Charade (Heven and Hell #2)(84)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Sam? What’s wrong? Why are you so upset?

A few moments passed as I waited anxiously to hear his voice. I stood, ready to rush from the room if needed, but then his voice flooded my brain.

Sorry, sweetheart. Logan was just telling me again about finding your mom. It made me upset.

I was so relieved that I fell back into my chair, looking back at Mom. She’s so still.

But she’s alive, baby. She was and that counted for something. She would be okay. She would.

Yeah, yeah she is.

Be with her. I’m okay now. Come out when you’re ready.

I love you, Sam. I needed to say the words, to hear them in return. To know that beyond this horrible thing there was something good.

I love you, too.

An hour later my legs were asleep and the bruises on my back were throbbing. I stood and, being extremely careful, leaned in to kiss her cheek. “I love you, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

Guilt weighed me down.

This was my fault.

I took one last glance at her before exiting the room. Haunting words followed me out the door and I couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the beginning of something terrible.

When everyone around you is dead…

Chapter Twenty-One

Heven

Night cloaked the farm as I stood out on the porch, leaning against the railing and staring out into the darkness. Usually, I could see the land and the trees, and it calmed me. But tonight, there was hardly a star in the sky and the moon was hidden behind dark clouds, so I could only see as far as the porch lights illuminated. I was hoping to see a shooting star, some kind of sign that everything was going to be okay. But no stars rained down, the sky was hidden and everything remained unchanged. Just like my mother. We spent hours at the hospital before Gran convinced me to come home and rest. I wasn’t tired. I couldn’t rest until everything was right again.

When would she wake up? What would she say? And where was Henry? His absence did not go unnoticed by me, although it seemed to by everyone else, except Sam, of course. When I asked Gran about him, she looked at me like I was crazy.

“Why would Henry be here, honey? He and your mother only had one or two dates.”

But that wasn’t true. I knew it wasn’t. He was at Mom’s house all the time and at all hours of the night—I talked to him. I didn’t argue with Gran because her aura told me that she believed exactly what she was saying. Had someone influenced her memory?

Could a witch be capable of that?

I guess I couldn’t quite hide my dismay over it all because Gran began making noises about how tired I must be and sent us home. She stayed at the hospital, keeping vigil over my mother.

I looked back up at the sky, searching for answers to all of my questions, but I knew the answers weren’t in the sky. A noise from the kitchen brought my attention back to Earth and to another problem that was more troublesome than the rest.

Sam.

From the minute I left my mother’s hospital room and found him pacing in the waiting room with Logan I knew—I felt—that something was wrong. When I asked him about it, he seemed all too relieved when my phone rang. It was Cole and I took the call to tell him about my mom. Then in the car, I could sense that he didn’t want to talk and with Logan within earshot, I didn’t press. The back door opened, but I didn’t turn around, just continued to stare out into the nothingness of the yard.

His arms wrapped around me from behind and I leaned into him. I listened for Logan but I didn’t hear him, he must still be inside.

“Thinking about your mom?” Sam asked, his voice right against my ear.

I nodded. “Do you think this happened because I lost the scroll? Do you think my mom’s accident was my punishment?” The words kind of whooshed out of me and I hadn’t really realized that I had been thinking that until I said the words out loud.

Sam’s arms tightened around me. “I don’t think you’re being punished, Heven.” His voice was hoarse with pain.

I turned in his arms to stare up at him. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I hate to see you this way.”

“That isn’t all there is,” I said gently. “Did something happen with Logan? Did he say something to make you upset with me?”

Sam made a sound in the back of his throat. “I’m not upset with you. You didn’t do anything wrong, Heven. Unlike me… one mistake after another…” He said the last part almost as if he was talking to himself.

I grabbed his face between my hands. “What mistakes have you made?”

“For starters, I let the scroll get taken to Hell.”

“You don’t get to carry the blame for that. That scroll was my responsibility. Yours was protecting me. I’m still here, but the scroll isn’t. This is my mistake to bear.”

“Don’t say that,” he said, grabbing my shoulders. “I won’t let you take the blame for this.”

“So that’s what this is about,” I whispered. “You think Airis is going to take my life back because I failed.”

“You didn’t fail,” he denied, looking over my shoulder into the darkness, almost as if he expected Airis to appear and strike me dead.

“There’s one way to know for sure,” I told him, wiggling out of his hold and going down the stairs into the dark yard.

“Heven, don’t do this, please.” His voice had grown quiet and desperate. “I can’t lose you too.”

I was already calling for Airis. But with his last words my voice died abruptly. “What do you mean lose me too?”

He was rushing down the stairs toward me, pulling me into his arms, but it was too late.

Everything went white.

*   *   *

The InBetween was as white and empty as always. I searched every space for my father, for the slightest hint of him, but as usual, there was nothing.

“Things didn’t go as planned in Italy,” Airis said.

Sam stepped around me, half blocking me from sight. “That’s my fault. I didn’t realize the greatness of the threat. I was unprepared for Hecate and for Kimber’s betrayal.”

“He’s trying to protect me, to take the blame for something that I did.”

Sam didn’t even acknowledge that I spoke, but kept his gaze turned on Airis.

“You think that I’m going to take back the life I gave to Heven,” Airis said to Sam.

“The thought did cross my mind,” Sam said, once again trying to block me from her sight.