Page 74 of Wings of Destiny

I stared at my screen, awaiting a response. A few minutes passed, nothing came through. I checked Erin’s location out of curiosity. It had her pinned in Charshire. I let out a breath. They were at Josh’s building. As a businessman with one of the biggest wigs on this side of the country, Josh owned one of the largest buildings in Charshire. Far grander than any structure we had here in our town aside from the college campus.

Wonder what they’re doing there.

The only other person in our group who had ever been inside was Libby. She said she hated the drive so she’d only gone with him once and never told me or Derik what it was like beyond being massive.

My hands were too full to entertain the idea and to be entirely honest, I wasn’t too keen on voluntarily sticking myself with the Prick for an unnecessary amount of time alone. My temper would undoubtedly get the best of me and I worked too hard to keep myself in check to allow that to happen.

I checked my messages once more, then shoved my phone into my pocket.

“Looks like they’re in Charshire.” I sighed. Derik rustled around in the pantry, more than likely clearing out my food stash that Erin and I’d bought last week. “Hey, before your ass eats all my food, wanna toss me a bagel?” A bag of the ‘bread circles’ came barreling across the kitchen at me. I caught it right before they nailed me in the nose.

A little memory popped into my mind.

A few months prior, Erin had been over and crashed on the couch after a long day of classes and then work and I’d been figuring out what to make the next morning. She had said ‘bread circles’ because she forgot the actual name of the cinnamon bagels I kept on hand.

My mouth twitched, a half smile peaked out.

“Is she going to be okay?” Libby asked, shaking me from my thoughts. Libby had the cream cheese out of the fridge and slid it over.

I belted out a laugh. “If anything, you should be asking ifJosh’sass will be okay. The amount of sass in that woman is inspirational.”

Derik nodded in agreement as he emerged from the pantry, arms full of protein bars, coffee, and bread. “You got any jam in the fridge?” Derik asked, the words muffled around the toaster pastry he had dangling from his mouth.

I shook my head at him. “Top shelf, man. Leave some for the rest of us.”

The corners of Libby’s eyes lifted in amusement. “You’re going to need to make another trip to the store, asap. You guys only bought enough food to feed two people, not four.”

I rolled my eyes in response.

“Yeah well, I wasn’t exactly expecting you two to be mooching off me for the foreseeable future. You can buy your own shit, you know. Save me some cash.”

I might have money from mom when mom passed…and also Nicholas, but it's not endless.

Derik huffed. “Why can Snow mooch off you, but it’s a problem if we do it? We’re bros, Seth, come on man.”

Libby snickered. “Oh I know why.” I shot her a glare. She snapped her mouth closed, the edges of her mouth twitching.

Traitor.

Derik eyebrows arched, eyes traveling between Libby and I. “Spill it, Lib. I gots to know.” He begged. I stared her down, praying that she kept it to herself.

Don’t you do it, Lib.

A Cheshire grin spread across her face. “Nah, I think I’ll leave that for you to figure out, Pretty Boy.” Libby batted her lashes at Derik, feigning innocence.

His gaze stuck on Libby and she winked at him. He shook his head, gave up, and chomped down on his toast.

Thank fuck.

If Derik had even an inkling of what Erin meant to me, he’d never let me live it down. Teasing to a whole other level. And with Erin convinced that I’m ‘playing protector,’ I’d rather leave it at that to avoid the embarrassment of potentially being turned down—at the moment.

Libby cranked up the coffee machine, tossing in the grounds Derik had stolen from the pantry. Fresh coffee quickly filled the air, a trace of French toast filtered with it. Libby poured each of us a mug. She offered to add cream and sugar to mine, and I declined, allotting to do it myself. I wasn’t wanting to choke on enough sugar to take down a horse.

Something Libby and Erin have in common…their sugar addiction.

We chatted for a bit after scarfing down breakfast. Libby and Derik offered to dive into hunting down any new information or potential sightings for the humans who disappeared. I opted to stay back, backtrack our notes and findings, hoping maybe we’d missed something. I shot Erin a quick text, then dove in.

I logged onto Erin’s laptop and the first thing to pop on the screen was an excerpt from some fan-fiction site. I stifled a laugh as I read through the page.

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