Obsession (Dangerous Love #1)

CHAPTER 12

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PROTECTING THE DEVIL

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I went home with Kristen and Candice. We had planned to spend the day together, not just to relax, but to help each other with the screaming dolls. I was going to do some serious research on this project to find out what smartass had invented it or if our teacher had just been making fun of us.

When Kristen turned onto my street, my whole bad day suddenly exceeded my breaking point.

I glued myself to the window to make sure what I was seeing was actually in front of my house and not a neighbor’s.

It was in front of mine. A police car was parked in our driveway, behind my dad’s car.

Kristen looked at it with the same shock I did, and I immediately yanked the door open.

“We can wait here if you want. Or we can leave if it’s not a good time,” Kristen suggested.

I swallowed and tried not to imagine the most horrible scenarios. A police car had no reason to be at my house. Maybe my dad had made some new friends – or reconnected with some old ones – and they were visiting.

“Can you wait here?” was all I could say, and they both nodded.

I got out of the car and ran to the house, forgetting my bag.

I jumped over the stairs and opened the door. As hard as I tried to stay positive, my heart was pounding in my chest.

God, after losing my mother, I couldn’t bear the pain of something happening to him too.

“Dad,” I called out.

“In here, Katherine!”

I breathed out all the stress and went into the living room, where I saw him sitting on the couch. A man in civilian clothes was sitting in front of him, and that calmed me down a little.

As soon as I made sure my father was okay, the fear came back, only from a different direction. I would have liked to say that the police had no business in our house, but that would have been a lie. There were many reasons, one of which was the fact that I was still using drugs regularly, even during school hours.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

The man stood up and came towards me. I tried to sit up straight and not give him any cause for suspicion.

“Hi, Katherine. I’m Detective Shane Walker from the SPD. Please calm down, I’m not here because you or your father are in trouble.”

He flashed his badge. A detective. I continued to panic. That explained his lack of uniform. He was one of the important people who always went after the big sharks, not high school druggies.

He smiled at me like he would at a scared animal, and I probably looked like one too.

“Nice to meet you,” I shook his hand.

Over his shoulder, I saw my father’s exhausted face. Tired and … angry. It was clearly my fault that this detective was in our house. I turned my attention back to him.

“Did you happen to hear about the incident on Saturday afternoon, Katherine? The incident that happened during the preparations for the “My Ballard” fair?”

I frowned in confusion. This discussion had taken a strange turn.

I looked at my father.

“Are you talking about the boy who died?”

He nodded.

“His death wasn’t an accident. Someone pushed him off the building.”

A cold shiver ran down my spine and I looked at the detective in increasing shock. He was quite young, barely over thirty, with short black hair and a muscular body, apparently as tall as Harris. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, but he was a man of the law, the kind you wouldn’t want stalking you.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but what do I have to do with it?”

“After interviewing the witnesses, we found out that you had a conflict with the victim not long before he died.”

My heart stopped.

“I wouldn’t exaggerate; it wasn’t really a conflict, but yes, he was around me.”

He looked at my father as if asking his permission for something. My father nodded, and before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, he opened the folder he was holding and handed me an A4 sheet of paper. A picture of a boy.

I frowned for a moment because I couldn’t recognize him, then I remembered and tried to stifle my whimpering.

It was the boy who had tried to help me with the jars of honey.

He was still alive in the photo, but then he gave me a different image and I couldn’t suppress the wince anymore.

I wouldn’t have been able to recognize him if I had seen the second photo first. He was… crushed.

I covered my mouth with my hand and turned my head.

“Judging by your reaction, I’d say you knew him.”

The way he analyzed me made me frown, but I tried to stay calm and suppress my reactions, to put on the shield, because the situation had gotten ugly as shit, and I was in no mood to be blamed for the boy’s death.

“You showed me a picture of a crushed corpse, how should I react to that?” I scolded, and he immediately shoved the photos back into his folder.

