Dust and Roses: Book Two of the Dust Trilogy Read Online Free Page B

Arden. Got a minute?”
    I couldn’t believe he wanted to talk to me
after what had happened, but I was also afraid of what he would say. I looked at
Imani. “I can’t. I’m with my friend.”
    “No, it’s cool,” Imani said quickly. “Go
ahead. I’ll text you later.”
    “Okay,” I watched her move along the
sidewalk, wishing she hadn’t left me alone. I looked back at Wiley. “What?”
    He gestured with his finger for me to come
closer. “Get in. I just want to talk.”
    I wanted nothing more than to get as far
away from him as possible, but when someone knows your deepest, darkest secret,
you’re at their mercy. Dragging myself over to the passenger side of his truck,
I reluctantly climbed in. Wiley didn’t have the same silly grin he usually
wore. He seemed a little out of it and different than usual.
    He gripped his steering wheel and squeezed
while I waited for him to talk. Wiley wasn’t a bad looking guy. He had
shoulder-length brown curls which he kept under a Red Sox cap most of the time,
perfect dimples, and deep amber eyes. I’d never not seen him wearing a
long-sleeved flannel shirt. He cleared his throat, but he still wouldn’t look
at me. “We haven’t talked since that night.”
    “No.” I didn’t want to think about that
night. I didn’t want to think about Bailey.
    Wiley sighed, still gripping the steering
wheel as if his life depended on him not letting go. “I don’t even—what
happened?”
    I had no idea how to begin to explain that
night. It still didn’t seem real to me and sometimes I tried to convince myself
that I had imagined it all. Fletcher, Wiley, and I were the only ones who knew
the truth about that night. Thankfully Fletcher never talked about it. Seeing
Wiley always brought the memories rushing back.
    Wiley took a deep breath. “It keeps going
through my head over and over. I was sitting in my truck. I saw you and Bailey
go into the woods. You were there for a while so I thought you guys might have
had a little something something that you wouldn’t mind sharing. When I found
you, you were fighting. Bailey had you pinned down to the ground and then
seconds later, you were on top of her.”
    “Wiley, please . . .” I just wanted him to
stop. Why did he have to say those things out loud? I knew exactly what
happened. I was there.
    He finally let go of the steering wheel,
held his hands up, staring at them. “Then you just slashed her to death. With
your bare hands. You clawed her like some kind of animal. Bailey looked like
she had been hacked with a knife, but it was you. Why did you do that? How did you do that?”
    I sank into the car seat, wishing I could
evaporate. I couldn’t tell him the true story. I couldn’t tell anyone. The
truth was Bailey was a Doppelganger. She had been transforming into a Wendigo
and killing innocent people. She had been the one to start all this trouble.
Four people had died at her hands. On top of that, she had threatened not only
my life, but the lives of twenty plus kids having a party in the old farmhouse.
She’d planned the fake party to get us in an isolated area. The two of us had
gone outside to talk, and then she’d attacked me. If I hadn’t killed Bailey
that night, we would have all been dead, Wiley included, and the Wendigo
murders would have never stopped.
    I didn’t feel good about what I had done,
but I had no other choice.
    “Wiley, I had to do it. It was
self-defense. There’s just some things about that night that I can’t tell you,
but I promise you, I didn’t want to kill Bailey. I didn’t have any other
option.”
    Wiley had recorded the whole thing on his
phone which terrified me. He had something he could hold over my head and share
with people any time he wanted and my life would be ruined. As far as anyone
else knew, Bailey and her parents had moved away suddenly and that was that.
Bailey had actually killed her parents, so add them to the death tally.
    Fletcher promised me that we didn’t