Shire Bottom Chronicles

Chapter Twenty

Rose sat, pencil in hand, staring at the blank page of her journal. It had been a couple weeks since the party, and Rose finally broke down at Cat's behest and went to see the town psychologist. He'd recommended that she keep track of her days in a journal to help sort out her thoughts. He wanted her to write no less than one page every day until her next visit in a week. Frankly, Rose didn't see how writing all of this down would help her sleep.

She flipped back to the previous day's entry, re-reading it hoping for some inspiration for today's entry. It was already nine p.m., and she hadn't even managed to come up with a single word worth writing down. Yesterday she had spent several hours at the hotel making sure everything stayed in order for the big Crimson Inc. conference taking place. She noticed the red-haired woman seemed to have vanished and no one would acknowledge it. Lucifer even acted like Rose was crazy for suggesting the woman existed at all.

If that were true, then why had this particular woman been mentioned so many times in her first entry? Nothing seemed to make sense in her writings. One day she would write about someone or something, but the next everyone would deny it even happened.

With everything else becoming a huge puzzle, it was nice that Komazzi was becoming one of the few stable things in her life. They had been texting nonstop since the party. Sometimes serious things, other times they would send each other a funny or cute picture. The last message she had gotten from him an hour ago was a picture of him in a meeting room rolling his eyes. It was random, but it still made Rose smile when she saw it.

The shrill ringing of her cellphone demanded Rose's attention. She cringed at the contact photo on the screen. "Hey, Allie," she yawned, feigning exhaustion. Maybe Allie would get the point and not talk for long. "I was just about to go to bed."

"You never answered my texts," Allie whined. Rose heard the low drone of the TV in the background, mingled with the voices of Effie and Duke arguing over the remote. "Is everything okay? Josh told me that there was a party in the forest two weeks ago. He said you went with Kaine, why didn't you tell me he asked you out?"

Rose shoved her journal aside; so much for getting an entry finished tonight. She would have to write two pages tomorrow to catch up. "It wasn't a big deal. I won't be seeing Kaine again," she said firmly.

The events at the party replayed like a strange dream in her mind. The attack on Komazzi was horrible enough, but Rose wondered if Kaine felt threatened by her other friends, too. He'd watched them constantly when they were in view, as if observing their actions. From her years of therapy, she knew that jealousy was typical behavior of a possessive person. When he saw Matt, Rose could only describe the look in Kaine's eyes as a hunter who had stumbled upon fresh meat. She still couldn't shake the creepy feeling that look gave her.

"Nobody invited me," Allie said, and Rose braced herself for the impending bitch fit. She had a feeling Paxton put the word out to everyone not to let Allie know about the party. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Jesse there either. "We all went to school together. A reunion would have been fun! Cat is trying to turn you against me. She's already got most of our friends in her clutches. You can't let her get to you, Rose, she's dangerous!"

"Huh? What does Cat have to do with you not getting an invite?" Rose groaned.

"You've seen the way she gets everyone all wrapped up in her vortex," Allie insisted. Rose couldn't understand what Cat ever did to Allie. Cat often left stores or restaurants if she saw Allie. In high school, Cat never even spoke to her; maybe not being able to become the center of Cat's universe was the reason Allie hated her. Allie was the one always making up rumors about Cat. Everything from her being possessed by a demon to being a prostitute.