kyla was quiet, frozen…petrified. Caden was starting to look frantic as he paced back and forth in front of her, and she didn’t know what to say to calm him down. Certainly the truth wouldn’t help that.

   
“The pictures,” Caden said, “the ones that you drew. They were of him, weren’t they?”   

   
Kyla didn’t answer him. She couldn’t.

   
“Was he the one who hurt you?” Caden asked her point blank. He spoke through gritted teeth the way he always did when he was trying to control his voice. That meant he was mad. Really mad.

   
Kyla didn’t want to answer him, but she managed to force the word, “Yes.” It came out so softly she thought Caden might not have heard her, but the look on his face told her he did.

   
She was afraid by the way he was clenching his fist that he might put a hole through his wall, and trying to think of any way she might be able to stop him.

   
Cursing under his breath, Caden paced even harder and started ripping at his hair. At the rate he was going, Kyla thought he might not have any left by the time this was over. She wasn’t sure why he did it; she just seemed to have that effect on him. She could see it in his face as the pieces came together in his mind, as he thought back on the details of the pictures she had drawn…as he remembered their wings.

   
There was no hiding the truth from him now.

   
Kyla’s whole body shook as she hugged his pillow to her chest, trying to block it out when Caden screamed at her, “How could you be so stupid?!”

   
She tensed up, but she didn’t answer him.

"Why would you ever get involved with something that isn't even human? Dear God! Do you even realize how screwed up that sounds?!"

It raised an instinctual defensiveness in her, hearing Caden refer to Nathaniel as a “thing.” Without giving it a moment’s thought (which might have been a mistake) Kyla lashed back at him, “He’s a person, Caden. He’s not a thing.”  

   
That didn’t go over well.

   
Snapping his head up sharply and looking straight at her, Caden glared into her like he couldn’t believe she’d just said that.

   
“Are you freaking kidding me?” he asked her.

   
She squared her jaw stubbornly, but she didn’t answer him.

   
“Gah! This is insane, Kyla!”

   
She responded by shouting back at him, “I never said it was sane! I just said it was the truth!”

   
She knew they were reaching the point they often reached when they argued, where if one of them didn’t back down now, their blood was just going to burn hotter and their voices were just going to get louder. But still, they couldn’t stop.  

   
“Why are you doing this?” Caden challenged her. “How can you even defend him after all he has done to you?”

   
Kyla blurted out quicker than she had time to think, “Because I’m in love with him!”

   
And at that point, she couldn’t determine which of their faces was whiter.

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Kyla wasn't moving. Staring at Caden where he was frozen at the foot of his bed, she held her breath without realizing she was holding it. He was completely stunned, completely speechless as he stared at her with widened eyes. But she was twice as shocked as he was. 

She hadn’t meant to say that. She wasn’t even sure that she meant it. Kyla had never spoken those words out loud or even thought them in her mind. So why had she blurted them out like that to the last person she should have blurted them out to?

   
Her face had to be ghost white; Kyla knew that by the lack of blood she could feel in it. She couldn’t tell if Caden looked more disgusted or furious with her, but either way, it didn’t really matter. He wasn’t happy.

   
“I have to get out of here,” he said, looking desperate to leave the room.

   
Kyla immediately panicked at the thought of being left alone. “Don’t leave me,” she said quickly. It came out more desperate than she meant for it to, and Caden looked pained when he heard it. He looked torn between wanting to stay with her and needing to leave; probably because he couldn’t handle the degree of her stupidity right now without allowing himself to become angered by it.

   
Not that she could blame him for that. She had just admitted to falling in love with a half-angel, half-human creature that should only have existed in Bible stories, not actual life. But beyond the absurdity of the confession, there was a thought that disturbed her even more. It wasn’t so much what Caden had reacted to that concerned her; it was what he hadn’t.

   
When Kyla had told him what Donovan and Nathaniel were, he hadn’t questioned her sanity, only her intelligence. The fact that the Nephilim actually existed wasn’t what had fazed him.  The fact that she had fallen in love with one of them was.

   
“Please stay with me, Caden,” she begged him with no further regard to her dignity. “I don’t want to be alone.”

   
Caden looked down and wrinkled his brow, deliberating over what he should do. He appeared to be having a very hard time denying her even though he clearly wanted to.

   
Sighing, he finally gave in and sat down on the edge of his bed. “I’m not gonna leave you,” he said in defeat. “I think you’re an idiot, but I’m not gonna leave you.”

   
Kyla crawled over to him and hugged his arm. “Thank you,” she said in a muffled voice as she burrowed her face into him.  

"Yeah, yeah..." he muttered, smiling a little and rolling his eyes as he picked up his Takamine from the guitar stand by his bed. Caden started strumming on it lightly, knowing it would calm her down. Something about him playing had always done that. 

   
As Caden played, she took a deep breath; then she looked up at him when she recognized the song. It was the one he had been playing in the studio in Nashville, the one he’d started strumming in the recording booth when he didn’t know anyone was watching him. Kyla had felt it when she heard him playing it then, and she felt it now even stronger. Something about that song, whatever it was, brought a peace over her that she didn’t think she could feel.

   
“What is it?” Kyla asked him.

   
Caden looked down self-consciously and shook his head a little. “It’s nothing,” he said, then as if on cue he stopped strumming altogether.  

   
Kyla frowned. “Caden?” she said.

   
He bit his lip and looked back to her slowly. “Yeah?”

   
He sounded nervous. She wasn’t sure why.

   
“Can you play it again?” she said.

