Chapter Fifty

Skylar's POV:

When Caden stopped his car in front of a house, it didn't take the full-on heavy rain to hide the big structure from me. I could clearly make it out.

And I knew that house.

Everything about it was similar to the house I had seen on my phone, when I had been searching on the web. It was the same house with those scorch marks on the walls.

It took me few seconds to finally find my voice, my gaze still fixated on the house. "Why are we here?" It looked empty and isolated—not just the house, but the entire street.

"My parent's house." I heard him say.

As if putting two and two together, I leaned back against my seat. I didn't want to come up with any rash conclusions, but it still felt a bit hard to breathe. When I glanced over at Caden, I realized that his gaze was, just like mine, fixed at the house.

"What happened to it?" I looked back at it. Part of me knew what had happened to this house. I saw it in those pictures.

"It got blown up in fire." He replied, before finally looking at me. "I burned this house." And he kept looking at me, as if waiting for a reaction. I had none, however. I just didn't know how to react.

"Why would you...do that?" I regained my voice.

I didn't want him to stop, I needed him to keep telling me all of it. I couldn't just accept that he ruined this house, ruined his family. Everything had its reasons, wasn't he the one who told me that?

His gaze trailed away from me, almost as if he was weighing his options. Inhaling deeply, he placed his head back against the seat and I saw him closing his eyes.

"B lake's my stepbrother. I'm sure you already know that." He didn't wait for my response. Not like I had any. "My dad married his mom when...my mom left him. I guess, I was ten back then"

He didn't mention that his mom left him too. I didn't point it out, though. It already seemed like it was hard enough for him to say this out loud, I didn't want him to shut me out all over again.

"She was nicer than my real mother could’ve ever been." He murmured, and there was this something in his voice, something strange. It made my heart clench unhappily. "She cared about me. But she wasn't alone when she came in our house. Blake was there too." He said. "I hated him from the start."

I didn't even have to imagine that.

"It wasn't just Blake." He stopped for a second. "He had a...younger sister, Rena. She was probably just seven when they married."

I gulped heavily, finding myself repeating his words in my head, again and again.

"And like my stepmother, she wasn't like Blake. Even Blake had a soft spot for Rena." A slow, sad smile crossed his lips. He still had his eyes closed.

I felt this sudden urge to hold his hand.

"Blake always had these arguments between our parents, from the very start. He started coming home late at nights. And if he was there, conversations always ended up in fights." He continued. "Until the day he finally decided to stop them."

"It was late at night when it happened. My parents were asleep inside the house. I had promised Rena I would make a bonfire for her out in the backyard. She loved...bonfires." He stopped, opening his eyes and looking at nothing in particular; he looked lost. And when he actually looked at me, my heart lurched involuntarily at the vacant look in his eyes.

"When we were done collecting the firewood, she told me that she needed something from her room. And just as she went inside the house, Blake came out and joined me. I hadn't even known that he was awake." He said. "He was always into messed up shit. But at that moment, he looked a bit happier than usual."

I saw him clenching his jaw. I still kept silent.

"He told me to light the fire." Caden said. "And I did."

I inhaled sharply, looking back at the house in front of us. I blinked and felt my eyes pricking at the edges. It just felt impossibly hard to believe. Why hadn't anyone else known about this? So many glamours about Caden Miller, and none of them consisted of this.

"I...hadn't known that he had doused the house with gasoline." He said. "I hadn't known about it until I lit the match. Once I had thrown it down after lighting the firewood, there was a crashing sound. And fire."

I felt horrible.

"It was everywhere, Sky." He added, his voice lowering down to a whisper. I heard the helplessness in his voice. "I tried to save them, to get inside. But the doors were locked."

"Why would he do that?" I whispered, and my voice came out a bit raspy.

Caden took his time to reply, letting the silence fill around us.

"Something against our parents." He replied, his eyes finding mine once again. "Blake was always the best at holding grudges."

It felt unreal, whatever that he had just told me. But I could see it right in front of me, the remains of a house which was once...alive.

"Your sister, Rena was in there." I said.

"She was." He said. "Even Blake hadn't known about that."

Everything made sense now.

"He blames you."

He leaned forward and placed his forehead against the steering wheel, and all I could see of him was the back of his head, his dark black hair.

"I would've known what he had done." He murmured. "I would've stopped him."

My eyes widened at that. "You can't possibly think it was your fault." I said. "How were you supposed to know that? He mustn't planned that all along."

"I lit the flames, Sky." He pointed out, still not looking at me. And I wished that he would look at me. At that moment, I realized that it wouldn't exactly matter to him if I denied what he was saying. If I were ever in his place, I'd blame myself too.

He was just misunderstood. And I had a part in that too—I felt horrible.

I looked back at him, feeling the small lump growing a bit too painfully in my throat. I didn't know what I was doing until I placed my hand over his, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"I'm...so sorry, Caden." I whispered.

He pulled my hand closer towards him, and it was just a soft whisper when he replied,

"Don't be."

••••••

Caden had been staying there for all those days he had missed out on school; the house that had been abandoned since years, since that incident happened.

"You would've told me." I said for the fiftieth time, looking around the empty house. It was much warmer here than outside, for some reason. The walls were covered in black marks; burnt marks—just like in those pictures that I had seen earlier.

"I told you yesterday." He spoke up from behind me. "And you ran away."

He was right.

