Page 70 of Carved in Ice (Made of Steel 3)

His laughter picked back up. “I’m a detective, Summer. We just talked about this. Of course I know. It’s my job to know.”

“You’ve known this whole time and didn’t tell me?”

“No, no, not the whole time. It took me a few weeks to put it together. Besides, he wasn’t trying to hide it from me.”

He was just trying to hide it from me. “How could you?” I stood up. My mind felt like it was spinning, piecing our conversation back together. Yes, Eli was on painkillers, but the pieces had to fit together. Something had to make sense in our conversation. “How could you keep this from me?”

“It wasn’t my secret to tell. And honestly, I understood why he did it.”

My mind had stopped spinning. Everything was pointing in one direction. It always had been. “Why did he do it?”

“You broke each other. You both needed a fresh start. And I think a part of him wanted to prove that he could save you after all these years that he failed. A part of you knew all along right? But you were mad at him and didn’t want to see it. He was just as angry with you. Kind of like I am with you right now.” He put his hand on the side of my face. He didn’t look angry. There was a smile plastered to his face. “But it’s okay, Summer. I’ve always just wanted you to be happy. And it’s a hell of a lot better for one heart to be broken instead of two.”

“I have to go,” I whispered.

“I know.”

Chapter 29

7 Years Old

Flashback

I hopped from one rock to the next, humming The Colors of The Wind from Pocahontas. It was my new favorite movie. There was nothing I loved more than running around outside with the wind in my hair. And playing in the water was even more fun. Especially when it was so hot that the pavement burnt the bottoms of my feet.

I had invited Miles down to the creek with me. He responded by telling me that my dress made me look like a troll and that he didn’t play with trolls. Last month he had insisted that I was a girly girl and didn’t like to do anything fun. This month he said I looked like a troll. How could I be both a girly girl and a troll? It wasn’t possible. Boys didn’t make any sense.

And I knew Miles liked the creek. I knew it because he played in it all the time with his friends. So I wasn’t a girly girl and I wasn’t a troll for asking him to play in the stream. He was just a meany mean face for pretending he didn’t want to come.

I didn’t stay mad at him for very long though. Because Miles had come to the stream despite the fact that he thought I was a troll. I saw him follow me. Or maybe he was just playing by himself. But I knew he was there in the woods somewhere. Otherwise I wouldn’t be at the creek at all. My parents said I wasn’t allowed to come alone. And I always followed their rules. Mostly. I mostly followed their rules. Besides, technically I wasn’t alone today. Miles was here. Watching me. I smiled to myself.

“If the savage one is me, how can there be so much that you don’t know,” I sang as loud as I could. I hoped he was listening. I sang that line specifically for his stupid boy ears. I had come to the conclusion that all boys that weren’t grownups were dumb. But Miles was the stupidest of the stupid boys.

Because he was the only boy I wanted to play with and he was the only boy I knew that refused to play with me. Plus his reasoning didn’t make any sense. Trolls were really fun to play with. I loved my trolls.

I jumped to the next rock in the creek. “Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?” I sang. I spun around in a circle, letting my dress twirl up around me. If he was looking now, he’d probably think my dress looked pretty and not troll-like at all. I smiled to myself and jumped to the next rock. Then the next. I started humming the song from the beginning again.

A tiny fish swam by and I crouched to look at it. “But I know every rock and tree and creature.” I put my hand in the water next to the fish. It immediately swam away from me. I stood back up and jumped to the next rock, trying to follow it. “Has a life, has a spirit, has a brain,” I sang.

But I wasn’t paying attention to the rock I was jumping to. I was focused on the fish swimming away and the lyrics going through my head. I had no idea that the rock was mossy. My foot slipped on the moss and I fell forward. The water splashed underneath my hands as I tried to catch myself. My knee collided with the rock and I slid forward. The water splashed again as the rest of my body ended up in the water too. Ow.

I tried to blink away the tears in my eyes. I didn’t want Miles to see me cry. If he was even still out there. The thought of him no longer being in the woods made me even more upset though. I should have listened to my parents. I shouldn’t have been here alone.

My tears started to fall faster. I wanted my daddy. When I pushed myself up out of the water, my knee stung. I looked down and tried not to panic. Blood streaked down my leg from the cut. Oh God. I was going to die. I started to bawl my eyes out in the middle of the creek.

“Summer!” Miles appeared out of nowhere. He ran through the water, not even bothering to jump the rocks. “Are you okay?” He stopped a few feet away from me and stared at my leg.

I tried to blink away the tears in my eyes. “Yes, I’m fine.” My voice was shaky. “I’m fine,” I tried to say again, but it still came out weird. I didn’t want Miles to finally pay attention to me today. Not when I was crying and my dress was all wet. But there was no point in hiding my pain. I was clearly dying anyway. “I want my daddy.”

“I’m going to go get him, okay? Just stay right here.”

“Don’t leave me! I don’t want to die alone!”

“You’re not dying, Summer…” he stopped talking when he looked down at my knee again. “Nothing bad is going to happen. Come on, let’s get you home.”

“My leg is probably going to fall off.” I sniffed, trying to stop the tears.

He grabbed my elbow and helped me out of the creek. “It’s not going to fall off. I promise. We’re only like 2 minutes from home.”

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