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“Actually, Ammo found all of my bills and insisted on helping,” she said, still feeling guilty over taking his money.

“What? Really? Wow, he’s really taking his promise to look after you to heart, huh?”

“Yeah. But I’m going to pay him back. I made a start in the dent I owed him today.”

“How did you do that?” Kirsten asked suspiciously.

“I sold my baby.”

“Not Kevin,” Kirsten said, sounding horrified.

“No! Of course not! I’d never sell Kevin. He’s priceless. No, my flute.”

“Oh, Aimee.” Kirsten sounded heartbroken for her and tears entered Aimee’s eyes.

“It’s all right. It’s for the best.”

“Shoot. I hate that you had to sell your flute.”

“Well, I pawned it. Maybe I’ll be able to get it back one day. Perhaps I ought to buy a lottery ticket.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll buy one too. All right, I’ll see you in the morning. We can talk about this more, all right?” Kirsten told her.

“Yeah, thank you. Bye.”

Aimee rolled around on the bed a few more times, but she knew she wasn’t going to get to sleep.

She slid her thumb into her mouth as she attempted to read some more of her book. Finally, she managed to get into the book, and she read for about half an hour before she set it down with a yawn. She was really tired, and she wanted to go to sleep, but as soon as she stopped reading, it all came back to her.

Are you a Little?

How the heck did she know?

Sighing, she reached into the bedside drawer and drew out a bottle of sleeping pills. She’d had these pills for well over a year, which must have been the last time she’d been to the doctor. After taking one, she tried to relax.

Urgh. It just wasn’t working.

And there was only one thing she could think to do to help her sleep, to help get all the thoughts out of her head.

She picked up Owly McOwlFace, then drew a big hoodie on over her Garfield pajamas. The last thing she grabbed was Kevin. Moving to the window, she shoved at it for several moments. This thing kept sticking and she really needed to get it fixed. Finally, it slid open and she climbed out.

Ammo stood outside her bedroom door. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say or do, but he knew he had to do something because he couldn’t leave things as they were.

He hadn’t meant to blurt that question out like he had.

The look on her face had been one of shock, then of worry.

Ammo wasn’t the sort of person to speak without thinking. Hell, sometimes days went by where he barely spoke at all.

When there was no answer to his knock, he decided to just go in. She was avoiding him and that wasn’t acceptable. She needed to talk to him about this.

Stepping inside, he glanced around and realized that he had a bigger issue than he’d first realized.

Because she was gone.

31

Where the hell was she?