Into the Light (University of Isles #2)

28. Chapter 28

Chapter twenty-eight

I woke up gasping for air, as if someone was suffocating me. I pushed up into bed and glanced around the room. It was early morning and dawn was about to crest around the trees. Rain shifted beneath me.

“What’s wrong?” he murmured through sleepy eyes.

“I know what my brother was talking about. I need to go to his rock.”

I didn’t know how, but it hit me all of a sudden. The panic bubbled through me, but this time it wasn’t because I was scared.

“Now?” The morning light was barely making its way into the room when I leaped out of bed and searched for some clean clothes in the duffle.

“Immediately,” I demanded, and Rain only agreed before following, although far slower than I was.

“What’s gotten into you?” he grumbled.

I didn’t know how to answer it, but something in my dreams alerted me. My brother’s words caressed my mind. He said that he promised to keep Ash’s secrets. My brother was highly calculated in everything he did. The way my brother hesitated before telling me he couldn’t tell me anything was a confession in and of itself.

My brother wasn’t at fault here, but he was there that night, and I needed to figure out what he knew. I think the answer had been staring us in the face the entire time, I just needed to prove it.

“My brother told you that I just needed to open my eyes, right? That the answer was right in front of me?”

“That’s what he told me, too,” Rain said, still in a sleepy tone.

“It was either my mother or him, but when I was sleeping, I had this weird premonition that told me to go back to his rock.”

“Okay.”

“So, I need to go back there right now because I think we forgot something.”

“Okay.” Rain repeated.

“I know I probably sound crazy right now,” I said as I shoved my legs into some jeans and then grabbed a clean sweater.

“Can we come back for the muddy clothes?” I wrinkled my nose because they smelled awful, and I didn’t want to drive all the way to his rock with them in my bag.

“Of course.” A smile finally spread across his face. “And you don’t sound crazy. You sound confident. I love that about you,” he mused.

He grabbed my wrists just as I finished shoving them through the sweater, and my eyes met his deep blues.

“Hey,” he whispered, “I love you?” It was a statement but the way his tone lilted at the end made it sound like a question. Like everything we’d dreamed of last night was not true.

He was unsure—hesitant.

“Why are you worried?” I asked.

He scoffed. “It’s hard competing with him.” I wrapped his arms around me and pressed my body against his chest.

“There is no competition. You are right here. I love you.”

I gave him a kiss on his soft lips before pulling away. “I love you,” I repeated over and over again, and peppered him with kisses between the words.

“Okay, okay.” He chuckled as he pushed me away softly. “I get it.” I gave him a grin before I zipped the bag and headed toward the front door.

“We’ll be back soon though, right?”

A mischievous grin lit up his face. “Why, princesa? You want me to chase you in the woods again?” A laugh echoed as I slammed the door in his face.

“I wouldn’t be opposed to it,” I bellowed as I walked to the ATV and hopped on the back. Rain laughed as he locked up the little hunting cabin, then jumped onto the ATV before grabbing my hands so I could wrap them around his waist.

As the wind whipped through my hair, my arms tightened around Rain, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief. Like somehow the answers I was desperately searching for were at the tips of my fingers.