“I’m sorry, but I wanted you to know who we were talking about.”

“But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw him for a minute on Saturday; if that. He wanted to help me put the jars of honey on the shelves. I didn’t see him before that, I don’t even know his name.”

“Tristan Reece. He was nineteen.” I ran my fingers through my hair and tried to stay calm. “What happened after that?” he continued.

“What?”

“What happened after he tried to help you?”

I peered into his steely blue eyes, which looked like two sharp daggers. This was what he wanted, and I realized he wasn’t after me with this case.

He wanted to get to Harris.

I raised my shield even higher.

“He didn’t get to help. I slipped and nearly fell off the platform. I didn’t see Tristan after that.”

“I get the impression you’re deliberately keeping someone out of the story, Katherine.”

My father walked up to me and gave me a look that said I was probably going to be grounded again.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and looked him straight in the eye. It wasn’t the first time I’d dealt with someone like him, maybe not a detective, but they were all the same. They thought they were highly intelligent and manipulative.

“Why don’t you tell me what you already know?”

The corner of his mouth tilted up slightly. He opened his fabulous portfolio again and showed me another picture.

I had to control myself with every fiber of my being not to flinch when I saw Harris. He had been secretly photographed, as you could easily see from the picture. Tristan’s photo was a selfie, probably from one of his social media profiles. Harris didn’t have one, I already knew that. He had been photographed from a distance, but his facial features were clearly recognizable. He was standing next to his car, frowning like I’ve come to know quite well.

“I know him, yes. He’s a classmate and was there on Saturday. We helped Iolanda together. He was the one who saved me from falling.”

I couldn’t believe he was going to drag Harris into this just because he’d grabbed the guy by the collar and pulled him off the platform.

The detective smiled again and let me keep the picture. I felt the need to take it, even though I didn’t know why.

“Then let me explain this case in simpler terms, I realize I have confused you. The incident happened half an hour after the security camera showed you and Harris Stone leaving the fair. We still don’t know how Tristan ended up there, we can’t explain how he could have been tricked into climbing the building. He was the son of the smallest local peanut butter producer; he had no place to hang posters. He fell in the middle of the square, in front of everyone. The cameras don’t help us much because we only have a few blind spots of Tristan and a man entering the building, but we can’t make out any features of the man. It’s way too far away, and we can barely make out that it’s a man. There are no pictures of the rest of the scene. The building is the tallest in the area, and no surveillance camera is pointed at that rooftop. We have no video or picture of the moment Tristan was pushed off the roof, only statements from witnesses who saw the incident. It all happened too quickly, and the murderer disappeared without a trace before anyone had the courage to go up there or call the police. All the leads we had until this morning were dead ends. The boy was friends with everyone, his family is respected in the community, so we assumed it was revenge. We suspected it was a competitor of the Reeces. But this morning we got a very interesting statement from one of his brothers, who suddenly remembered the guy who almost beat up Tristan just before he died.”

It had been quite a long explanation, but the ending was the only part that interested me. I wrapped my arms around myself while my father looked at me with an unreadable expression.

The detective opened that damn folder again and read from it:

“If you drop her, I’ll kill you.”

He looked at me. He didn’t need to explain, I’d heard those words perfectly well when they came out of Harris’ mouth while I was holding on for dear life to that damn scaffolding.

I maintained my neutral expression. I knew full well the trap he was setting. He was looking for other witnesses, other people who had heard the same threat. I had fallen into this trap many times before and had gotten my friends arrested. Or others had gotten me arrested.

“You expect me to confirm that Harris said that? I was hanging on a platform twenty feet off the ground.”

“So, you didn’t hear the threat?” he raised his eyebrows.

I shook my head with bored seriousness. I allowed myself a few seconds to study the case in my head. I couldn’t deny that Harris had dragged Tristan off the platform, they had pictures of that. But I was sure there was no sound in those pictures. Those who had heard Harris were probably just Tristan’s friends and family. Important testimony for the case, but not as important as that of an unrelated witness.

