Cassia's point of view:
After a flurry of events ranging from having to prop Cade against a wall, a happy reunion with Evelyn and her family, and a lot of explaining towards Susan and Kyle, I finally managed to get Cade away from everyone else into one of the farther off tunnels, but not too far from the main area where we usually stay.
With a few lighted torches hanging from the walls providing visibility, I work on Cade's head with my healing powers as he exhales heavily in his unconscious state.
He's got a nasty bruise forming on his right temple that travels all the way down to his jaw, and I can feel his skin throbbing under my touch.
It doesn't look as bad as it first did when I began work on it, but it's still not pretty.
I take a deep breath and put as much effort as I can into his healing, letting the blue light surge through my hands and illuminating the rather dim space.
Come on bruise, work with me here.
Afterward a few more minutes of this along with Cade's deep breathing, the bruise finally, finally begins to cooperate, the deep purple fading away until it's a barely noticeable yellow.
Satisfied, I shift my focus to his hands that are littered with scratches, silently wondering what in the world he was doing that gave him these injuries.
I take his hands in mine and heal those next, sighing with relief to know that this is much easier to fix and requires a lot less energy.
The scratches are gone in one minute.
I drop his hands and begin to look back up at his head, but I quickly jump back in surprise to find his clear eyes staring back at me with faint amusement.
"When did you wake up?" I demand, my voice laced with surprise.
"A few seconds ago," Cade mentions, his voice sounding clearer than I expected. He offers me a weak smile.
"How'd you get these injuries?" I ask, warily reaching my hand up to brush back a short lock of inky black hair out of his eyes.
He leans his face gently into my hand, and suddenly my fingertips feel like they're sparking with electricity under his skin.
My chest feels tight.
"Ran into a little dilemma trying to get Evelyn and her family down here...fell and hit my head. Didn't think about using my power," Cade mentions.
I want to ask him what sort of dilemma, but I quickly think better of it and decide to make a mental note to get the full story from him later.
"How do you feel?" I question him.
Cade raises one of his hands to his temple, but rather than wincing, he only furrows his eyebrows in very mild discomfort. "Much better now. I don't know why I passed out like that, but I think I'm ready to stand up."
I rise away from him and stand, offering my hand to him to help him up. He takes it gladly.
"Probably a side effect from hitting your head so hard, but you don't have a concussion. I fixed it," I assure him.
"Thank you," he sighs as he leans against me, trying to get his footing right. I gaze up at him, ignoring his statement as I feel gratitude of my own pang in my chest.
"I should be the one thanking you. You brought them here safely," I tell him, gesturing to one of the tunnels that leads to the main room. "I'd be lying if I told you I never had doubts about your ability to pull that off."
Cade leans off of me and puts a hand over his chest, sticking out his lips in a fake pout. "That hurts, Cass," he says, trying to feign disappointment before his inevitable smirk crosses his face.
"Yeah well..." I trail off, wanting to change the subject. "Oh! You said in your letter that you wanted to talk to me about something," I remember.
Cade's smirk drops and is replaced by a look of something more serious, his eyes flitting around the room nervously to look at anything but me.
"I...uh..." he stutters, only meeting my face for a split second before looking away again. My heart starts pounding furiously, and my mind starts racing with the possibility of what's making him so nervous.
Are you actually about to say what I think you are?
"Just, um, wanted to know if you guys had a plan on what to do when Adam gets done with the box," Cade decides to say, covering up something.
I furrow my eyebrows in confusion, not expecting that to come out of his mouth of all things. And is that...do I honestly feel disappointment at his words? What did I want him to say?
"Adam finished looking at the last of the powers this morning, but no, we don't have a plan yet," I answer quickly, trying to hide my puzzlement.
His police badge that I keep in the pocket of my white lab coat feels like it's burning a hole in my side.
We both drop our gaze and stare at the floor, quite possibly in the most awkward silence ever known.
Well that wasn't how I pictured that conversation going.