He carefully started strumming on his guitar again and watched her close her eyes. Kyla drifted away to sleep, thinking at first that she wouldn't be able to. With the tension and anxiety and fear that was in her over Donovan, she didn't think anything could. But there was something about the way Caden played; there was something about his voice. It did something to her that nothing else could do. It brought her a kind of peace, a kind of rest that nothing else could bring. And as she drifted off to the sound of his humming, Kyla couldn't help but think that he sounded like an angel. 

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Caden was still sitting in the chair by his bed when he woke up in the middle of the night. It took him a second to remember why he was there, but when his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw the auburn-haired silhouette of the girl in his bed. A smile played softly on his lips, but he let it drop when Kyla turned over and looked at him. 

Her eyes blinked open tiredly and she covered her face with her hand.

   
Caden sat up. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

   
Kyla dropped her hand from her face and looked at him again. “I’m fine,” she said. “What are you doing in that chair?”

   
Caden wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Umm…letting you sleep?” he offered.

   
Kyla pushed herself up and moved over to the other side of his bed. “That has to be brutal on your back,” she told him.

   
Caden underplayed it, even though she was right.

   
“Come here,” she said, hitting the spot she’d just left twice with her hand to let him know she wanted him to get over there. It kind of made Caden feel like a dog.  

   
He rolled his eyes and climbed onto the bed, dramatically sighing in relief when he collapsed on top of the blankets.

   
Kyla smiled and turned over to look at him. “Better?” she asked.

   
Caden smiled and sighed again; then he rolled over to face her.  

Kyla looked up at him with her now-blue eyes. “Hi,” she said softly.

   
Her eyes alone were enough to melt him, but the way her voice sounded almost completely did him in.

   
“Hi,” Caden said back.

   
He instinctually brushed her hair out of her eyes, not even realizing until he did that it wasn’t a normal gesture for him to make. That was the kind of thing he always wanted to do but held himself back from so as not to cross the barrier he had set up for himself; the one he was too exhausted to pay any regard to right now. When his fingertips grazed the back of Kyla’s ear, it seemed to surprise her too, but she didn’t get mad about it. Her breathing pattern simply changed for a moment, and Caden had to work harder than he could remember in a very long time to control himself and keep himself from doing something stupid.

   
There was something about the way she breathed; something that could make him go weak or give him more strength than he had ever possessed. But it wasn’t just her breathing. One simple word, one simple glance and he was putty in her hands. And she didn’t even know it.

   
There was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her in that moment. Not then; not ever. He would have given her the world if it were his to give. Because the love he felt right now, the kind he had spent years trying to force himself not to feel, it was more powerful than anything. It could bring life or death to a man. It could stop time itself.

   
Time stopped for Caden as he stared into the face of the angel before him. The girl he had always loved. The girl who didn’t know. Kyla had no idea the power she held over him, and it only seemed to be getting stronger. She didn’t know what she was to him, what he would do to her right now if she would let him…

   
Caden caught his breath and readjusted himself on the bed to become more comfortably situated. He pushed himself up and then fell halfway back down again, and that was when Kyla’s eyes fell to his arm. Her brow furrowed when she saw the scar that her fingers had traced a hundred times. She reached over to him to touch it, to trace it again, and as her fingertips moved carefully against his skin, she looked up into him.

   
That wrecked Caden all over again. But he couldn’t let her see it; not in the state he was in. He was about half a second away from grabbing her and kissing her, and he couldn’t risk losing that kind of control.

   
“I remember that day so well,” Kyla said. Her hand was still on his arm, burning like fire against his already fevered skin.

   
It was hard for Caden to meet her eyes. “Me too,” he said.

   
She kept looking into him, the emotion and the awareness of exactly what that scar meant hanging heavy between them. There was so much knowledge and memory and gratitude and love. So much that no words could ever say that they had never used words to attempt to articulate. But Caden could feel it, as deeply as if it were a physical part of him; like an arm or a limb or a lung. And he knew Kyla could feel it, too. That was what made this even harder for him.

   
“Ky, I have to tell you something…” he found himself saying without giving himself permission to say it.

   
She blinked a few times, but her eyes stayed on him.

   
“Ok…” she said cautiously.

   
Her hand stayed on his arm as she looked at him and waited, and Caden was pretty sure his heart seized up. He was reaching in a desperate panic for some sort of deflection, something that would keep him from saying what he wanted more than anything to say. But when that deflection came, it was the last thing he had wanted.

   
Caden felt something shift in the air around them; that was his first tip-off. He snapped his head up suddenly and looked out the window, and Kyla sat up in response to the motion.

   
“What is it?” she asked quickly. “What’s wrong?”

   
Caden stood from his bed and walked over to the door, and even though he told her, “Stay there,” Kyla followed him.

   
Caden rolled his eyes, thinking his efforts to protect her were useless since she was too stubborn to let him. He at least did what he could with her there and kept her behind him as she held onto his arm. He was careful to keep himself between her and whatever was out there.  

   
He would always keep himself between her and whatever attempted to harm her. But when Caden saw what had come to them, he didn’t know how to protect her from that.

   
It was hard to protect a person who didn’t want protecting.

   
Caden cast his eyes to the ground, feeling frustrated and angry and weak. He was instantly deflated and too sick to say a word, but words weren’t necessary at that point. All he had to do was step aside and nod for her to go out there.  

   
Kyla was confused at the gesture. She started to ask him what he was doing, but instead, she looked outside to see for herself.

   
And that was when it was all over.

   
That was when Caden watched the girl he loved run into the arms of another man. A man he would have killed for her. A man who wasn’t human. A man he hated more than the psychotic, deranged creature who had attacked her over and over and brought her so near to death.

   
Nathaniel Blake.