Omega (The Infinity Division, #2) Chapter 1 to 3

Chapter Two

Ash

I tugged my jacket just a bit tighter and pulled the sleeves down over my fingers. The faint scent of the buttery leather was comforting—which was something I needed. There was a very real chance I might vomit.

It was nearing November, and the bitter cold had come early this year. It kind of sucked since I was staying someplace sans electric. If tonight went badly, though, electricity would be the least of my problems.

I crushed the piles of dead leaves beneath my feet to stave off some of the silence. I'd come to the Doon to meet a guy—and not for recreational purposes—but he was late and I was starting to think he wouldn't show.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. I stomped my foot until all the leaves beneath me were reduced to crumbles. Next, I started picking at the loose thread at the hem of my shirt. It was stupid. This was one of my last good ones. Since getting booted from my home, and cut off financially from my surrogate family, I was running on fumes. A new wardrobe wasn't in the cards.

Thankfully—or, depending on how you looked at things, unthankfully—just when I was about to give up, the faint crunching of footsteps sliced through the silence.

"Ash?" someone whispered from the darkness. A few moments later, a familiar boy with brown hair and linebacker shoulders stepped into the moonlight. He stopped in the middle of the clearing and spun in a slow circle beside a large rock.

My heart hammered at light speed, and as I stepped out from behind the side of the tree, I had to remind myself to breathe. An insane moment of panic tempted me to step back into the shadows and run away as fast as my feet could carry me. But that wouldn't do me any good. I had to face this thing head on. I had one shot and this was it. "I'm here."

He made a move to come closer, but hesitated. It made sense. I was like a raging forest fire these days. Venture too close and you'd be incinerated. "It was a huge gamble calling me out, ya know?"

"I know, Corey." I swallowed the growing lump of fear that threatened to choke me.

"Why did you even think I'd come?"

"I didn't, but you're here, so..." Honestly, I was beyond surprised he'd come. But, I'd had to try something. My best friend was dead and my life was in shambles. If there was a chance to fix it, albeit minute, I had to try. "Thanks for coming. I know you must hate me—"

"I don't hate you, Ash. I don't really know how to feel about you. Never did. Things with you have always been... weird."

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek. To keep from crying? Maybe just a little. The Anderson family took me in when I was just ten years old. Cora and Karl had been cold and distant, viewing me as nothing more than a publicity stunt, and their sons? Things got even murkier there. Corey and I had never hit it off. He'd always regarded me as more of an annoyance he had to put up with than an extension of his family. But his brother Noah? We'd clicked from moment one. He'd been my best friend. My rock. The one person who'd always had my back.

And now he was dead, and I felt like the entire world had been yanked out from underneath me. His being gone was bad enough, but the way it happened? The questions surrounding it—those were unbearable.

"Look." He stuffed his hands into his pockets and dropped his gaze to the ground. "I don't know exactly what happened between you and my brother, but whatever it was, no one really believes he'd kill himself over it."

The fact that anyone would ever think that a guy like Noah Anderson would commit suicide was the most ludicrous thing in the world. And over someone like me? Sure. Maybe in an alternate universe.