Never Letting Go (Delphian Book 1) Read Free Page B

room. Then, leaning against the entrance, he looked down.
    His dimple smiled at me.
    “You look very alert, Mia, but here we tend to get at least seven hours of sleep. Especially me.” I saw his eyes zero in somewhere behind me. I followed his gaze to the clock placed on the nightstand and saw that it was five in the morning. He looked back at me and gave a tired smile that ended in a yawn. “So you’ve got at least a few more hours to go.”
    Dante was just about to turn away, then he thought otherwise and glanced back. “And it’s a good thing you picked my room to barge in on, because if it had been Briggs it wouldn’t have ended so well. Alternatives can be Amy, who is right next to me, or Kaede, who’s down the hall.”
    I stared hard up at Dante.
    He noticed the curious look in my eyes. “Why not Briggs?”
    I nodded.
    “He doesn’t like his sleep interrupted. If you think he was unpleasant earlier, wait until you see him with no sleep.” Dante ended by shaking his head and giving a small laugh.
    Then he gestured toward the bed, his voice quieter. “I’ll let you get back to bed.”
    I followed Dante’s cue and moved my lips upward, giving a smile in return like the one I had tried out in the bathroom. The movement still felt strange, sterile, but the pleased look on Dante’s face made me realize that it was the right thing to do.
    “Goodnight, Mia,” Dante said softly. I nodded, then he slowly closed the door. I still felt his presence as he stood on the other side before he quietly walked away, leaving me to myself.
    I realized I had been holding my breath the entire time and let it out slowly as I made my way back toward the bed and lay down on the mattress.
    I wondered what tomorrow would bring with my interactions with these people. I found their dynamics interesting and wondered why one in particular failed to make his presence known to both Dante and I.
    We weren’t the only ones currently awake, and the walls were rather thin in this apartment. That first door I had stood in front of had been Briggs. For some reason I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had been lying wide awake at the exact same moment, keenly aware of my presence. I also knew that I didn’t dare open the door.
    Something inside of me—innate, instinctive—had prevented me from turning that knob. All my synapses had been firing in my head to run away from that door, one word flashing in my mind.
    Beware.
    As I began to drift off once more, I wondered whether it was safer to be outside with the unknown dangers, or here in this apartment with Briggs.
    I didn’t know how to answer that.

CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    I SAT IN the kitchen the next morning, alone. I glanced toward the clock that hung from the wall, hearing the tick, tick, tick of the second hand. Half past ten: Dante had been incorrect in his timing. No one else was awake as of yet—the entire apartment was quiet.
    My stomach grumbled loudly and I looked down in surprise at the sound. I knew my body hungered for food, but I sat, motionless, the way I had for hours, since I had first awoken.
    I would wait.
    My stomach growled again and I finally heard the sound of a door creak open, then footsteps coming toward me from down the hall. A head peeked around the corner.
    “You’re awake.” Kaede gave a tired smile and waved his hand in hello. The clothes he wore were ruffled and I watched as he took off his glasses and rubbed the lens with the bottom of his t-shirt.
    He shuffled into the kitchen as he adjusted his glasses back onto his face. He’d looked so different without the glasses, his long dark hair hanging loosely around his face.
    As soon as that thought crossed my mind, Kaede took an elastic band he had wrapped around his wrist and hastily tied his hair back, continuing to look at me in interest. His eyes got smaller as he furrowed his brows together.
    Kaede pulled a chair out adjacent to me and sat down. “What are you doing sitting alone in the