I glanced furiously between the two men in front of me.

"We can't stay here." Charles said in a hushed tone. "They're coming." He turned motioning for us to follow him.

Derrek avoided my eyes and fell into step behind Charles. "I'm not going anywhere with the two of you." I said as I firmly planted my feet and crossed my arms across my chest.

They both stopped walking and exchanged an exasperated look. "Cade, now isn't the time." Derrek whispered.

I started to argue with him, but then I saw the shadows cast on the ground from the men who were still walking around out front of the store. I stepped out of their view but then stopped walking again.

"Please come." Charles urged. "They will find us in here. We have to go, now." He turned to go to the back door, but he stopped when we all heard it creak open. Derrek and Charles rushed back to me, standing uncomfortably close. "Cloak us Cadence! Hurry." Charles whispered quickly to me.

"Huh?"

"She hasn't learned that yet." Derrek told him as his eyes flashed around the small space. We were about to be surrounded. I could hear voices at the front of the store now, and footsteps coming from the back.

"Time to learn, then." Charles huffed. "Close your eyes and focus on hiding us from their view. This is your crash course, you either do it or we all get caught."

"But I can-."

"You can." Charles cut me off. "Close your eyes. Breathe, and shield us." Charles grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the ground. "Kneel down together so the area she needs to cover is smaller." He whispered.

The three of us hunkered down on the ground, Derrek and Charles on either side of me. I tried to do as I was told. Like he said, it was either figure it out or fight these guys. I bit down hard on my lip I was concentrating so hard. I mentally counted in my head the number of steps left the men had before they would be in the same room as us. I wasn't sure if I was doing it or not, but the moment of truth came.

The lights flipped on and four men came into my view. I held my breath as they looked around the room.

"Good job."

I cut my eyes over to Charles in surprise. "You're telepathic, too?"

"Clearly." He replied. Even though it was in my head I still felt like I could hear a smile in his voice. "Just keep it up. You're doing great."

"Ok."

I watched the men stomp all around and look under and behind racks of clothing. I only recognized one of them from the pictures of the official members of The Order that Wes had showed me. He was bulky, but shorter than the rest. He had long gray hair that he wore slicked back and tied into a small rubber band. "She got away!" He yelled kicking a box beside him. "You two go back out to the car and keep an eye on it, she couldn't have gotten far on foot. Marco, you go drive up and down the streets and look for her. Frankie, you come with me to check the other stores out."

I was starting to feel the strain of keeping us invisible. I wasn't sure how much longer I'd be able to hold it up, but thankfully after a few more seconds the lights shut back off and I heard the last lock slide back into its place on the doors.

I exhaled and lowered myself a little more to be lying back on the cold tile floor, staring up at the ceiling. I felt like I had just swam a thousand laps, or ran track in 100 degree heat. I forced myself to slow my breathing and try to regain my strength.

"Take just a minute and then we need to go." Charles told me. He patted Derrek once on the shoulder. "I'm going to walk up front to keep an eye on them." He told him then disappeared into the darkness.

"Cade?" Derrek whispered. "You ok?"

I sat up on my elbows so I could glare at him. "No, Derrek. I'm not ok."

Derrek looked down at the floor ashamed. "I can explain, Cade."

"There's no time for that right now. We have to go." Charles said rushing back into view. He extended a hand to me, but I ignored it even though my body was aching and I really wanted to just stay on the ground. "We've got about three minutes to get out to my car. It's not far."

I looked at him uncertainly. "You can trust him, Cade." Derrek assured me.

"Like I could trust you?"

"Come, now." Charles urged again.

I followed them out of the building and we rushed across the street, away from all of the shops and turned onto my road where Charles's Rang Rover was parked. Derrek held the passenger side door opened for me and I hesitated for a moment but then decided to get in. Derrek jumped in the backseat and Charles peeled the car away from the curb and hauled it up the road.

"I want to go back to Wes's house. He and Garrett are probably freaking out." I said.

"That's where we are headed." Charles told me.

"Someone better start explaining." I huffed staring out the window. When no one started talking immediately I turned in my seat to glare at Derrek. "Who the heck are you?"

"You know who I am."

"I don't."

"You do." Derrek said rolling his eyes.

"You've been lying to me!" I shouted.

Derrek leaned forward in his seat and started to say something but Charles cut him off. "He isn't completely at fault for that." He said.

"Oh, well I feel better now." I muttered sarcastically. "I want the truth out of you." I said staring at Derrek again.

"What is it you want to know, Cade?"

