“I think they’re done!” Bella cheers, opening the oven door.
Maya jumps in front of her before she burns herself, pulling on a hot pad and reaching into the oven.
And that’s when the lights go out.
Chapter 16
Maya
Idropthepanon the side counter, narrowly missing Bella’s head in the darkened kitchen.
Soren curses. “This is what I feared.”
The lights come back on, and I look at him with an amused smile. “The dark?”
“No.” He shakes his head, his eyes and movements agitated. “You know thatthingI told you someone wanted?”
I glance at Bella to see if she’s following, but she’s trying to scoop a scalding cookie off the sheet. I grab the spatula from her and dig into the lump of cookies, carving a chunk onto a plate for her. “Yeah?”
“It’s a hot commodity.”
I blink at him.
“Tanner says I’m a hot commodity,” Bella says, scooping up mushy cookie with her finger and licking it off.
Soren lets out a frustrated breath. “More people want thatthing.”
The painting. More people… as in more thieves.
The lights go out again, and this time they don’t come back on. We have power outages all the time. This could be anything.
An ominous feeling settles over the room, like the darkening clouds before a storm.
The melty cookie falls off my spatula, and I drop the kitchen tool, unconcerned where it may land.
Arms snake around my waist, lifting me off the ground, but before I can scream, a hand comes over my mouth.
“You’re going to hide under the counter with Arabella.” Soren’s voice in my ear both calms and frightens me.
My eyes barely adjust in time to miss ramming my head into the side cabinet and into Arabella, who is already there.
His reaction time is much quicker than mine.
But what is he going to do?
My pulse quickens. What amIsupposed to do?
“This is so exciting; it’s like a real-life scary movie,” Arabella whispers next to me.
I need to protect her. And right now, that means pretending we are in one of her favorite movies.
“Which means we need to be quiet,” I whisper back.
She shakes her head, her blonde pigtails whipping back and forth. “Have you never seen a scary movie? Theyalwaystalk.”
She’s got a point. “Yes, but—”
“Shh,” Soren growls, and Arabella clamps her lips shut, but it does nothing to tame the excitement in her eyes.
