Renegade (Heven and Hell #4)(31)
Author: Cambria Hebert

In all the many ways I’ve seen Sam, I’ve never seen him quite like this. I wasn’t yet sure what it was I saw in him, but I knew it scared me.

That and the fact that he had dried blood all over him.

I went through a Starbuck’s drive-thru after we left the park and ordered some bagels and coffee. Sam didn’t really like coffee, but I ordered him the sweetest one they had and then asked for whipped cream in hopes he would drink it. Well, that and the sugar and caffeine would put some of that golden color back in his skin.

Once I paid and they handed out our order, I pulled forward into a parking spot for a few minutes to get out the bagels and stir my coffee. I watched Sam as he gave his white mocha a try and I waited for a reaction.

“Pretty good for coffee,” Sam said, but I barely heard his words because the red around his fingernails was slightly disturbing.

I pulled my attention away and smiled. “I knew you’d like that one.”

He looked at me with a grave expression on his face. “Are you afraid?”

A strangled sound ripped from the back of my throat and I set my coffee in the cup holders between us and turned in my seat to look at him. “No.” He had turned away, so I said, “Look at me.” When he did I continued. “I will never, ever be afraid of you, Sam.”

“Even if I’m a killer?”

Something inside me felt bruised at the fact he thought he was a killer and I wouldn’t love him anyway. “You could get out of this car right now and kill everyone in the parking lot, Sam. When you were done I’d drive your getaway car.”

He made a face. “That is seriously disturbing, Heven.”

“The truth disturbs,” I quipped.

He smiled and something inside me whispered he was going to be okay. “How about this, then.” I leaned over and touched his cheek. “There’s nothing you could say to me right now that would ever change the way I feel about you. I loved you yesterday. I love you today and every single tomorrow we get.” I ran a hand through his messy golden hair and he caught it to bring it to his lips and kiss my palm.

When I pulled back I handed him his coffee. “Drink your latte.” I pulled the car out of the lot and onto the main road. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“I think I might be the one who’s leaving all those dead bodies the cops are finding.”

The bagel felt like a lump of rock scraping all the way down my throat, and I took a sip of my latte to help it along. After I swallowed I looked at him. “I don’t believe that.”

“I’ve been shifting unexpectedly, mostly at night, and then I wake up in places I don’t remember being and sometimes I’m covered in blood.”

Sam mentioned he was shifting a lot more lately, but he never said he couldn’t remember or that he was bloody. “How long have you been doing this?”

“A few days after Logan’s funeral.”

“So that’s probably what it is—stress and grief. A lot’s happened recently.”

“I thought that too. But a lot of stuff’s been happening for a long time, Heven. You died. Then someone tried to kill you. Then you almost died again. None of that sent me over the edge.”

“But Logan…” But I wasn’t his baby brother.

He shook his head. “No. I loved Logan. More than anyone… aside from you.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“If your death didn’t do this to me, then his shouldn’t either.”

“But I came back.”

“It isn’t Logan, Hev.” He said it with absolute certainty. “I’ve been feeling better about him. I talked to Gemma.”

“You did?” I asked, trying to keep my eyes on the road, but it was hard when he kept saying things that made me want to look at him.

“She saw me one night. I’d shifted again and was running through the woods behind Gran’s. She called out and I guess I woke up or whatever. We talked about Logan. She told me about heaven.”

“She told you about heaven?” I asked, shocked. Gemma barely ever talked about herself at all and her talking about heaven seemed even less likely.

He nodded. “She said she knew Logan was happy, that I shouldn’t grieve so hard for someone who’s at peace.”

“Is that why we haven’t been to see him every day lately?”

He nodded. “I thought it was helping… It is helping, but I keep doing this.” He held up his hand, staring down at the red stains.

“You’ve never seen a body?”

“Never and I’ve looked. I’ve searched.” He stared out his window with a tight jaw, and I sipped my coffee, trying to think.

After a few minutes I said, “You weren’t responsible for those people, Sam.”

“You heard Kimber. Their bodies were damaged. Scratched, bloody, and bruised.”

I would say we should consider the source, that Kimber might be making it up, but I had seen the reports too. “Just because some people turn up dead, looking like an animal has attacked them, doesn’t mean you’re the one who did it.”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t, either.”

I reached across the seat and grabbed his hand. “It wasn’t you.”

“How can you be so sure?”

And that’s when I knew what it was I saw in him: doubt. He doubted himself.

I stopped the car.

Right there in the middle of the street.

“Heven, what are you doing?”

“Don’t do that,” I said softly.

He just looked at me.

“Ever since we’ve met, you’ve always known exactly who you are. You’ve never doubted yourself, or who you were, even when it seemed the universe was trying to make you something else.”

“Okay, let’s say I’m not the one killing those people. How do we explain this?” He held up his bloody hand.

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation.”

He snorted.

A driver behind us blared their horn, then sped past shouting something at me as they drove.

We both laughed.

“We’re going to be late for school,” Sam said when I started driving again.

“What a shame.”

He picked up the paper bag containing his bagel and went to reach inside. “Wait!” I said and used one hand to pull some hand sanitizer out of the center console. “Here.” I thrust it at him and he took it with a grim expression on his face. “This stuff isn’t going to wash away whatever happened.”