Midheaven (Ascendant Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Aaron shook his head. “It not like I never…you know, I once wanted to be alone with someone.”

  Sophie grimaced.

  I let my breath out and realized I’d been holding it. Caleb’s fingers pressed too hard into my arm, I moved it so he would loosen up.

  Aaron sighed, took another big bite of his food then looked at his watch. “As soon as I’m done eating that dessert, I’m heading back.” He looked directly at Caleb. “You better watch her. Anything happens to her and it’s your ass in a sling…got it?”

  Caleb nodded while I was still figuring out that we could go—just us.

  Sophie grinned, self satisfied. “You’re welcome,” she whispered as Caleb and I stood up.

  “I’m watching,” Aaron said and pointed to the street view through the large window behind us.

  “We’ll be careful,” Caleb said.

  Aaron didn’t look impressed and jerked his head. “Uh, huh. Be sure you are,” he said looking directly at Caleb. “Keep it holstered,” Aaron now pointed at Caleb’s crotch with his fork while the waiter delivered the chocolate concoction to the table. “I wasn’t kidding about protecting her from you too.”

  Caleb stood frozen in embarrassment.

  I felt more terrible with every passing minute but still capable enough to unload on Aaron. “Seriously? How crass can you be?”

  “Depends on the situation,” Aaron shrugged and dug into the melting tower of chocolate.

  I grabbed Caleb’s hand and pulled him to the door. “What a pig,” I said.

  As we crossed the street between the restaurant and the hotel, I could feel Aaron’s eyes burning into my back—no way was I about to turn around and give him the satisfaction of thinking it bothered me one bit.

  Caleb didn’t speak until we were inside my room and I collapsed onto the rickety bed. He stood near the dresser, Aaron’s words and innuendos hanging awkwardly between us. “You really are sick, aren’t you?” he said.

  “No,” I lied. I shook my head and waved my hand to dismiss the thought, “I don’t know, maybe I’m just tired. All the travel and change.” I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my knees, and cupped my hands over my nose and mouth.

  He sat carefully beside me. His hand settled on the center of my back and began to travel up and down my spine. The room’s only lamp cast a soft orange light over the tattered furnishings and dingy walls, hiding the largest flaws that had been shocking in the bright light of day. Caleb’s hand swept down my arm and back up to my shoulder, he brushed my hair to the side so it settled down the middle of my back.

  I turned my head to look into his eyes, “What are we even doing here?”

  He looked at me and considered my question, “We’re all here for different reasons I suppose,” he whispered. “Aaron’s here because he was hired to protect you. Sophie’s here because she can’t bear to be left out of anything. You’re here because you’re trying to protect your mother and sister.” His eyes moved to the ceiling over my head. “And I’m here because I love you Charlotte,” his voice quavered. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “I’m here because I’ve loved you since I was seven years old and I don’t ever want to be away from you again.” His eyes, nervous and vulnerable, settled back on mine.

  My conversation with Eve echoed in my brain, “He loves you. And you like him.” I pushed the thought away from me, sat up and cupped his face in my hands. When I pulled him to me, Caleb bent closer to my face until our lips touched, a small sigh, like relief, escaped him. Together, we laid back on the bed. I watched his face above mine, eyes questioning, his lips touched mine once more before moving to my ear and down my neck. My eyes closed when his lips, soft and careful, traced my collarbone. When I felt his hand slide across my bare stomach, a flurry of nervous longing echoed through my body. His mouth was on mine again, open, wanting, and I felt his tongue brush against mine, as if testing to see if this was okay. When I reached up to hold his face, he trembled above me and kissed me harder.

  Caleb had never touched me like this before.

  Only Hayden.

  Hayden. Hayden was standing in the street watching me—watching us.

  Caleb’s hand made a slow slide from my stomach to my ribs. His mouth moved from mine to my ear, “I love you Charlotte. I have always loved you.”

  Today. I thought I had seen Hayden in the street today. Had I? Was he really there? Standing there waiting for me, reaching for me, just like in my dreams—my nightmares of him.

