Black Blood. Dyvina Sollena
grabbed it and looked at it: thin, metallic and completely anonymous.
«If my father finds out what I have done he is going to disinherit me», he said drinking the water from my best friend's glass.
Josh looked at him annoyed and, with a sudden gesture, took his glass back.
«What's in that pen drive?» he asked, pouring himself more water from the bottle that Hanna had given to him.
«I went into the police database and found some reports about disappearances that have occurred over the past twenty years. Plus, other documents that seemed suspicious to me», he explained with the voice so low to be barely audible.
My face lit up, Gregory Tanner had done something so rebellious and dangerous just to help me. Sure, he wanted as much as I did to find out the truth, but I was equally thrilled.
I hid those important data in my bag and thanked Greg fondly.
«I adore you. I know I can always count on you. You are my hero!» I acted like a little girl admiring her favorite star.
We all laughed together when, suddenly, Josh's gaze became alarmed.
«Holy crap!» he said, turning pale while staring at something beyond my back.
Greg, not least, seemed petrified, mute, motionless and with his eyes completely wide open.
Intrigued, I turned to understand what had caused their strange reaction and my heart suddenly stopped.
Sebastian was standing in front of Hanna at the bar counter and was asking her something.
My best friend looked at me out of the corner of her eye and I swallowed, staring back at the center of the table.
«What the hell is he doing here at the Moonlight?» Greg murmured dismay by the presence of that much feared character.
I turned to him.
Sebastian conversed with Ginger Tanner, then they shook hands and his eyes, in an instant, were locked on me.
As soon as he saw me, he flashed that smile that infuriated me, but that, at the same time, teased me from within.
He walked over to my table coming straight in my direction. It took him a few strides and I found him in front of me. He looked at me with that mocking grin, not caring about everything else.
At Moonlight everyone was speechless, only the background music was there to break that silence that, otherwise, would have been deafening.
«I told you we'd have met again, Rebecca», he declared lowering himself towards me.
His scent intoxicated my senses, my heart, from stationary, began galloping fast.
I closed my eyes and searched for a bit of control.
I took a deep breath and jumped to my feet. I reached out to Sebastian and prodded him in the chest with my index finger.
«But with what nerve...» but I was unable to finish the sentence.
I could feel my face on fire, my head spinning wildly. Streams of cold sweat ran down my temples and slowly my vision blurred.
I saw everything black and the voices were now reaching me from afar, I felt weak, as my strengths were abandoning me.
Then I passed out.
Chapter 8
Rebecca
When I opened my eyes, I did not immediately recognize the room I was in. Then I noticed the drip hanging from a rod on the side of the bed and a sharp pain hit my arm. I looked at the needle piercing my vein and I wondered what had happened to me.
I only remembered Sebastian's face and nothing else.
I got up from the pillow looking for someone's attention.
The room was simple, the essential was there: a bed with an iron structure painted in white with a matching bedside table; a wardrobe with a single door on the right wall; TV, a counter in front of me, with cupboards containing accessories and medical products, to my left, I saw a machinery that I was completely unaware of.
I was at the Coleman Medical Centre, Josh's parents' medical place.
«Is there anyone?» I asked raising my voice.
I heard quick footsteps approaching, the opaque glass door swung open and Meredith Coleman walked inside cordially. She wore her hair in a bun, round glasses resting on the tip of her nose, and a white coat with her name embroidered on the edge of her breast pocket.
«You finally woke up, dear. How do you feel?» she said, approaching my bed and fumbling with the drip's tube.
«Good, but my head hurts.»
Meredith walked away quickly, opened a drawer in the opposite cabinet and came back to me with a tablet in the palm of one hand and a glass of water in the other.
«Take this, you'll feel better», she said, handing me the medicine.
I took the pill with two fingers and stared at it.
«What is that?»
«An analgesic. For your headache», she answered, smiling.
I swallowed that medicine and didn't think about it anymore, I just hoped it would have worked quickly because the pain I felt was similar to that of two drills piercing my temples.
«What happened to me?» I asked, still messed up.
I passed out as I was flaring up with anger against Sebastian. Okay, it was not just anger that ignited me, but I found it hard to ignore his arrogance and it pissed me off.
He was so cheeky.
Telling me such a thing in front of all those people was a very risky and compromising gesture.
What would had people thought?
The Winterbournes were badly seen in town because of all those legends. They were elusive, they did not entertain with anyone and if they showed up it was only for business reasons. They had no friends and people avoided them like plague.
Talking to them meant to tarnish one's reputation, and becoming the victim of Hazycreek's bigoted judgments.
Sebastian from the height of his arrogance had thought to address me in a completely confidential way and my reaction was not less. An exchange of words that hinted at the existence of precedents between us even though, after all, we had met only two insignificant times and we were two complete strangers.
Yet when I thought of him something inside me was moving, twisting in my stomach and drying my throat. It seemed that I had known him since forever, but it wasn't true.
Sebastian was blunt and irreverent, but he had a hidden side, just like his gaze. One fair iris, clear and gentle and the other dark, hermetic and sibylline.
There was something about him that attracted me so much, that was roughly reminding me of his image, tormenting me day and night.
He was moving wrapped in mystery, he had a detestable character, a pride to slap, but his bold and polite manner, the refinement of his words and those sly and curious eyes, those were all arrows that had been shot and reached straight the right point.
Maybe Sebastian's soul was split in half, and I wanted to find out what concealed the one side he kept well hidden.
I wanted him to show me his secret side, good or bad.
«Around lunchtime, Josh and the Tanners' son arrived in panic with you in their arms. They said that you had suddenly fainted, but that you had felt unwell already since this morning.»
Mrs. Coleman's voice brought me back to earth.
«There were only them?»
«Oh, Hanna also came to visit you, but I told everyone that you needed to rest and I would have informed them as soon as you had recovered», she went