When the Heart Falls(23)

Jenifer catches up, out of breath. "Holy shit, you're fast."

Fast at what? "I am?"

"Hell yeah you are." Jenifer frowns at me. "We just ran around this whole place three times."

"We did? I don't remember." That can't be true. I've been with Cade. My Cade.

Cade turns to me, his face worried. "Are you drunk, Winter?"

"No. Noooo. I don't drink. Ever. Ever. Well, maybe that once. But no. I just took a pill Jenifer gave me, and then everything went swirly. Then I could see the real monsters, and I met a giant and started a fire. I'm not an Ice Queen anymore. See?" I hold up my hand to show him the fire in my veins, burning me up from the inside.

He holds my hand, but it doesn't burn him.

He turns to Jenifer. "What'd you give her?"

Jenifer chews on her nails. "Just something to help her relax."

Their voices are floating around me. And Cade. My Cade. My cowboy who smells like hay and sunshine.

"What was—" Cade looks at me. "Are you sniffing my shirt?"

"Of course not. That'd be ridiculous." Weird. Why would I do that? "I'm sniffing your chest."

"Come on. I'm taking you back to the dorms." He guides me away from the bar, and I let him, even though I didn't kill the monster yet. Because Cade is my Cade, and he'll protect me from the monsters.

Jenifer sniffs under her arm. "God. It's like a skunk died in my pits. Gross. I'm leaving with you guys."

My hand slides into my purse. I can help her. "Oh, you want some perfume?" I spray her with perfume, and she screams and covers her face. The words come out of her like snakes with flaming heads.

"Oh God, my eyes!" Jenifer tries to wipe something from her face as she screams some more. "God, they hurt. I need water. Water." She collapses to the ground, eyes closed, face red like mine. "And what idiot turned the light off?"





CADE SAVAGE





CHAPTER 8





SOAPY WATER SPLASHES on to me as I dunk Jenifer's head in the sink again. When I pull her back out, she rubs her face with the towel and cracks her eyes open. The redness and swelling have gone down, but she'll feel this tomorrow, as well she should.

"I feel like a firecracker went off on my face, then someone peeled back my eyelids, ground sand into them, and rubbed." She lifts her long hair, soaked and dripping water, off her neck and pulls it into the towel. "Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome. But don't think this gets you off the hook for what you did to Winter." I grab her purse, and though my mother taught me never to go into a lady's purse, I reach in, pull out the small bottle of white pills, open it, and dump them all into the toilet. With a flush, I destroy what I hope is her only drug stash.

She tries to stop me, but it's too late. Her lips are pulled down into a pout, but she's having a hard time making eye contact, and I imagine it's more than just her recent injury. Hopefully she realizes how recklessly she acted tonight. "Are there any more?"

She shakes her head. "No."

"Keep it that way."

I drop her purse on the counter and stalk out of the bathroom. Her voice stops me as I'm about to let the door go.

"Cade. Wait. Is she going to be okay? Winter?"

I look back at her, a sarcastic retort on my tongue, but when I see how forlorn she looks, I hold back. "Yeah, she'll be okay. Get some rest."

Confident she can manage to get herself back to her room now, I head back to mine.

Seeing Winter laying so helpless on my bed stops me short. Her black, silky hair cascades over my pillow like a dark waterfall. Pale, and so still, she looks like Snow White and my heart stops, imagining her in a crystal coffin of eternal sleep. As small as she is, carrying her half the way home when she passed out didn't strain me at all, but still, the night has taken its toll, and I slump into the other bed, my eyes never leaving her.

Her eyes flutter open revealing blue orbs with so many secrets. My anger at Jenifer returns when I consider all that could have happened to Winter tonight. "You have a real nice friend there." I don’t mean to sound so snarky, but I've never been good at pretending to act in a way contrary to what I'm feeling—which makes being around Winter all the more difficult.

Winter sighs and grips my pillow, and I wonder if it will smell like her when I sleep on it next. "She just wanted me to have fun." Her voice still sounds disconnected from her mind, her smile too bright. "She's harmless."

"Drugs aren't harmless." Once again I find myself reaching into a lady's purse. "And neither are these." I hold up the pepper spray and knife. "It's illegal to carry these here without a license."

"How do you know?"

"It's called research." What is it about this girl that makes me want to protect her? I'm here to study, to pass my French class and decide once and for all which direction my life will go, not to play knight in shining armor to a girl who keeps finding herself in troubling situations.

Remembering what brought this whole thing on in the first place, I change the subject to something that won't make me angry. "You probably have allergies. The red face, itchy ears, all that? Make sure to get some medicine tomorrow. You're sleeping here tonight." I hadn't decided that until the words were out of my mouth, but I realize they're true. I can't let her leave, not until I know she's okay.