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“We good?” Farrow asks her.
She nods, sliding her hands into her jacket pockets and looking at me.
“Are you sure about this?” Calvin questions Farrow.
But Farrow ignores him, closing the distance between us and holding out his hand. “You need sleep. Come on.”
I fold my arms over my chest. He drops his hand, turns, and leads the way up the stairs.
Everyone else stays put, as do I.
They’d be stupid to harm me, right?
But then again, are any of them smart? Prone to common sense?
They didn’t know I was coming tonight, though. I don’t think they had a chance to throw together a prank.
Or plan a murder.
Right now, most of the people I care about don’t know where I am or what I’m doing, and I kind of like that, because I’m always the one chasing.
Chasing Kade’s notice.
Chasing my dad and his approval.
Chasing Hunter.
If I completely disappear, maybe they’ll wonder about me for once.
I start after Farrow, the others staying behind.
He opens the door to the house, a small light glowing in the foyer. I see a hardwood floor, the sheen worn away, and stairs leading up to the second floor. A gloomy lantern hangs over the top landing.
He holds the door open, and I step inside, hearing him close it behind me.
I cast my eyes in a long sweep over the area. What appears to be a living room sits to my right. There’s a green velvet couch and a small end table, but nothing else. No TV that I can see.
I arch my neck though the entryway, seeing a refrigerator in the next space, but I can’t see the whole kitchen from here.
There’s a hallway ahead, more doorways, possibly to a dining room and bathroom. There’s probably a back door, but I’m not sure about a yard. The houses are close together.
I don’t see parents. No host family.
“About twenty years ago, there was a flood here,” Farrow tells me. “You knew that, right?”
I shift, the gritty unvarnished floor grinding under my shoes.
“Yes,” I mumble.
We climbed higher in elevation from the bridge to get to Knock Hill, but the river isn’t the only thing that threatens to flood during heavy rains.
The waterfalls my town is named after empty into a pool that feeds a stream that overflows into a spillway when needed.
But that year, as I was told, the spillway didn’t hold.
The highway was washed out, people literally had to stop their cars, get out, and run.
“Shelburne Falls had the infrastructure to keep the overflow at bay,” he tells me. “We didn’t, because our city budget went right into bad peoples’ pockets. They got rich, driving this town into the ground.”
