Page 203 of Caelum

As I watched the flying beasts approach, machines that were close enough for me to see the colors on the underbelly—McAllister colors—I knew the nightmares that hit me as I slept were nothing compared to the waking one I was currently living.

And then, just as I closed my eyes and willed for the first time in almost a decade for sleep to come, to help me escape the horrors of something I couldn’t protect us from, I heard it.

A bang.

Followed by another. And another. And another.

My eyes popped open, and as I stared ahead, I saw the helicopters were no longer moving forward but were soaring upward instead. The rotors were on fire, the bodies being ripped apart by an explosion that seemed to have a domino effect.

As I stared, the blast rushed from one side of the V-formationand down to the other, lighting up the sky with a firework display that would never leave my mind.

I sank to my knees and realized that a woman Caelum would want dead if they knew the truth of her nature had just saved us all.

Every single one of us.

And all because of seven wishes granted by some kind of djinn/creature hybrid.

Knowing we were safe for the moment, I let my eyes close, and as the drugs overtook me, I knew, deep in my bones, that our time had run out. We’d been spared the McAllister attack for a reason. What that reason was?

I wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

TWENTY-SIX

DRE

The gates were open.

Wide open.

We only ever entered and exited that bad boy when we were inducted into the school and when we graduated. They were locked at all other times.

It made me wonder if the fleet of helicopters had been friendly, but Eren swore they’d been McAllister colors, and considering Juliet was a grade A bitch, as well as aductorthat would make a Spanish Inquisitor shiver and shake in his shoes, I could believe it.

Somehow, Caelum had been compromised.

Our location, a secret we protected with our lives, had been revealed to our worst enemies, and rather than helping out those who’d suffer if another attack came, we were sneaking out at dawn.

I hated myself for it and knew Stefan and the others weren’t happy about it either. But we had to get out of here. Had to get Eve off this island.

What she’d done?

The lives she’d saved?

She’d never be on the receiving end of anything other than distrust and dislike. She’d saved Caelum, kept it intact, and yet, if the truth of her nature was revealed, she’d be nothing more than a commodity.

Shit,we’dbe nothing more than a commodity either.

We’d reaped the miracle too, and I still didn’t know how. None of it made sense.

“Why are the gates open?” Reed snarled.

Of us all, Reed and I were the least affected by the drugs now we’d slept off the worst of it. I figured that was because of our Shifter souls, whereas the others had different talents. Nestor was evidently still weakened from his assault because he was out like a light.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but it looks like Caelum has a traitor.” That was the only reason that justified the gates being open—someone had unlocked them, just as a flock of Ghouls were flying in while the rest of us were sleeping off a ‘high.’ Coincidence? Highly unlikely.

Reed’s mouth tightened, and I nodded at him, my irritation and his on the same page. The very fact we were leaving now made us look guilty, and I could only pray this shit didn’t fall back on us at a later stage. For the moment, there was nothing I could do other than carry on with our original plan, but it grated on me.

God, how it did.

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