Caged

36

All we could do now was wait.

"Izzy."

I startled and my head snapped over to the side to see Elijah take a seat next to me.

"You should get some rest," Elijah said, his voice husky from exhaustion.

I shook my head, my eyes half-lidded. Ethan and Caleb had fallen asleep in their chairs since it was around four in the morning now, but I'd remained awake, alert. Elijah had stayed up, too.

"I'm not tired," I muttered back, resting my head against the wall and Elijah leaned back in his seat, glancing over at me.

"You look like you're gonna fall over any second now," he replied evenly, running a rough hand through his hair. Our attention snapped over to see a nurse walk past us and head over to the mother sitting with her child.

I looked away. "I'm fine."

I could feel him studying me, but he didn't argue and I realized we'd never really gotten a chance to talk or acknowledge the fact that he was back after being gone for so long.

There was nothing we else could do at the moment, so I decided I'd take the chance to talk to him. I looked over to see him on his phone, his brows furrowed as if he was irritated by something.

"Elijah?"

"Hmm?"

"I thought that you were dead."

I didn't mean to start off that way, but it was the first thought that came to mind and I regretted it instantly.

He'd let us all think that he was dead. It had been the worst week of my entire life, and that said something because I seemed to have a lot of those.

Elijah's gaze snapped over to me, but I looked down at my hands. "Why would you let us believe that? I know that you were...handling Lucas and whatever, but still. Why couldn't you tell us?" I asked in a small voice. "You sent me out of that place thinking that it was the last time I'd ever see you."

I looked over to see him open his mouth to say something, but he caught sight of the people around us and he hesitated. I bit the corner of my lip as he suddenly stood up, and reached out a hand for me to take. I did a double take, my forehead creasing as I looked between him and his hand.

"I know we have a lot to talk about, so let's go for a walk," he said quietly, and I straightened in my seat.

"Outside?"

He nodded. I glanced over at Caleb and Ethan who were still asleep.

"What about Kaiden?"

Elijah raised his eyebrows. "Where's he gonna go?"

Despite how awful it was, I found myself holding back a pathetic smile at how he could make light out of something like this. That was how Elijah had always been. He handled everything the same way and rarely showed any emotions beside a few. It took people by surprise how calm he could be even at the worst times, but I was used to it.

Before I could overthink it, I grabbed his hand and he pulled me out of my seat.

My hair nipped at my face as the cold air slammed into us as soon as we passed the sliding glass doors. It was mostly quiet out since it was hours after midnight and the hospital was in a suburban area. The parking lot was dark, and there was no one outside aside from the two of us. There was a path carved into the perimeter of the building, so we started walking alongside it.

I slipped my hands into the pockets of my thin jacket as I silently treaded next to Elijah.

"I couldn't risk being traced," he started explaining. "No one knew I made it out except for Roman. After I sent you away with Alastair, I realized that it was too dangerous for me to take on all of them myself. You were right, I would've been killed, so I only dealt with anyone I ran into on my way out."