“I didn’t hear any threats. Right after he pulled him down, I slipped, and he was just talking to me.”

“That’s what Iolanda said, too,” my father interjected with an angry expression.

A spark of hope flared up in me.

Was my father on my side?

The man in front of me grimaced. He obviously didn’t like my answers. He wasn’t going to receive any incriminating answers if that was why he had come.

“You didn’t fall, but Tristan did. He fell off a ten-story building.”

My lips pressed together into a line, and the bitterness in my throat increased.

He sighed and looked at me with a little more humanity.

“You’re not accused of anything, Katherine. We’re following up another lead,” he glanced at the photograph in my hand.

“You want to accuse him? That’s absurd. We went home together, Iolanda can confirm it.”

“She already has. She’s pretty determined to defend Stone, too.”

After hearing that, I loved her even more.

“You’re right, Katherine, it’s absurd. It would be if we were talking about anyone else, but this is not just any boy.”

I did not like the change in his tone, and another lump formed in my throat.

“If you knew Harris Stone as well as I do, you’d understand why I think he’s guilty of Tristan’s murder.”

My heart made another painful leap in my chest. He kept offering me half-baked details without saying anything directly.

Associating Harris with a criminal made me nauseous. It couldn’t be true. Instinctively, I looked at his photo. He looked like the same good-looking boy I knew. He wasn’t a murderer. Especially not in this case. I’d been in the same car with him after the thing on the platform and he hadn’t even broached the subject again. Our conversation – and our actions – had gone in a completely different direction.

Then he left.

Very quickly.

Even if there were some details that aroused suspicion, that still was not enough to consider him guilty of something like this. Harris had been in a hurry even before the incident with Tristan.

“Then why don’t you talk to him?” I asked when I’d finally gathered my thoughts.

“Because, like I said, he’s not a random person. It’s impossible to get to him without a warrant, and the case against him is still too weak for that. They have more lawyers than my entire precinct can hold, so I think I have answered your question.”

I widened my eyes, and so did my father. He looked at me as if he was wondering who I had gotten involved with this time. I wondered that too.

I couldn’t get it out of my head that he’d said ‘they’, so Harris wasn’t the only one they were after.

“You have a rap sheet too; I have studied it. Yours is a piece of cake. If you saw his, you’d think twice before getting in the car with him.”

It was extremely difficult to keep my emotions in check. I felt like I was constantly being slapped by invisible hands.

The detective sighed again.

“I’ve been after this guy for a long time, Katherine. It’s nothing new for me to have his file on my desk. If he’s guilty, I’m going to get him this time, no matter what.”

He held eye contact, and I barely blinked.

“You left with him shortly after the platform incident, the cameras show his car pulling out of the lot and then disappearing. Where did he take you?”

His questions became direct, and my answers were to be the same.

“Home.”

“Did he leave right after?”

I looked at my father and knew my answer would have serious consequences, but I couldn’t let Harris fall into this guy’s clutches. I got the impression that he didn’t really think Harris was guilty, but he still wanted to catch him. It was an old case for him, and I didn’t want to be his little sidekick.

“No. He came in.”

“What?”

This time my father spoke with wide eyes, and I found it hard not to look at him, but I didn’t break eye contact with the detective, who narrowed his eyes at me.

“How long did he stay?”

“I didn’t count the minutes; I didn’t think it would be useful.”

“Was it more than half an hour?”

No.

The answer hurt. Harris hadn’t been in the house for more than five minutes before he left. Our kiss had been intense but brief, as had our conversation afterward, because someone had called him. The call seemed to annoy him more than anything. He didn’t look like he was having any murderous urges.

So, I looked the detective straight in the eye and said:

“At least an hour.”

My dad was about to explode, but I’d deal with him later. The guy looked at me with narrowed eyes, analyzing me like a fucking lie detector, but I remained calm and serious. I wasn’t the first junkie he’d dealt with, but he wasn’t my first cop either. Many like him had looked at me with the same eyes and forced me to spit out the names of those who had sold me drugs.

