Awakening Book One of the Trust Series

chapter 30



A weariness surrounded Caitlyn as she pulled away from his arms. It was time for the both of them to have a long overdue conversation about his past. She walked over to her kitchen and contemplated delaying the exchange, not wanting to acknowledge the severity of what they needed to discuss. Caitlyn grabbed the tea she had been drinking and took a long thoughtful sip. Finally, she stated her feelings as simply as possible. “Garrett. We need to talk.”

“I know.”

“You lied. Everything I know about you is a lie.”

She saw the hurt in his eyes and knew that the words stung him. “Kit Kat-I can promise you that is not true.”

The deceit she had been feeling from his omissions and the guilt from her own betrayal over the past few weeks were finally catching up to her. In truth, it was exhausting her. Caitlyn set the empty coffee mug she had been holding on the table. “Garrett, if you only knew how much I want to believe that. With all my heart and soul, I do. But there are certain facts, that can’t be denied. Your father is head of the Cine Tofa. You never told me, never trusted me with that information. How do you think it felt to have been filled in on your past by someone else? I insisted that you had no part in the Cine Tofa, and yet I found out you lived with your father for three years, basically being groomed to take his place.”

“I can explain that, Caitlyn. I never wanted to hurt you. I never wanted to lie to you or keep my past from you. But I had no choice.”

She stared at him coolly. “There are always choices, Garrett. You claim that you love me, and you talk about a future for us. How do you think there can be a future when you can’t even share the past?”

Garrett tried to reach out to hold her hand, but she pulled it out of his reach. “There were reasons I lied, Caitlyn. I had to keep my identity secret. The Trust required it. My mother taught me never to talk about it and the Trust emphasized that I could not tell you when I was chosen for mentorship. I would have put us in danger if the general members of the Trust knew. We would have been targets. It was for your safety as well. People would have naturally assumed that you were Cine Tofa, too.”

“Regardless if there were legitimate reasons, Garrett, there is more than just omissions that I have concerns about.”

“Such as?”

She looked down, gathering her thoughts. She could forgive him for not telling her of his past with his father, but the next part was a difference in ideals. Quietly, she continued. “You led me on. I discovered that most of your core beliefs fall in line with the Cine Tofa. You taught me to believe in the Trust, what they stood for, and most of all, believe in you. My belief in you had to be unwavering. I knew no one except for you, I was overwhelmed with the enormity of the Awakening, and I had to let myself believe you would never lead me astray. How can my trust with you be anything but shattered?”

Garrett never denied Caitlyn’s accusations. It was hard to tell if this appeased her or if it angered her more. A part of her had been hoping that he was going to deny this, state that he hated the Cine Tofa and their ideals, that she had been fed lies about him. Instead, she took his silence as confirmation.

“I thought I was falling for one person and you perpetuated that lie. I know you and I certainly don’t have the same belief system. How could you even consider belonging to a group like the Cine Tofa?”

Garrett opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking. “Caitlyn, you want to live in a world where you believe that everything is perfect, that it is all black and white. Good vs. Evil. It’s not like that.”

“The Cine Tofa is an extremist organization whose radical beliefs are going to destroy this world.”

Caitlyn could tell that Garrett’s blood pressure rose at that comment and his voice took on a slightly colder edge. “Spoken like a perfect soldier for the Trust. Declan must have spent hours drilling that into you. Well, I hate to break it to you, but you need to step out of the little perfect imaginary world that you are living in, because let me assure you, there are many, many shades of gray. The Trust has its own dark secrets even though your new mentor may have tried to convince you otherwise.”

Caitlyn stood up. “Oh, I understand shades of gray, Garrett. I understand that you don’t have a problem with muddling with the truth, making it fit to your own needs.”

“Grow up, Caitlyn.”

Caitlyn was surprised at the turn this conversation had taken. Garrett and she had always spoken to each other cordially, even when having a disagreement. This obviously hit a nerve with the both of them.

“Oh, I think this whole experience has forced me to grow up. I just wasn’t asking to be lied to like a child from my lover.”

“Maybe if you did not act like a child sometimes…”

She was beginning to seethe with anger. Her heart felt betrayed. She knew the next line was a low blow, but she said it anyway. If he wanted her to act like a child, so be it. “So Daddy decided he wanted you back, did he?”

