Brie bit her lip, and glanced at me with worry in the mirror. I took several deep breaths in a vain attempt to calm the heat and rage. Kaden was staring at Brie intently and then turned to look at me.
"I see." Kaden murmured, which made me immediately want to snipe at him again, but I let out a slow breath instead. Kaden wisely shut up. After several minutes, the heat and anger had started to subside, but my headache would not relent.
"Brie, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get angry like that." I apologized.
"What, no apology for me?" Kaden teased, earning him an angry glare.
"Listen, my head is killing me right now. I'm going to try to sleep for a minute, see if I can get it to ease off. Do you know where are you headed?" I sighed.
"I thought I'd take you guys to my place, I hae some paperwork there that might help us locate the box with the shoes. I mean it's a long shot, because so much of that stuff is at the office or in transit, but I tried to keep my hands on the really important stuff so it wouldn't get lost in the shuffle..." Brie answered. I nodded with relief. Brie's house was about an hour away from the cemetery, which gave me time for a quick nap.
"Sweet dreams." Kaden said sweetly. I bristled, but he looked sincere.
"Whatever." I mumbled under my breath and tossed myself down on the seat. The cold faux leather against my bare skin made me suck in a quick breath through my teeth. Cloth was draped across me and I looked up to see Kaden dropping his suit jacket over me. He grinned again and turned back to face the front, engaging Brie in conversation. I was tempted to reject the jacket, but it was a nice buffer once tucked under on the sides...
A sudden jolt roused me partially. I moaned as my headache slammed into my head again.
"Are you sure she's ok?" I heard Kaden ask. "It sounds like she might be in pain"
"Oh, Rue has a lot of nightmares." Brie replied flippantly. There was a long pause and I thought I had slipped back into unconsciousness until Kaden spoke again.
"That's...interesting..." He said thoughtfully as if he had gotten more from the statement than she said. "But she did say she had a headache, didn't she?" Kaden's statement pulled me the rest of the way out of my light sleep. My headache came back with a vengeance and I scrunched up my eyes, feeling the pain rebound from one temple to the other. I was struggling to remember something I'd been thinking about in my dream. A cool hand brushed against my forehead and settled as if checking my temperature. I squinted to see Kaden had turned nearly all the way around in his seat, reaching out to me.
"It's ok, just sleep." He breathed softly. I thought about telling him to get his hands off me, but I suddenly felt myself being dragged back into the depths of sleep. The last thing I saw was Kaden's smug expression.
"You...." I managed to mumble before the world disappeared. Everything was black until an image floated out of the darkness, battling to break through. It looked like an old movie projector had messed up. Voices ran over each other in a jumbled cacophony. 'Wherrssitt' hissed a voice, and then the King's voice bellowed something, but I couldn't understand it all. '...artifact..must find... to return..' and then his as I tried to concentrate on what he was saying, his creepy chuckle slithered through my hand, causing me to shudder. I tried to turn and run, but I couldn't. My limbs wouldn't move. A car door unexpectedly slammed, jolting me out of sleep, my heart pounding.
"Sorry!" Kaden yelled through the window. I glared at him and sat up. Unbelievably, my headache was gone, buy my thoughts were still foggy and scattered like I had just woken up after surgery. Concentrating was a little difficult, my thoughts scattering before I could clearly grasp what I had thought. Kaden's jacket fell to my lap. I sat and observed it for a while. Something important about the jacket, no about Kaden? I jerked my head towards the window and watched as Brie headed towards her front door, followed by Kaden. I gripped the jacket around my shoulders. No use causing a scandal with Brie's neighbors. When I slipped out of the SUV, my muscles complained and I nearly fell. Kaden looked over his shoulder at me as I walked stiffly towards him. Brie threw open the door and then looked back at us. She eyed the jacket and my torn skirt.
"Girl, I'm going to go see what I have in the closet. I know I've got a hoodie or something around here that should fit you. I don't know about bottoms though." She said doubtfully. Brie walked down the hall and for the first time I took a really good look at myself. Soaked shoes, muddy and torn skirt, no top, plenty of dirt, and Kaden's jacket, which was probably getting dirty the longer I had it. I should probably return that to him before it got worse.
"Keep it." Kaden said, and instantly my mind latched onto what I had figured out in the car. His eyes were sparkling as I looked at him with suspicion. I was convinced he wasn't just a normal person and that somehow he was picking up on my thoughts. He snorted.
"Normal, you mean like you?" Kaden asked with condescension. I stiffened, alarmed.
"So you can hear me." I accused with distrust. There was no way he just happened to appear at a funeral in the middle of nowhere the same time as the nightmare creatures and their king where not even Brie recognized him, who knew all the scuttlebutt in her family tree. He knew how to kill those creatures and then the thought thing, and he'd somehow forced his way into our little group looking for the same thing the king of those monsters wanted. I took a step back, heart-rate accelerating. What if he wasn't working with US, but with THEM? Kaden had a mocking smile on his face.
"Clever, very clever." He praised, then sighed. "But, you have a few things wrong. I was trying to stop them, to stop HIM." I stepped back another step, I couldn't stop the anxiety growing, especially when the mocking grin returned.