Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
FLETCHER
It’s dark by the time Liam drops me off at the skate park. Unsurprisingly, my car is the last one in the lot. As I start the engine and my eyes flick to the rearview mirror, a flash from earlier in the day makes my stomach clench. Casey cowering in the corner, covering his head like he was bracing for impact. I let out a slow breath through my nose and force my jaw to unclench.
It doesn’t hit how tired I am until I pull into my garage. I climb out of the car, eyes barely open, and shuffle toward the door?—
—the door that’s already sitting open.
I freeze. There’s no way I left it like that. And if I had, it’s directly in front of my windshield, so I would’ve noticed it once I got in the car.
I grab the baseball bat sitting beside the door, then ease it open.
The house is quiet, dark.
Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I did leave the door?—
A floorboard creaks upstairs. My head snaps up at the sound, but I wait, straining my ear to hear more. It sounded like the guest room, maybe the bathroom up there. Not far enough back for my room.
It occurs to me staying quiet is fairly pointless considering they heard me open the garage and pull in. They know I’m here.
“I have a gun, and I’ve already called the police,” I call.
The words seem to echo in the silence.
My palms sweat as I tighten my hands around the bat and head toward the stairs. Probably would be smarter to call the cops, but…
More footsteps overhead, coming this way. I sidestep into the kitchen where I can see the foot of the stairs but they can’t see me. I raise the bat as the footsteps thud closer.
I don’t know what someone would be doing in here in the first place. It’s not like there’s much to steal, and there are much bigger, nicer, more expensive houses in the neighborhood. Maybe because I’m late on the train of those fancy security systems.
“Don’t shoot!”
A girl appears at the bottom of the stairs, hands in the air and facing away from me. I can’t pick out much in the dark—just her short and slim build, and it looks like she has long hair. But that voice…something about it…
Who the hell…
I hit the switch on the wall, and she flinches and squints as the harsh kitchen lights wash over us. She turns, her brown eyes finding me.
My heart stutters in my chest.
The bat slips through my fingers and clatters against the ground.
She lowers her hands, an amused smile pulling at her lips as she takes in my face. “Miss me?”