Page 47 of The Devil's Waltz

A vicious scowl vibrates through her. “I swear to everything unholy, I’m going to—”

“Do nothing,” I cut in, panic gripping my tone as I replay Xander’s thinly veiled threat over and over in my head. “We can’t do anything. Not right now. It’s too dangerous, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got hurt.”

“I’m not going to get hurt,” she insists. “We need to report this to HQ immediately. There’s an organization-wide hunt for this son of a bitch. We’re going to catch him, and he’s going to pay—”

“Harper,please,” I beg, my voice cracking as my eyes burn and panic clamps down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

Harper opens her mouth but hesitates, then says, “Okay.” She frowns, closing the door, and starts toward me. “I’m so sorry, Cami. Are you…?”

Pressing my lips together while tears fill my eyes, I shake my head.

I’m the farthest thing from okay.

She closes the distance between us and throws her arms around me as I shatter.

FOURTEENCAMILLE

I don’t know how long Harper holds me, but eventually the tears stop falling long enough for her to guide me into the bathroom and turn on the shower. She waits right outside the door and wraps her arm around me when I come out in a bathrobe.

We sit on the end of my bed for a few minutes before Harper sighs softly. “I don’t know where to start,” she admits.

I nod, my eyes burning with exhaustion from crying. Swallowing, I clear my throat before I say, “He tricked me into thinking he was a hunter the night we met.”

“And he killed one of his own to sell the story,” she says in a grave tone, and my pulse kicks up.

My head is racing so fast, I drop my face into my hands, squeezing my eyes shut as I will the dizziness to pass. I have to consider the attack after dinner with Phoebe and Grayson was also orchestrated by Xander. But why would that demon sacrifice herself?

“I know you’re worried about what’s going to happen now, but I think that’s even more reason to report everything that’s happened since that night.”

I press the heels of my palms against my eyes. “Harper, please. I’m not ready for the repercussions of that.” I sit up and turn toward her. “I know everything will come to light eventually. It has to. But I can’t talk about this yet. Not with my parents.” The thought of them finding out that their daughter was seduced by the prince of hell…It fills my chest with dark, heavy tendrils of shame. I can already picture the look of disappointment I’m bound to get from my mother. And it brings a fresh batch of tears to my eyes when I can’t decide how my dad is going to react.

Harper offers me a thoughtful look. “I understand. And I want to give you as much time as you need to figure this out, but there’s so much atstake here, especially when we don’t know what he and the queen are planning. I’ll give you a week, but after that, you have to tell Rachel and Scott. And I’ll go with you to HQ to make the report if you think that’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can to make this easier for you.” She takes my hand and squeezes it, lowering her voice. “But if Xander is caught before then, I’ll have to tell the organization what I know.”

I nod, struggling to swallow past the lump in my throat. I understand I’m asking a lot of Harper—putting her in a difficult position to disregard protocols and orders. Even in this state, none of that is lost on me. “Thank you,” I finally say.

She sighs, pulling me into a tight hug. “Try to get some sleep. We can talk more tomorrow.”

After she leaves my room, I change into sweatpants and a hoodie, hoping to combat the chill in my bones. The shower helped some, but when I get under the blankets and curl onto my side, I can’t stop shivering. So much so, my teeth are chattering. I try to slow my breathing, counting the seconds of each inhale and exhale, but I can’t get to a level of relaxed enough to fall asleep.

Some time later, I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling above my bed for what feels like an eternity. I finally drift off for maybe forty-five minutes before I open my eyes again and can’t get back to sleep.

I’m emotionally and mentally exhausted, but physically I’m wired. My thoughts are too loud, too fast, too many, and I can’t escape them as desperately as I want to.

I toss and turn for the next several hours until the sun rises outside the window and my alarm chirps from the other side of my room at seven. I grumble in response and haul myself up to turn it off.

There’s no chance I’m going to class today.

I crawl back into bed, tugging the blankets up around me, and go back to staring at the ceiling.

Harper left for training around six, and I pretended to be asleep when she knocked on my door and poked her head in to check on me. Call it avoidance, but I didn’t have the emotional capacity to talk any more about what happened last night.

I must doze off again, because it’s almost noon when I blink my eyes open next and reach around to find my phone. I open my texts to find one from Phoebe wondering why I’m not in class.

I type out a short message back and hit send.

I have the flu. Will probably be out all week.

Her reply comes a minute later.

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