Kyle.
But how was that possible? He was dead. Was he resurrected? How?
Caitlin immediately rose, forcing herself to look away. She couldn’t take it; it was too painful. Aiden dead. Blake dead….
That left only one person.
Caitlin hurried through the battlefield, tripping over bodies, scanning desperately, looking for any sign of her husband. Her beloved. Her one and only true love in life. She scanned each corpse, frantic.
“Caleb!” she screamed.
As she ran, she could already feel the tears pouring down her cheeks. Somehow, she knew. She just knew.
“CALEB!” she shrieked to the sky.
High up, a vulture echoed it.
It was too much for Caitlin. She didn’t even see him, yet already she knew she would. And it was all just too much for her to bear.
Still, she had to know. She had to see. Maybe, some tiny part of her still hoped, maybe, just maybe, he was still alive. Maybe, somehow, he had survived. Or fled. Or maybe she would round the corner and find him alive, and she could take him, and they could leave, go far, far from here. Give up the search for her Dad. Start their lives over, somewhere far away from all this. Maybe they could close their eyes, and this would all just be one long, horrible dream.
But as Caitlin rounded the corner, she saw that it was just not meant to be.
There, lying among the field of corpses, flat on his back, eyes wide open and staring at the sky, was her husband.
Caleb.
Dead.
Caitlin felt all the wind knocked out of her. She dropped to her knees, in shock.
At that moment, everything she had ever wanted, everything she had ever hope for in the world disappeared. She sank to her knees, in the dirt, far from him, already suffering, holding her head in her hands. She couldn’t bear to get any closer to him.
She leaned out and let out a terrible wail.
Finally, Caitlin forced herself to her feet. She walked closer and closer to his corpse, each step feeling like the weight of the world, feeling as if she were walking through quicksand.
Finally she reached his side and collapsed on top of him, holding him, hugging him. She sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and her cries racked her body, as her wails reached up to the sky. The injustice of it all. It was so unfair. After all they had been through, all the centuries, all the times, all the places. After the deep love they had for each other. His proposal. Their wedding. Their child. After her going back in time, just for him. After everything, everything they’d been through. Now. Of all times. For this to happen. When they were so close. When she was just a hair’s breadth away from finding her Dad. From finding the shield. From having all this be over, forever.
Caleb dead. And she and Scarlet completely alone in the world.
Caitlin knelt there, rocking him, holding him dearly, wishing her life would be over.
“Daddy?” came a hesitant voice.
At the sound of that voice, Caitlin’s pain deepened.
Scarlet appeared, sobbing, and knelt down beside Caleb and hugged him, too. Hearing her cries was even more painful for Caitlin than anything else. She wished she could shield her from this.
“Daddy!” Scarlet screamed again and again, shaking him.
Caitlin wanted to comfort her. But she did not know how. She was too grief-stricken herself to know what to do.
“Do something mommy!” Scarlet screamed. “Do something! Bring him back. You have to! You HAVE to!”
But Caitlin merely shook her head. She did not know what to do. Caleb, her husband, was dead. Really dead. She sensed that his soul had left. That he was no longer on this earth. And there was no Aiden this time, hovering over her shoulder, telling her what to do. There was no one left.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Caitlin said, feeling guilty, feeling like a failure, even as she said it, “there’s nothing I can do.”
Somehow, Caitlin felt as if it were all her fault. If only she had found her Dad sooner. If only she had found the shield. She felt as if she had let them all down.
“There is one thing you can do,” suddenly came a deep, dark voice from behind her.
Caitlin did not need to turn to know whose voice that was. It was a voice that she had known, that had plagued her, for centuries.
Kyle.
Caitlin slowly rose and turned and faced him, feeling her grief quickly morph into rage.
“You can go to hell,” Kyle continued, with a wide grin. “With your husband. And I can send you there.”
Caitlin saw Kyle standing there, Rynd beside him, and behind them, Rexius’ army. They were all facing her.
This time, Caitlin was ready. Her time for running was over. Now, she had nothing left to live for.
Now, she wanted vengeance.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Caitlin faced off against Kyle, Rynd, Rexius, and his legion of vampires. As she stood there, she could feel the rage slowly overcome her. She hadn’t felt rage like this in she didn’t know how long. It was a deep, primal rage, creeping up slowly from her toes, up through her legs, up her torso, spreading out to her fingertips. It overcame her like a storm. It was the rage of a creature with nothing left to live for. It was the most powerful thing she’d ever felt.
Caitlin wanted vengeance. She needed vengeance. For Caleb. For Aiden. For Blake. For herself. Every ounce of her body geared up to fight this army. She wanted to tear apart everything in sight. Her entire world turned red, and she knew that she needed to kill every last one of them.
Caitlin leaned back and roared, and it was a roar of a thousand dragons. The ground beneath her trembled, as her battle cry reached up to the very heavens.
As the ground shook, she saw fear on the faces of Kyle and Rynd. They must have sensed that they were up against a changed person, against a person unlike any they had ever faced. This was the new Caitlin. The Caitlin who had completed her training. The Caitlin who had had everything she cared for taken from her, and nothing left to lose.
Caitlin burst into action. With the speed of lightning, she leapt twenty feet in the air and kicked Kyle with both feet in the chest, so fast and so hard, he didn’t even have time to react. He went flying, like a cannonball, right into the army of vampires behind him, knocking down dozens of them.
Before her feet had even touched the ground, Caitlin was already in motion, wheeling around and elbowing Rynd hard, right across the face. She heard the crack of his jaw breaking as he spun and dropped to the floor. Caitlin wound up and kicked him. The kick was so powerful, it sent him flying through the air, into the legion of vampires, and knocked over dozens more, like a bowling ball striking pins.