Charade (Heven and Hell #2)(46)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“I want to talk.”

“I’m busy.”

“I brought you a mocha with whipped cream…” I sang, dangling the cup in front of the crack.

The door opened and I suppressed a smile. She snatched the cup from my fingers and started to close the door again.

“Hey!” I yelled and pushed myself inside.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Are your parents home?”

“No.” With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared from sight. I knew where she was going and followed, making it through her bedroom door just before she slammed it.

“Look,” I began, feeling a light breeze from the window and turning. “Why is your window open?”

“Huh?” She placed her coffee on her dresser and went to the window and closed it. “I felt like some air.”

“You never open the window. You don’t like bugs and your parents run the AC.”

“You came all the way over here to discuss my window?” She lifted a brow.

“I wanted to apologize for hurting you. I was hoping we could come to some sort of truce before we leave for Italy.”

“You mean so I don’t make you miserable during our trip?”

“No,” I said, working to hold onto my patience. “I thought we were friends.”

“Well we aren’t. Not anymore.”

“There are things you don’t know about Cole,” I began. “And when you find out, you’ll understand everything. I swear.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “So you know about all of these things that Cole is ‘going through?’”

Oh, boy. That didn’t really come out right. “Sort of.”

She laughed. “You have some nerve. You sure are full of yourself since you got rid of those scars.”

The barb stung, but I refused to let it show. “I need you to trust me. When you find out…”

“Tell me now then!” She flung the words at me in challenge.

“I can’t. It’s not my information to share.”

“You can leave now. I have packing to do.” She went into her bathroom without looking back.

I looked up at the ceiling and sighed. Coming here had been a huge mistake. Kimber was too angry and hurt to listen. At least I could leave knowing I did everything I could to repair our ‘friendship.’ Maybe she was right. Maybe we never had a real friendship to begin with.

Just as I was about to leave, I noticed something sitting on her dresser. I’d been in this room a million times and I had never seen it before. It wasn’t very large and looked like a box you might get a bracelet in. It was wood with a small silver clasp on the outside. I found myself moving forward and reaching out to pick it up. My fingers closed over the smooth surface and I realized that it wasn’t wood at all-but metal made to look like wood. My fingers itched to open it and see what was lying inside…

“Snoop much?” Kimber snapped and grabbed the box out of my hands, tucking it into the pocket of the fluffy pink robe she was wearing.

“Where’d you get that?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“What’s inside?” I knew she wouldn’t answer, but I had to ask.

“Geez, can’t you take a hint? Get out!” she yelled. The bathroom door behind her slammed shut as if to punctuate her scream.

Her eyes went wide and she jumped, looking over her shoulder at the door. When she turned back, her face was pale.

“Are you all right?”

“Like you care.” The cloud of worry around her dissipated and red took its place.

“I do.” I reminded her.

“You need to leave,” she said, much softer this time. Another cloud of brownish-yellow surrounded her head.

“You can talk to me, you know.”

For a minute, I thought she might say something, but then the walls around her went back up and she said, “I’ll talk to you when you talk to me.”

“I can’t tell you Cole’s business.” Or mine.

Her shoulders slumped and she shoved her hands into the pockets of her robe. I imagined her hand closing tightly over that mysterious box. “Please, go.”

I went without looking back. Clearly, she was agitated, and my presence only made things worse. I climbed into Gran’s car with a heavy heart. I came here for answers and I got them. Kimber’s and my friendship was dead and there was nothing I could do to resurrect it.

Chapter Eleven

Heven

I hated sleeping alone. Without Sam, the bed felt too large, the room too cold. Even though he said he would be here, I watched the minutes turn to hours on the clock. Still no Sam. I tried not to be upset with him because I knew that he wanted to be here.

So I blamed Logan, instead.

But really that wasn’t fair, either, because even though Sam hadn’t told me yet, I knew that there was a lot going on with Logan. Something must have happened this morning—something that Sam needed to be with Logan for. Still, I couldn’t quite ignore the nagging feeling that Logan was trying to keep Sam away.

But why would he want to do that?

Something didn’t make sense. I just didn’t know what it would be.

I rolled over and punched my pillow, letting out a frustrated sigh and resisted the urge to reach out to Sam and find out what he was doing. Doing so would only distract him and cause him to worry that something might be wrong here. I sat up, taking a sip of water and squeezing the back of my neck with my free hand. The pressure was back, sending small sparks of pain through my brain. I rubbed at my temples next, but nothing I did lessened the pain.

I flopped back onto the pillows and pulled the covers to my chin. With one last look at the clock, I rolled over, putting my back to it. Sam would be here when he could. Until then, I would sleep. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to concentrate on my breathing, taking long, deep breaths. Finally, I drifted into slumber.

I should have stayed awake.

As soon as my body surrendered to sleep, I felt like I was being sucked through a tunnel, all the air being sucked right out of my lungs. My stomach was tossed up into my throat right before I landed forcefully on a hard surface, flat on my back. With a groan, I opened my eyes. It wasn’t quite dark, but the lighting was dim and murky. Almost like a terrible storm had just passed, but the black, heavy clouds still hung low in the air, sucking out the life and creating a sallow, depressing cast to everything.

I stood up, noting that I was still dressed in the black shorts and white baby tee I wore to bed. My T-shirt was smudged with something that looked like soot. The back of my head throbbed as I took stock of where I was. The landscape around me was colorless and barren. The rocky, uneven ground consisted of dirt and chunks of shale that cut into my bare feet. It appeared that there once might have been trees, but now they were nothing more than broken limbs and stumps jutting out of the ground. All of them looked like they had burned in a fire. It would explain the soot on my clothes and the ash in the air. It would explain the desolate, dead way everything appeared.