When Caden stopped his car in front of a house, even the full-on heavy rain wasn't able to hide the big structure from me. I could see it just fine.

Because I knew that house.

Everything about it was exactly similar to the house I had seen on my phone hours ago, when I had been searching on the web back in detention. It was the same house with those burnt, scorch marks on the walls.

It took me a few seconds to finally find my voice, my gaze still stuck at the house. "Why are we here?" It looked empty and isolated--not just the house, but the entire street as well.

"My parents' house." I heard him say.

As if putting two and two together, I leaned back in my seat. I didn't want to come up with any rash conclusions, but it still felt a bit hard to breathe when I thought about it. When I glanced over at Caden, his gaze was fixed ahead at the house too.

"What happened to it?" I looked back at it. Part of me knew what had happened to this house. I'd seen 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 didn't want him to stop. I needed him to keep telling me all of it until it made some sense. How could he have just ruined his family? Everyone had their reasons--wasn't he the one who told me that?

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

"Blake'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 say his mom left him too. I didn't point it out, though. It already seemed like it was hard enough for him to be saying this out loud. I didn't want him to shut everything 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 into 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 too. Rena. She was probably just seven when our parents married."

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

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

"Blake always had these arguments with our parents from the very start. He started coming home late at night. 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. 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 his eyes found mine, something inside me tugged at the openness in them. Raw emotions. He didn't want to hold back.

"When we were done collecting the firewood, she told me 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 continued. "He was always into some messed up shit or another. But at that moment, he looked a whole lot happier than usual."

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

"He told me to light the match," Caden said, "and I did."

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

"I...hadn't known that he'd doused the house with gasoline." He said. "I hadn't known about it until I lit the match. There was this loud crash. And fire."

I felt horrible.

"It was everywhere, Sky." He added, his voice lowering down to a whisper. I could've heard the helplessness in his voice, but it still felt so far away. "I tried to save them. I had 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 has always been 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 was in there," I said. Rena had been in there.

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

Everything made sense now.

"He blames you."

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

"I should've known what he was planning." He gritted out. "I should've stopped him."

My eyes widened. "You can't possibly think it was your fault, Caden," I said. "How were you supposed to know that? Blake must've been planning 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, I mean. Because even if I told him a thousand times that it wasn't his fault, it wouldn't exactly matter. His whole family had died in that fire. It wasn't a tiny blame.

Caden was misunderstood. Blamed for something he never meant to do. And I had a part in that too--in thinking that he was the bad guy. 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'd been missing out on school--the house that had been abandoned for years now since that incident happened.

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

"I did try telling you last night." He spoke up from behind me. "And then you ran away."

He was right.

"You refused to tell me why. I was just a bit hurt." Perhaps I shouldn't have been. Not when I couldn't have imagined any of this in the slightest.

I walked over to the fireplace, noticing how the pieces of wood were burnt 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 had happened here.

"Just don't do that again," I whispered, hoping that he really wouldn't. I wanted him to be honest with me. That's all I wanted.

It was right then that I noticed a thin piece of paper stuffed somewhere behind the only solid pieces of firewood. I took it out almost 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 sketch. 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. It didn't take me long to realise what they were.

The metal discoids.

Caden walked towards me, stopping right behind me and taking a peek 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 my neck. Turning around, I looked at him confusedly.

"The red crystal?"

"That's what Blake wants." He looked at me. "I think that's what he wants. 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.

"You did." He frowned a little and it was a bit surprising that he didn't care to make it sound like a question.

"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 the last metal disc." I continued. "And I'm pretty sure he described the exact location too, wherever that thing is."

"The last metal discoid." Caden's gaze flew back to the sketch in my hands. "He said where it is?"

I nodded.

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

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 must've 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 were safely seated in his car, the heavy rain had thankfully turned back to light drizzle. The sky had gone dark and it was way past evening by now.

"What do we do now?" I asked him, 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 so obscenely wrong. I took care of Chicken as much as I took care of myself.

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

"That is not true." I crossed my arms.

It was, and we both knew that.

•••••

I didn't know what time it actually was when we reached the familiar mansion. There was an almost full moon up in the sky, basking the concrete pavement in front of me with its glow. Just looking at the familiar front doors made a yawn escape my lips. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. It felt like centuries since I'd properly slept.

"It's this way," Caden said, making me look up at him and his eyes so full of amusement.

"I know that."

"Or you can sleep in the bushes too. I wouldn't mind." He added.

I shook my head at him, following him and trying not to make too much noise. "You're very rude sometimes."

Caden ignored me and pressed something over the green electric pad beside the doors. I waited not so patiently behind him.

"I really wanna get out of these clothes, Caden," I whispered, pulling onto the hem of my button-up when it stuck wetly to my chest.

"You will." He murmured as he pushed open the doors. "Come on."

It was dark inside. Darker than it was outside, with just a small light on in the huge kitchen.

"Have you ever so suddenly had a feeling--" I stepped forward and pressed my forehead against his back. "--where you just wanted to sleep. Like, shit ton of sleep."

He slowly turned around and took 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.

"Where is everyone else?" I asked in a whisper, looking around the empty house. How many people did he have in his gang? I wondered. Blake had a lot of them in his. He always sent a completely different person to stalk me every single time.

"Must be asleep." He whispered back, snaking an arm around my waist and tugging me close. "You know, I kind of thought I really won't be seeing you again after last night."

I felt a bit warm from the inside.

"Since you clearly stated that I've lost you already." His lips brushed against the shell of my ear. Slow and hot. I could've heard the tease in his voice.

"I...get a bit dramatic in such situations." My voice came out breathy. I tilted my head just in time as he leaned closer, capturing my lips with his. I melted against him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pulling him even closer. A small knot loosened itself inside my chest.

Caden wasn't the bad guy. I can trust him. He's still the same.

He broke away from the kiss and pushed me back against the door, his lips slowly trailing down my jawline. A tiny sound left my lips when his fingers slid into my hair, tugging 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.

"Caden--" He stole the rest of my words with another deep kiss.

I don't think I was feeling sleepy anymore.

He pressed closer and closer and his touch was agonizingly slow and torturous against my skin, and inside my shirt, and all over me.

"I think," he said in a whisper, "you should really get out of these dorky clothes."

I'm pretty sure it was more than just those clichéd 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?"

_______

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Xoxo,

Crystal 🌿