AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She had her foot on the second stair when her mom stuck her head out from the kitchen. “Why are you back so early?”
Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Make up some shit. She opened her mouth, waiting for some lie to form, to slip out, but damned if the humiliation she’d felt earlier didn’t peak again and her temper got the best of her.
“Guess you didn’t pay Lilly enough.” Della tore off up the stairs. This time she couldn’t swallow the tears.
Chapter Two
Della got to her room and dropped face first on her bed, her chest a big ball of pain. She heard her mom’s footsteps and wanted to kick herself, really hard, for not keeping her mouth shut. Her mom already had too much on her plate. But damn, didn’t she know how much she’d embarrassed her?
“Della?” Her mom opened the door.
“I’m tired, Mom. I want to sleep,” she said into her pillow, praying her voice didn’t shake.
The mattress shifted with her mom’s weight. “She … told you?”
Della nodded.
“I … was trying to help.”
She felt her mom’s hand on her back. She rolled over and popped up, not wanting her mother to notice her cool body temperature. Every time her mom touched her, Della saw the concern in her eyes.
“I don’t need help.” Della pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them. “I certainly don’t need you paying people to be my friends. I have friends, lots of them, at school.”
“But you’re not at that school now. It’s not like … I didn’t … She was helping me out with my groceries and I mentioned she should come over and see you. Then I didn’t have any change to give her, so I just dropped a twenty in her hands and said she could come by.”
“Just forget it, okay?” Della asked.
“Maybe if you enrolled back in your old school you’d get reacquainted with your old friends and you’d be … happier.”
“No. I’m happy. As soon as things … calm down here, I’ll go back to Shadow Falls Academy.”
Tears filled her mom’s eyes. “Honey, it could be a long time before things … calm down. The trial could be months away.”
“It’s not going to trial. They’re going to realize it’s a mistake and dismiss the charges.” At least according to Burnett, one of Shadow Falls’s owners and a member of the Fallen Research Unit (FRU), the supernatural equivalent of the FBI, and the half-warlock lawyer he’d sent to assist in her father’s defense.
