Eternal (Shadow Falls: After Dark #2)(48)

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t leave?” She held her breath, didn’t blink, even her heart stopped beating as she waited and hoped he’d say she was right. But then what? a voice inside her said. What about Chase?

“No, I couldn’t go without saying good-bye. But leaving is going to be hell.”

He moved forward and slipped his warm hands around her waist. Slowly, he pulled her against him and she didn’t resist. Couldn’t. The thought of kicking his ass was yesterday’s news.

He didn’t kiss her, just held her. Her head came to rest on that special spot on his chest. The one she claimed belonged to her. His smell, a tangy, earthy scent mixed with the aroma of fresh wind, filled her senses.

She breathed it in greedily. Tears formed in her eyes.

When he pulled back, even his eyes were misty. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, I will never regret what we were. What we had. And if I lose you, you will always be the one who got away that I’ll never forget.”

He stopped and looked up at the ceiling for one second. Two. Three.

He inhaled and his breath sounded shaky. Or was that hers?

“Promise me,” he said, looking back at her. “Promise me that you won’t do something stupid and get yourself killed. Promise me that you’ll stop letting your parents’ ignorance hurt you so much. You don’t deserve that. Promise me that before you fall in love with Chase, you’ll remember that I loved you first.”

That’s when the need to whip his ass came back!

She hit his chest with her palm. He stumbled back, but remained standing. “Why did you make me care about you when you knew you were leaving? You could have just left me alone! I wouldn’t be hurting now! Why?”

He grabbed her and kissed her then. His lips tasted warm, tasted like Steve—so sweet, but oddly salty. Perhaps from her tears, and maybe even his. Before she knew it, way before she wanted it, the kiss ended. She opened her eyes. He was gone. She saw several tiny bubbles floating in the air. Then she spotted the bird, a peregrine falcon perched on her windowsill.

Looking almost regal, the bird bowed his head at her then leapt up and flew away. With him, he took a part of her heart. And she wasn’t sure she’d ever get that part back.

*   *   *

Della heard Miranda and Kylie leave in time for the morning meal. Della skipped breakfast and the campmate hour. She managed to pull herself together enough to go to her first-period class. Math.

From there she went to science. The class was halfway over, and Haden Yates, Jenny’s brother, was up discussing sound waves. It might have been interesting if she gave a shit.

She didn’t.

Not while she was still reeling over last night’s vision. Reeling over the mere possibility that her father, and if not him, her uncle, was a killer. Over the fact that another day had passed and she wasn’t any closer to finding Natasha. Add that a part of her heart was halfway over the ocean heading to France, and was it any wonder that she didn’t give a rat’s ass about sound waves?

Someone in the back of the room chuckled. Della looked back and right then she realized something wasn’t right. She turned her head around to make sure she wasn’t mistaken.

Nope. No mistake. She’d been so busy wallowing in self-pity that she hadn’t realized Kylie and Miranda were missing. Damn.

What kind of friend was she? Especially considering Miranda was in the same sinking boat as Della. Well, she didn’t have her dead aunt haunting her ass, but at least romantically the girl’s heart had been yanked out of her chest.

Della shot up out of her seat to leave, only to remember that one didn’t just leave class and discussions on sound waves.

“Della?” Mr. Yates said.

She looked at him. She started to explain she needed to go find her friends, but that didn’t sound like a good enough excuse to leave class. And lately, Mr. Yates had been complaining about absences—even when they were approved by Burnett.

“Uh … I need to be excused.”

“Because…?”

“Personal reasons,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t argue, and if he did, he wasn’t going to like her alternative get-out-of-class answer. But she wasn’t above using it—even if it was a lie.

“What kind of personal reasons?” he asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

Well, damn, she’d tried to spare him. She put her hand on her hip and met his unhappy gaze.

“I just started my period and it’s about to get messy. Of course, you wouldn’t understand that.”

Mr. Yates’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t excuse her from class so she continued.

“I mean, I know guys don’t understand the whole period thing.”

Red color climbed up his neck to his face and almost looked cartoonish, but he still didn’t excuse her.

“But seriously, if your penises bled once a month—”

“Go!” he almost yelled, and she barely heard it over the laughter from the other students.

“Thank you.” She shot out of the classroom and didn’t slow down until she stopped at her cabin.

She could hear Miranda and Kylie inside. Miranda’s broken voice echoed the loudest.

Feeling terrible about abandoning them when they’d been there so much for her these last few months, she stormed inside. They sat at the kitchen table. Miranda had a pint-size carton of Chunky Monkey ice cream in her hands, and three empty cartons sat on the table. And they looked licked clean.