The New Sanning Promise Ch. 06

Holy shit, Sabrina thought. He's already fucked her. And... Henning doesn't care. Fucking guy didn't tell me everything, did he?

She wanted to be mad at the Doc, but it wasn't happening. Her mind was already justifying him, imagining that he was only holding his cards close to his chest until she proved herself as a useful ally. And that was exactly what she was here to do. Harper would tell her the whole story when she did something of substance.

The lights went out, and Sabrina prepared herself for another bout of waiting. This time, however, she figured it would be safe to move after just a few minutes instead of a few hours. When she was certain that she heard two light snores, Sabrina made her way up the last couple steps and finally entered the apartment.

It was indeed one large studio apartment. It looked like something out of a sitcom, cozy and open. The moon shined through the windows and gave Sabrina at least a little light to work with. There were no work spaces up here, only the typical outfits of a living space. Kitchen, laundry, den, bed. It didn't even have closets, just an entire wall full of clothing racks that were undoubtedly mostly Misty's.

Sabrina tiptoed to the bed and looked down at the sleeping couple, her heart racing. Each had a wooden nightstand on their sides of the bed. Henning's face was pointed directly at her as she kneeled and opened the drawer on his side, then swung the door of its compartment open. Inside she found nothing of interest. It's probably all in his office. And probably digital too. That's a whole different ball game.

Had she really waited all this time just to find out what deodorant her mortal enemy wore?

I might as well try Misty while I'm here.

The moonlight landed on Misty's restful face. She'd taken her makeup off. Underneath it all, she actually looked fairly young. Closer to Brandon's age than Henning's. The way she did her short blonde hair and laid on thick eyeliner, one might mistake her for the wife of a televangelist. Here, she just looked... Cute.

Inside her bedside drawer, Sabrina found a brown leather journal. Flipping through slowly, she saw diary entries with recent dates on them. Back to the beginning of this year... But I can't take this, she'll notice it's gone. Begrudgingly, she placed it back in the drawer. At least she knew it was here.

But the compartment had something better. There were dozens of journals in here, some with dates as far back as fifteen years ago. Taking them all would be another obvious red alert. So Sabrina slipped just two into the back of her jeans, the oldest and the newest. And hopefully, Misty didn't look in here often.

Her excitement spiked and she used all of her will not to sprint out of the building. It occurred to her that if Henning was careful enough to have keypads on his doors, he might be careful enough to have security cameras. By the time she'd snuck her way back out into the cold open air, Sabrina realized that if he did, then she wouldn't have very much time at all to pry information from the two diaries. And if that was the case, she might as well have taken the first one she found. Hindsight's 20/20.

She barely even noticed someone was visiting her mother when she arrived at home. Hurriedly, Sabrina sat down at her desk and started reading through the older diary. The first page had cutesy doodles around the stock printed "Blank's Diary" that suggested someone much younger than the twenty-one that Misty was when she wrote it.

But the blank space didn't have Misty's name. It clearly read in practiced penmanship, "Nina's Diary."

The first page surprised her as something much older than she'd even noticed when flipping through the pages for dates.

January 1st, 1993

New Year, New Diary, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! My resolutions this year are going to be super simple because I messed up on all of them last year, oops! This year, I want to just be more open-minded and try new things, even if they scare me. So if I even just do one or two things, I can call it mission accomplished on this year instead of being all sad about failing something super specific.

Arthur came and had breakfast with my family, and even helped Mom cook. I told Daddy that he was a really traditional and respectful guy, but now he has proof. He even told me that he wants to take Arthur fishing some time! That's like the ultimate compliment in Daddy's eyes.

I can't get over how amazing Arthur is. When we kissed last night, I think my whole outlook on life changed. I realized that it isn't worth being scared of anything just because you haven't done it before. Twenty-four hours ago, I thought I would never kiss anyone. But now I feel like there's millions of things I've missed out on just because I was afraid, and they all might be totally amazing.

I know I'm a total freak for thinking this, but maybe I'll even give Arthur my flower. Sex before marriage is still a little scary to me but... if it's a truly wonderful person that you're meant to be with, it can't be that bad can it? I'm not going to sleep with him like today or even soon. I definitely want to let time decide for me. There will come a moment that just feels right.

Anyway, I can't remember anything else I did today. I just keep thinking about him. I know I called Misty and told her all about my first kiss, and she went craszy crazy. I'm so lucky to have a friend like her.

I'll try to be more descriptive tomorrow. See you then, Diary!

Sabrina's heart was pounding again. Whoever Nina was, she obviously wasn't in Henning's life anymore. For anyone else, that might only imply a breakup. But knowing what he was, she couldn't help but feel scared for whatever happened to this girl. And now, simply having this diary in her possession, she had a higher sense of danger than ever before.

I need him, she realized.

She needed Brandon's protection. And she needed him soon.