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“Quit your squawkin’ and get in there.” Then he grabbed me by the waist, picked me up and threw me through the window like I weighed no more than a bag of flour.
“Careful of the glass,” he called.
Too late. I’d landed on the glass and rolled away, hoping nothing cut me, but I was too wired to feel a thing. I got to my feet and looked around in the darkness a little hysterically. Something smelled seriously funky and not in a good way.
Tex heaved himself in behind me and I spun around to glare at his hulking shadow.
“Are you crazy?” I asked a crazy man. “You just threw me through a window.”
“You looked like you were gettin’ second thoughts.”
“It’s dark, you can’tseeme.”
He tapped his goggles. “Night vision.”
Shit.
Shit, shit,shit.
“Don’t like that smell,” Tex remarked, and I could hear him sniffing the air because I couldn’t see a thing. “That’s not a good smell.”
He was right, it was a terrible smell.
“You stay here. I’ll have a look around.” Then I saw his shadow move off.
“Don’t leave me here!”
“Don’t be such a girl,” he returned, already somewhere else in the house, and I found it odd such a big man could walk on such quiet feet. He barely made a sound.
I stood in the dark, thinking we’d probably made an awful lot of noise breaking the window, and I listened for the sirens that would mean my doom. Dad would be seriously hacked off and Malcolm would make sure Kitty Sue didn’t invite me to the Fourth of July barbeque. I didn’t even want to think what Hank would say.
Then I wondered if one of the other teams in the Rosie Hunt would have the same idea and come, say tonight, say at that exact time. Say that team was the shooters, say it was the shooters with guns drawn.
“Tex, where are you?” I whispered. Loudly.
I started to make my way through the shadowy rooms, and the further I got into the house the funkier the smell was.
“You don’t wanna come in here,” I heard Tex say when it seemed I’d hit ground zero on the smell.
I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “What is it?”
His shadow was still as a statue and the way he was holding himself scared me.
“Is it Rosie?” I asked, looking around the dark room, which I could tell was a kitchen but not much else.
Tex moved. He took off the goggles and then settled them on my face. My hand fell away from my mouth and everything went green. I could see much better, but unfortunately this included the body of a man, his butt on the floor, back to the cupboards, legs splayed out in front. He had dark stains on his face, the origin of which came from what appeared to be a hole in his forehead.
“Oh. My. God,” I breathed and then everything went bright. So bright it blinded me and I cried out in surprise.
A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.
“Keep quiet, for fuck’s sake.”
It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light, and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again he took his hand from my mouth.
I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
