Reborn (Shadow Falls: After Dark #1)(48)

“He offered blood just to get people to donate more. And he’s not looking at me like that.”

“Has he tried to kiss you?” Jenny asked.

“No.” But Della recalled him telling her she was hot and touching her lips. He’d probably just been trying to annoy her. And it had worked. “I don’t like him like that.”

“Because you like Steve?”

“I just don’t like him.” She didn’t want to go into how his scent felt familiar. Didn’t want to admit that she found him … attractive. Or that she’d thought about how his finger had felt against her lips. Nope, she didn’t want to go there, because it didn’t mean anything.

“I think you’re right to be leery of him.”

It was how Jenny said it that had Della sitting up. “Why? What do you know?”

Jenny’s pause told Della the girl knew something.

“What is it, Jenny? Spill it! Before I have to choke it out of you.” And there went Della’s playing-nice promise.

Chapter Fourteen

“Please,” Della said.

Jenny frowned. “If you promise not to tell anyone.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I take walks. I don’t leave the property, but I still have to sneak out because my brother doesn’t think I should go out alone. But I’m not doing anything, I just walk around the woods. To think.”

“I go out most nights,” Della said. “I’ve never seen you.”

“You wouldn’t. I turn invisible. I just feel better knowing no one is staring at me. But I saw you once. I was going to show myself, but you were gone too fast.”

Della pulled one leg up to her chest to fight an unnatural chill. She cut her eyes around, praying she wouldn’t see a duck feather, then focused back on Jenny. “What does this have to do with Chase?”

“A couple of times I’ve seen him out at night, too. It’s always late. And one time I heard him talking to someone. A person who was on the other side of the gate. They were talking really low. I don’t know why, but it just felt … secretive.”

Della remembered seeing Chan outside the gate last night. Could Chan know Chase? Was that where she’d met Chase before? Why Della remembered his scent? “Was the guy he was speaking to Asian?” Della asked.

“I never really saw him. Chase was in front of him.”

Della tried to wrap her head around this. “Was this last night?”

“No. Tuesday night.”

So it wasn’t the same night, but wasn’t it too big of a coincidence not to be connected? Della’s mind raced. What in the world would Chase have to do with Chan? And if Chase did know Chan, why wouldn’t he tell Della?

“Wait,” Della said. “You couldn’t see him, but you heard them. What were Chase and this guy talking about?”

“I don’t know, I forced myself not to listen. That would have been eavesdropping, and Burnett has warned me, several times, that it would be wrong for me to use my invisibility powers for that. So I left. But as I was walking away, Chase kept looking around as if he was afraid someone would see him. I think he was doing something he shouldn’t. He acted as if he was afraid he’d get caught.”

After school Della lay in her bed, fighting a mild headache and feeling as if she was getting nowhere fast on any of her quests. She was coming up empty-handed on her search for her uncle. She still didn’t have a clue who had knocked her out. Burnett still hadn’t agreed to let her work the murder case. Her cousin was still unreachable, and now she had the mystery about Chase and his visitor to figure out.

Not that she’d confronted the panty perv.

Yet.

She wanted to talk to Chan first. The next time she accused Chase of something, she didn’t want him to have an easy out. She wanted proof. If only Chan would call her back.

Her frustration over Chase turned on a dime to frustration over her cousin. Or maybe not just frustration, but concern. If Chan was already entrenched in a gang, they might not let him return calls. She’d heard that some gangs forced you to give up everyone from your old life. Was that what was happening with Chan? She hoped like hell he hadn’t completely gone rogue. Rogues did bad things. A lot of rogue gangs fed off humans. Could Chan do that?

Closing her eyes, she recalled Chan helping her through the toughest part of the change. The only time he’d left her side was when her mom or someone would come in. Or when they took her to the hospital. And even then he’d come to the hospital to check on her. He could have just abandoned her. Left her. Let her fend for herself. She could have ended up killing someone. Supposedly a lot of fresh turns did.

But Chan hadn’t left her. He wasn’t bad. He might join a gang, but surely it wasn’t one that condoned killing humans.

Once again she regretted not calling him back. Regretted not trying harder to be a bigger part of his life. God, not only was she a bitch, she was a bad cousin.

But not so bad that she believed Chan could kill innocent people. The image of the dead girl popped in her head again. She pushed it out of her head, and went back to her cousin.

“Call me, Chan, please,” she muttered, as if he might magically hear her.

Her phone rang. Della popped up and snagged the phone, and stared at the number. Again, not Chan. But it was her mom.