AllFreeNovel
Share Us
So, I raised my head and walked through the gate and up the stairs.
“What are you doing here?” Derek asked. “Are you in trouble or something?”
“Not really. I was just wondering if you heard from Dominic,” I said, feeling weirder by the second.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, moving to his tiptoes and his heels every few seconds. I’d gotten used to it by now, so it didn’t bother me the way he moved. But…
“You have?”
Derek pointed a thumb toward the house. “He’s upstairs, sleeping. Came in at midnight and hasn’t woken up since.”
My heart fell all the way to my heels. He washere.
Run!A voice in my head shouted. Just run, and don’t look back.
No. To hell with running. He was here. Sleeping. It was the perfect opportunity to get him to talk to me. He owed me those answers, damn it.
“Teddy? You okay? You’re all pink,” Derek said, waving his finger toward his cheeks. Mine felt like they were burning, so I imagined I resembled a flamingo right now.
“It was just hot in the car, that’s all. Can I talk to him for a moment? It’s about work, and it’s—”
“No AC?” he cut me off.
“I get headaches from AC,” I mumbled. “I just really need to talk to Dominic. It’s important.”
Derek nodded, like he understood perfectly. “Work?”
I smiled. “Yep. Work. Important work.”
For a moment, he stood perfectly still, his never-blinking eyes on me. I thought for sure he was going to turn me away. I thought he’d freak out on me or start talking about something else completely, but by some miracle, he didn’t.
“Sure thing. Go ahead. Third floor, first door right,” he said and stepped aside to let me through, just like that.
I was surprised.
No, I was shocked. I mean, we knew each other, and I’d helped him that time, and he’d helped me, but still…
“Thank you,” I said, a bit breathless now that there was literally nothing standing in the way of my going to see Dominic.
“How…erm…how are the kids?” I asked when I stepped inside and he closed the door behind me.
“Fine. They’re in class, so…hush, hush.” Derek brought his finger to his lips to tell me to keep quiet.
“They're in school?”
“No—homeschooled,” he said.
I nodded, as if I understood why those kids were being homeschooled when there were plenty of schools in the City.
“And Agnes?”
“Good as new. No more claws,” he announced proudly.
“That’s great,” I said and moved through the empty foyer toward the stairway. My footsteps were so loud, they filled my head.
“Go on. Up you go,” he said, waving me toward the stairway while he leaned against the doorway with his hands in his pockets and watched me.Intently.Like, he didn’t move his eyes away from me for a single second.
It made me feel so uncomfortable, like he knew exactly what I was doing here, and he was just waiting for the right moment to pull out his bat and bash my head in.