  Caleb’s mouth was back on mine and his hand brushed the top of my bra. His hips shifted next to me and a small groan slipped past his lips.

  I tried to push the image of Hayden from my brain. As I kissed Caleb, I reached around his back and pulled him closer. I could feel his heart beat fast and hard against his chest. He stopped kissing me and rested his cheek against mine. “We have to stop,” he whispered.

  “No,” I breathed into his ear. I wanted Caleb’s body to erase my every memory of Hayden. I kissed him again and moved my hand to his hip.

  “Charlotte,” he begged.

  I kissed him harder and pulled on his belt loop.

  He shook his head slightly but shifted his body until I felt the full weight of him pressing me into the mattress. “What are we doing?” Caleb’s lips moved over mine and then kissed me again.

  “You’re mine.” Hayden’s voice echoed through my brain as if he had whispered into my ear.

  I gasped and pulled away from Caleb. He stopped kissing me immediately and shifted his weight off me and back to the mattress. “Are you okay?” His eyes scanned me as a nervous tremor rattled his voice. “Did I hurt you?” he breathed.

  His face, flush from excitement, was lined with fear.

  “No,” I tried to breathe deep but my chest hurt from the shock of hearing Hayden in my head. “No, I’m fine.”

  Caleb sat still. Silent, watching—too afraid to say anything. I knew he was wondering if he had done something wrong.

  I looked into his eyes and tried to smile, “Really, I’m fine.” You should tell him the truth. I bit my bottom lip and considered the idea of even mentioning Hayden’s name to Caleb right now. Telling him about the nightmares, about thinking I saw him on the street today—about the sound of his voice infiltrating my brain. And not just his voice, but his claim to me. You’re mine. The very words he’d spoken to me last year. What would Caleb think? How would all of that make him feel? Feel in this moment that should not have had any space for anyone other than him and me?

  It would kill him to know that Hayden was here, even if only in my thoughts. Even if it was because I was trying desperately to root those thoughts out.

  “I…thought I heard something,” I motioned to the door. “And, I didn’t want them to walk in on us.” My eyes shifted to the thin bedspread beneath us. “Sophie and Aaron will be back soon.” I reached across the space between us and took his hand. “I’m sorry,” I said still not meeting his eyes.

  Caleb shook his head. “No,” he moved closer to me and took me in his arms. “Don’t be sorry,” I could hear the relief my lie brought him. “They will be back soon,” he kissed my head. I could feel his body still shivering from the moment. “I was worried it was something else. Me or…something.”

  He meant Someone, he worried that it was Someone. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but like me, he was still haunted by Hayden, the fears he had been carrying for the last ten months that Hayden and I were living together in California. The very fact that Hayden had been so close to me, even if I didn’t know it, while Caleb was trapped thousands of miles away.

  There wasn’t any way for me to tell Caleb about my worries without igniting all those fears because the truth was, Hayden was close by—he was a specter in my mind. Telling Caleb about my nightmares and about what I saw—what I thought I saw—on the street today was pointless because Caleb wouldn’t be able to fight Hayden where he was hiding. Hayden was in my mind—the only person capable of getting rid of him was m
e.

  My thumb brushed the skin on the back of his hand. Caleb shifted his legs and used them to push himself further back on the bed, when his head reached the pillow, he pulled me into his arms until my head rested on his chest. “Let’s just enjoy however many minutes alone we have left,” he said tightening his arms around me.

  My head nodded in agreement against his shirt and, for the first time since our arrival in India, I let my eyes close. Exhaustion dragged my consciousness down into a heavy and dreamless sleep. In Caleb’s arms, for as many minutes as Aaron and Sophie allowed us, I would sleep beside him.

  My sinuses burned.

  The first thing I realized when my eyes shot open—the room was too dark.

  The next—it was full of smoke.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sisters Never Leave

  My chest was on fire. The air in the room was hot and suffocating, but my body was desperate for it so I dragged the smoky air into my lungs then choked and coughed it back out.

