Chapter 46
46
where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Dear Reader, trust your gut…everyone lies. Even those closest to you. I would know.
“N ate,” I said in a shaking voice, “what are you wearing?”
His head snapped up from where he’d rested it on his knees, like he’d totally forgotten I was there and I’d startled him with my question. The similarity to how I’d found Heath in the library was frightening, and now that I paid attention…Nate also looked pretty rough. Not his usual aesthetic at all.
“What?” he asked, blinking like he was trying to clear his head.
“What are you wearing?” I repeated, gesturing to his robe. “Was this some insane DB prank that I interrupted?”
He looked down at his clothing, then frantically shrugged the robe off and balled it up like it was made of spiders. He tossed it away from himself, panting and wide-eyed. Something bad was going on, and my whole body trembled with fear.
“Nate,” I said again, trying to hold his attention. “What just happened out there? Heath?—”
“No,” he said firmly, shaking his head. “No. It’s…it’s not a DB prank. I…I don’t know what it is.” There was so much uncertainty in his voice it rocked me. I’d never heard Nate unsure of himself and yet here he was sitting on my floor, confused and scared.
Wetting my lips, I sank to my knees on the floor. “Hey, Nate…look at me for a moment.”
His darting gaze shifted up from the floor and locked on mine. That usually mysterious whiskey brown gaze of his was totally changed. It was enough for me to push aside my fear that he was involved in something dangerous, and I shuffled forward until I could grab his hands.
“Hey. Just focus on me for a moment, okay? Something weird is going on. What do you know? What’s going on out there?” I wanted to look out my window, to try and see Heath in the distance even though I knew it wasn’t possible…but right now Nate needed grounding.
He gave a small headshake, confusion etched all over his face. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I swear…I have no clue.”
I swallowed hard, trying another tact and desperately attempting to remain calm. “Okay, how about we start with last night. You asked me to find Heath, remember? You were here and left when I went to the library?”
He nodded, a small frown appearing over his brow. “Yeah. I went home and waited for you to call and tell me whether you’d found him…but you never did. I was worried, so I came over and you guys were fast asleep.”
That made me jerk. “You broke in again?”
Nate scowled. “I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d just texted me to say Heath was fine.”
Fair. But still…
“Okay, creep. What happened after that?”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. His other hand still grasped mine like a lifeline. “I didn’t want to wake him when he was finally sleeping so I went home and went to bed. Then…that’s where it gets weird. I woke up because my phone kept ringing, like on and on. But I wasn’t in my bed. I was out on the Nevaeh south lawn in full DB costume and…I don’t have any memory of getting there. Or why.”
I licked my lips. “That was me, trying to call you.”
He gave a small nod. “I know. I was so confused then saw all your missed calls, then saw the others in their robes and…” he trailed off, blowing out a long breath. “It was really obvious they weren’t conscious, or not responsive at any rate. I turned my phone to silent and started running for help and then I heard you.”
“And you grabbed me before I could follow Heath,” I said quietly. “What if he gets hurt? He was sleepwalking.”
Nate shook his head. “I don’t think so. That was different.”
“Nate! What if Heath gets hurt? ” I repeated the important part.
“What if you got hurt?” he countered. “I don’t think you fully appreciate what that’d do to him…to any of them.”
That pulled me out of my spiraling panic. “What?”
Nate arched a brow. “Carter and Royce…They were there too. Did you not notice?”
My lips parted but no words came out. I’d assumed it was just some random DBs with Heath, it hadn’t crossed my mind that it was them.
“I don’t know what they—we—were doing, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put the pieces together,” Nate continued. “I don’t fucking know why or how but I know that they weren’t snapping out of it and I did not need one of them hitting you.”
That was when I noticed the blooming redness on his cheek and eyebrow. Someone had punched him really recently. Fucking hell.
“Nate, we need to stop them,” I pleaded. “We need to wake them up or get them out or…something! We need to do something !”
He shook his head. “I am doing something. I’m keeping you safe!”
Exasperated, I dropped his hand and scrambled to my feet. Maybe I could see something?—
“Is that smoke?” I asked, sniffing the air.
Nate climbed to his feet as well, a scowl etched across his face as he joined me at the window. “Shit,” he breathed. There in the distance, the unmistakable glow of fire. A big one.
With him away from the door, I flicked the lock open and raced out into the corridor, pressing the elevator call button before he could even make it out my door.