Garrett was staring at a blank space on the wall. She was sure that he would rather stare at nothing than look at her at the moment. “I did not choose to be Nathaniel Livingston’s son. In case you forgot, I left him to come back here.”

“You only left when his views became even too extreme for you. Look at me.” When Garrett did not budge, she grabbed him by his shoulder and spun him around. “I said look at me!”

“Oh, so the amazing Caitlyn Young wants to talk and wants me to look at her. Your ego is really getting to be too much. Do you just expect me to cater to your every whim like everyone else does?”

“I don’t see what the problem is. You did not have any problem doing it for your father.”

Garrett’s eyes narrowed. “You are walking a very thin line.”

Caitlyn paused. She needed to get a grip on herself. Even though there was a lot between the both of them at the moment, if she did not reign herself in, she was going to lose him. Caitlyn was not ready for Garrett to walk out of her life. She sat back down and her voice took on a normal tone. “Garrett, if I had stayed just a plain old human and you had met me; would you have even given me a second glance? Would you have viewed me as an inferior being?”

He paused. “Caitlyn, you are not a regular human being, so this argument is irrelevant.”

She shook her head. “It is relevant. Just answer the question. Please.”

“No, I would not have dated you. I probably would not have even become friends with you.”

She rubbed her eyes with her hands. She was praying he would not answer that way. “Normal humans are not inferior, Garrett. My friends at home are not substandard.”

His left eyebrow arched highly. “Aren’t they? Because I think, no, I know that since you have been with the Trust, you have contacted your friends only a handful of times, if that. Even if you won’t admit it to yourself, your actions show the superiority you feel over them. I mean, you did not even let them know that your sister died. Your supposed best friends who should be there in your time of need. You know you are greater than them.”

She felt guilt when she hadn’t contacted them for comfort in her grief. “I could barely function. I did not even want you there at first. It does not mean that I think that I am better than them.”

He paused, and his hands grabbed hers, his voice quiet but severe. “It is evolution Caitlyn. Pure and simple. The current human species are the Neanderthals to our Cro-Magnon. They will wither out and die by natural selection.”

The truth in which he made that comment made Caitlyn look at him with whole new eyes. “I refuse to believe that.”

Garrett sighed. “Caitlyn, I’m not saying that I want to eradicate the human race. That is my father’s crazy notion. I am just saying that we are different, we are special. What is so wrong with being special?”

“Oh, there is nothing wrong with being special, as long as one realizes that special does not make you better.”

“In this case it does. As to dating a human or being friends, they could never understand what I am going through. It would never be an even friendship.”

Caitlyn was tired of arguing. “Where is the man that I care about, Garrett? Where are you?”

He looked at her and thought back, “I am still here; you just need to accept the other half of me. Now that the truth is out there, get to know me. Get to know the real me. I promise you will still want me.”

She wanted to believe him more than anything. But one truth remained. “It turns out that we are very, very different.”

“Please don’t take this harshly, but cut the holier than thou attitude, Caitlyn. Question things. Think about what an Actual really makes you. Think about what you want out of this, not what you can be for the Trust. Hell, even think if you want to be in the Trust. There are other options, even besides the Cine Tofa. Think about what you and I can be together. I never wanted to hide anything from you; I never wanted to keep that part of my life from you. I promised the Trust I would mentor you the best way I knew how and I would train you with the Trust methodologies. I may have kept things from you, but I never intentionally lied.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. “You are right about one thing. I need to think. I need to think about a lot of things. I need time.”

Garrett looked hurt. Even as mad as she was at him, she did not want that for him. But she knew she needed to say more to him.

“I need time away from you, from all of this. I don’t know what to think about everything.”

“If that is what you need, I will give that to you.” He smiled tentatively at her. It was the smile he gave her so many times before that melted her heart. “But before I do, please give me the opportunity to show you, really show you, my past.”

Caitlyn hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“Please?”

She shuffled her feet as she thought it over. “Okay.”

“Tomorrow we will go to the training facility. And after I show you, if you still need time away, I will give you as much as you need. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”