Page 66 of Break Out the Girl

“Or big snakes?”

“Sadly not.”

I stretch out my senses but don’t pick up any slithery vibes either.

Drat.

We both become a little gloomy, so I do my best to cheer us both up. “I once sat up all night to see where the sun went—then it dawned on me.”

Burt looks blank.

Poor woofy.

I guess he doesn’t have a sophisticated sense of humor like me.

Hmmm. I do know one thing that is guaranteed to put a smile on his face.

I punch him in the arm. “Kitten’s vibrations were very fizzy this morning, she smells like happy honey—and you.”

Burt looks a bit bashful, which is silly. He looks out towards the churning ocean. “Can we perhaps not talk about happy honey?”

“Sure thing, buddy.”

He munches down a third pancake then sighs. “We need to get a clue as to where the traffickers might have taken Sky. Any ideas, London?”

Even though I hate going down that rabbit hole, I put my whole brain into thinking about the past. I can do it for Kitten.

But I can’t come up with a single idea. I bang my head against the wooden siding, trying to knock some sense into my noggin.

“Anything at all,” Burt says. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but I’ve no fucking clue how to find Sky’s trail.”

“I’ve a thought.”

Burt and I both wheel around to see Mr. B. Fuckwad himself standing in the doorway. “Other places kids were taken to, right?”

Moving towards the boy, Burt nods. “Yeah, can you help?”

He shrugs. “The older girls talked about going to a house for some kinda fucked up sport. Not the little kids, just the teens. I don’t have anything fucking concrete, but I remember one girl said the house had a moat around it.” He spits onto the porch floor. “Only half the girls who were sent there made it back to the island.”

I can’t stop the shudders but Burt’s eyes narrow. “So this house with a moat was on the mainland?”

“Duh. And I don’t think it was that far away. The girls were only gone twenty-four hours.”

Burt’s fists clench at his sides. “Thanks, kid. A moat is pretty fucking unusual. Let’s see if this place has local maps.”

I push down my belly-worms, then follow him and Basil inside.

A house with a moat.

Built to keep out invaders.

But we’re the Kitten-gang—and I’m getting more and more convinced that Nan was right.

I’m like a cigarette-butt; dangerous, dirty and probably going to set the whole bloody house on fire.

22: AURORA

It’s like London’s pancakes have flipped a switch inside the kids.