"Hey, if you two are done with your little healing-fest, perhaps you'd like to come back and join everybody!" I hear Susan yell from down one of the tunnels, snapping back us back to reality. Her voice carries a new kind of joy to it after meeting Evelyn's family, every syllable seemingly promising a better life full of happier things.
Cade and I walk in her direction without anymore words.
**************************
While Cade converses with Adam at the table about the box and Kyle gets to know the rest of Evelyn's family better, Susan and I stand off in the corner watching everyone. I can feel Susan beaming at the all the noise and new people, happy for a change. And honestly, I am as well; staring at the wall all these endless weeks can only be fun for so long.
Looking at Cade, I find myself wondering what he really wanted to say back in that tunnel, for surely it had nothing to do with that box. Did he want to say what I thought he would?
He's leaning over Adam's shoulder while Adam explains what all the powers do, that same pesky lock of black hair falling out of place as he tries to follow along. I wanna brush it out of his face again; I want to run my hands through his hair.
Ugh, stop it, Cassia.
"Cassia," Susan says, putting a hand on my shoulder and snapping me back to reality. "We've been friends since practically birth. So as your friend, I'm telling you with everything in me to please MAKE A MOVE ALREADY!" She orders in a whisper.
"Susan, he's barely even my friend. What do you want me to do?" I ask her, taken aback by her boldness.
She stamps her foot and huffs, frustrated with my attempts at being oblivious. It amuses me sometimes that a person as short as Susan can have a temper the size of a skyscraper.
"Stop being his friend and go further! Cassia, we could be discovered and killed at any moment, so live a little and go for it. I've seen the way he looks at you," She pushes, nudging me in my ribs for emphasis.
"And if you don't, I could always force you. I could make you a stupidly happy, love-struck fool," Susan adds, her eyes glowing mischievously behind her black rimmed glasses.
"You don't have the power to make people fall in love, Susan," I grumble with an eye roll, but she just laughs at that.
"You'd be surprised what joy does to people," she retorts, flipping her hair out of her eyes dramatically before she becomes serious this time.
"Promise me you'll take advantage of your situation. I think you like him too, Cassia, but you just don't want to say so."
Defeated with trying to talk her down, I resort to stalling for the moment. "We'll see," I say instead. It's not the answer she was looking for, but it's enough to get her to drop the subject for now.
"Well, I'm glad I got everyone here safely, but it's well into the night now. I'll be back as soon as I can to check with you guys about what to do next," Cade suddenly announces, and I furrow my eyebrows in surprise.
He got here in the afternoon and it's already night? Time doesn't fly, it soars.
"I'll walk you out," I offer, ignoring Susan's smirk as we head for the door that leads to the outside hallway.
The ladder stands strung to the wall, offering escape only for Cade. The rest of us, however, are still trapped.
Cade sees me staring up at the covered hole well above our heads, the only piece of matter that truly keeps us hidden.
He takes my hand softly and begins to walk me toward the ladder.
"What are you doing? I can't leave," I demand, glancing feverishly back at the door that leads to everyone else.
"You won't. Just thought you'd like to see the stars again for a minute," Cade answers simply, climbing up the ladder and pulling me with him.
I begin to wonder why now of all times he chooses to do this, but my questioning is replaced with wistful longing.
Oh, how I do miss the stars.
We reach the very top of the ladder, the stone mere inches above our heads. We exchange one silent glance and automatically touch our hands to the ceiling, pushing upwards and moving the stone out of the ground.
My eyes immediately look up hungrily for any sign of the twinkling lights, longing for a view of the night sky that I had so long taken for granted.
But it is not stars I see first.
Instead it is a pair of grey eyes seething down at mine, set ablaze with rage. Those same eyes belong to the face of a man with bags so terrible under his eyes that they look bruised, and his lips are pulled back into what can only be described as a snarl. More men are standing behind him.
I am looking at Will and the rest of his police.
They found us.