Reborn (Shadow Falls: After Dark #1)(106)

“But I have another—”

“It’s a done deal. The report came back positive. I’m supposed to go and finalize the paperwork and set up sentencing. Now go get some breakfast, and if you’re still tired, skip your first classes and take a nap.”

“You don’t understand,” Della demanded. “I tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. I think I’ve found another suspect.”

“You are the one not listening,” he said. The DNA is a match.” He frowned but with empathy. “In this job, second to seeing the victims, the hardest thing is sometimes arresting the guilty—especially the fresh turns. It hurts like hell … heck … to realize that sometimes good people can do terrible things.”

Della swallowed and tried to accept it, but that stupid voice started chanting again in her head, and it came in rhythm with the throb in her temple.

Innocent. Innocent. Innocent.

Chapter Thirty-two

Della skipped campmate hour and went back to her cabin to do an Internet search on Billy Jennings. She was right: He belonged to the school band. And to the chess club. The guy was an honor student. And not even a cool honor student. He was a geek. How could someone so … so perfectly geeky kill Lorraine and John?

Feeling as if she couldn’t do a damn thing to help Billy, she cut the computer off and went to her first class—science. But by the time she sat down, her head pounded so hard it felt as if her eyes were going to pop out.

Mr. Yates, Jenny’s brother as well as their teacher, stood up in front of the class talking about how cell phones and signals worked.

Della didn’t give a rat’s ass. All she could think about was her headache and then Billy. Playing the flute one week, being arrested for murder the next.

“There’s one a couple of miles from here.” Perry spoke up, but his voice sounded distant, as if he were far away. “I never get service there.”

All of a sudden, Mr. Yates’s phone rang. “Well, someone isn’t in the dead zone.” He answered the call. Then the teacher looked right at Della, his gaze almost angry. “Innocent.” His voice echoed like they were in a cave. “Innocent!” he yelled.

“What?” Della asked. But when she blinked Mr. Yates wasn’t looking at her and was back talking into his cell. What in hell’s bells was going on? Had she just imagined…?

She blinked again and the fogginess in her brain increased. The air suddenly changed, and she smelled wet dirt. It had turned night. Her gaze shot around, expecting to see the classroom, but she saw only woods, the trees stared down at her. Sh glanced down at her hands. A diamond ring, an engagement ring, sparkled up at her from her left hand. Engagement ring? What the hell?

All of a sudden, her hands didn’t look like her hands. She shook her head, feeling as if her reality had been yanked away. Nothing made sense. Nothing mattered but getting that damn ring off. She started to yank at it, but her hands were covered in blood. Lots and lots of blood. But the blood didn’t seem to matter as much as the ring. She tried again to pull it off, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t move. She felt paralyzed or … dead.

Her heart jolted. She wasn’t dead. The smell of dirt vanished, but the blood on her hands hadn’t. She felt the hard school desk against her back. She started to jump up, but then the blood disappeared.

The ring disappeared.

Her breath caught.

“Della? Della?”

In the distance someone called her name. But she didn’t care about that either. She kept staring at her hands, turning them one way and then other.

Damn it! What had just happened?

She closed her eyes. Innocent. Innocent. Innocent. The words echoed around the schoolroom, as if everyone was chanting them. Della jumped up from her seat and looked around. Everyone was staring at her, but no one was speaking, or chanting.

“Della? Della?”

Her name echoed again. This time Della recognized Mr. Yates’s voice.

She forced herself to glance at him. He stared at her, looking puzzled. Della moved her gaze around, seeing everyone gawking at her as if she was nuts. And hell, maybe they were right.

“Della?” Mr. Yates said again.

“Yeah,” she managed to answer, but only after she growled at the gawkers.

“Are you okay?” He walked to her desk.

No. I’m losing my mind. She nodded.

“Did you hear me?” he asked.

She stared at him blankly, and he must have gotten the message that she hadn’t heard a damn thing.

“Holiday wants to see you. In the office.”

Feeling her insides tremble, she grabbed her book and went to find Holiday. Find her and tell her to call the people who came in with those tight white coats and carted off crazy people. Because Della was pretty certain she was on the path to needing a padded cell.

By the time she got to the office, she’d convinced herself that living in a padded cell wasn’t her calling.

Holiday rose from her desk. Concern pulled at her brows.

“What’s wrong?” Della envisioned the worst—a worst that didn’t have anything to do with visions of blood or engagement rings. Had something happened to someone in her family?

Holiday motioned for her to sit down. Ignoring the motion, Della stood in the middle of the office, still feeling dazed.