Officially, I had volunteered myself into a huge shitstorm.

“Do you know what can happen if your statement turns out to be false, Katherine?

He was trying to scare me, but I would not go back on my words under any circumstances.

I nodded. If he asked one of my neighbors how long Harris’s car had been parked in front of my house, he’d easily find out that I’d been lying through my teeth.

“Right now, you’re his alibi. If things go wrong, you’ll have to testify in court. Are you sure you want to maintain your testimony?”

If I had not been familiar with this blackmail formula, I would have been more afraid. Probably.

“I have already told you everything, Detective. I do not think details about what happened that hour are necessary.”

My father looked at me as if to say that I was going to get into a lot of trouble because of the things he had found out.

Shane Walker didn’t answer, he smiled again. He knew I was lying, but there was nothing he could do about it. For the moment. He’d come to persuade me to hand him Harris on a silver platter, and he’d failed.

“All right, then. If you don’t mind, I’ll check your statement regarding that hour. I’m sure a car like his doesn’t go unnoticed by the neighbors.”

I struggled not to swallow.

He took out his card and handed it to me.

“If you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

I nodded and took his card. I would never call him.

He turned to my father.

“It was nice to meet you, Christopher. Katherine.”

He bowed and headed for the door. Neither of us accompanied him out. I stood there for a minute or so, staring into space, then my eyes wandered to Harris’s photo.

My father seemed just as shocked as I was, which is why he was at a loss for words. Finally, he came up to me and took my chin between his fingers.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

He surprised me. I had expected screams and threats.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Iolanda told me everything that happened, she’s all on Harris’s side.”

I smiled briefly.

“So am I.”

“I noticed,” he narrowed his eyes at me. “She also said he’s a very nice boy, but why do I get the impression that he’s anything but nice.”

“Because you only know him from what the detective said. It looks to me like he’s got a dead case and he’s trying to find someone to pin it on because otherwise he doesn’t know who threw the boy off the building.”

My father looked at the floor for a few seconds, then ran his fingers through his hair.

“I’d ask what he was doing in the house, but I’ll spare myself that conversation.”

He looked at me with evil seriousness.

“Dad, please, trust me.”

He sighed.

“I do trust you but promise me you’ll be smart this time and not get yourself into trouble. Not in this town.”

I nodded and tried to remain serious.

He looked at his watch and told me he had to go. At that moment, I remembered Kristen and Candice.

I ran to the door, thinking they were probably already gone, but Kristen’s car was still in the same spot. I waved for them to come in.

The detective was already gone, he didn’t stop to question any of my neighbors, but that did not mean he wouldn’t come back to do it.

As if my day wasn’t already the shittiest ever, my doll was howling as loud as it could. Kristen had shoved it in the backpack and locked it in the trunk so my neighbors couldn’t hear it.

“Thank God you came! Make that thing shut up before someone calls the police because there’s a baby crying in my trunk.”

I took it out, and since it didn’t want any of the things they had tried, I turned it over and took the lid off. It stopped crying when my fingerprint touched the “mommy” square. Thank the gods it didn’t need daddy.

After a sigh of relief, I noticed my friends looking at me with wide eyes. They wanted to know the details, of course.

“Can we go in first?” I asked them.

“Not until you tell me what in God’s name you did to get a visit from… that.”

I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“That?”

Kristen punched me in the shoulder while Candice grinned like a perverted, red-headed devil.

“You know what I mean. I think he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. I’m green with envy that I didn’t go in with you.”

“You mean the detective?”

“No, I mean your neighbor with the two kids,” she snapped at me again, but this time I returned the blow because it was annoying.

“Kill someone, you’re sure to get a visit,” I whispered.

They both gasped, and I started laughing as I motioned for them to follow me. Candice’s mouth was already full of questions.

