“Yeah,” I murmured, standing up as unease crawled its way down my spine. “Someone who was either sick or old who might’ve worked at the hospital.”
“Uh-huh.”
Something about this struck me as wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. What we found might not mean anything and as we scoped out the rest of the house, we didn’t find anything else. Later that night, as I lay in bed, staring at the cracks in the plaster, I still couldn’t shake the discomfort of knowing I’d stumbled across something without knowing what had tripped me.
Chapter 22
Kat was late to trig class Friday morning before Christmas break, entering the classroom a few moments before the bell rung. Immediately, I knew something was wrong with her. She walked stiffly, as if she couldn’t fully extend her legs. I straightened as she made her way to the desk in front of me and watched her sit down very slowly. Concern pinged through me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She turned halfway, her face a shade paler than normal. “Yeah. Just slept wrong.”
Tension poured into me. Slept wrong? Fallen recently? And burned her hand on a stove? “Did you sleep on the floor or something?”
She laughed drily and started to turn back around. “Feels like it.”
My fingers dug into the edges of the desk. “Kat…”
“What?” she whispered, her gaze not meeting mine.
I stared at her for a moment and then sat back, folding my arms. “Never mind,” I said, even though I wanted to ask her how training was last night, but I sensed I wasn’t going to get anything else out of her. “You still on for tonight?”
Biting her lip, she nodded and turned back around. Throughout class and the rest of the day, whenever I saw her, she moved stiffly. Dee noticed it after lunch, catching me in the hallway. My sister was worried about Kat, and Kat wasn’t telling her anything. Nothing new there, but the horrible suspicion that there was more to her recent injuries overshadowed the unease from last night.
Would Kat lie about someone hurting her?
The mere thought nearly caused me to lose control of my human form while in history class, because there was only one person who would be in the position to hurt her. Blake. In between classes, I’d kept an eye out for the little punk-ass, but he was nowhere to be found. Probably a good thing, because even without proof he was hurting Kat, I still wanted to rip his throat out. Just because.
After school, when I didn’t see him show up at Kat’s house around the time he normally did, I decided to head over there earlier than we had planned. The opportunity to talk to her—hell, who was I kidding? I wasn’t passing up the opportunity to just spend time with her.
I darted up the steps, raising my hand to knock when the door opened. I frowned. “I’m really beginning to dislike the fact that you know when I’m coming.”
“I thought you loved it. It enables you to be such a great stalker.” She stepped aside.
“I’ve already told you. I don’t stalk you.” I followed her into the living room, eyeing how she walked. She seemed looser, as if the steps weren’t as pained. “I use it to keep an eye on you.”
“There’s a difference?” She sat on the couch, looking slightly disheveled in her loose sweats and thermal…with…little strawberries on it. What was it with her and fruit?
Cute.
I sat right next to her, so close our thighs touched. “There is a difference.”
“Sometimes your logic scares me.” She smoothed her hands over her pants. “So what are you doing over here so early?”
“Bill didn’t come by tonight?” I leaned back against the cushions.
She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “No. He had something to do with family.”
Family? I had suspected the asshole was hatched from an egg. My gaze roamed over her face and then slid to the laptop. The video app was open, and beside the laptop was a stack of books. “What are you doing? Making another one of those videos?”
“I was planning to. I haven’t done one in a while, but then you showed up. Plan ruined.”
I grinned. “You can still film one. I promise I’ll behave.”
“Yeah, not going to happen.”
There was a lot we needed to talk about. What I’d found at Bethany’s house last night and if it meant anything. All the shit with Blake and how she kept ending up hurt. We could scope out Vaughn’s house early, but there was something so normal about her wanting to film a video for her blog. And she had very few normal moments lately.
And giving her this moment seemed more important than anything else.
“Why not?” I raised my hand, and the book on the top of the pile flew to my hand. I glanced at it. There was a guy on the cover with curly blond hair and ice-blue eyes. I got an idea. “Hey, I have an idea. I could pretend to be him.”