No Strings Attached

Chapter Twenty Seven

Every single sound from outside had Shannon flinching – she was a bag of hyperactive nerve endings, her phone turning over and over in her fidgeting hands.

“I’m sure it will be fine, Shan,” Tori was soothing her quietly – although Shannon wasn’t sure that she was meaning to let that amount of fear and hesitation seep into her comforting words.

“It’s not,” Shannon huffed out, her foot beating an unsteady, nervous rhythm on the carpet, “I can feel it, something’s wrong. Something’s been wrong all morning, and Nate’s not told me anything – you know Franchetti was in the kitchen when I woke up this morning?”

Tori couldn’t hide the slight chill that ran down her spine, and she pulled her knees into her chest – hugging her frail arms around them on the sofa.

“Well, maybe that’s normal,” she started shakily, “I mean, neither of us really knew what Nate was up to before – he’s really secretive like that. Maybe there’s like a liaison meeting or something at Nate’s?”

Shannon went back to chewing her thumbnail agitatedly, she just knew there was more to this – Jayden gave her a gun, for Christ’s sake – in the same house as Tori. Something had to be wrong.

“It’s more than that – there were all these meaningful glances – and he said something about a guy named Dobrev, and forty eight hours, and newbies. Oh God, Tor, why can’t they just be honest with us? This is killing me!”

A fraught silence was folding in around them – nerves and fear more palpable in the air than the oxygen – and Shannon’s heart was beating at such a frantic rhythm that she wasn’t sure she wasn’t going to give herself a heart attack.

The wind outside was picking up speed and strength – the early autumn weather picking up a chill – and she was registering every rustling leaf in the garden – every swing of the almost barren branches.

“He must be there by now, it’s only an hour away – why isn’t he calling?” she growled out at Tori, who seemed drenched in her equally potent memories.

Losing Nate was one of her biggest fears – after Caleb was shot, and then their parents were in the accident only six months later, Nate was her only true family. Tori just wasn’t built for being alone – much as she knew she had Jayden, she needed the promise of an unconditional love – she needed her big brother. Saying goodbye to him wasn’t something she would ever be ready to face.

“He’s Jayden,” she croaked out quietly, “He’ll tell you nothing until he’s clinging onto gravel with his fingertips at the edge of a fifty foot drop and you’re the only one standing there to give him a hand. It’s how he works.”

He must be lonely, she mused quietly, even now – with a family around him that loved him to the core – he felt like he had to shoulder everything alone until the final hour. Nate was the only person he’d ever confide in – ever – and Tori knew that was what had been so hard about the early stages of their relationship – it was that isolation, that fear – he couldn’t talk it over with his only ally, and the man he felt like he was betraying.