AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kristy patted my head, smoothing my hair to relax me. “I don’t know where he is, but I’ll make some calls. I can check the local hospitals to make sure he hasn’t been admitted, and look online for news reports about incidents involving cops. I’ll try my best, okay?”
I breathed out a small sigh of relief as I realized that wasn’t something I could even fathom handling right now. In a matter of hours, I’d been reduced to someone who could barely handle the idea of being left alone with all of these questions and no answers.
“Did you take the pill the doctor gave you to help you sleep?” Kristy asked, her eyes fixed on the reality TV show playing.
“Not yet. Should I?”
“I think you should. It will stop your mind from racing and thinking all these crazy thoughts.”
“They’re not crazy thoughts,” I said, wanting to argue with her, but then stopped myself. Grabbing my phone, I glanced at it again. Still nothing.
So I typed out another text to him:
Cammie: I really hope you’re okay. Please be okay.
“If you don’t take it, I will,” she teased.
“Oh, as if you need anything to help you sleep. You’re the most sound sleeper I’ve ever met in my life.”
She smiled as if sleeping through everything was a superpower. “Isn’t it awesome?”
“Not when I’m trying to wake you up,” I said, remembering all the times that Kristy simply refused to awaken from her Sleeping Beauty slumber when we were teens. I used to wonder how her alarm clock radio seemed to do the trick during the school week, but nothing else worked any other time. She claimed that her brain knew when she had to wake up and when she didn’t, but I think she was full of it.
“I’ll go get you some water so you can take the pill. It will help.” She pushed up from the bed.
“And you’ll make those calls?” I asked, wondering why she wasn’t already pounding away on her laptop.
“I will once you’re asleep. If I start doing it now, you’ll stay awake pestering me,” she yelled from the kitchen, where I heard her rummaging through the fridge.
She was right. And since I felt completely helpless, I decided that taking the sleeping pill was the best thing I could do to slow my brain down and attempt to give it some rest.
As Kristy set a glass of water next to me, I swallowed the pill and hoped for a night filled with only pleasant dreams, if any.
• • •
When I woke up the next morning, I blinked my eyes once.
Twice.
Kristy was in bed next to me. Why was she here?
Three times.
Dalton.
Four.
Reaching for my cell phone on my nightstand, I snatched it up as if my very life depended on it. Swiping the screen turned it on, but revealed nothing. No missed calls. No new text messages. No news from Dalton.
My heart sank as all the fears and questions from yesterday came rushing back with another blink. I focused on calming my breathing, shaking my head back and forth as if I could shake all the negative emotions out, when I noticed Kristy watching me.
“Morning,” she said with a small smile. “How’d you sleep?”
“Better than I should have,” I said while trying to fight back everything screaming to burst out of me.
“Anything from Dalton?” She glanced at the phone that was still clutched tightly in my hand.
I shook my head. “Nothing. What does that mean?”
