Confined (A Tethered Novel, Book 3) (24 page)

I took in a deep breath and thought of the best way to
explain what had happened without telling her about anything she shouldn’t
know.

“It happened again,” I said. Simple and to the point; can’t
go wrong with that.

“What?!” she shouted in my ear. I pulled the phone away for
a minute and scrunched up my face, bracing myself for round two. “Are you
kidding me? You kissed him again! Did anything else happen?”

“Well, no,” I admitted.

“But it was
about
to, wasn’t it?” she asked.

I could hear the smile in her voice.

“Maybe.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Woohoo, that’s my girl,” Vera shouted in my ear.

“Oh my gosh.” I laughed at her enthusiasm for my craptastic
love life. “Shouldn’t you be scolding me instead of praising me right now?”

“Nah, I’m sure you’re doing enough of that all by yourself.”

She couldn’t possibly know how right she was.

“Okay, enough about me. How are the preparations for college
coming?” I asked.

I glanced over my shoulder at the office door. It was still
shut, so I placed my phone in the crook of my neck and started scanning books
into the system. There were still no new customers. Judging from the looks of
the storm outside, I’d say there wouldn’t be any anytime soon. Thunder cracked
right over the building, causing me to jump and nearly drop my phone.

“Eh, all right I guess,” Vera muttered. “Wish you were here
getting everything ready with me.”

“I know,” I said. “You still have a few more weeks until
school starts. Why don’t you come down for a weekend?”

I didn’t know if it was possible, but I thought I’d toss the
invite out there on the off chance things with her Hotfoot spell had changed
due to time or the initiation.

“I don’t know, just the idea of going back there sends that
creepy-crawly feeling across my skin again.”

So maybe the Hotfoot spell
was
still in effect. The
lights flickered from the storm outside gaining strength, and the computer
screen flashed. Rain pelted against the front windows of the shop, and more
thunder and lightning happened in rapid succession.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” I said, one hundred
percent meaning it.

Another clap of thunder sounded. It vibrated where I stood
and was so loud I swore Vera had to have heard it through the phone. I shifted
my eyes away from the computer screen and to the door. Looking through the
window at the waterfall of rain cascading over the small awning, I noticed a
figure of someone dart from a parking space to the door. I couldn’t see their
face until they entered the store, but when I did, my heart stopped.

Kace walked through the shop door. His jacket had been
pulled up over his head to shield himself from the pouring rain. I watched as
he attempted to shake off some of the water.

“Umm, Vera, I’ll have to call you back later,” I said, the
words sounding strangled as they came from my lips.

“Okay, don’t forget,” she said, taking note of my weird
tone.

“I won’t.” I pushed end and slipped my phone back into my
pocket.

Kace sauntered into the store, dripping water as he went. My
throat grew tight and dry with every step he took.

Awesome, as if my day at work couldn’t get any more
awkward—now Kace was here too. I figured he probably wanted to talk with me,
because I couldn’t see him as the type to be prowling for a new book to read.

I continued to scan the remaining novels resting at the
bottom of the box and ignored his presence. It wasn’t that I was being a bitch;
it was just that I wasn’t sure of what to say.

Guess this was my third slap in the face for the day.

“Hey,” he said as he neared the desk.

Looking up from the keyboard, I made eye contact. “Oh, hey.”

“I went by your house, and Callie said you were here, so I
stopped by. I hope that’s all right.”

I shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, I guess so.”

Water still dripped from him as he leaned against the desk
in front of me. It slid down the sides of his unshaved face and dripped off his
chin, creating a puddle. From the looks of him, you’d think he was torn up
about us, but I knew about Kyra, so I knew better.

“Did you want to talk to me or something?” I asked, unsure
as to why he was here.

Kace didn’t meet my eyes. Instead, he began to fumble with a
few of the book lights neatly displayed in front of him. I wondered if he was
nervous. Was this the official break-up talk?

I’d had this talk before with guys, but not many. Normally,
I was the one breaking up with them. Or at least I thought so. Vera, on the
other hand, might tell a person different.

My stomach tightened as I waited for him to speak. Thank
goodness for the novels I was scanning into the system, because it served as
something to distract myself with while I waited for his answer. If it hadn’t
been for that, I was sure I would have looked like an idiot standing there.

“I just,” he started and then paused. His eyes came up to
meet mine. They were dark and clouded by emotions I couldn’t read. “I don’t
blame you for kissing Theo or anything else that might have happened between
the two of you. You should know that. That’s not what this is about.”

