Page 60 of Wicked Games

We dig in without Robert, and once finished, I retreat upstairs.

I grab my backpack on the way up. I close my door and eye my cracked window. A cold breeze blows inside.

“Caleb?”

I pause, glancing around the room. The closet is halfway open, and the rest of the room is silent and still. He doesn’t emerge from any hiding place.

I cross the room and slam the window shut. If he’s not going to make himself known, then I may as well do homework.

Robert gets home a while later and comes upstairs, knocking on my door. “Did Appleton leave?”

“Yeah, she had to get home for dinner.”

He nods. “You need anything?”

“I’m good for now… and I need to catch up on this stuff.”

“All right, back to work then.” He taps the door, then closes me back in.

I look around the room, pulling my leg up to my chest. I wrap my arms around it and put my chin on my knee, closing my eyes for a minute. It isn’t that Iwantto take Amelie’s place. I just want her to realize how wrong she’s been.

She needs to fall… and Caleb does, too.

He’s been hoping to break me, and he took his best shot. But it just isn’t happening.

I’m strong. Maybe not in the normal sense of the word… and maybe I do cave to his demands sometimes.

But he hasn’t scared me off.

I’m notbroken.

I close my books, turn off the light, and stretch out flat on the bed. It takes a long while for the energy to sap out of my muscles.

Sleep comes in small pieces, dragging me under and then waking me with a snap.

My mind swings from Isabella to Caleb, back and forth like a pendulum. I don’t know why she’s haunting my thoughts tonight, but I can’t get the ghost out of my mind. I let her marinate in my head for a while: a girl I’ve never met, will never meet, and can’t shake.

I wonder if she lived here. In this room.

Something taps my window.

I flinch, scrambling upright. I expect Caleb’s face to be staring back at me. Instead, there’s nothing except moonlight.

The tap comes again, harder, and I creep closer.

Three hours have passed. It’s midnight.

And Caleb stands below my window. His arm winds back, and he tosses something toward me.

A little pebble hits the glass.

I jerk open the window, sticking my head out.

“Come for a midnight stroll with me,” he says.

“Are you crazy?” I whisper-yell. “How?”

“You could sneak out the back door,” he says. “Or climb down…”

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