“You were born when her Amoro appeared?” He nods at my question, so I continue, “Thenwhydidn’t you dig her up? Why didn’t you go to her?!”
“I tried to find her, Kairhyse, but even if I had been able to connect to our bond, it wouldn’t have mattered. Her eyes need to see for me to.”
“Because she was buried…” Sydni murmurs, her already low voice carrying an unmistakable ache.
“The one thing we don’t need the bond for, is to share in our suffering. I felt her pain, and every time she would die, a piece of me shattered. You cannot begin to imagine… I was created to serve and protect her, so to immediately wake to her dying, has haunted me.”
I can see the pain between his small eyebrows, and while I can feel the pinch of anger toward the feline, there is an agonizing ache in my stomach. He had suffered for months having to feel her die, and awaken, to only die again.
“I looked, but was unsuccessful. When she was dug up, I was capable of finding her after a few weeks, but kept my distance. Feeling her pain may seem like the worst of it, but watching as she tried to come back from that… That was torture.”
“Wait… You have been watching her ever since?” I look over at Sydni, small droplets of tears drawing down her cheeks. “The train tracks… All the times she…”
When I peer back at Mister, all of his hair is standing on ends.
“I nearly told her then what I was, but unlike you, Sydni, or anyone here, Xeraphine does not need coddling, she needs to be the one to pull herself from the darkness that was forced upon her. Regardless… I was the one that pulled her body from the tracks, and I laid with her until her head regenerated.”She had spoken of never being found—but that wasn’t true at all, she had someone there for her. I wonder if, in another life, Mister had revealed himself to her, would she have felt less alone in the world?
“Over the years I watched her, stayed by her side and allowed her the freedom to get her own revenge. After the incident with the train, I kept a distance no further than a sprint away, then closed that gap between us when she moved to Sidence.”
“Why all of a sudden did you make yourself known?” I ask.
“Intuition, I suppose. Plus, she was getting closer, and I knew once she had killed the five that took her life, I was going to introduce myself as her Familiar. She’d made it very clear, never wanting to know more about her kind. Xera resented her … father, for making her the way she was, even if she at the same time, loved it. I’d planned to help guide her into the life she deserved, not the one she was heading toward.”
“Suicide.” I hate saying it, but she’d shared on several occasions that was her plan after her revenge. Death. Begging Belial to take her into the Beyond and away from this life.
Mister nods.
“That day at her apartment,” Sydni continues. “Why didn’t you tell her about the bomb?”
“A talking cat telling that girl there was a bomb in her apartment… Do tell, what do you think her reaction would have been?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, not wanting to agree that his insinuation is correction.
“I haven’t known her for very long,” Kayn says through a sigh. “My guess is she would have thought you were a Shifter and likely torn you in half.”
“Correct. It is also why I never approached her before. She hadn’t known the type of Shifters that took her, and Kairhyse, you know Xera enough to understand she would have never trusted me. Ever.”
He’s right, and I fucking hate that he is. My girl deserves to have those in her life that she can trust and count on. Not those that lie and are deceitful. I know, deep down, that this cat,her Familiar,did what was best for her. There is just a thick layer of bitterness that hangs heavy over it.
My friend clears his throat. “I’m going to assume this is why you haven’t been by her side this entire time. But, clarify for the class. Is it because Xera and her Amoro were disconnected until recently that it took you so long to find her?”
“Yes.”The feline nods.“I tried to follow Tali when they stuffed Xeraphine into a van, but without my abilities—those didn’t awaken until our bond snapped into place—I’m merely a cat. I ran for as long as I could, but it was useless. I returned back to the apartment to wait.”He looks up at me.“For you, or Sydni, but no one came. It had been a week by the time I got back, so I could only assume that you had already gone on your way to find her.”
“Then when she connected with her Amoro… you just…”
“I didn’t get a good look at the location, because minutes later, she was through the Gates of the Beyond. I saw Alaric, and using my connection to my creator, I was able to find Ismael, and here we are.”
I’m cautious with how I speak to him. Something about yelling at a cat feels wrong. “When Daigo took her, why not make yourself known to Sydni and I? You could have helped us!”
“Suppose the same rules would apply. Making you trust me would have been difficult and time consuming.”
“Yet you took the chance now…” There’s a bitterness to my response.
Mister says nothing, and drags his gaze to Kayn.
A heavy, frustrated sigh escapes me.
“However, I would have taken that risk in your distrust. If I hadn’t been knocked out by the blast and disoriented, I would have. When I was fully capable of thought, the only person around me was Tyson, and I don’t trust him. He smelled rotten.”
