Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(19)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and I didn’t push the issue. The fact was I wanted her to train. I wanted her to be as strong as possible in case I wasn’t there when she needed protection.

Heven

I pushed myself hard in training, until Sam refused to do anymore. I wanted to keep going, but I knew by the stubborn set of his jaw and his tense shoulders even the sweetest of smiles would get me nowhere. By the time I headed back toward the locker room, the gym was packed full of after-work health nuts, and just about every cardio machine was full. There was even a Zumba class going on in one of the rooms in the back.

I decided to skip the shower. Just the idea of going back in there creeped me out. I’d just shower when I got home. I didn’t bother changing, either, just grabbed my bag and threw one of Sam’s hoodies over my workout clothes. Sam was busy on the way out so I just waved to him and headed out into the parking lot. It was dark and cold out, but the lot was pretty well lit thanks to two light posts in the center.

I hit the lock button on my keychain and the tail lights blinked in response. I yanked open the door and climbed into the car. Before pulling the door shut behind me, I tossed my bag over into passenger seat.

Then I froze.

I turned.

I tried to hold back a scream.

It came out anyway.

There was a man sitting in my car.

I jumped back out just as I noticed that when my gym bag hit him, he didn’t even move. It was still sitting in his lap. Standing there in the open door, I leaned down and peaked inside.

I half expected him to yell “Boo!” and grab me.

He didn’t.

I turned on the little light on the ceiling, squealing at having to reach my arm inside the car, and yanked it back as fast as possible.

The man’s skin was ashen and gray. His lips were purple.

He was dead.

There was a dead man sitting shotgun in my car.

Ew. Shotgun. I looked at him again for bullet wounds. There weren’t any.

I expelled a heavy breath and barely noted it was cold enough my breath was visible against the night.

Slowly, I reached back in and switched off the overhead light. Then I shut the door. When I walked back into the gym to the front desk, Sam was bent over a scheduling book.

He looked up when I said nothing. “Heven?” He stood up and the stool he was on tilted over and crashed to the floor.

He knew it was bad just from the look in my eyes.

“There’s a dead body in my car, Sam.” I said it so low it was barely a whisper.

“Who is it?” he asked equally as low.

A laugh bubbled from my lips. You know your life is a crap circus when your boyfriend asks if you know the identity of the dead body in the front seat of your car. I shook my head slowly.

He nodded. “Watch the desk, okay?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Unless you want to drive home with him, I planned to move it.”

“Where are you going to put it?”

He shrugged.

I knew the thing to do here was call the police. But I didn’t want them poking around me and my family, wondering why I might be the kind of girl that attracts dead bodies.

I nodded and Sam disappeared out the doors.

And I stood there and waited while my boyfriend hid a dead body. I decided then that law enforcement was definitely out as a career choice for me. I had too many skeletons in my closet for a job like that.

A woman walked past me on her way out the gym. Panic had me lunging forward and grabbing her by the wrist. “Wait!” I said. She turned around, looking at me with alarm.

I forced myself to smile and hopefully not look like I was hiding things. Like dead bodies. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t let you leave until you told me where you got that adorable top?” I said, pretending to admire her lime-green tank.

The woman relaxed and smiled, launching into some story about a coupon and a clearance rack. I made all the appropriate noises and nods, even throwing in a comment about the matching headband in her hair.

Sam walked in a few minutes later and nodded. I finished my conversation with the lady and gave her a wave as she went out the door. Then I marched over to the desk.

“Where did you put it?” I demanded.

“The less you know the better.”

Was he serious? Like I already didn’t know enough to do twenty-five to life. “Sam.” I protested.

He shook his head.

Sam, I said more forcefully through our Mindbond.

We’ll talk about this later, he said as a few more people passed by and one approached the desk.

I sighed. “I’ll see you at home.”

He nodded and went to help someone while I went back out into the night. Thankfully, I saw no more dead bodies.

Chapter Eight

Sam

I stepped outside and expelled a long breath, feeling my chest begin to cave with the lack of oxygen. It felt good. And I stood there a moment doing a mental check of the hound inside me. I seemed to be in control. My training session with Heven must have helped. But it hadn’t come soon enough. I could’ve used this control just a couple hours before.

Maybe if I hadn’t been so distracted, perhaps I would’ve been able to do something about whatever went on in that locker room. But I did manage to keep from shifting and running off so that was a good sign. Maybe that meant I was finally gaining back control.

But right now I had bigger things to worry about.

Like a dead body.

I did a quick sweep around the building, making sure there was no one lurking, no one watching from the shadows. I stayed in my human form but tried to tap as far into the honed senses the hound in me possessed to make certain the area was clear.

It was, so I doubled back through the parking lot, avoiding the direct glare of the lampposts, and headed for Heven’s car. A pit of dread knotted into my stomach and sat there like a heavy rock. It wasn’t because I had to see a dead body. It wasn’t because I had to hide it. I’d done those things and worse. Really, I was thinking about the condition of the body.

I told myself it probably wasn’t gruesome. Heven had been upset, but not freaking. Granted, she’s seen her share of nasty stuff too. I couldn’t shake the image of someone slinking through the parking lot with a body they then stashed in Heven’s front seat. Like she wouldn’t notice.

Not that I thought this was random. Oh no. This was deliberate. And so was whatever went on in the locker room earlier. I wanted to kick myself for not sensing something was up. Right when I started to feel her panic, she reached out to me. Maybe if I sensed something sooner I would’ve seen something, heard something, been able to do something.