Chapter 36

My brain hurt from studying. Finals were in a few weeks. In addition to my normal classes, I was taking the same end-of-the-year finals the on-level classes were taking, too, so I had twice as much to study for.

With Raf, football, Melanie, and track, I had so much going on, and I still needed to do the work. Making sure Dad stayed safe was my biggest goal, but it wasn’t my only one, and I needed to do the work to make it happen.

And my brain felt like mush.

I’d just set my pen down and closed my eyes for a moment when I heard a soft click from downstairs.

I froze. Dad was on the night shift and Mom was in bed, probably had been since ten. I held my breath, listening. It wasn’t like we had much in the way of burglaries in Wheaton, so after hearing nothing, I thought maybe it was just the house settling. But I also knew it wasn’t. I’d lived in this house my whole life, both of them, and knew the sound of the back door closing.

I pushed off my bed and crept out of my room and down the hall, trying to be silent, just in case. The door to my parents’ room was closed. I could hear the faint drone of the television inside. Mom always fell asleep with it on.

Next, I went to Joshua’s room. His door was ajar. I pushed it open just enough to see inside. In the dim light from the hallway I could make out a lump under his covers, the shape of a person sleeping. But it didn’t look right. Something was off.

I crept inside, reaching out and touching the lump. Pillows. A carefully arranged pile of them.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered to the empty room.

I didn’t know where he’d gone, but I knew what Josh was, and I knew if he was sneaking out it wasn’t for anything good.

I spun and hurried to my room, pulling on my shoes before hurrying to the back door and out toward the garage. I fumbled for the string, pulling it to turn the light on.

His ten-speed bike was gone. Its empty spot next to the lawnmower was a gaping hole.

Fear shot through me. I grabbed the big metal flashlight Dad kept on his workbench and bolted out of the garage.

I ran across our lawn, not slowing down as I hit the pavement. I had no idea where he’d gone, but I had a thought. There was the girl he’d been obsessed with, the one who’d been at his birthday party and youth group. I’d seen her family around town and had a vague idea of where they lived, a block over in one of the newer two-story houses.

Well, newer for Wheaton.

They’d all been built at the same time. Each house I passed looked the same in the dark. The streetlights helped, but they weren’t all working and what light they did cast did little for visibility.

So much so that I almost missed the streak of red in one of the bushes on the girl’s street. It was Josh’s bike. He’d tried to hide it, but it had been a half-assed job, and the back fender was sticking out.

I turned on the spot, looking around the street, my eyes hitting on a house sitting kind of diagonally from where the bike was hidden. It was a big, two-story colonial, dark except for a single porch light. My eyes followed the line of the hedge to the side of the house. I could almost feel the figure lurking in the shadows there before I saw the movement.

And then I saw him. A figure, small and hunched, crouched by a ground-floor window.

Something small in his hand caught a bit of streetlight, giving off a glint of metal. A screwdriver, maybe? He was working at the edge of the window frame, prying at it, clearly trying to get the window open.

A sick feeling washed over me. He wasn’t just watching tonight. He was trying to get in.

I didn’t think. I just moved.

In my ears, it sounded loud as I ran across the street, sprinting for all I was worth. Josh’s head snapped around at the sound, but I’d been training on burst speed for almost a year now, and I was on top of him before he had a chance to react.

I launched myself at him.

The impact sent us both sprawling. I hit him hard, my shoulder driving into his back. He grunted as the air was forced from his lungs. We rolled across the wet lawn, a tangle of limbs. I felt a sharp pain in my side as we came to a stop, my elbow banging against one of the decorative rocks lining a flowerbed.

Joshua was wiry and surprisingly strong for his age. He recovered faster than I expected, squirming out from under me. He scrambled to his knees and threw a wild punch. His fist connected squarely with my ribs.

I ignored it.

He got to his feet, ready to bolt.

“Oh no you don’t,” I wheezed, grabbing his ankle.

He kicked back, his heel catching my wrist, but I held on. I surged to my feet and yanked. He tumbled backward onto the grass. Before he could move again, I was on top of him, my knee pressing into his chest, pinning him to the ground. I grabbed his wrists and slammed them against the damp earth above his head.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snarled, my face inches from his.

He just stared up at me, his breathing ragged. He wasn’t scared. He was angry. His eyes were cold. He twisted, trying to throw me off, his body bucking beneath me.

“Get off me!” he hissed.

“Not a chance.”

I pushed down harder with my knee. He let out a sharp cry of pain, but his struggles didn’t stop. He was like a cornered animal, fighting with everything he had.

Suddenly, a loud, frantic barking erupted from inside the house. Woof! Woof! Woof!

We both froze.

A light flicked on in an upstairs window, spilling a yellow rectangle onto the lawn not ten feet from where we were.

A muffled voice called out, “Duke? What is it, boy?”

Part of me wanted Josh to get caught, so that Mom and Dad would have to see what he was and deal with him, but I didn’t want to screw my life up and who knows what excuses Josh would tell the sheriff, who would almost certainly be called.

Pry marks on the window, screwdriver, and the two of us. I didn’t take it on faith that people would listen to the truth. I hauled Joshua to his feet. He stumbled, and I grabbed the collar of his shirt, dragging him with me.

“Let go of me!” he whispered, digging his heels in, trying to resist.

“Shut up,” I hissed, pulling him harder.

I half-dragged, half-carried him away from the house, back toward the street. The dog was going crazy now, barking and scratching at the door. Another light came on, this one downstairs. In the room right by the window he’d been trying to open.

We reached the sidewalk, and I didn’t stop. I yanked him along, my grip on his shirt so tight my knuckles were white.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” he said.

His voice was calm now. Too calm.

“I saw you, Josh,” I said, pulling him down the block. We passed under a streetlight, and I could see his face clearly. It was blank. Empty. “You were trying to break into that girl’s house.”

“I was not,” he said. He didn’t shout it.

He stated it like it was a simple, undeniable fact. That was the hard part with Josh. He was a really good liar.

I stopped and shoved him against the chain-link fence of a darkened backyard. The metal links rattled loudly.

“Don’t you lie to me! I saw you with the screwdriver!”