Until Sage (Until Him 2)

“We will make sure you are given the news as soon as we apprehend him.”

“You already have a suspect?” I ask to confirm, needing that information more than my next breath.

“Yes,” Agent Torres states, and I drop my eyes to my lap and pull in a few deep breaths, trying to get myself under control.

Nodding, I lift my head then shake it. “Does… does her mom know?” I ask, and they both look at me with confused expressions. “I… I was a-adopted when I was born. I… I don’t know my birth mom.”

“We were unaware of that,” Agent Kace says, and I blink up at him in bewilderment.

“How? How did you find me then?” I don’t know my birth mother, but I know she has my number, because Kelly gave it to her along with my address when she first started coming around. She thought her mom—our mom—would want to contact me, which she never did.

“An eyewitness believed she was you,” Agent Torres explains, getting down on his haunches in front of me. “When we went back to examine who our suspect had been in contact with, we found out it was your sister Kelly.”

Pinching my thigh, I try to see if that will wake me up, but it doesn’t. This isn’t a bad dream I’m going to wake up from any second.

“Please call someone and have them come over. You shouldn’t be alone right now, Miss Cullen, and as soon as we are able to give you more information about the case, we will set up a time to meet with you.”

Nodding, because I can’t talk, I reach out to take a card Agent Kace hands me.

“Call someone,” he orders gently, and I nod again. “We’ll be in contact soon.”

Watching them leave with quiet goodbyes, I sit here hearing their words continue to ring in my ears.

“God,” I whimper, dragging my hands down my face and covering my mouth with my shaking fingers. “Oh, God.” Looking around the room, everything blurs together while tears fill my eyes, and bile builds in the back of my throat, making it hard to breathe. Squeezing my tear-filled eyes closed, wetness tracks down my cheeks and onto my chest. I get up on shaky legs and head to my room to grab my phone out of my purse where I left it last night. Pulling it out, I see it’s dead. Finding my charging cord, I fumble with it until I get it plugged in then wait for it to turn on. I have a few voice mails and a lot of texts but I ignore them, pulling up my mom’s phone number in my call log and pressing send.

“Honey,” she answers on the second ring, sounding like I just woke her up.

“Mom,” I choke out through my tears. I wish she were here. I wish she could wrap her arms around me and tell me everything will be all right like she has done since I was little.

“What’s happened? Are you okay?” she questions, sounding more alert than she did moments ago.

“No.” I fall back on my bed and squeeze my eyes closed. “Kelly. Kelly’s dead, Mom,” I get out, right before a loud, painful sob breaks loose.

“What?”

“She was murdered. The FBI was just here. Kelly was murdered.”

“Oh, God,” Mom breathes, then the phone goes quiet before I hear her talking to my dad, but I can’t make out what either of them are saying over the sound of my blood pumping through my ears.

“Baby,” Dad says, and my eyes tighten. “Your mom is booking us a flight right now.”

“Okay.”

“Be strong, honey.”

“Okay,” I agree on a whisper.

“Be there soon. We love you.”

“Love you, too,” I say, right before I let the phone fall from my grasp, and then I roll to my side and curl myself into a ball.

Your sister’s been murdered.

My eyes burn as those words replay over and over in my head while I watch the ceiling fan spin in circles. I should get up. I should go shower and call my parents back so I can tell them they shouldn’t worry about me, but I can’t force myself to move. All I can do is think about Kelly, my identical twin. We shared the same hair, the same face, the same everything, down to the freckles across the bridge of our noses, and yet with all of that in common, I hated the person she was.

Hearing pounding on the door, I try to sit up, but I can’t.

“Kim, open the door.”

Sage. I’d know his voice anywhere.

“Open the goddamn door.” He bangs harder, and a new wave of tears fills my eyes. “Kimberly, if you don’t open the fucking door, I’m gonna break the motherfucker down,” he roars, making me jump.

“I’m fine. Go away.” I attempt to yell back, but the words come out in a whisper through my dry throat as my heavy eyes slide closed and I finally give into the darkness surrounding me.