Page 25 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

Quickly, he slipped behind the thick bole of one of the front-yard oak trees to survey the street.

The loud bang came again, pulling his attention to the bookstore across the street. The windows flashed and sputtered, every window lighting and dimming independently, like a dozen people flipping the switches randomly.

“What the…” Myles glanced at Lucky, who now stood staring out the B and B window. “…hell?”

Lucky pointed across the street, and Myles turned back to see that the windows had settled into a repeating pattern of blinks, every one of them lighting and going dark in a predictable, familiar pattern.

“Something’s wrong,” Lucky said from the door.

Myles nodded. “S.O.S. I’ll check. Stay here.

He dashed across the street, freezing as the front door opened just when he reached the middle of the street with no place to find cover. His heart thundered, but not loud enough to drown out the memory of Jet’s angry words.

You can’t promise that.

Then the door slammed closed with a loud CRACK and relief flooded Myles, weakening his knees even as he made the sidewalk and hurried up to the bookshop’s porch. The banging had been the door, not, as his first instinct had feared, gunfire.

He reached for the door handle, which turned under his fingers. It should have been locked at that time of night. In fact, he’d seen the pale-haired man—Steven—flip the sign while he’d watched out the window over his dinner.

The light in the foyer popped on as he stepped inside, followed abruptly by the light in the main front room. Myles moved into the book-lined space, and the light behind him clicked off. Ahead of him, the light over the door leading to the private parts of the house turned on. The door separating the two halves of the main floor creaked open partway.

Myles followed the not-so-subtle hint and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The light in the kitchen, already on, flickered, and he headed for it.

“Hello?” Even to his own ears, his voice was tremulous, weak partly from relief, knowing there was no real danger, and partly from worry, because obviously the house was frantic and Myles wasn’t sure he wanted to discover why.

Myles peered past the tangle of kitchen table and chair legs and saw two feet stretched out on the floor near the back doorway.

“Steven?”

A low groan greeted his call, and the feet shifted. Steven stirred, blinked at Myles as he rounded the table, then grimaced and turned green around the edges. “So stupid,” he muttered.

“What happened?” He crouched, caught sight of Steven’s bloody hand, and turned it carefully, palm up, by the wrist. Another whoosh of relief left him as he realized the wrist itself was intact, though Steven’s fingers were a mess of blood.

Steven blinked improbably long, pale lashes at him. “Hey,” he whispered. “You… who⁠—?”

“Hey. I’m Myles.”

He hadn’t thought it possible for Steven to lose any more colour from his face, but he did, becoming practically transparent.

“Come on, now.” Myles cupped the back of his neck. “Don’t faint on me again.”

Water ran into the sink behind him as he caught Steven’s gaze.

“Oh, shitty,” Steven whispered.

Myles chuckled. “Nah, it’s all good. You with me?”

Steven nodded as he tried to push himself more upright from his slump against the wall.

“Hang in there. I’ll be one sec, okay?”

“Okay.”

Gently, Myles placed Steven’s hand on his thigh, then stood and went to the sink, where he braced himself on the edge of the counter and breathed in the cool evening air drifting in the window that slid open at his approach.

“Your house is really attentive,” he remarked.

Behind him, Steven grunted. “I should hope. This is all her fault.”