Rogue (Relentless Book 3) (12 page)

Tomorrow I was going to find out what he was hiding from me. Something was weighing on him and it bothered me to see him this way.

“Greg seems different,” Roland said on the way back to the hotel.

I watched the streets go by. “He definitely has something on his mind. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

Jordan jumped in the shower as soon as we got back to our room, and I called David to tell him what I’d learned about Madeline. He said Kelvan and another friend would handle the surveillance. When I asked him if his friends minded doing all this work for us, he laughed and said, “Are you kidding? This is the most fun we’ve had in ages.”

Jordan walked out of the bathroom, toweling her hair. “All right, what’s the deal?”

“Huh?” I said, distracted.

She snapped her towel at me. “Hello, earth to Sara. How the hell did your virginity make it through high school intact with a guy like that around?”

“It’s not like that with Greg and me. We’re friends.” I decided not to mention the short-lived crush I’d had on him a few years ago.

She climbed into her bed. “Uh-huh. Well, I can’t wait to see Nikolas’s face when he gets a load of your high school friend.”

After Jordan settled down, I took a shower and got into my own bed. But my mind and body were too wound up to go to sleep. I rolled over and puffed up my pillows for the fifth time, telling myself that all the excitement tonight was the cause for my sleeplessness. But the truth was I hadn’t slept well since I’d left Westhorne.

There was one thing I knew would help me sleep. I pressed my face into the pillow.
No way.
I’d given in to that weakness the past two nights. I would not do it again.

That’s what I kept telling myself as I buried my face in the T-shirt that still carried his scent.  And when I grabbed my laptop and went into the bathroom. And when I opened the phone app and dialed the number.

“Hello?”

I closed my eyes. How could one word wreak so much havoc on my emotions, and yet fill me with a sense of peace at the same time?

“Sara? Will you talk to me tonight?”

I listened to him breathe, wanting more than anything to talk to him. The longer we were apart, the harder it was to be away from him. But I was afraid once we started talking, he’d convince me to tell him where I was.

“Okay.” He exhaled slowly. “Tristan said you sounded tired when you called him today. I know you’re not sleeping. You know you can call me anytime, even if you’re not ready to talk yet.”

A tear leaked out from beneath my closed lid.
I miss you.

“It’s late. You should try to get some sleep. Call me again tomorrow so I know you’re all right. And Sara... I need to hear your voice, too.”

Hearing him say that nearly broke me. “I’m okay,” I said hoarsely before my finger hit the button to end the call.

I sat on the edge of the bathtub, trying not to give in to my tears. All I needed was to have red puffy eyes tomorrow. It took me a few minutes to compose myself, and then I left the bathroom and slipped into bed as quietly as I could.

Jordan’s sleepy voice startled me as I pulled the covers over me. “I give you five days tops before you cave and tell him where you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have it so bad for that guy you call him every night just to hear his voice. You’re like an addict sneaking away for a fix. You even stole his T-shirt.” She rolled over, and her voice was slightly muffled by her pillow. “Forget what I said. I give you three days max.”

“Just because I miss him doesn’t mean I’m going to give up looking for Madeline. This is too important.”

“Maybe you can have both. Nikolas can be a little – okay,
a lot
– overbearing, but that’s because he just wants you to be safe. I admit he can go overboard with the whole alpha male bit, and I can definitely see how that would bug you. But you’ve both had time to cool down. I bet if you talked to him, he’d be more willing to compromise.”

I stared at the ceiling, blinking away tears. “I wish it was that simple.”

Jordan raised herself up on one elbow. “I know you’re hurting. We all do. You don’t hide it as well as you think you do.”

“I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.” I let out a shaky laugh. “Some warrior I turned out to be, huh?”

“You’re still a bit rough around the edges, but you have potential. Plus, you have excellent taste in friends.”

I wiped my eyes with the sheet. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Jordan.”

She fell back onto her pillow and yawned. “You couldn’t have stopped me if you’d tried.”

*     *     *

“Do you guys want to order in or go out?” Greg waved some takeout menus. “There’s a great Chinese place a block away and they deliver.”

I looked up from the email I’d just gotten from David. He and Kelvan had already located Adele’s home, and they were watching that and the club while they looked for any sign that Madeline was in the city. I was so lucky to have David on my side. There was no way I could have done this without his help.

“Chinese sounds great.”

“Works for me,” Jordan said, and the boys echoed her.

We decided what to order and Greg called it in. His cell phone rang a few minutes later, and he took it into the studio and shut the door. I watched him go, wishing I knew what was going on with him. We’d gotten here around noon, and I’d spent most of the afternoon catching up with him while the others enjoyed the big TV and stocked fridge. He still hadn’t confided in me about what was bothering him, but I saw worry cross his face a few times when he thought I wasn’t looking. He hadn’t slept well either, judging by the shadows under his eyes. Twice, when I thought he was close to opening up, his cell phone rang and he left the room to talk. Both times he came back looking like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Greg had always been so strong and nothing had ever seemed to get to him. It was hard seeing him like this.

After dinner, Greg grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed me a warm sweater. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

I followed him to a set of stairs I thought led to an attic. But they actually took us to the roof where his uncle had created a pretty little patio area lit by strings of lights. I walked to the edge of the roof and looked up at the Hollywood sign in the distance. “Wow, this is amazing.”

He stood beside me and set his beer on the ledge. “It’s nothing like home, is it?”

“You’re not kidding. Have you seen what women wear to clubs here? They’d get pneumonia if they dressed like that back home.”

He laughed, and it was the first real one I’d heard from him all day. “Sara, don’t ever change.”

