Vain (The Seven Deadly, #1)(31)

“A lie!” Karina exclaimed, giggling like a schoolgirl. “You always make me out to be this silly creature and I wasn’t.” She turned my direction and sobered. “Charles exaggerates. I was not in love with him. In fact, it was quite the opposite.”

“I admit it without hesitation. I was most decidedly in love with Karina Smith from the second I laid eyes on her,” Charles added.

“Smith?” Dingane asked. “Was that your maiden name, Karina?”

“Yes, and I was a grade lower than Charles. He and I met at a church function for teens and he politely introduced himself. I had no idea he attended school with me, I just figured he was a local boy, but when he informed me we had chemistry together I was wracking my brain trying to remember him. I told him finally, ‘You’re not in my chemistry class.’ To which he replied dryly, ‘I beg to differ.’”

So Charles was witty.

“I pretended to be offended,” she continued, “but secretly was dying to swoon on the inside. Every day he would meet me at the front doors of school, but I would diligently ignore him, even going so far as to take alternate routes, but he always found me.”

“I was relentless,” Charles added.

“Apparently,” I teased.

Karina sighed. “I may have been attracted to Charles, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t allowed to date. My father would have killed me, but Charles was so dogged in his insistence that one day I agreed to meet him at a nearby ice cream shop. I had planned to tell him that he was very kind, that I found him to be a sweet boy, but I could not date so he might as well fixate his obsession on another.”

“To which he refused and probably pursued you with even more fervor,” I stated.

“Of course.”

“And you eventually gave in.”

“Naturally. Look at him. Who could refuse?” she asked, smoothing Charles’ cheek over with her thumb.

I watched Dingane smile at the older couple and wondered about his own parents. Mine would never be as sweet or as loving as Charles and Karina and I decided right then and there that I would be gobbling them up as long as I had the opportunity. I would learn from them. I would study them. I would endeavor to be like them.

Dinner tasted amazing and I hadn’t realized just how hungry I’d been. I ate more than my fair share and then immediately felt guilty thinking about Mandisa. The conversation was lively between myself, Charles and Karina or between Dingane, Charles and Karina but the conversation between Dingane and myself was practically nonexistent. A “pass the blank” here or a “hand me that” there.

Karina cleared the plates and a hormonal rage built in my stomach as I watched Dingane fold his napkin on the table over and over and over, creasing each fold tightly with nimble fingers. I wanted to rip it out of his hands, clear the table and attack him with my mouth. How can someone bug the shit out of you so much yet simultaneously cause you to want to know them intimately with your tongue? He was driving me crazy.

We all said our goodbyes on the porch and Karina kissed my cheek after I thanked her for dinner.

As soon as my head hit my pillow, I dreamt of Dingane’s ridiculous hands.





CHAPTER ELEVEN



I woke to someone shaking me.

“Get up,” I heard someone whisper. “Get up,” they said, shaking me more harshly.

I whimpered as I turned around. “Dingane?” I asked, sitting up and smoothing the hair from my face.

“I need your help.”

“What?”

“I’ll explain in the truck. We don’t have time. Get dressed and meet me outside.”

“What time is it?” I asked, throwing back my net.

“Just past midnight.”

And with that, he left me to myself, my creaky door swinging shut behind him.

I stood and immediately began brushing my teeth while I dressed, spit, rinsed and tied my hair in a ponytail. It was the fastest I’d ever gotten ready, not a stitch of makeup or even a brush through my tangled locks.

I rushed through my door, tucking my shirt into my belted jeans. I reached Charles, Karina and Dingane and bent to tie my boots.

“She can’t,” Karina said, wringing her hands.

“She’ll be okay,” Charles said, soothing his wife. “We’ll need you here to prepare.”

“What’s going on?” I demanded, standing up.

“There’s been an attack on a village two and a half hours from here and there are children who need rescuing still. We’re afraid the LRA will come back for them,” Dingane said.

“Then we go to them,” I said without thinking, surprising myself.

“I cannot send you out to that, Sophie,” Karina added quickly.

“She needs to stay here, Sophie,” Charles explained. “To prepare a small medical ward. We’ve heard it’s many more children than we’re handled to equip on a moment’s whim. She’s the only other one of us trained medically beside myself, but we need at least four in the truck and one of those should be trained. Kate and Ruth are needed here and Mercy cannot be fetched for some time. I’m asking for your help. Can you handle it?” he asked me.

“I can,” I said without hesitation.

“It’s settled then,” Dingane said after examining me for a moment and headed toward the truck after picking up a large container setting at his feet.