Page 354 of Scarlet Wars
I swallowed hard. “Cara?”
He nodded once.
Of course it was her. Who else would be bold enough to dig that deep and hand over a truth with blood still on it?
“Okay…” I breathed, barely more than a whisper.
Caden took a step toward me. Slow. Careful. Like I was a glass thing on the verge of shattering, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to catch me or let me break.
His tone was low when he spoke again. “When those militants shot your parents with a human rifle gun…you assumed they were human.”
I nodded slowly, heart pounding harder with every syllable.
“But they weren’t.”
My breath caught in my throat. “What are you saying?”
“They used human weapons because of the bubble. It was the only way to kill them, considering using translation would’ve been lethal to them. But the people who killed your parents…” He paused, looking me dead in the eyes.
“They were magi.”
I stood frozen, like the words had turned my blood to stone.
A wave of ice surged through me. My limbs went numb.
“Collabs?” I asked, my hands trembling.
Caden shook his head once.
“Caden…” My voice cracked. “Just tell me. Please. Who was behind this, who ordered my arrest? Who gave the order to kill my parents?”
He still didn’t look away.
“I did,” he said, sounding hollow and dead. “They were Crown’s Offensives. Sent there…by me.”
It felt like the floor gave out beneath me.
My knees buckled, and I sat down hard on the edge of the bed, because suddenly I couldn’t trust my legs to hold me. Couldn’t trust anything.
“No…” I whispered, shaking my head slowly, as if I could physically reject the words. “That’s not possible.”
But the look on his face didn’t change.
Caden started pacing, his movements tight, clipped, like he was trying to outrun the guilt or cage the panic threatening to spill out.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “After the Great Exposure, everything was chaos. Threats were coming in from all sides. People were vanishing, getting attacked, hiding. I was about to leave for Monaco to track down a human ring experimenting on magi, when I got a nex from Charles Bailor, my Leader.”
He looked at me, eyes raw.
“He told me there was a former Crown resident operating on US soil. Said they were collaborating with humans, getting ready to abduct magi. Said they were living in the Human World. Said it was urgent. He made it sound like it was a man he was after. Some asshole gone rogue.”
Caden swallowed hard. “Back then, I had no idea you’d left Cyclos. I didn’t even know he was talking about Boston.”
His voice wavered, barely, but enough to feel like something breaking open inside him.
“I told Charles I needed to verify the intel, that I had no knowledge of any former Crown citizen working with humans,” he continued. “But I was already leaving the Collective, and I was in a hurry.”
“Charles worried I’d be gone for too long; said we couldn’t take the risk to wait until I was back. Suggested issuing a simple arrest warrant. Said if it turned out to be bad intel, we’d simply let the guy go. No harm done. Just…cover our bases. Make sure he couldn’t vanish while I was gone.”
