In Vendetta House (The Vendetta Series #1)

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Sasha has a nice child-like face. Of course, it would be nicer if it wasn't only five inches away from mine, breathing into my sleeping face and waking me up.

"Sasha," I mumble, burying my head into the pillow. "A little space, please."

"Good, you're up," she chirps as she plops down on my bed, nearly squashing my leg.

"You know, normal people wake their roommates with a simple Good Morning!" I grumble into my pillow. "First you drag me onto the floor, now you breathe into my face. What's next? A polka jig at sunrise?"

"That's not a bad idea..." she muses.

I jerk my head out my pillow to gawk at her. Sasha giggles at my expression. "Kidding!"

I wince as I sit up gingerly. The bruises I had on my legs and arms from the stimulation hadn't yet faded, and now I had new ones from being thrown onto storage boxes in the attic half the night. Jesse isn't as useless with fighting as he thought, he simply lacked technique and structure. He is strong enough, that's for sure. I almost twisted my wrist blocking a punch.

On the bright side, due to his side of the agreement, I know now the slight basics of the telepathic pulse.

"Did you hear anything strange last night?" she asks casually, reaching over and playing with my hair.

"I didn't hear anything. I was in bed here fast asleep all night," I lie, maybe a bit too excessively. I didn't want to feed Sasha BS, but Jesse had already warned me thoroughly last night no one was to know about the attic. No one was to know about fight training. No one was to know about power teaching.

"I'll teach you how to make Sasha think you're still fast asleep under the covers," he had said. "Just in case she notices."

"How long would that take?" I had questioned.

Jesse had shrugged and shot an infuriating grin. "A few days depending on how fast you catch on. Better work on your sneaking out skills."

"And what about the cameras?" I had asked worried.

"We'll work on those too."

I rub my eyes and swing my legs out of bed. As I stand and stretch, Sasha only folds her arm back and purses her lips in thought.

"Why do you ask?" I say innocently.

Sasha gets up as well and walks towards the armoire, about to get dressed. I'm about to warn her that there are cameras but stop just as I open my mouth. I would have to explain how I know.

"Oh, it's nothing really," she is saying as my eyes swivel around the room scouting for the hidden camera. "But there's been three disappearances in the last month. That's the most we've ever had in such a short time period. I'm worried something's going to come in the dead of night and I could have sworn I heard our door open when I was half-dreaming."

"Disappearances?" I ask, my hands feeling the blanket edges for a camera lump. "I heard something about that. What's been going on?"

"In the two years I've been here, no one's actually been properly excused to leave. But there's been a total of seven people that've gone missing. Apparently, they've escaped. But I don't think so."

"Mm-hm, why's that?" I ask, distracted. They've hidden this thing good.

"Well, it was easy to believe Elijah and Catherine had run off together when I'd just arrived," she says. "Apparently they had gotten, you know, together and always caused trouble. Rebelling, sneaking out after lights out."