Free The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III by Claire C. Riley Page B

tremor of cold raked up and down my back until my body did a full-on convulsion. Nova turned to glare at me once more, but I ignored her stare since my eyelids felt frozen in place. She was like a machine: poised and still, frozen to the spot, her singular goal to stare into the horizon, waiting for whoever the hell it was coming back. Though my gut said Deacon, my heart hoped it wasn’t. Nova didn’t flinch or move when the rain began to come down, gradually growing more intense. She didn’t even shiver as the wind whipped her red hair around her face. She crouched, waiting, persistent, and almost eager for the kill, her eyes narrowed, her hands poised.
    “You can go inside, you know. You’re not really doing any good being here,” she hissed, and turned back to the front.
    “If you’re sticking it out, I’m t-t-totally sticking it out. We’re a team,” I quipped, trying to keep up my team spirit, but inside I died a little more as the wind howled across the back of my neck and I trembled in my boots.
    “Yippee for me,” she replied, sounding thoroughly pissed off about me staying. “It’s not even that cold,” she grumbled under her breath, but I heard her—though how was a mystery.
    And she was right: it wasn’t really that cold. I wasn’t sure exactly what month it was anymore—January? February, perhaps. People stopped trying to work it out accurately a while back—but I knew that the worst of the winter was behind us. However, the damn rain was killing me. It was like pure ice drops pelting against my skin. And worse than that was how the cold that had been coming on had smacked me upside the head to say a big hello.
    The backs of my eyes ached, and a low throb had begun to build in the base of my skull. Germs were what made you sick, but being cold and wet lowered your ability to fight the infection. The rain got into your clothes, soaking you right to the very bone until you slowly froze to death. As if on cue I shuddered again, clenching my jaw closed tight to stop my teeth smashing together. I clenched and unclenched my hands again, gritting my teeth and hoping to God that this asshole would show up soon so we could put him out of his goddamned misery and go inside and warm up by the fire.
    Yes, people, my sympathy for Deacon and Hilary—if it was in fact Deacon and Hilary that had torn this place apart, had gone out of the proverbial fucking window. Screw these people and all their drama. I was freezing my ass off.
    “Please go inside, I’m fuckin’ begging you, Nina,” Nova demanded, her voice laced with irritation. “You’re not helping anyone by staying out here.”
    “F-f-f-uck you,” I stammered back angrily, “I’m trying to be supportive and a g-good friend by staying with you.”
    She turned to roll her eyes at me. “Dude, do I look like I need any help from a chattering wreck like you?”
    I stared across at her, feeling hugely hurt by her callousness, though I could see the immediate regret in her eyes as she’d said it. But it didn’t matter. I felt like death, and now I had a whole bag of hurt to make me feel worse. I was trying to be sincere—trying to be a supportive friend, since that was what we supposedly were—and she’d basically just spat in my face. I blinked, wanting to cry and feeling annoyed with myself instantly that I had let her words hurt me, furious that my emotions were getting the better of me just because I had a freaking cold. Normally my skin was thicker than that, and I let comments roll down my back and into oblivion, but the sting of her words had cut me deep.
    “Fine.” I turned away from her, hoping that the single tear that had slipped out got lost in the rain that was still coming down and lashing my face.
    “Dude, I didn’t mean it like that,” I heard her yell after me, but I continued back down the steps, ignoring her. “Come on, don’t make me feel shitty!”
    I had never felt so useless in all my damn life. I was cold, and