“I’ll always be me, but some change is good.”

“True.” He took a long drink from his beer and leaned against the ledge, looking out at the city. “I’ll never forget the day you started at St. Patrick’s. You looked so shy when you walked in with Roland, and then at lunch you ran off two guys who were messing with Jeffrey.”

I thought back to my first day of high school. “I don’t remember seeing you that day.”

He laughed deeply. “No, you didn’t, but I saw you. Everyone saw you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You were just different. All the other girls were trying to get the guys’ attention, but you were doing everything
not
to be noticed. And you talked only to Roland and Peter, ignoring the rest of us.”

I made a face. “Was I really that stuck up?”

Greg laughed again. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. You just seemed content to do your own thing. What you didn’t know is that a pretty girl ignoring a bunch of high school boys is like waving a red flag at them.”

I was glad the darkness hid my blush. “I think you might be exaggerating a bit.”

“Have you ever known me to exaggerate? I couldn’t figure out what it was about you, but I wanted to get to know you.” He gave me a sideways look. “I didn’t give a shit for anyone in that school, so it shocked the hell out of me. I can still remember your face when me and Mike sat at your table. You were reading some old book and you looked like you wanted to tell us to get lost.”

I smiled at the memory. “Well, Mike
was
kind of loud.”

“I thought you were going to take off, but you just went back to your book.” He stared at the city. “I wasn’t exactly a nice person back then. Anyone besides you would have run away.”

“I knew there were things out there a lot scarier than you.” I sipped my beer. “And I actually liked you guys.”

“I don’t know why you liked us. We were on the fast track to nowhere back then.” He turned his face toward me. “I know your uncle didn’t think much of me, and he was right. I was bad news, and I don’t blame him for not wanting me around you.”

“Nate and I didn’t agree on a lot of things. And you weren’t that bad. You were always good to me.”

He frowned. “Before I met you I was a total asshole. I had a juvie record, and I was headed down a pretty bad road. Mike and me were all ready to drop out and join up with a bike gang out of Boston. They were hard core. You had to pull an armed robbery in order to get into the gang.”

His revelation stunned me. I knew he’d had a bad rep, but I’d never thought of him as a criminal. “What stopped you?”

“You did.”

“Me?”

“There was something about you that made me want to be a better person.” He blew out his breath. “I know that sounds cheesy, but it’s true. After I met you, I didn’t want to do that crazy stuff anymore.”

It took me a minute to recover from my shock. “Remember what I told you last night about me being half undine? It can affect humans, especially guys, and they start acting different around me.”

“Maybe that’s true, and it might be what made me sit at your table, but you’re a good person, Sara. You were too good for me and the rest of the guys back home.”

“Is that why you threatened violence on any boy at school who hurt me?” I smiled at his look of surprise. “Roland told me.”

He grinned, not the least bit embarrassed. “I meant it, too.”

“Greg, I –” I started to asked him again about whatever had been worrying him, but I was interrupted by his cell phone.

“Sorry, have to take this.” He walked to the other side of the roof and I watched him as he spoke to the caller. His voice rose a few times and I picked up snatches of the conversation. I heard him say the name Draegan several times, as well as his uncle’s and cousin’s names. He looked haggard when he hung up and joined me again.

I crossed my arms and confronted him before he even reached me. “Greg, who was that? What is going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You look like hell every time you get one of those calls.”

He drank down the last of his beer. “It’s just family stuff. I told you my cousin is having a rough time.”

I wasn’t going to let him off the hook this time. I’d seen real fear on his face a minute ago. “Who is Draegan, and what does he have to do with your cousin?”

Panic flashed in his eyes before he schooled his expression. “He’s no one,” he answered in a hard voice. “Leave it alone, Sara.”

“Don’t do that,” I pleaded. “I know you’re in trouble, and I’m betting it has to do with your uncle. Tell me. Maybe I can help you.”

He sighed roughly. “You can’t help me with this. No one can.”

The defeat in his voice shook me. Greg had never sounded so helpless. I laid my hand on his arm. “How do you know that if you don’t tell me what it is?”

He pulled away and put a few feet between us. “I’m not getting you involved in this. It’s too dangerous.”

“Greg, in the last few months, I have been attacked by vampires, demons, witches, mutant hyenas, you name it. I’ve seen things that would give anyone nightmares for the rest of their lives. I can take care of myself, and I’m not alone. I have two werewolves and a Mohiri warrior downstairs. You know Roland and Peter will want to help you, too. Trust me when I tell you we are exactly the people you want to get involved in this.”

He reached for his beer and saw it was empty. I handed him my bottle which was still half full. He took a long swig before he looked at me again. “I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can.” I took his hand, something I’d never done before, and his callused fingers closed around mine. “Just tell me, and we’ll figure it out together.”

He made an angry noise and pulled me over to the patio area. Once we were seated on the couch, he raked his hands through his hair. I waited quietly for him to speak.

“In June, my cousin Danny got sick and they found out it was leukemia. He went through a round of treatments, and the doctors told Uncle Leo and Aunt Mary that it didn’t look good. In October, he just went into remission. The doctors didn’t know what to make of it.

“Then Uncle Leo was killed in a car crash on his way to visit them. It was a big blow, especially with everything Danny was going through. Aunt Mary couldn’t leave him so she asked me to come out here and take care of everything for her. It was only supposed to take a week or so. But a few days after I got here, a guy showed up at the door, saying he worked for someone named Draegan, and he was here to collect on a debt Uncle Leo owed him. I told him I needed to see proof of how much money Uncle Leo owed, and we would pay him when we sold off this place.”