  I threw back the blankets and stumbled through the dark, the floor was hot on my bare feet. I needed to get to the window, I needed to breathe. In the dark, my fingers brushed against the curtain’s. I lunged for the fabric, yanked it away and pressed the heels of my hands to the splintered wooden frame and began to shove the window open. I froze. Outside, a thick, billowing wall of gray smoke rushed past the glass.

  The hotel was on fire.

  If I opened the window, the room would immediately fill with smoke.

  Seconds that felt like hours passed while my lungs, exploding in my chest, threatened to inhale. Suddenly, when my lungs couldn’t hold for even one more second, memory made me drop to the floor and a ragged rush of clearer air filled me.

  Ms. Harris, second grade, fire safety lesson—smoke rises.

  On my hands and knees, I gulped deep breaths and tried to focus. The building was on fire. How was I getting out? On the bed, someone else started coughing. I had fallen asleep earlier in Caleb’s arms but this sound was not coming from him, it was Sophie. Sophie was still in the bed, maybe still sleeping and inhaling toxic air.

  “Sophie!” I crawled to her. The heat rising through the wood floor seemed to be increasing, it felt tacky under my hands, like the varnish was melting. I imagined flames licking the ceiling below us, burning plaster and beams, bursting through the floor beneath us at any moment. “Sophie!”

  She coughed harder and sounded like she was suffocating. When I got to her side of the bed, I reached high and groped for her body then grabbed a handful of her shirt. “Sophie!” I pulled her to the edge of the bed and onto the floor until I heard her body thump like a heavy doll next to me.

  She couldn’t stop coughing but when I looked into her eyes, they were open, wide with shock and the question—What is happening?

  “The hotel’s on fire!” I held her face between my hands. “You have to try and stop coughing, take a breath Sophie.”

  She managed a panicked breath between coughs, and then another. It would have to be enough. I grabbed the top of her hand and started crawling and pulling her with me towards the door. Caleb and Aaron were in the room across the hall—were they awake? Were they okay? At the door, I reached for the handle and immediately snatched my hand back. The metal knob fried the skin of my palm. With my other hand, I felt the door, the wood was hot.

  The fire had reached the hall.

  My heart, a hammer breaking through my chest, pumped a thick course of panic.

  Sophie started to scream, “Open the door Charlotte! What are you waiting for? Open the door, open the door!” When I didn’t move, she shoved past me and fumbled across the floor towards the handle. Paralyzed, I sat, my limbs felt like lead while my mind tried to fathom what was happening to us. Just as she was about to grab the handle, I regained some sense of myself and smacked her arm away.

  Sophie turned to me with a crazed and desperate look. “What are you doing?” She moved to grab the handle again and again, I hit her arm and then grasped her hands.

  “The door,” I explained. “It’s hot. The fire might be in the hall. If you open that door we’re done.”

  Sophie looked at the door and then back at me. “Caleb,” she breathed.

  I nodded my head. We had no way of knowing if Caleb and Aaron were okay. “We have to figure out how to get out of here and hope that they are doing the same.”

  “The window—“

  “I already tried,” I shook my head. “The smoke from below is rushing past it. If we open that it will fill the room in seconds and we’ll die from smoke inhalation.”

  Sophie’s lips parted and her whole upper body heaved with each breath like a cornered animal. Her eyes darted around us, taking it all in. “What are we going to do?” her voice broke and I could hear the edge of hysteria setting in.

  The very hysteria I felt. In my own labored breath and frantic mind that raced over and over—we’re trapped, we’re going to die. I saw in Sophie’s eyes the wild emotion rising like a flood inside myself. White, raging, panic.

  I closed my eyes and took a breath. “Sophie,” my voice shook. I swallowed and tried to choke back the tears of fear that were tightening my throat. “We can’t panic—we have to think.”

  She nodded rapidly, like an insane bobble head figure. “Okay,” her eyes continued to dart around the room. “Okay, don’t panic. Don’t panic…don’t—”

  “Sophie!” I yelled.

