Cade Read Online Free Page A

every possible crevice and shadow the Humans could emerge from. His heart thundered in his chest as he approached the bridge, light at the end of the tunnel. Only, they weren’t quite there yet. Cade pulled to a stop. He slipped out of the car and crept to the bend in the road. A blue light flashed its beacon round in circles. A radio crackled, and he watched as the police flagged down a car to search it.
    Cade was not getting home that way.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Getting back into his car, Cade was at a crossroads, and not just the one in front of him, but the metaphorical kind. He’d watched as the Humans stopped cars, searched their boots, pulled the travellers out and asked them questions. The air around him was thick with the scent of burning trees and fire. Cade could go that way, across the bridge and to the heart of the lion. He could pull his car up and have the Humans search it and find the boy—the thing they were after. Would Cade be able to get out of this scot-free? He didn’t know. Giving up the boy would definitely stop a possible war tomorrow. He could sacrifice one to save many.
    Perhaps he should just leave the boy somewhere. Prop him up against one of the graves in the nearby cemetery, or hide him in one of the mausoleums. Give the kid a fighting chance and buy him some time … providing the transformation didn’t kill him first. The Humans wouldn’t look in there, he was sure. They were as superstitious as they were thick. Yet, as he glanced in the rear-view mirror of his car at the boy lying on his backseat, he knew that neither was an option. What if this had been Danny? His little brother was just fifteen years old. Cade knew that if this had been Danny, he would want whoever had found him to take him in and protect him; to give him a chance to fight for his life. His father would want that, too.
    Cade pressed the palms of his hands onto his eyes, making the world go dark. His head began to throb. What was right? What was the right thing to do? Hadn't he sworn to protect everything and everyone? Hadn't he signed up for that when he chose to work for the DSA? Wasn’t it his duty as a trainee officer of the law himself to protect all those around him, Other and Human, and now a half-breed? He was not justice. He was a protector and defender.
    It had only been two weeks since one of their own had turned up dead. Just a boy—another boy. But he wasn’t like the half-breed. He had been pure and younger; at least half the age of the boy in the back of his car. And what had the Humans done to him? What had those fucking bastards gone and done? Cade ground his teeth at the memory. It had been him who had been called to handle it. He had been the one who had had to tell the mother what the Humans had done to her innocent baby boy. The Humans called Others monsters … How fucking ironic. They had taken the boy and put him on a gantry. Stripped him bare and made him scream. Cade hadn't been there, but he had heard the testimonies of witnesses. He knew how those screams sounded. Pain and fury flooded him as he recalled the boy’s face—or what had been left of his face. Someone had held him to the fires. They had seared half of his skin off and they had done it while he had still been alive. He was just a child, helpless and frightened.
    Like the boy in the backseat now.
    “Sometimes we have to make the decisions that will make the difference.” His best friend’s words echoed in his mind. Stephen was right.
    “I’m just one person,” Cade murmured. He stared at the boy. “What can one person do?” But Cade knew the answer to that, too. One person was never just one person. You made the decision to do the right thing and took the first step. Then, gradually, others would follow. But someone had to be brave enough to dare. Somebody had to take that first step.
    Cade glanced out at the darkened road ahead of him. He could cross the hill and bridge, hand the boy over, and go back to his life as