Page 4 of Boys Who Hunt

Why is he keeping this in a box?

CREAK!

The sudden noise makes me stop and look up.

What was that?

It sounded like … footsteps.

Panic bubbles to the surface.

Shit!

With the box still in my hands, I bolt out of the room, but the second I spot Silas’s black-and-white hair and those eerie tats running all up the back of his neck as he walks up the stairs, I immediately go back inside and shut the door, holding my breath.

Shit. What the hell do I do?

I check the room and find two windows in the back. One is bolted shut, but the other is opened a little bit.

Can I fit through that?

Silas’s footsteps make the wooden floor creak.

There’s no time.

Without thinking, I tuck the little box in my bag and run to the other end of the room. With all my strength, I push open the window and slip through, one leg after the other, squeezing my body through the narrow gap, ripping my bag half open at the zipper from the hook on the window.

“Goddammit,” I hiss, pulling it through as I land on the balcony.

“What the fuck?!”

Silas’s deadly voice makes all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Guess he found the mess I left.

I look over the balcony, but there’s no way to go down except a big-ass tree in front of the house.

Should I risk it?

“Whoever’s in my room, you’re dead if I catch you!” Silas’s loud growl is all I need to make the jump.

I grab the tree’s branches and catch myself just before falling, but fuck me, my heart’s shooting through the roof. This stuff had better be worth it.

I grasp the tree trunk and make my way down each branch, but one of them gives way underneath me, and I tumble to the ground, knocking me out for two seconds.

My head is spinning.

I can’t hear from one ear.

I swiftly search my way around the grass, but it’s hard to see in the dark.

Shit. Shit. Shit! I don’t have time for this.

A door is loudly thrown open mere feet away from me.

Fuck. I have to run.

Without looking, I scramble to my feet and run in the opposite direction with a half-broken bag and a few stray bills flying left and right like a trail left by Hansel and Gretel.