Bittersweet Read Online Free Page A

time’ together. He totally played the best friend card, as usual, and I totally caved, as usual. Suggesting it happen some other time hadn’t worked. He’d practically strapped her into my car himself.
    â€œYou two are going to get along if it kills you both.” His words. Not mine. I’d managed to keep my opinion of his asinine idea to myself. Brianne was the one protesting loudly. We’d been even more at odds since the vocal competition. I’d won singing a duet with Adrius, and her hatred had escalated. Last thing I wanted was to be her babysitter, today of all days.
    Abby didn’t help matters. “The GPS is busted. She could navigate.” She shrugged when Davin forced Bri into the car.
    After shooting her my “you’re so not helping” glare, I looked at Bri in the rearview mirror. “Fine, you can come, just don’t ask any questions.”
    Then I cranked the radio loud enough to make backseat-front seat conversation impossible.
    One hundred and twenty-seven minutes later we were in Lynchbrook.
    Life never quite goes as planned. That was my exact thought as we approached the address scrawled on the scrap of paper crumpled in my bag. 12345 Everley Boulevard wasn’t in the nicest part of town. The whole block looked deserted. Decrepit remains of buildings and piles of rubble were all that was left of some buildings. Most of the others had boarded windows and paint-chipped signs, and random graffiti covered every available wall space.
    Brianne climbed out of the car and fixed her hair. She looked around, and scrunched up her face. “Where the heck are we?”
    â€œI said no questions. Remember?”
    This was going to be fun… trying to keep not one, but two people completely in the dark about why we were really in the middle of ghost town looking for my great aunt at some random business address.
    Abby was on board because she loved an adventure and one involving a missing aunt and a secret location... didn’t have to ask her twice. Brianne, on the other hand, couldn’t care less what had happened to Camilla. Her main concern was what had happened to her hair, which she continued to finger like she was prepping for a nightclub instead of a creepy hotel.
    â€œIf you’re not going to tell me what kind of drugs you’re obviously buying here, then can we at least get it over with, like, as soon as possible? There are a million places I’d rather be than slumming it with you two.” Brianne huffed.
    Abby and I exchanged a look.
    â€œWe’re not buying drugs,” I snapped. “I have to meet my great aunt here.”
    She made a face and rolled her eyes implying she didn’t believe a word of it, but thankfully didn’t bother to comment.
    Craning my neck, I gazed up at the building. This was not what I was expecting at all. Not by a long shot. What appeared to be a well-kept posh hotel in the past was anything but now. I looked inside, unable to move any further into the circa 1800 bordello lobby. Dimly lit floor lamps illuminated the peeling red paint on the walls and shone a sickly jaundiced glow on the crumbling ceiling tiles scattered across a crumbling floor. The rotting and decayed remains of a desk leaned precariously against a wall with multiple marks that looked suspiciously like bullet holes. One wall had claw marks that ran from floor to ceiling. No rational explanation for that one. But if the sight was scary enough, it was nothing compared to the smell. Like mold and rotting meat mixed with full strength ammonia.
    Brianne looked inside and screwed up her face. “Nice. It’s an e-coli factory... a breeding ground for hepatitis. I am so not going in there,” Brianne uttered, folding her arms.
    I shrugged, not sure what to say. Mostly because I agreed with her, not that I’d ever tell her that. But this was the address Peterson had given me, and if Camilla was somewhere in here, I had to