I hadn’t had time to analyze Shane Walker’s attractiveness, not when I knew what he was after. Maybe he would have been cute if he had not tried to turn me into a rat. And, frankly, I’d had enough of good-looking men.

We went in together and went upstairs, where I felt the need to throw myself on the bed and stare at the ceiling for a while. They were quiet now, unusually quiet, and I had no idea how to explain to them what had happened. Should I have told them the truth or lied?

I sat up.

“It was about the boy who died on Saturday. I was there just before he… fell off the building.”

They both seemed quiet as they sat down next to me.

“And what did he want from you?”

“Nothing, he just asked if I’d seen anything suspicious, but I didn’t even know the boy’s name.”

Apparently, I was getting better at lying because none of them seemed to suspect anything.

My doll started crying again.

“Ah, I’ve had it with this thing,” I shouted and threw it down on the bed.

My fingerprint didn’t help this time, so it either wanted something to eat or a new diaper. I seriously considered wrapping it in a blanket and throwing it in the basement.

“But you weren’t right when you said it looked like Harris. He doesn’t talk that much, he… acts,” Kristen said as she punched the air a few times.

I rolled my eyes.

“Yeah, this project is illogical. I think our teacher is trying to make fun of us. I should have been more insistent about him being paired with that idiot,” I said as I shoved the bottle in the doll’s mouth to get it to shut up.

“Have you seen the tattoo on Amber’s neck?” Kristen asked suddenly.

“Yes.”

I wasn’t sure what her tattoo had to do with our conversation. Anything to do with Amber pissed me off, and I still couldn’t figure out how that bitch knew about my mom.

“He gave her that tattoo. It’s Stone’s mark so everyone knows she’s his girl and they should stay away. I’d say he’s a bit crazy, but you have probably already figured that out. He never gets involved with a girl who has belonged to someone else before or at least been in a serious relationship, especially if she’s not a virgin. He wants to be the first and apparently the last, because no one gets close to a girl who has the S on her neck, even if Harris has dumped her.”

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, unsure if she was joking or if she was serious.

“You’re kidding, right?”

Kristen didn’t sketch anything.

“So now you understand why Amber is so desperate. Not only does she risk losing Harris, who she’s obviously crazy about, but she also risks no guy ever getting close to her, especially since their relationship lasted quite a while. It wasn’t anything serious because it’s not his style, but he cares about what’s his.”

I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen her tattoo countless times before, but I hadn’t even considered that it was Harris’ mark.

“That’s why I always tell you to stay away from him. The guy’s a maniac, and most importantly, he’s dangerous. He gets angry out of the blue, he loses control and reason. You saw what he did to Zac just because he tried to take you away from him. He’s clearly out to get you, Kath, so try to stay away from him before it’s too late.”

What he did to Zac… that was rather minor, I wondered how she would have reacted if I’d told her what Harris was suspected of.

“What’s the deal with this Joshua guy? Are Harris and him in a competition or something?” I asked, trying to get more information out of her since Harris hadn’t told me anything.

Kristen shrugged her shoulders.

“No clue. I know they belong to the same track, but I don’t think they’re friends. They’re part of different groups and Joshua can’t take on Harris. He probably liked you, and that didn’t sit well with Harris.”

I bit my lip and thought. The way he said he’d take me whether Harris was at school or not proved exactly which way Joshua liked me. It had nothing to do with a crush. Maybe he was an asshole, but Harris never talked to me the way Joshua did, not to mention how many opportunities he had to fool around with me but stopped. “He knows what he’s doing, Kath, he likes to play. He will confuse you in ways you can’t even imagine. He will lay the world at your feet and then cut them off when you’re not looking. You’re not the first. You’re his priority now, but someone else will come along later and you will be just like Amber. He’s not the type to sleep with a different girl every night, but what he does to the ones he chooses is much worse, because they hope to get his love and end up in shambles when they realize they will never get it. He picks one, molds her to his liking, teaches her everything he likes, and plays with her until he gets bored, then moves on. That demon nickname of suits him in many ways.”