"You didn't tell me why. I was just a bit hurt." And I knew I shouldn't have been. I clearly hadn't known even the slightest bit of this all.

I walked over towards the fireplace, noticing how the pieces of wood were burned to black ash.

"I know." He sighed before sitting down on a couch. Everything in this house was layered with dust. It felt a bit sad to be in here, especially now that I knew what happened here.

"Just don't do that ever again." I murmured under my breath, hoping that he actually wouldn't. That's exactly when I noticed a thin piece of paper stuffed somewhere behind the firewood. I took it out cautiously. The paper was almost burned down, light as a feather in my hands.

"What's that?" He asked.

I unfolded it to find myself looking at a drawing. A sketch of five disc-like objects. One of them was, however, a bit irregular in shape—not like the ones I had seen in Alex's drawer. Almost immediately, I realized what they were.

The metal disco.

Caden walked towards me, stopping right behind me and taking a peek from over my shoulder. I followed his gaze and saw another irregular shaped object drawn across one corner. However, this one wasn't like those discs. It seemed more like a—

"That's the red crystal." A small shiver escaped my lips when I felt his breath fanning against my neck. Turning around, I looked at him confusedly.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That's what...Blake wants." He looked at me. "The reason why he's looking for that locker."

I took that as my cue to tell him about that wooden box.

"I got that wooden box opened." I told him.

"How?"

"I...took it somewhere. But that's not the point." I replied. "There was this drive inside it and when I opened it on my laptop, there was a video in there."

He waited for me to go on.

"There was a man in that video. He was saying some stuff about that last metal disc." I said. "And I'm pretty sure that he described the exact location too, where that thing is."

"The last metal disco id." Aden's gaze flew back to the sketch in my hands. "He told where it is?"

I nodded.

"What is the purpose of those discs even?" I found myself asking him. "Are they connected to this...crystal?"

His dark green eyes found mine and he nodded slowly. "Not all of them are connected. It's just the last one that's important." And he probably would've said something more if we hadn't heard the sound of a door closing shut with a loud bang.

I looked over at the front door, which surprisingly was still wide open. That meant it mustn't been the door upstairs. Both of us eyed the stairs which led up to another hallway.

"We should go." I whispered.

"Yeah." Was all he said.

Later when we got seated inside his car, the heavy rain had thankfully turned back into light drizzle. And it was way past evening by now.

"What now?" I asked, breaking the silence. He glanced at me before looking back at the road.

"I take you back to your house." He replied as if that wasn't obvious enough. "Unless you want to come with me to the gang's house."

He didn't sound like he was joking.

"I..." I trailed off.

I would be home alone. Even Chicken wouldn't be there since Mom had taken her along, saying how I never fed her properly. Which was totally wrong. I took care of Chicken as much as I took care of myself.

"I'll take you with me." He stated. "Besides, you'd be too scared to go back without me."

"That is not true." I defended myself.

It was—we both knew that.

••••••

I didn't know what time it actually was when we reached the familiar mansion-like house. The sky had gone completely dark by now and the moon shining above us told me that it couldn't be anywhere near midnight right now. Just looking at the familiar front doors made a yawn escape my lips. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and just sleep. It felt like centuries since I had properly slept.

Getting out of the car, I closed the door behind me.

"Come on." Caden said before walking towards the front doors. I followed quietly behind him, wanting to just get out of these drenched clothes. He quickly pressed something over the green electric pad beside the doors and I waited patiently behind him.

As he opened the door, I realized how dark it actually was inside. Just a small light from the kitchen lit the surroundings.

"Have you ever so suddenly had a feeling—" I placed my forehead against his back. "—where you just wanted to sleep. Like shit ton of sleep."

He turned around, taking hold of my arms before I could’ve planted my face down on the floor.

"I think only you get such kind of feelings." He pointed out.

I rolled my eyes mentally, since I was just too exhausted.

"Where is everyone else?" I asked, looking around the empty house. I then found myself wondering how big his gang actually was? Blake had a lot of people in his gang; he always sent a completely different person to stalk me every single time.

"Must be asleep." He whispered, pulling me against him, and snaking an arm around my waist. "You know, after yesterday, I kind of thought I really won't see you again."

I felt a bit warm from the inside.

"Since you clearly stated that I lost you already." His lips brushed against my ear. I could hear the tease in his voice.

"I...get dramatic in such situations." My voice came out in a whisper. He placed his hand around the back of my neck before capturing my lips with his. I felt myself going limp against him, wrapping my arms around his neck, and pulling him closer. A small knot loosened itself inside my chest.

He hadn't been the bad guy. I could actually trust him. He's still the same Caden I like.

He broke away from the kiss and pushed me back against the door, his lips slowly trailing down my jawline. His hand tangled itself into my hair, tugging slightly on it and angling my head sideways. When I felt his lips against my bare neck, a choked gasp escaped from my mouth. It felt like fire, my insides felt like they were on fire.

I don't think I was feeling sleepy anymore.

He pressed himself impossibly closer against me, his hand slowly traveling down my waist—agonizingly slow. And when he slid it inside my shirt, softly caressing my bare skin, I'm pretty sure it was more than just those cliched sparks I felt at that moment.

God, I love this.

And then the lights switched on themselves, or rather someone switched them on.

"Oh. My. God." I heard a voice behind Caden. "Can I say I'm not surprised?"