Deceptions (Cainsville 3)

"I can hear you, Olivia." His voice was cool, almost icy.

"I need your help. I really, really need your help. I'm trapped--"

"Yes, I heard that."

"Good. Thank you. I can send you the coordinates--"

"No need."

&nbs

p; "You have them?" I exhaled. "So you're on your way?"

"No. I'm not."

The line went dead. I thought I'd lost the battery, but when I looked, I still had a little. I called back, and the line rang and rang and rang, and then he picked up . . . and disconnected. And my phone turned off, plunging me into darkness.

"Gabriel!" I bolted up, his name on my lips. The room was pitch-black, and I couldn't remember where I was, still half lost in that dream--

The door opened, moonlight flooding around a dark figure.

"Olivia?"

Gabriel started through the doorway, then pulled himself up short and flipped on the light instead.

"Sorry," I said. "Sorry, sorry." I ran my hands over my face, trying to banish the dream.

"A vision?"

I shook my head. "Garden-variety nightmare."

I kept struggling to push the dream away, but it wouldn't go, alarm and dread swirling in my gut.

"Are we okay?" I asked.

"What?"

I wanted to say, never mind, I was being silly, go on back to sleep, but the words came out anyway. "Is everything okay? With us?"

His brow furrowed, and he said, "Of course," but there was something in the way he said it, something in his eyes, still too close to sleep, that wall not yet up, letting me catch a flicker that said we weren't okay, not really.

"Have I done something?"

"What?" He seemed ready to step into the room but again stopped short, his hand on the doorframe now. Keeping his distance.

Something's wrong . . .

No, it's not. You're in his bed. He's doing the right thing, the proper thing. Staying out.

I'm in Gabriel's bed.

Oh God, what am I doing? I shouldn't be here. Not in his apartment. Not in his bed. It doesn't matter if he's over there. It doesn't matter if there hasn't been a word, a touch, even a look between us. I've crossed a line. I know I have, and that's what counts. Not what I've done. What I feel.

"Olivia?" He took a half step in, his hand still firmly on the doorframe. "What did you see?"

"You left."

Did I just say that? Stop talking. Please stop talking.