I looked to the ground as I analyzed the new information. I had already pieced some of it together myself, but Kristen offered me a much scarier version of things. I still couldn’t believe that Harris was so insane that he was marking his girlfriend like an animal. And how crazy could they be to get marked like that? But something told me that Amber liked it, that she wanted it, and that everything was fine in her life until I showed up and became Stone’s latest obsession.

Was I really? Was he going to do the same thing to me? I had just been given another reason to stay as far away from him as possible, but part of me blamed myself for that becoming impossible. I knew it was bad, and yet I couldn’t help it.

I still had his photo in my pocket, which I had folded and hidden before I went to get the girls.

Not only had I not stayed away, but I had also just risked my freedom to protect him.

And yet I didn’t regret it. I thought Harris was capable of a lot of things, but something told me he had nothing to do with the boy’s death. There was no reason. It was stupid, because Zac should have been dead by now if Harris had been crazy enough to throw guys off buildings just for daring to help to me.

Zac hadn’t gotten away unscathed, but a beating didn’t compare to murder.

The rest of the day was a girl’s day of trying to forget about Harris and everything to do with him, and although it wasn’t exactly my style to laugh and joke while eating ice cream and watching a stupid comedy, it felt good.

The hardest part was not thinking about Tristan Reece’s case, about the risks I’d taken with my words. After all, I hadn’t given a written, signed statement, so he couldn’t hold me responsible for what I’d said in my house.

I was glad that my doll was quiet, while Candice’s girl hadn’t cried a bit, which was annoying as hell. At that moment, Kristen’s electronic heir had gone nuts. And it was really amusing to watch her curse Jay’s entire spiky ancestry, because he had left her alone with changing diaper. That thing really stank. Stupidest project I’ve ever participated in, as if I was planning on having a baby anytime soon and didn’t have enough time to figure out how to change a diaper.

But if the plan was to scare us into thinking twice about having unprotected sex, it worked. Kristen was already thinking about finding a permanent birth control method.

I felt like I was in an episode of “16 and Pregnant”,” except I was eighteen and the baby’s daddy couldn’t resist redheads.

I imagined a tall girl with a flawless silhouette and fiery red hair, that S painted onto her neck, her lips begging to be kissed by Harris.

I gritted my teeth and shook my head. Stop thinking about him.

For fuck’s sake, STOP THINKING ABOUT HIM.

“Okay, Max Woltson or Richard Benner?” Kristen asked with a mischievous smile as she showed us the catalog with the football team photos.

Boys’ talk was a must at a girls’ party.

“Max,” Candice replied as she bit her lip.

“I don’t like his face, he seems diabolical,” I argued, getting into the game.

Kristen looked at me with narrowed eyes and I quickly understood why and stuck my tongue out at her. I had the audacity to talk about diabolical guys.

We were interrupted in our debate by my doll, that started screaming again.

I could hardly stop myself from screaming.

“I won’t last two days with this thing,” I said, taking the bottle and shoving it in its mouth, but it wouldn’t shut up.

I checked the diaper…. it was dry.

“Why won’t it shut up?” I yelled, shaking the doll a few times.

“Stop that,” Candice quickly jumped up, took the doll out of my hands, and started to cradle it.

The minutes passed and the plastic baby just wouldn’t shut up and I was on the verge of throwing it out the window. Luckily my dad wasn’t home, otherwise he would have panicked if he had heard a baby crying in my room.

“I think you need to scan your fingerprint again,” Kristen suggested, and I did as she said, praying it would work.

I pressed my finger on it more than once, but this time it was useless. It kept crying, and I was already imagining my grade, considering my baby cried eight minutes out of ten.

“Maybe it needs the father’s fingerprint,” Candice suggested, and it hit me like a hammer.

“No way. You’re not bringing Stone here,” Kristen took the doll from my hand and put her finger on the button.

