I could tell he was smirking when he replied, "Same here. I remember hearing your voice calling out for me… It was hard to keep my eyes open at that point. I barely remember you arriving…" He trailed off as he spoke, his confident tone giving way to a moment of tense silence. Anxiety struck me. What was he thinking? Once we knew the other was listening, it was easy to distinguish our real thoughts from talking. I gnawed viciously on the end of my thumbnail.
Kane coughed, interrupting my anxious stewing. "Well, I can tell you about the Pocket Space, if you want. It might be, uh, useful for your work. I woke up there after the meld." Kane fell into a more serious tone. I liked the powerful way he spoke because it sent an exciting shiver through me. "It seemed like only a few weeks passed for me, though. I'm shocked that it was three months in the Mortal Plane."
The time there is strange. It was something Lyra had mentioned to me. There were a few things I wanted to ask him about, though. Someone mentioned children being there. Do you know anything about that? I know you mentioned others.
He sighed. "Yes, there were some children and teenagers. I don't know why I was the first to come across them, but I was. There were humans, a harvester, a wildling, and a couple of vampires. Turns out I'm not great with kids, but they still wanted to be around me."
I held back a mocking laugh. Kane with kids all around him? You were a supernatural babysitter.
"I tried," Kane said defensively. "I couldn't just leave them there alone. They were weak and silly, most of them. They thought the material was fun. It was a bit of a game for them, in the beginning, to throw themselves at the wall and jump off. They were wary of me at first, but then they grew to like me… I mean, I guess they did."
I smiled to myself. It was a good mental image.
"Anyway, I earned their trust. We had a visit from a creepy cloaked group who looked like rejects from one of your horror movies," he relayed. "I scared them off, and the kids really seemed attached to me after that."
I gripped the edge of the bench. Interesting. I quickly told him about the situation Lyra and Dorian went through, not knowing if he’d heard about it from his healer.
"Oh, I have some stories about that group," Kane said with a dark chuckle. The warm feeling in my body grew. Kane as a protector of children was very attractive. "We had to steal from their hideout on several occasions. The human kids needed food. You guys starve pretty quickly."
Very empathetic of you.
"Food didn't grow there, so we had to make do," Kane said dryly. "I rarely got a chance to feed on the cloaked freaks, but I tried a few times. They had a few vampires among them, like you said. I lost my strength after a while, and they tried to hunt me down. Before I had to leave the kids, I tried my best to teach them how to protect themselves. I was trying to draw the cult away from them… and I was trying to find you. Before that, we found safer ways for them to move through the network of tunnels."
He spoke with a fierce loyalty to them. It impressed me, given his previous distaste for children. You sound fond of them.
"I'm just worried. There’s no food in that place. I want to go back and help them. They were resisting the weird group, who kept coming around to try to recruit them into… well, I don't even know. I never let them get very far. I'm worried what they’ll do to the kids, now that I'm gone. And now, there's no way to go back, according to the healer. She said the monster was dead." Kane let out a frustrated grunt. "Plus, I still have to heal up fully." The latter part was said bitterly. It reminded me of how hard he’d had to work as a kid.
Sounds like you need to get back there. After he healed, I told myself and not him. His dedication impressed me, though. I want to help you. I don't know how yet, but I will.
"I appreciate it," Kane said, then laughed weakly. "But there's not much you can do from the Mortal Plane."
Were our lives going to continually be entangled like this? It was push and pull with Kane. I’d watched Lyra and Dorian, the way their attraction had ascended like climbing a staircase. With Kane, I never knew if I was getting a tiny spark or a giant bonfire in my face. I slumped back against the bench. We weren't together like Lyra and Dorian. We couldn't be, could we? He lived in the Immortal Plane and I belonged here, working for the Bureau… the very organization that used to hunt him. He, as a vampire, was classified as dangerous in the Mortal Plane. It would be impossible for us to move around freely together with all those obstacles in place. Also, the idea that Kane would admit that he liked me? I wasn’t sure that would happen. I wasn’t sure about anything.
I stamped down the idea of a romantic connection. My ultimate goal would be a professional one. It was what we needed to do if we wanted to help people. Kane was clearly pretending that the kiss never happened, so I would too. I could deal with my feelings about him
