Chapter Thirteen Delaney

Chapter Thirteen

Delaney

Now: Saturday, 2:00 a.m.

I wake up with a jolt from the kind of lucid sleep where real and dream blur. I could have sworn I heard the mechanical tick of the bear clock from downstairs. Tick, tock. But in the top-floor bedroom, I am much too far away for that to be true. I turn to see a still-sleeping Camille beside me. Her eye mask and earplugs keep her sound asleep.

Decidedly awake now, I creep out onto the landing and peer down, down into the silent gray spine of the house. Everyone should be in bed, their slumber shutting out the wailing winds of the storm outside. But I have that sixth sense, like I'm not the only one unable to sleep. Curiosity draws me downstairs.

The ground floor is still but for the fireplace. The hisses and pops of dying embers play against the rhythmic ticks from the bear clock on the mantel. There you are, I think. Then there's a high-pitched cackle, and my eyes flick to the windows.

With all the living-area lights turned off, the back-patio activity glows bright like a movie screen. Eden's the source of the laugh, Wyatt lazing beside her in the bubbling hot tub. The snow appears to have abated, though the furiously rising steam denotes the still-freezing temperatures.

Then a snort from the couch answers my other question. Declan dozes beside a collection of half-empty Solo cups. Someone's played nursemaid, covering him with a blanket and leaving a tall cup of water and a small wastebasket in prime positions beside him.

I tiptoe through the darkness, grab a bottle of water, and enjoy the feeling of disappearing, observing from the shadows. Eden's mid-story, hands gesticulating wildly, splashing up water and foam into Wyatt's rapt face. Eden would never second-guess why he'd be willing to stay up until two a.m. with her in the hot tub during a snowstorm, his hopeless crush not even an inkling. I see things other people don't. See my friends more clearly than they see themselves, sometimes.

A creak in the distance raises the hairs on my arms. Someone is moving down the stairs. Not eager to socialize, I slip quietly into the pantry, leaving the sliding door open an inch so I can peek through.

The figure is backlit as they pad into the kitchen and follow my earlier steps: grabbing a glass, filling it with water, drinking deep. All one-handed. It must be Piper skulking in the dark, eyes glued on Eden and Wyatt on the patio. When I did it, it was innocuous. When she does it, it's creepy.

That graveyard feeling on the back of my neck intensifies as Piper opens the refrigerator and takes out two containers. I can't make out the labels in the dark, but I watch as she pours the contents of one down the sink. Then she poises the other over the now-empty container, transferring the contents. What the hell?

I wait until Piper leaves the kitchen and I hear the creak of the stairs, signaling her ascent. But just as I'm emerging, the patio door roars on its hinges.

"I'll be right back!" Eden calls, already rushing to shut the door behind her. "Don't go to bed!"

"Like I could!" Wyatt's response is muffled but clear enough. They all think Liam and I are upstairs doing the deed. We would be if it hadn't been for that stupid game. I was too heated and Liam too drunk. Eden's sex prompt lingers in the back of my mind. She had to know it would bother me.

Eden shivers in a giant fluffy white towel in front of the windows. She lingers, as if debating her next move. Maybe she came in for a pee break.

But when she crosses the living room, she doesn't head to the bathroom in the corner. I carefully edge behind the island bar just in time to catch Eden's destination. The basement.

Why would Eden need to go down there at two o'clock in the morning?

There's no time to contemplate following her or seeing what Piper did in the fridge. Before I can move, there's a loud thwack, and a howl of bone-chilling air blows through me. Eden failed to secure the patio door. A spray of snow wafts through the open door and onto the hardwood floors.

Declan groans from the couch, stirring. "It's co-o-o-old," he moans, still drunk. Wyatt springs from the hot tub to close the door, shutting it with such care that I wonder if he's the one who set up Declan's sleep-it-off kit.

I lie in wait, silent as a ghost, listening to Declan fumble for a drink. There's a curse when he misses, followed by the crackle of plastic and a contented slurping.

Resigned that I have to hide a while longer, my eyes follow the staircase up to Liam's room. I wonder if he is still awake too. I wonder if he's thinking of me at this exact moment. Ever since I met him, we've always felt weirdly linked. Nothing about this weekend is going to plan, but the night isn't over yet.

Soon Declan's snores once more accompany the tick, tock, tick of the clock and the occasional pop of the fire. Now's my chance.

I'm quiet as a mouse making my way back to bed.

And outside, the storm of the century roars back to life.