Why hadn’t she told me?
I punched my finger to ring the doorbell again, then knocked on it too. It wasn’t even one in the morning yet. I knew she wouldn’t be asleep.
The door still didn’t open.
“Call her,” Rip said.
I pressed the buzzer again.
Still nothing.
Pulling out my phone, I dialed her number from memory andheardit ring inside. Abruptly, the chiming stopped like she had hit ignore or silenced it.
Was this really happening?
I glanced up at Rip and found him still looking down at me, this strange expression on his face.
Frustration and hurt built up in my chestinstantly,and the next thing I knew, I raised my fist and banged the outer part of it against her door as hard as I could. Then I did it again, yelling “Thea!” into the door.
Thatdid the trick.
Two seconds later, what sounded like a deadbolt turned and the next thing I knew, the door was swinging open to show my sister standing there. In a robe, with her blonde hair down and her eyes big and puffy and rimmed in red, she looked like a mess. Not that I was one to talk, but she genuinely looked like a mess, and she never did.
“Luna,” she muttered, genuinely sounding surprised.
“Hi,” I told her, trying not to sound awkward.
My twenty-one-year-old sister wiped at her face with the back of her hands, and I watched as she glanced at Rip behind me and let her eyes linger for a moment, this weird,weirdexpression coming over her before she took me in again. “I wasn’t sure you were coming,” she tried to claim in her equally weird voice.
I blinked. “You asked me to. I texted you twice while we were on the way.” I tried to give her another smile, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.Had she really been about to ignore my call?
“Yeah, I know, I just—” She shook her head and took a step back, sniffling as she did. “Come in.”
I took a few steps inside, Rip directly behind me. She barely closed the door when I looked over at her and gestured at Rip. “Thea, this is Ripley. Rip, this is my sister Thea.”
It was my sister who put her hand out first, Rip shaking it firmly but quickly before stepping back beside me. Her eyes slid to mine, and I didn’t like the sigh she let out. “The cops came and left about an hour ago.”
I nodded. “What’d they say?”
“Come on, come into the living room,” she said, her gaze sliding back to Rip for a second before leading us down a short hallway that opened into an airy living room and kitchen. Three pieces of velvet navy blue couches decorated the room with a nice glass table in the middle. There were lamps and pretty knickknacks decorating side tables, a huge TV mounted to the wall with floating shelves holding what looked like a DVD player and some kind of sound system.
It was nice, really nice.
And nothing looked… out of place. Or missing. It was all immaculately clean, like I knew Thea liked her things.
“Want something to drink?” she asked, clasping her hands in front of herself. Almost wringing them.
My throat suddenly felt dry. “I’d like some water.”
“I’m good,” Rip replied, his voice not like him, but I didn’t overthink it.
Thea nodded and headed into the kitchen, pulling out a bottle of water from the fridge. I noticed it wasn’t a no-name brand either. When I had left Thea in Dallas three years ago, everything in her pantry had been generic brand. Hell, most things in my pantry were the generic brand unless Lily insisted. Even when I bought organic stuff, if there was the generic label, that’s what I would get.
My sister handed me the bottle of water and just stood there.
I took it from her, unscrewing the lid and sucking down half before putting it back on. Glancing at the man to my side, I held the bottle out to him, just in case he really was thirsty. He was. He took it from me without hesitation and chugged the rest.
In any other circumstance, I would tell him that friends shared bottles of water, but… well, that wasn’t the time, and I wasn’t in the mood when my sister was being so strange.