“Ashley! Dammit!” he shouted, running to catch up and sliding inside just a moment before the doors shut, then turned his fury my way. “What the fuck do you think you can do now? Last I checked, you’re not a fucking firefighter, nor do you have a water tanker stashed in the parking lot!”
“I don’t know!” I shouted back. “Maybe nothing! I don’t know. But I will literally crawl out of my own skin with anxiety if I just sit in my room, waiting. Wouldn’t you?”
He stared at me, speechless. Then threw his hands in the air as the elevator reached the ground floor. “Fine. But for the love of fuck , Layne, stay with me.” To punctuate that point, he grabbed my hand in his as we started running across the lawn once more.
The building was well ablaze when we got there, the flames so high it was astounding. Nate put in a call to emergency services, and I frantically searched the shadows for any sign of the arsons.
“Drama building?” I suggested when Nate ended his call.
His response was just to take off running in that direction with my hand still clamped in his, dragging me behind him as my much shorter legs tried to keep up.
The dressing room was empty, but the smell of smoke was so intense it made us both cough. They’d been there, but not anymore.
“Where now?” Nate asked, scrubbing a frustrated hand over his face and hair. “Fuck!” He lashed out, kicking over the chair and just looking so fucking defeated.
I could relate.
“Let’s go to your apartment,” I said, quietly reaching for his hand again since that seemed to ground him. Like it reminded him we were in this together. “If…I don’t know. I just think we check there. Maybe they went home if they thought they were sleepwalking? Or they woke up here, confused, and went home?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Okay, let’s go.” He kept hold of my hand as we jogged across campus to the parking lot where my car was parked. Thankfully, I had my keys in my pocket so in just six minutes we were pulling into the underground parking lot beneath Nate’s apartment.
He paced the elevator again, like a stressed-out lion, and I hugged my arms around myself, dreading what we might find. Or not find. If the guys weren’t here…were they still inside the burning building?
My mind rejected the idea as utterly abhorrent, but…what if they didn’t get out? What if they all burned to death in there, never having snapped out of the trance? Bile burned in my throat at the thought of it, and I all but climbed Nate’s back as he unlocked his front door and swung it open.
“Whoa, calm down,” Royce groaned from the kitchen, squinting at us. “Where’s the fire?”
Relief smacked me so hard I nearly keeled over, and Nate seemed similarly speechless.
“Y-you’re okay,” I finally stammered, crossing to the kitchen island where he stood in a towel, fresh from the shower. I glanced to Nate, confused as all hell. Had he been wrong? Was Royce never there?
Royce grunted, not seeming to notice our weird behavior. “Okay is a stretch. Probably a good thing you ditched me for Briggs last night, Squirrel. My head is killing me. I might be coming down with something.”
Another long look from Nate, who closed the front door and approached more cautiously. “Have you seen Heath this morning?”
Royce frowned, glancing between the two of us. “No, why would I? I thought he and Ash were finally consummating the relationship. Wait, why are you two together?”
I wet my lips, shaking my head. “Not important.”
Royce’s brow lifted. “Agree to disagree.”
Before he could push the issue further, Carter sleepily walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. Then he saw me and smiled a lazy smile.
“Spark’s here,” he observed out loud, changing his course to greet me with a huge hug.
I hugged him back, inhaling deeply then coughing. He smelled of smoke. And gasoline.
“Carter, why do you—” I started to ask, then a thump came from Heath’s bedroom, interrupting me.
Nate’s brows shot up. “Carter, man, did Heath come back here last night?”
The gorgeous, half-asleep smokestack shook his head. “Don’t think so.”
Urgency gnawed at my gut, though, and I slipped out of his eye-watering scent cloud. “I’m going to check his bedroom. Maybe he slipped in when you two were, um, asleep…or something.”
Backing away, I waited until Carter turned away before gesturing to Nate to smell him. Then I softly knocked on Heath’s door before twisting the knob.
“Heath, honey?” I called out, “Are you here?”
The door swung open, and a scream ripped from my throat. My hands gripped the doorframe, holding me upright where I otherwise would have collapsed in horror.
The thump we’d heard was the chair falling.
My beautiful, troubled boy was there in the middle of the room, a makeshift noose around his neck as he hung from the ceiling fan.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Watch Your Back
Devils Backbone #2
Discover more Tate Jameswith the first book n the Madison Kate series, Hate