His voice was so strange sounding, and the emotions swirling
within the depths of his icy eyes seemed conflicting. What the hell was he
saying? And why did he almost seem
guilty
about something? Surely, he
wasn’t worked up over the whole Kyra at the beach thing this bad.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Kace’s eyes widened at something behind me. I turned around
to see what had captured his attention so drastically, and that was when I felt
the dampness of a rag being pressed firmly against my nose and mouth.

It only took me a second to realize what was happening. I’d
call it the product of one too many thriller novels and crime fighting TV
shows. Regardless, I knew what the rag pressed against my face was drenched
in—chloroform. I just couldn’t make out who was holding it.

My theory was proved right as soon as the edges of my vision
began to feather, and I blacked out.

My head pounded, and nausea rolled through my stomach. The
memory of thinking a rag with chloroform had been pressed to my face just
before I’d blacked out came back to me in a rush of emotion. My heart felt like
it was going to explode as I remembered everything.

What the hell had happened? I’d been talking to Kace in the
bookstore and then…
this
!

Had I been kidnapped? This was the type of stuff you saw on
TV, not something that would actually happen and especially not to me.

After a long moment of freaking out mentally, I forced
myself to sit up. Drawing my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around them
and glanced at my new surroundings. It was then that I noticed I was on a cot
of some sort. One thought became concrete in my mind though; I had absolutely
no clue as to where I was.

All I knew for sure was that I was being held in a room of
some sort. It was dimly lit by a single, exposed lightbulb, which dangled from
the center of the room. The cot I’d been laid on was small and devoid of any sheets,
blankets, or even a pillow. There were no windows, and the floor appeared to be
made of dirt, the walls a grimy concrete. A slow trickle of water dripped from
the ceiling in the corner, splashing onto the floor. All of this combined made
me believe I was somewhere underground. A cellar maybe? I sat up a little
straighter to look for a door, but didn’t see anything right away. The room was
too dark.

A sudden sharp pounding in my head nearly took my breath
away.

Closing my eyes, I pressed my fingers against my temples,
hoping to massage away the ache building strength in my head as well as the
debilitating dizziness that seemed to cripple me. The sound of shoes slapping
against a set of stairs made me pause in my movements and open my eyes once
more.

Every muscle in my body grew rigid, and I wrapped my arms
around myself tighter. My heart pounded so hard in my chest that it actually
hurt. I didn’t know who would be coming through the door that I had yet to
find, but I could guess.

My mind ran through the images of my last known memory—Kace
standing in front of me and someone coming from behind and pressing the
chloroform-drenched rag over my mouth and nose. It had to have been Admer. He
was the only other person in the store, and the only one who had been in the
office.

But why?

Cell phone
. I remembered shoving my phone in my back
pocket when I’d seen Kace walk in through the shop door. Lifting my butt up off
the dingy cot, I patted my back pockets but didn’t find any cell phone.

Of course, they would have taken the one essential piece of
equipment that might have saved me from whatever they had planned.

A door made of metal creaked open on rusty hinges from the
far wall. I hadn’t even noticed it was there. I tightened my arms around my
legs, wishing I were anywhere besides here.

A sandaled foot entered the room, and then a voice echoed
along the walls of the cramped room.

“I wasn’t sure when you’d wake up.” The voice was so
familiar it made relief trickle through me and my eyes pop open farther. Then,
I remembered that he had to be a part of the reason why I was here, and the
slight amount of relief I’d felt rushed from my system quicker than it had
come.

I sat up straighter, ignoring the way my body protested the
movement, as Kace shuffled his body away from the door and into the center of
the room to stand beneath the light. His hands were crammed in his front
pockets, and he stared down at his sandals as he walked. The little bit of
light offered by the exposed bulb shined against his dirty blond hair and his
solid build. When he turned his face up to look at me finally, I felt the rush
of a thousand heartbreaks shatter my delicate heart into tiny pieces.

How could he be so cruel? How could I have been so blind?

He seemed to feel just as heartbroken as I did, but there
was a set to his jaw that allowed me to know right then that no amount of
pleading with him to free me would work. The awareness of my entire situation
hit me.

I nearly laughed out loud at the irony of it all. I’d
thought by becoming initiated I could finally allow Kace and me to see where
our relationship would go without the added baggage of the tether—of Theo—but I
couldn’t have been more wrong.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one harboring secrets; Kace
seemed like he may have a few of his own.

Theo’s words about betrayal fluttered through my mind as I
continued to stare at Kace. Why hadn’t I listened to him? By not doing so, I’d
allowed myself to be betrayed by someone I’d trusted and to become confined to
Soul Harbor in more ways than one.

Kace moved a little closer to the cot I sat on; his eyes
remained on the grimy dirt floor. I glanced behind him at the door that I could
now clearly make out, and wondered if I would be able to dart past him and
across the room fast enough to escape.