Wicked Dreams (Fallen Royals, #1)(42)

I take a deep breath and push the door open anyway. What I see steals the air from my lungs.

It’s a wreck. Vandalized.

There’s a broken lamp on the floor next to the bed, cracked into three pieces. The lightbulb is smashed. Clothes… everywhere. It looks like a hurricane went through the room.

I take a step back, bumping into Caleb.

“What happened?” My voice is steady, even if the rest of my body wobbles.

He doesn’t answer.

I turn. “Caleb, what happened?”

“This wasn’t part of the deal,” he says. “You wanted to come in here. You’re asking questions you should already know the answer to.”

I squint at him. “What?”

He shakes his head and takes a step back. “Move on.”

I shut the door, leaving it untouched. And then I move down the hall to my old room, where I had run the other day. The door swings open under my fingertips like it remembers me.

I walk into the room and inhale.

When I was twelve, I had nightmares about being locked in this room. In the dream, I beat my fists against the door until they were bloody and bruised. After Caleb follows me in, moving a bit slower than I’d prefer, I close the door.

I don’t expect to find anything.

Hell, it was just a dream that I had when I was twelve.

And thirteen.

And fourteen.

Angela, my case worker, made me see a therapist. The foster families I was with were terrified of the screaming that happened while I was asleep. And with the therapist, I convinced myself it was just a dream blown out of proportion.

But…

There are smudges of blood on the white door, at my chest level. Scratches, too.

I stagger backward. “What the hell happened?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “You know what happened. You were here. You caused it.”

I shake my head, sinking down onto the bed. “That’s wrong.”

He comes closer, trailing a finger over my dresser.

“Caleb, come on. Did I do that?” I examine my fingers. Would scratches in the wood like that have torn my nails? Whatever happened when I was ten… there’s no trace of it on my skin now.

He lifts something from my dresser, tucking it into his pocket.

At my raised eyebrows, he just scowls. “Just something of mine that you stole.”

“Why has no one come back here?”

He yanks the door open and points. “Time’s up, love. If you want me to explain exactly what happened… that’s another beast entirely.”

“So you do know.”

His nod is short and jerky. “I know pieces.”

“I know pieces, too,” I huff.

“Apparently not.” He guides me out of the house.

A weight is on my chest, and it’s hard to breathe. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the pieces that I have. It’s a puzzle that I’m trying to solve blind. I slowly sink down to my knees, black spots flashing over my vision.

“I can’t breathe,” I mumble.

Caleb stops beside me, squatting. “Hey.”

“I think I’m h-having a p-panic attack.”

He touches my back, rubbing small circles. It doesn’t help. Nice isn’t helping.

I’m gasping for air at this point. My heart is pounding out of my chest.

“Margo.” Caleb’s voice breaks through the fog. Barely. “Look at me.”

I can’t really see anything except for the ground between my knees.

He tugs my hand away from my head—when did I grab my head?—and pinches my chin, forcing me to meet his eyes. “Breathe.”

A whole damn waterfall of grief and confusion is thundering down on me. It’s the realization that my nightmares have been real. Caleb will never be nice, or tell me the truth, unless I give him something in return. My parents are gone.

He lifts me suddenly, cradling me to his chest, and starts walking. I suck in short gasps as he rounds the house, setting me down on the hood of his car. And then he cups my face with both of his hands and presses his lips to mine.

I can’t respond—shock, the panic—until he bites my lower lip. The pain wakes me up.

I gasp against his mouth.

My horror falls away. The panic ebbs. I wrap myself around him, my legs around his hips, my hands on his biceps.

God, what kind of demon is he?

He pulls away, smirking at me. His hands are still on my face, gently holding my cheeks. It’s a nice act, except for the smirk—which seems to grow wider while my face heats.

He drops his hands from my face, and I release his biceps. We stare at each other for a second. He’s perfectly composed, the bastard. My lungs ache like I just ran a marathon.

He pats the bottom of my thighs, winking at me. “You want to stay here?”

Slowly, I lower my legs and slide off the hood of his car. “We’re going to be late.”

“So?”

I snort. “So, I was hoping to slip in undetected…”

He’s grins. It’s like he’s established that I’m okay—well, not on the verge of passing out, anyway—and we’re back to where we started.

“There’s no such thing as undetected when you’re with me.”