over, but this was the sole entrance into the tower.
Wondering if he’d led me here purposely, I hesitated only a moment before following him inside. If he had, maybe it was to talk. I didn’t appreciate his creepy tactics, effective though they were. Words would have worked just fine.
Still so very confused, I stood warily by the door as Jericho walked deeper into the room.
He still hadn’t acknowledged me.
Instead, he stopped in the middle of the room, and I watched the back of his head turn as he looked around as if searching for something.
“Jericho,” I called, my tone firm and my patience gone.
Apprehension returned with the force of a Mack truck when he strode over to the side table next to the leather sofa, slid open the drawer, and pulled something out. I didn’t see what it was until he sat on the sofa with a pen in one hand and a set of papers that looked like they’d been folded and unfolded a hundred times clutched in the other.
His torpid gaze scanned them and the words printed on them. A moment later, Rich became agitated, gripping them hard enough to make them crinkle and ball up at one corner.
I forgot my unease as worry made my feet carry me closer to him. “Talk to me, Rich.”
My mind began to turn when he gave no reaction to my desperate plea. None. And then it all clicked into place.
He wasn’t ignoring me. He couldn’t hear me.
Because Jericho wasn’t even awake.
He was sleepwalking.
My suspicions were confirmed when, despite the anger he displayed only a moment ago, he calmly placed the papers on top of the black trunk they used as a coffee table, brought the pen to the material, and began writing. He made slow, lazy loops as he signed what I guessed was his name since he was done rather quickly.
Then…as if nothing had occurred…he stood from the sofa.
Jericho’s mind was still on autopilot when he ambled by me. Even though I was worried, I didn’t follow or call after him.
I watched him go.
The moment I was alone, my focus shifted to the papers, and I cautiously drifted closer.
One would think they were a bomb, and there were only ten seconds left to detonation. Quietly, I battled with the angel and the devil on my shoulders. I had no right to read what looked suspiciously like legal documents.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, the devil draped in red whispered in my ear.
I felt like I was on autopilot, too, when I lifted the papers from the table. The first thing I noticed was Jericho’s signature, messier than usual and crammed into the top corner of the page. But it wasn’t his name signed in the wrong place that had me frozen in horror and confusion. It was everything that came after.
It was the smell of roses.
It was the emotions that I should have felt but didn’t.
Because there was only sorrow.
The grief that gripped me wouldn’t allow me to feel anything else. It wouldn’t allow me denial or frustration as I read the words again.
I was already looking for a reason to forgive him.
So it didn’t allow me anger.
It didn’t allow me disgust or guilt or envy.
Because allowing those things would bring me hope that Jericho wasn’t lost to me forever and that…my rending heart could not do.
“Shit.” Groaning, I leaned over when my eyes opened on their own. I snatched my phone from the nightstand to check the time.
It was only nine thirty.
Why the fuck was I awake?
Tossing my phone back, I relaxed and tried to sleep again, but my mind wouldn’t stop sounding the alarm. I must have tried for ten minutes before giving up and rising out of bed. Thankfully, I’d worn pants to bed because I was on a mission when I stormed from my room.
I fully intended to ensure whichever of my friends chose to die at this ungodly hour went painfully. I didn’t slow my stride until I passed Rich’s room and saw him shuffling out with one eye open and his hair sticking up everywhere.
Houston then.
Tougher to maim, but I’d manage.
I heard Rich following me, only for us both to stop when we reached the stairs. Houston was walking down the short hallway that led to his bedroom, looking just as bewildered when he spotted us.
So…what the fuck?
I didn’t have an internal alarm for anyone else. There was no one I gave a shit about that much. No one else except—