“I knew you’d try to kiss me again,” Soren says.
His smug smile has me grabbing a handful of snow and shoving it in his face. He laughs and rolls us both over, pinning me beneath him.
Delicate snowflakes glisten in the air as they lazily fall around us like glitter, and my gaze locateshis lips.
I wait for him to get even, or to tease me more; instead, he pushes up. “Good thing I’m nice, huh?”
I stare at the cloudy sky, forcing deep breaths in and out of my lungs. I don’t want to kiss him. He’s trying to get in my head, but I won’t let him win.
“All right, let’s play ball. Look alive,” Soren hollers.
I stagger to my feet and position myself behind Soren so if Bella manages to hit an ice ball at me, his body will protect mine.
Bella brings the broom to her shoulder and steadies her feet. She concentrates, and when he lobs the snowball softly toward her, she swings so hard she spins on the slick concrete, missing the snowball entirely.
“Throw another one,” she insists, the determination on her face settling in as she rights herself.
She misses again.
“One more!”
Another miss.
“Again,” she yells, her voice strangled. This time when she swings, she makes contact. But the snowball smashes into a million pieces on her face.
She stomps her foot. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I grimace. To be fair, I’ve never batted a snowball. I didn’t know that would happen either.
“None of this was supposed to happen.” She kicks at the snow and then come the tears. Like Niagara Falls, they cascade down her cheeks. She chucks the broom into the snow and runs inside.
I follow her, but she’s fast and has already disappeared by the time I make it to the house, Soren on my heels.
“Where’d she go?” he asks as we pause at the door, waiting for our eyes to adjust.
“She’s hiding. I’ll take upstairs; you take downstairs.”
He nods once before taking off.
I search through all her regular spots. The laundry chute. The false compartment in the hall closet. Every secret room and passage I know about. Nothing.
The longer I search, the more my nerves skyrocket. Maybe this will be the time I have to call the police. Maybe she left. Maybe she’s hurt. But a quick replay of the front door security camera confirms she’s still inside.
I meet up with Soren in the kitchen.
“Anything?” I ask.
“No. You?”
I shake my head.
“It’s obviously somewhere she feels safe. Somewhere she planned to go. We were right on her heels, which means she went straight there.”
I sigh. “There’s only one room I haven’t checked.” The one room I’m not allowed to enter or access on the security feeds. It has its own security code. “Her parents’ suite.”
There are cameras everywhere else in the home, so I assume they will be alerted the second I step inside. If that’s the case, they would already know Soren isn’t supposed to be here and have called me. Which means… he still has control of the feeds. Which is both good and bad, I suppose.
Soren follows me up the stairs, and I feel like I’m walking to my doom. I’ve avoided these rooms as if my life depends on it. I was warned if I ever stepped foot in these rooms, I’d be fired. But Bella means more to me than my job, which is ironic because sheismy job. I could wait for her to emerge, but it could be hours. She’s nothing if not determined.
