I sipped my latte. “Who?”
“Ethan,” she answered. “The guy who’s been chasing you for like, what? Three months now?”
I thought for a second before it hit me, and my brows rose. “Oh. Right.” I cleared my throat. “No, I haven’t heard from him, and I honestly do not want to.”
“Poor guy.” She leaned back in her chair. “He would do anything just to date you.”
“No,” I said, shaking my index finger in the air. “He would do anything to get between my legs.”
“Come on, you don’t know that for sure.”
“Yes, I do,” I answered, my voice laced with conviction. “Look, I know you like to see the good in people, but trust me when I tell you that Ethan has ill intentions toward me. You should be careful around him as well.”
She paused, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “How do you do it?”
I raised my eyebrows. “Do what?”
“Read people without even trying. One minute you’re empathetic, and the next you’re cynical as hell.” She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s impressive.”
A scoff escaped my lips.
Ethan was a business student like Celina, tall, handsome, and charming on the surface. The dude’s outward qualitiesdeceived everyone else but me. I could see right through the mask; he wasn’t the sweet young man people thought he was.
I had no proof, but my intuition was always right, eighty-five percent of the time.
“He’s cute, though,” she said, biting into her hamburger with a mischievous grin on her lips.
“He is,” I answered. “And that’s what makes him dangerous.”
She munched on her burger and said with her mouth full. “You should be a detective. I don’t know what you’re doing studying law.”
Celina Hart was my best friend: a twenty-one-year-old American, unlike me, who was part Japanese. She was a business student with soft curves and honey-brown skin that seemed to glow under gallery lights.
Her dark curls fell past her shoulders, framing her amber eyes that often held both curiosity and defiance. Celina was gentle—naive sometimes—but never weak. She saw the good in people and found beauty where others saw ruins.
That’s what made her so unique. Celina was innocent and compassionate, even toward strangers. She’d yet to come to terms with the real world and the horrors that lurked in the dark.
Sometimes, I wished that I could shield her from evil because people like her, gentle and kind, were those whom the wicked loved to prey on.
“How’s your mom?” she asked, her amber eyes locked to mine. “Is she doing all right?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I haven’t spoken to her in a while, but I’ll give her a call later today.”
Barely two seconds later, my phone buzzed on the table between us. My eyes flicked to the lit screen; it was an incoming call from Mrs. Decker, my mother’s neighbor.
“That’s weird,” I murmured under my breath, reaching for the buzzing device. “Hello?” I answered, and immediately, my breath ceased.
My eyes widened, my racing heart sank into my stomach as heat spread across my body. The news shattered my nervous system, fear and anxiety snaking their way into my mind.
Celina’s face was masked with concern as she watched me, wondering what was happening.
“Which hospital?” I managed to ask, my voice faint and barely audible. “All right. Thank you, Mrs. Decker. I’ll be there.” I ended the call.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Celina leaned in, elbows on the table. “Everything all right?”
“It’s my mom.” I rose from my chair, picking up my purse with shaky hands. “She’s in the hospital.”
“What?” Her brows arched reflexively. “What happened?”
