Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Just when I’m on the verge of telling Icarus that he must’ve imagined it, I catch the sound, too. A faint whisper of movement. The footsteps of someone trying to walk silently.
I share a look with my brother. Fight or flight? He shrugs. If there’s only one person, technically we outnumber them, but neither of us is a fighter. We don’t have the training for it—something our father insisted was completely unnecessary—and we don’t even have a weapon to our name.
Flight it is.
My legs feel like wet noodles as I push to my feet. I’d like to sleep for twelve more hours, to wake up and have this all be a bad dream, but that’s not how life works. Asterion won’t show up to save me. I have to save myself—and Icarus, too.
The only thing in our favor currently is that this house isn’t an open concept. It’s a warren of rooms connected to each other with only a small hallway here and there to break up the confusion. The sound came from somewhere close to the front door. We could try to avoid them as they move through the house and then escape out that door, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. I doubt whoever it is came alone. If I were trying to trap or kill us, I would send several people into the house and leave the rest of the team to block the exits.
“Is there a back door?” I whisper. I was distracted when we arrived, and all the rooms started to look the same after a short period of time.
“Yeah, but there’s no exit back there.” My brother matches my tone, the volume barely more than a whisper.
Fuck. “Then we have to hide.” And hope that they assume we’ve left. It’s a shitty plan, but it’s the best I have with those footsteps creeping closer.
For a moment, it looks like Icarus is about to start arguing, but then he gives a jerky nod and grabs my hand. There’s no need to speak anymore. Without meaning to, I fall back into the habit we created during our late-night wandering in my father’s house as children. Being caught meant a lecture if we were lucky and the belt if we weren’t. We were almost never caught. We’d slip out of the house and go to our spot on the roof where no one else visited.
When did we stop doing that? I don’t know. Only that our nightly escapes happened less and less as we got older. Until they stopped altogether.
My body still remembers, though.
My brother leads the way through room after room. Several times, I almost question if he actually knows where he’s going or if he’s about to lead us directly into whoever is pursuing us. I manage to swallow down the question every time. The desire to run, to sprint, to put as much distance between us and danger, is almost overwhelming. Only habit keeps me moving slow and steady.
But I can’t hold on to my silence as Icarus leads us through a door and into the cool night air. I look around in a panic and hiss. “You said there was no exit back here.”
“They don’t know that.” He tugs on my hand, pulling me out onto a patio. Where the entrance of this house reeks of abandonment with dead plants and cracked flagstones, the back is a completely different story. There’s more light back here, and even in the growing darkness, I can see full trees and hedges and bushes that fill the space with their scent. It’s lovely enough that I almost pause, but Icarus keeps me moving.
He guides me to a particularly large plant that’s part bush and part tree. “It’s not going to be comfortable, but hide back here.”
“What are you—” I bite off the question as he darts away. He has a plan, and I have to trust that he knows what he’s doing. I wedge myself between the brick wall of the building bordering this courtyard and the scratchy branches of the plant. It’s not quite late enough in the year for them to have shed their leaves fully, but there are a few sparse spots that I can see the back door through. I crouch down and battle the urge to pray.
A rattling sound snaps my head around. I watch in horror as my brother rips vines from the iron fence that closes the backyard off from a short alley that leads to the street on the other side of the block. He yanks down several more handfuls, enough that I can clearly see through the iron fence. Not an exit, no, but it could be for someone who is desperate enough.
I have the horrifying thought that my brother intends to leave me, but he ducks to the side and takes up a position almost opposite me behind a similar-looking bush. Understanding dawns as my heart races so hard, it creates a rushing sound in my ears.