Your Worst Fears

Chapter 26: Happy Birthday

Today was my nineteenth birthday. I'd been dating Nick for two weeks and we were just now going on our first official date. Being forced to walk on his broken ankle before it had healed made his injury much worse, so he'd ended up having surgery on it. Between that and his healing burns and cut on his side, he opted to stay in for a while. Well, I don't know if it was as much his idea as it was mine.

I brought over my entire set of The Hunger Games and Harry Potter movies to watch, since he'd shockingly never seen any of them, as well as a few scary ones I knew he'd like, which helped pass the time. We did spend some time talking a little about what all had happened, him admitting to how he'd broken his ankle in the first place, and just sharing how we both were dealing with everything. It felt good to be able to talk to each other about it, knowing we'd never be able to tell anyone else. If we did, we knew people would either think we were crazy or into some type of satanic worship, so we knew it'd always be our dark little secret. Yeah, our team knew about a lot that had happened, and Erik knew even more, but we hadn't spoken to him since the day it all ended, so....

Mom said she wasn't surprised when I finally told her Nick and I were dating, saying she knew that would happen as soon as he came to the house that day I was in the hospital. "I could see it in his eyes," she said. "He was so worried about you." She talked about what a polite young man he was, which always made me smile. He was almost as close in age to her as he was to me, but thankfully she had no idea. If she did, she probably wouldn't feel so bad about blushing every time he complimented her.

"You look beautiful," Nick said, leaning forward and crossing his arms on the table between us. It was weird when he said things like that and didn't have a sarcastic edge to his voice. Don't get me wrong, he still aggravated me to death sometimes, but Nick wouldn't be Nick if he didn't.

"Thanks. You don't look so bad, yourself." He actually looked really, really good, but I wasn't about to tell him that.

When he grinned at me, I felt my face getting hot and was glad the restaurant was a bit dark, hoping he wouldn't notice. For once, I was thankful that his phone started to vibrate, drawing his attention away from me.

"That's weird," he said.

"What?"

"It was Courtney."

"Erik's Courtney?"

"Yeah. I Wonder what she wants."

That old false hate started to creep back in again and I started to say something extremely rude, but bit my tongue and simply said, "With her, there's no telling."

"I'll call her back when we leave."

I nodded, reminding myself I didn't really hate her and that what I was feeling—the hatred and jealousy—was put inside me, not born there. However, if he happened to forget to call her back, I wasn't about to remind him. Of course, since his phone vibrated again letting him know he had a voicemail, I wouldn't have to remind him, anyway.

"Go ahead and see what she wanted," I told him, since I knew that's all that would be on my mind the rest of dinner.

As he opened his voicemail and listened, I watched his face, which became more and more concerned. By the time he put his phone back up, I was anxious to hear what all she'd said.

"Erik's missing."

I wasn't expecting that. "What? He's missing?"

"Well, she said she's not talked to him in a week." He took a sip of his beer before continuing, which wasn't a good sign. "She said he started acting weird a couple of weeks ago and then became really distant, not answering her calls or replying to her texts. Then last week, he just disappeared. None of his friends or family knows where he's at."