"You knew about Potentes? You knew about me? How do you know Charles? Are you one too?"

Derrek stared at his lap. "Yeah, I have known about them a long time. I've known about you for some time too. I've known your dad my whole life, and...."

"And? Are you a Potente too?"

"No, Cade. I'm not fully one anyway. My mother wasn't but my dad was."

I laughed to myself without anything actually being funny. "So you're a halfblooded Potente, and you've known this the whole time but you've sat back and pretended to be clueless about it all? Do you have any idea how stupid that makes me feel? I thought we were..."

"Cade, I know I have a lot of things to explain but I never lied to you about how I feel for you or who I am as a person. You do know me, and I know you. This was all for your protection."

We pulled into the driveway at Wes's and the front door swung open, Garrett and Wes rushing down the steps to us. I got out of the car and slammed my door, quickly followed by Derrek.

"Cade!" Garrett exclaimed as he hugged me. "Where the heck have you been?" He asked me even though he was eyeing Derrek.

"I got a little caught up." I said acidly as I stared at Derrek.

Wes placed his hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright?" He asked. I quickly ran through everything that had happened in my head so he would be up to date. His eyes widened and he nodded his head. "Oh my."

"Yeah." I said rolling my eyes.

"Perhaps we should all go inside to speak." Wes said extending a hand toward the house.

Everyone started to walk that way but me. "I don't want Derrek to come inside. I think he needs to leave."

"Cade..." Derrek said my name painfully.

"Listen, Cadence." Charles said as he came around his car. "Derrek is not a bad man. Anything he has done has only been to protect you and look out for you for me."

"For you?" I repeated him.

"Yes." He nodded. "I knew his father well and when I heard you were coming here I hired Derrek to look out for you. I wanted to have someone I knew I could trust without a doubt to be around to protect you until you came into your full power and could protect yourself."

Tears stung my eyes. "Oh, I see now." I muttered looking Derrek directly in the eyes. "You were just 'hired' to pretend to be my friend."

"Cade, that's not how it is...I mean, god, Cade. I wouldn't..."

"Yet, you did."

Wes grabbed Garrett's shoulder and pulled him toward the house, trying to give us some privacy. Garrett tried to pull away from him but I gave him a look to let him know I wanted the space.

Charles started to follow them in, but he came back over to us. "Cadence, I am sorry for how this all sounds, but I do promise you that Derrek is not a bad man. He is in fact very trustworthy. Please don't punish him for doing only what I asked of him." He said and then turned to go into the house.

It was just Derrek and I left outside standing in the damp grass of Wes's yard, both staring at each other with glassy eyes.

He took a step toward me but I just as quickly took one backwards. "Cade, please." He begged. "The truth is that Charles told me all about you, and about what all had happened to you and stuff. He explained that you were his daughter and that he needed someone to watch over you to keep you safe while you figured everything out." He paused as he glanced up to the house. "Look, I didn't have to actually be friends with you. That was never part of the deal. I was just supposed to watch out for you. The whole first week you were here it took all I had not to come up to you and talk to you, but I was supposed to be at the other school so I couldn't. I watched you for a whole week and I couldn't wait for the first day at school that I could actually meet you. I could tell even before I met you that you were so different from any other girl. I never pretended to be your friend. Not even for a single second."

"That doesn't change the fact that our whole relationship has been founded on top of a lie." I cut in.

"Cade!" He shouted. "I know that. I know it is freaking messed up, but that's just how it is. I'm sorry we didn't meet under different circumstances, but I'm not sorry I met you."

"Maybe I am sorry I met you." I fired back. As soon as the words passed my lips I regretted them.

Hs face was shocked and even his posture seemed to be effected by my words. "I really hope you don't mean that." He muttered staring at the ground. "Look, I'm just going to go. I know that's what you want. Before I do, though..." He looked back up from under his lashes and he fidgeted his hands awkwardly. "Cade, I'm not great with my words. I can't give you some long fancy, heart string pulling speech that's just going to make you forget that I've done wrong by you and make you go weak in the knees. I can't be perfect, or say the right things all the time. I'm not anything special, I'm just me. But, dammit, Cade. I freaking love you, you know?" He couldn't look at my face long before he cut his eyes away again.

I heard the front door of the house open and I looked back to see Garrett walking toward me. I turned back to face Derrek again, but he was gone. Disappeared like a ghost in the night.

"You coming in now?" Garrett asked me.

I looked back to where Derrek had just been standing and sighed lightly. "Yeah." I said under my breath and walked up into the house with him.