  She stopped babbling and her eyes riveted onto mine.

  “We need to get to the bathroom. Wet some towels and fill the bathtub.”

  She nodded and grabbed my hand. “Don’t leave me Charlotte.”

  I brushed the tangles of hair away from her face. “Never. I will never leave you Sophie,” I tried to give my voice a confidence my body did not feel. “We’re going to get through this…somehow. I swear.” I took a deep breath. “Ready?”

  “I’m scared Charlotte.”

  “I know, but we have to try Sophie.”

  “Do you think Caleb is okay?”

  I didn’t hesitate, “Yes,” I said without question. “Caleb is very smart. He will have found a way out,” I smiled at her. “He’s probably down on the street wondering what is taking us so long.”

  Sophie smiled weakly at my joke—but we both knew it wasn’t true. There was no way Caleb would have left the building without us, not unless Aaron had dragged him out kicking and screaming. I couldn’t think about that though. I couldn’t imagine what might have happened to Caleb, what might be happening to him. Right now, Sophie was in front of me, and I had to get her out. Get her out, or keep her alive long enough for rescuers to find us.

  Did India have rescuers?

  I shook my head and closed my eyes, “Let’s go,” I said.

  On hands and knees, we crawled across the wood floor towards the bathroom. The room wasn’t large but the bathroom felt miles away, hidden in smoke. I could smell the varnish from the floor mixing with the charred scent of wood and heat, my hands slipped on some of the hottest spots and I wondered if the fire below us would soon come bursting up through the ceiling beneath us and turn our room into a raging inferno. I tried to crawl faster.

  We reached the bathroom door and I shoved it open with my palm until I heard the doorknob bang into the wall behind it. When we were both inside, I had to yank the door to unstick it from the drywall. In my urgency, I had pushed the door so hard the knob had broken through the wall and lodged itself inside the cheap construction. With the door closed, I grabbed the towels hanging on the rack and turned on the bathtub faucet.

  The bathroom seemed less smoky than the bedroom and I was able to stand up and breathe okay. “Get those,” I told Sophie pointing to the dirty towels piled on the floor from her earlier shower. She gathered them up and dumped them into the tub with the others and when they were dripping with water, I pulled out two and shoved them into the crack at the bottom of the bathroom door. As the tub continued to fill, I took one of the other soaking tow
els and wrapped the heavy, sopping fabric over Sophie’s head and shoulders before doing the same to myself.

  “We’ll want to keep getting these wet,” I grabbed the thin, frayed mats from the floor. “We’ll want to keep everything wet.”

  “Should we get in the tub?” she asked.

  I stopped and thought about that, tried to remember what I could from that old fire safety lesson, “I’m not sure. I don’t think you’re supposed to—it’s like cooking lobsters in boiling water. Eventually, that water will probably heat up.” Or maybe that was just an urban myth—I had no idea what we should do but I soaked some washcloths and handed one to Sophie while holding another over my nose and mouth. “To help filter the smoke,” I explained.

  “We should have grabbed all the bedding,” she said through her wet cloth.

  Damn. I nodded thinking of all the material piled on the bed in the other room we could have used. “I’ll go get it.”

  Sophie grabbed my arm, “Don’t leave me…I’m coming with you.”

  “I’ll only be a sec—” The bathroom was less smoky than the bedroom, and now I saw why. The hole in the drywall that led to the room next door, a thin stream of smoke was tunneling out of the bathroom and into the room next door. I dropped to my knees and looked through, the room looked empty and, more importantly, smoke free. I shoved my arm through the hole, the air in that room was cooler. I yanked my arm back through and looked more carefully. How could that room not be as smoky? And then I thought I knew why.

  “We need to get next door,” I said and began pulling at the hole’s crumbling edge.

  “What?”

  “Next door,” I said. “There’s no smoke in that room, I think it must have an open window on a side of the building not yet burning. I think that’s how the family staying there must have escaped.”

  Sophie began frantically pulling at the hole with me. We both clawed but the wall only came away in dust sized crumbles.