“Oh c’mon,” she said as I fetched two glasses from the kitchenette attached to the living room. “You can’t hide here forever.”
“Can’t I?” I sank in the couch, placing the glasses on the coffee table.
“Not if you wanna get your degree.” She blew a big puff of the joint and handed it to me. Then she opened the bottle and poured our shots. “You worked so hard to get back to school. You can’t throw that away because you think some dicks will look at you funny for being involved with the wrong boyfriend.”
Wrong. No better way to describe it. Being with Dusty was wrong from the start. Wrong and twisted and sick.
Who could find love in such dark places where we’d been trapped? How could I’ve fallen for him so hard knowing exactly who he was? How could I’ve fallen at all after what had happened to my sister? How could he after what I’d done to him?
But we did, and it felt so fucking good. Not wrong at all. Perfect. Everything that had been traumatizing me since Annie’s abduction, all the pain, the sadness, the heartache I couldn’t shake on my own, melted under Dusty’s scorching touch. He burned it all away, replacing it with everything I’d ever been searching for my whole life.
Love.
Trust.
A lump blocked my throat that I pushed down with the vodka, the weed already kicking in. “I know we didn’t look like the right fit, but he was… Everything was going so well. He was going to leave and stay here with me…” Tears streamed down my face, hushing me.
“Cameron, you gotta focus on your future, girl. You’re going to be an engineer. A great one. And you’ll have your own harem of sexy big man candies that aren’t on a killing spree.”
I couldn’t laugh. Actually, I got upset. I didn’t want a harem of anything. Wrong or not, I wanted Dusty. The idea of being with someone else was…beyond my imagination.
“Do you think…?” I bit my lip in pain as I imagined him thinking about being with someone else. Rosewood must have been swarming with sluts throwing themselves at him now.
“Cameron!”
Ashley’s yelp and the sound of glass breaking made me flinch. I glanced at her and then at my hand where she was staring. Fuck. I broke a glass absentmindedly just at the possibility of him with another woman. “Shit.”
“I’ll get you a towel and the first-aid kit.” She jumped off the couch. “You think we should go to the ER?”
“No. I’ll be fine.” I gazed at the blood and shattered glass in my palm. I took some of the pieces out of my skin and poured some vodka on the wounds. It seared my flesh, but I wished it’d hurt ten times harder to mask the fire blazing inside me.
CHAPTER 6
Dusty
The afternoon sun penetrating the tall trees and falling on my face woke me up. I squinted at it as I sat straight. My fingers ran through my hair, and dirt and dry leaves fell off. Great, I’d slept in the woods.
Standing, I dusted my jeans, and then I fished out my phone out of it. A few missed call alerts and text notifications were stuck on the screen but none from Cammie. Of course.
Without thinking, I called her. My heart banged as I anxiously waited to hear her voice, my feet crunching the twigs back to the house, the annoying dial tone ringing in my ear.
“Not here. Leave a message or call back later,” her voicemail answered.
I knew she wouldn’t pick up, but I needed to hear her voice, even if it was in that stupid message.
I called again. This time I spoke after the beep. “Just making sure you’re all right. Please just let me know.” I reached the front yard. A few brothers scattered around in the party aftermath, and Mama was standing on the porch, her eyes narrowed my way. “I love you, Cameron.” My thumb tapped the red icon as Mama marched toward me.
She rubbed my arms, raking me from head to toe. “What the hell happened to you? When did you come back?”
“Last night.”
“Did you spend the night out in the woods?” she asked in disbelief.
I glared at her, anger hitting again. I wouldn’t forget she and mytrustworthyVP contributed to last night’s disaster. “Where’s Rush?”
“What the fuck? Why did you sleep outside? And didn’t you say you’d return on Monday? What the hell is going on?”
“She broke up with me. That’s what’s going on. Happy?” My chest heaved with heat and pain. “Now where the fuck is Rush?!”