Page 48

It was odd because it felt like they were playing hide-and-seek. And they were going to win the game for sure after they presented a good case against Isaac. Kellen would go back to South Hills, and everything would continue on as usual.
She was in the process of letting out a sigh when she saw a figure emerging out of the shadows of an alley a few feet distant. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her body tightened in readiness. Her gut told her that something bad had come out of the darkness. And that gut feeling was accurate when Isaac Arthur’s face came into view beneath the bright lights of the street.
Her brows relaxed, but her eyes got bigger in disbelief.
“You…” she began, whispering to herself. “You were supposed to be in police custody.”
When she saw Isaac’s lips curve into a devilish smile—or was it a sneer?—her insides twisted in horror.
“Well, what a surprise!” Isaac remarked. “I think I have my ways of getting out of jail, and that’s all I need to get back at the woman who ruined my daughter’s life.”
Lena gasped when Isaac’s hand delved into his coat and pulled out a revolver.
“Can’t trust anyone else to do the job.” His pupils shone with resolve.
Lena took steps back that made her trip, even though she knew she could never be quicker than a bullet.
Lena’s startled eyes stayed on the gun’s barrel, and her feet moved back without her meaning to after that first stride.
Isaac, on the other hand, stayed where he was, unimpressed. Why bother when the Bullets were happy to do what he said?
Her pulse raced as she saw him tighten his hold on the rifle. His jaw became rigid as he focused.
Her instincts went all over the place.
This was the time. He was going to pull the trigger immediately.
A scream rose from her b****t, but it got trapped in her throat as soon as his curled finger started to pull back the trigger.
But suddenly, as the gunshot rang out in the night, a masculine body sprung on Isaac with a roar, coming up from behind him in the dark.
Lena heard the sound of a gunshot flying by her shoulder, just missing her. She fell to her knees with a guttural shriek of fear. She saw Kellen’s face in a blur and watched him pull Isaac’s hand quickly to an awkward angle.
The agonizing crunch proved that the arm was fractured. Lena jumped and put a palm over her lips.
Isaac yelled in shock and anguish. The pistol had already slid out of his fingers a long time ago. He tried to get away from Kellen’s hold, but it was too tight, so he tried to attack with his one decent hand.
Kellen didn’t waste any time; his fist sailed through the air and hit him hard in the face. He didn’t stop there, though.
It was like he was possessed…  by rage, sadness, and just plain insanity.
Lena was shocked and remained half-kneeling on the ground, looking at the sight and breathing heavily in anger. Kellen knelt over Isaac’s scarcely moving corpse just a few feet away from her and hit him with his fists as hard as he could without stopping.
Isaac had been moaning and whimpering for a while, but Kellen’s constant attacks made his body cease moving.
Lena gasped and quickly got up. She said, “Kellen!” and ran toward him with trembling legs.
Kellen didn’t appear to hear a word, though. His face was twisted in wrath as he focused only on pounding Isaac until there was nothing left of him. Kellen didn’t even seem to realize that Isaac wasn’t moving at all.
Lena stopped directly next to Kellen and tried again to get his attention. “Kellen. Stop!” But it didn’t work.
She saw the sorrow on his face, the way his eyes shone with angry tears, and the way his mouth twisted into an angry grimace. His hair was damp and stuck to his forehead in a messy way, and sweat was dripping down the sides of his face.
Lena had never seen Kellen like this in all the years they had known one other. And she could see and feel how strange it all was. Something inside him had broken. Something had come apart.
Before he was gone forever, her shaking hand still extended out.
“Kellen…” When her shaking fingers touched the sweaty flesh on the back of his neck, he stopped moving.
Isaac’s face twitched just a little bit, which made Lena sigh with relief because she knew the creature was still alive. But for how long…  that she didn’t know. His condition was simply too bad.
“We… we need to call the cops…” she said, but then she stopped in the middle of her sentence as she saw Kellen looking down at his bloody hands with a blank look on his face. He had never looked her way before.
He looked like he had stopped breathing, and his shoulders were tight.
Then he started wiping his hands over his shirt as if he was trying to get rid of all the blood on them as quickly as possible. He kept saying “No, no, no” under his breath, and his breathing was harsh and frantic as if he were getting rid of something worse than what was really going on. But all he did was get a messier coat of red paint all over himself.
Lena’s stomach hurt so much that she couldn’t stand it. Her heart hurt to see it. She didn’t know what to do just then. She might hold him in her arms or try to rouse him up from the spell he was in.
No, God! What has happened to Kellen?
It was like being locked in a nightmare that would never stop, lost in a circle of bad things that kept happening.
Why would fate do this to them?
Why them?
After Isaac’s stunt to kill Lena, the court’s process for giving Selene’s judgment sped up a lot. Selene, on the other hand, was taken out of the courtroom and put behind bars for many years while Isaac was in a hospital ward, having treatment for the severe damage Kellen had done to his bones and facial muscles.
The Arthurs were ruined.
Even though justice had been done, Lena still couldn’t feel the hole in her heart closing. She felt like she had won, and she enjoyed the taste of retribution, but she knew it would never bring back what she had lost.
She knew he felt the same when she saw Kellen’s shiny eyes flutter away from her. Damien, Lola, and Ryan, who had raced back to Velden to attend the hearing, applauded and clapped. But only she and Kellen, who were seated far apart from each other, had the same look of sorrow.
Lena expected Kellen would come up to her when he was done talking to the lawyer, but instead, he left without saying anything, which proved her incorrect. She kept looking at his back as he walked away till she couldn’t see him anymore.
Damien’s happy voice pulled her out of whatever universe she was in. “Let’s go.”
She nodded up at him and smiled back as he did.
*****
The night sky was full of stars that were so beautiful and mysterious that Lena wanted to run toward them even more. Their secrets were so far away that they were impossible to attain.
People stay going because they have unmet wishes.
“Close your eyes! Now.” Damien’s hurried instruction from next to her made her grimace.
“Why?” She moved a little on the grass they were sitting on.
He rolled his eyes and pointed at the small ball of light moving between the millions of frozen stars, some of which twinkled and some of which were completely motionless. “Can’t you see that shooting star?”
“Oh,” she said, blinking at the teasing gaze he gave her. She laughed and closed her eyes. But she realized that doing so helped her see better. Wishes shone like fireflies behind her eyelids, drawing her in and making promises that made her want more and more. There was the loss and the past, but there was also the future calling to her in the night wind. She stood in the middle and waited.
A thumb lightly stroked her face, and she opened her eyes. Damien’s intriguing eyes, which had always fascinated her, gazed back at her with passion. She could almost make them out. But was she going to hear?
She looked at his face and said, “What?” She wanted him to talk. She owed him her life therefore she had to listen to anything he said.
But Damien remained quiet. For a long time, he looked at her as if he were trying to remember every nuance of her face. She thought, “Finally,” when his lips parted. But then he closed them up just as swiftly. His mouth turned into a grin that was something between sorrow and determination.
Words were gone for good.
“You’ve been waiting for Kellen.” It wasn’t a question.