Crossing Over

Chapter 13

As Andra climbed into bed that night she was still thinking over everything she had learned about Savannah's death, trying to make sense of it. Conrad had given them plenty of new insight into Savannah's last days, but the pieces still didn't quite fit. She couldn't seem to escape the nagging feeling that some key detail was still missing.

Worse was in the spare moments when she wasn't worrying over Savannah, she was thinking of Cameron.

She had surprised herself by being so open with him about what she had seen. She didn't trust people easily and that situation had only been complicated by things that had happened before she and her mother had moved, but that was not something she was ready to discuss with him. She didn't like the idea of Cameron thinking she was crazy, but that was preferable to him feeling sorry for her.

That did, however, say a lot about how comfortable she was with Cameron that she could talk to him about as much as she had. In turn, maybe it said a lot about her feelings for him.

She couldn't deny the fact that she was attracted to him, but all that meant was that she wasn't blind. Cameron was just one of those guys. He always looked like he had just stepped off a runway somewhere and Andra would be willing to bet that he woke up looking like that. She had wondered more than once about his family. He never talked about them much, but she imagined they were nothing less than extraordinarily good-looking. If not, then Cameron was adopted and just hadn't told her yet.

The thing was, she was aware that he wanted them to graduate to something more than friends. He was only holding back because she was throwing out more mixed signals than a catcher at a Major League Baseball game.

When she and her mom had first moved here, the thought of a relationship was the farthest thing from her mind but Cameron had surprised her. She had moved past attraction into something else. The thought of seeing him brought on a severe case of butterflies and every time he flashed her his thousand-watt smile she felt her heart skip a beat. The way he had reacted to her confession this afternoon had only strengthened the feelings she was having. Suddenly, she was unsure if holding him off was really what she wanted to be doing.

Those thoughts were still running through her head when she began to doze. She had underestimated the stress of the last twenty-four hours. It had exhausted her both physically and mentally. Within moments, she was drifting on the fringes of sleep.

After some time, she became aware of an odd noise originating from somewhere in her room. At first, to her sleep confused brain, it seemed to be part of a dream, but as she heard the noise again she became convinced that it was coming from nearby.

Remembering all too well, the events of the night before, Andra was suddenly wide awake. Lying completely motionless, she listened intently to the familiar nighttime sounds that surrounded her.

She was just beginning to relax when she heard a soft scrabbling noise. If her room hadn't been carpeted, she might have imagined it to be a mouse running across the floor but that sound could only have been made against a hard surface.

Shifting anxiously, she ran her hand along the top of the bedside table searching for her phone. The thought of calling her mom, who was sleeping just down the hall, crossed her mind but she still wasn't completely sure anything was going on. She didn't want her mother roaming through the house just as paranoid as she was.

Getting in touch with Cameron seemed like the best plan of action. She had already made up her mind not to check the time on her phone when she found it. That way she could be legitimately surprised when he told her how late it was.

Andra was already plotting out the conversation they would have in her head when she caught movement from the corner of her eye. There was something at the foot of her bed and she was positive she had not imagined it. Still waiting and watching, it struck her that she was hanging half off the bed leaning toward the nightstand where anything with claws and razor-sharp teeth could reach out and pull her into the darkness.