“That’s it, I’m calling him,” I gave in after the thing had been screaming for minutes.

“No,” Kristen shouted. “Kath don’t, please. We’ll find a way to shut it up.”

“Calm down. He’ll come over, shut that thing up and then leave. I’m not going to fail the class because of him.”

“If he comes over here, he won’t leave.”

I shook my head, ignoring her. They both looked frightened, but I couldn’t stand the screaming any longer and shoved the doll under a pillow.

I called him and waited while Kristen kept mumbling “no” and I rolled my eyes at her overreaction.

“He’s coming here,” Candice whispered.

Yeah, that was the whole point. I motioned for them to be quiet and focused on the call.

An annoying beep sounded, and the call was disconnected.

“Fuck, he’s not answering,” I muttered angrily, while Kristen and Candice sighed in relief. Cowards.

The doll still wouldn’t shut up.

I picked it up from the bed, turned it on all sides and then banged its head against the pillow.

“For fuck’s sake, if he doesn’t come to stop this thing, I’m going to break it. A mother should be able to make her baby stop crying on her own. Stupid project,” I cursed and called him again.

“Come on, Kath, we’ll find a way to shut it up. Don’t make him come here,” Candice pleaded, looking out the open window.

It was already dark outside.

“Shut up,” I muttered, just before that stupid beep sounded again.

Damn it, where was his phone?

Angrily, I dialed his number another time, and I wouldn’t stop until he picked up his fucking phone. How long was he going to stay with that redhead?

This time it only rang once, then he picked it up, and I winced as I heard the sounds on the other end. It seemed like he had his phone in the middle of a tornado.

“What?” he answered.

He seemed agitated, and the noises around him seemed to be coming from an engine, actually many engines.

“Harris, you have to come and stop…”

“Katherine?” he interrupted, seemingly surprised.

He seemed so preoccupied that he didn’t bother to check the call before answering.

“Listen, Katherine, I’m a little busy at the moment, I’ll call you later.”

I could barely make out what he was saying because of the loud noises around him. He was driving, probably in the middle of a race or something. A strange and ridiculous joy spread through me when I realized he wasn’t in the arms of who I thought he was.

“No, Harris…” I began, but my heart rose into my throat as the loud boom of a gunshot pierced my eardrums, and then more of the same.

“Harris!” I screamed, fear seeping out of me as all I heard was loud braking and then the connection was cut.

I stood there paralyzed, holding the phone to my ear.

“Kath, what’s wrong?” Kristen jumped out of bed and came to me.

I let her take the phone from my hand while I looked at the screen, which had switched off. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. The sound of the gunshot was still echoing in my ears, and I realized that this was no ordinary illegal race.

With ragged breath, I took the phone back and called him again as quickly as I could, but this time it didn’t ring, and the robot’s voice made my heart explode with fear.

What had happened to him?

“Katherine, what happened?” they both asked this time.

I wasn’t sure if I should tell them or not.

“Nothing, um, I need to use the restroom.”

I walked past them, then left the room and went to the restroom in the hallway.

I filled my hands with water and then splashed my face. I looked at my horrified expression in the mirror. The thought that something bad might have happened to him scared me more than usual. Whatever this boy was, whatever he was planning to do to me, the fact that something terrible might have happened was stronger than that, and for a moment I stopped trying to find an explanation for my feelings.

When I returned to my room, I tried to call him again, but I couldn’t reach him.

After a while, Kristen and Candice stopped asking questions and decided to leave. I was still parallel to everything that was going on around me. I didn’t care about the screaming doll as I brought my knees up to my chest on the bed and thought about what I had heard. I even thought about going to the hospital and asking if he had come to the emergency room.

He lived in a fucking neighborhood where people shot each other without much reason.

I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about him, and now it was even worse than the afternoon because the gunshot was imprinted on my mind.

A slight knock interrupted my thoughts and made me look up from my knees.

When I saw Harris on the other side of my balcony door, I whimpered.