Among the Heather (The Highlands, #2)

But there wasn’t just “stuff” stored in here.

Among piles of boxes and crates of household items and a rail of clothing was a single bed tucked into the far right corner with a pink comforter and decorative pillows on it. Beside the bed was a small table and lamp.

I had to get out of here.

I whirled on her, but it was as if she knew how I’d react because now her gun was pointed in my face. Her expression hardened.

“Sit on the bed. Now.”

My heart hammered so hard I swear it hurt as I stumbled backward toward the bed. Feeling the mattress against the back of my legs, I slumped down onto it. “What are you doing, Cai—Ariella?”

“I’m kind of living in my storage unit. I thought that was obvious.” Caitlyn waved her free hand around. “Why pay crazy LA rental prices when this is warm, safe, and ventilated? And no one will interrupt us here.”

Oh, fuck. Refusing to let her see my terror, I lifted my chin in defiance. “You plan to keep me in here? Other people must rent the surrounding units.”

She nodded. “They do, but I have a gun, so I’m pretty sure you’ll keep quiet if anyone stops by. This is just until you see things my way, you know.”

“And what way is that?”

Caitlyn considered my question, the gleam in her eye suggesting she was delighted to have my full attention. “That we’re supposed to be integral pieces of each other’s lives.” She laughed incredulously. “It boggles the mind that you can’t see we’re pretty much the same person, Aria.”

“How is that?”

“Look at us.” She turned to glance at a mirror that hung on the wall above a chest of drawers. “We look like sisters.”

Dyeing her hair and wearing contacts to look like me. Taking my job at Curiosity. Sleeping with Lucas … Allegra was right. Caitlyn had been single white female-ing me.

“Do you want my life?” I forced out.

She turned back to me. “Your life is my life. We’re connected.” Caitlyn lifted a hand to her temple, grimacing. “Everything feels itchy and ugly in here without you around. Why did you leave me?”

“Cai—Ariella … I … let me go. We’ll find someone for you to talk to. I’ll help.”

“Talk to?” She frowned. “I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“I mean someone who can help you.”

“Help me with what?”

At her genuine confusion, I realized she had no awareness of her own mental health issues. Or at least she was in denial about them.

I attempted another tack. “Why don’t we leave here and go grab dinner and talk?”

“I tried that!” Caitlyn suddenly yelled, and when she raised her arm, her sleeve pulled back to reveal flashes of cuts and scars along her arm. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for two years! But you punished me for Lucas, and I don’t know why! I don’t know why you left me when I was just trying to be close to you!”

Considering the possibility that Caitlyn was self-harming, I attempted not to get angry at her. She needed help. I just didn’t know how to get through to her. “How is keeping me in here making any of this better?” I asked calmly.

She shook, her breathing calming. “This is only temporary. Okay. Just until you realize how important it is for us to be together.” Caitlyn sat on the end of the bed, and I tried not to look at the gun in her hand.

“Let me tell you about my life for the past two years.”

For the next half hour, I endured the inane retelling of her life in LA without me. About the men she’d fucked because she was sure they were the kind of men I’d fuck. About Allegra being a disrespectful little sister (it took everything not to bare my teeth at her calling Ally her sister), and about how much she missed me.

“So many unanswered emails. I thought maybe it was that stupid job in Scotland keeping you from me, so this year I started sending anonymous emails pretending to be members.” Her eyes widened. “I didn’t believe anything I said in them, but I wanted them to fire you so you’d come home.”

Understanding dawned. “You sent those awful emails about me?”

“I stopped after two because they made me feel so bad for saying those things. But I only sent them for your own good.” She leaned forward, expression pleading. “You have to know that everything I do is for you. For us. When I realized how much Lucas had hurt you, it was my hurt too. So the night before he had this big audition, I laced his food with ground pistachio.”

Oh my God. Lucas was fatally allergic to nuts. All nuts. “What?”

Caitlyn shrugged. “He’s fine. I took him to the ER. But his face and hands were red and bruised from the swelling and he couldn’t make his audition the next day. He lost out on the job.” She laughed like she’d played a hilarious prank rather than almost killed someone. “He deserved it for taking you away from me. See?” She beamed. “This is why I wanted us to have this time together so you can see that I’m on your side.”

“I see that,” I whispered, sick to my stomach.

“Good. Good.” Caitlyn’s eyes brightened with tears. “When you welcomed me into your life, made me your friend even though I was a nobody, it was a lifeline, Ari.”

My chest squeezed with sympathy despite the awful circumstances. Maybe if I could get her to talk to me, really talk to me, I could make her see this was wrong. “How so?”

“I …” She shrugged. “I don’t want to think about my life before you.”

“I’m trying to understand. Maybe if I knew what your life was like, I’d understand why we’re here right now.”

She considered this. “Okay.” Her gaze dropped to her feet. “I’m a foster kid. My dad took off when I was about seven and then, when I was about nine, they came and took me away from my mom.”

“Why?”

“She was a drug addict.”

“I’m sorry.”

Caitlyn looked at me with those strange contacts. “I moved from foster home to foster home, and when I was fourteen, I was at the mall with my friends and I saw my mom.” She gave a huff of bitter amusement. “She was clean. Turns out she’d been clean for two years and she never bothered to come get me. She told me that looking after a kid was too much responsibility and she was afraid if she took me back, she’d fall off the wagon with the pressure.”

Dear God. Suddenly, Caitlyn’s frantic desire to keep a hold of our friendship made perfect sense. She had intense abandonment issues because of her childhood. But why me?

“I’m so sorry, Caitlyn.”

She flinched and whispered, “It’s Ariella now.”

“Ariella. Will you tell me more? About your life before LA?”

And so she did. Her story was one of a cycle of abuse and abandonment that made my heart hurt for her, for other kids like her.

A story that made me fearful that I was about to be the next victim in the cycle.





Thirty-Eight


NORTH





Icould hear my heart. It felt like it was inside my throat, banging like fuck in there. “I’m telling you, something is wrong.”