I’d drawn the layout of the house on a notebook that the Bouchers had brought with us, and we contributed and discarded ideas for a solid ten minutes before I threw up my hands in frustration.
“Nothing is going to work perfectly,” I spat. “I know what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?” Beau asked flatly.
“You’re trying to minimize any risk to me,” I replied, my voice just as flat. “Which is bullshit. I know what I’m doing, and I’m as immortal as the rest of you. So stop fucking around and let’s get in there.”
“There’s no way to know if your immortality has manifested yet,” Erik warned.
“Let’s call it an educated guess, then,” I countered. “My aunt called us—” I looked at my watch. “Thirty-six minutes ago. How much longer do you think they have before those men get antsy and start blowing shit up or find the safe room and start trying to figure a way inside?”
“We’ll breach in this lower window,” Erik said after a moment. “That goes into the mudroom, correct?”
“Laundry room,” I corrected. “It’s off the mudroom.”
He nodded. “Ambrose and Beau, you’ll go in from the back. Second story, third window from the right.” He looked at me.
“There’s an old oak on the other end of the house,” I said, pointing to where it was relative to my roughly drawn house. “If you use that to get onto the eaves, it’s an easy shot over to the window. That goes into Ian’s bedroom apartment. He always leaves that window open because he’s a hot sleeper.”
Beau eyed me.
“He’s my fuckingcousin,” I reminded him.
Pop handed me a little pot of greasy paint. I thanked him with a nod as I opened it up and began to smear it over my cheeks.
“We’ll set Lucy and Reese up on the way through,” Ambrose said. “You’ll need to give us two or three extra minutes.”
“We can do that.”
“I’ll help my pop?—”
“I think I can manage to set up,” Pop cut me off. He looked at Reese. “I’ll be on the eastern side. If at any point you think you’ve been spotted, lie flat. Don’t try to move. I’ll draw fire.”
“I can do that,” she said nervously.
“We brought Ghillie suits,” Lucy said with a nod. “We’ll be practically invisible.”
Erik tossed the notebook in the back of the truck as Pop let Thunder out of the cab, and without any more words, the seven of us split up. Erik, Pop, and I moved toward the eastern side ofthe property while the Boucher brothers and their mates moved to the west.
“Chance and Danny are out of communication?” Erik asked Pop.
“Went black an hour before Halle called me,” Pop confirmed.
“Any idea when they’ll come back online?”
“Another hour, maybe,” Pop replied. “Could be less depending on what they find.”
Erik hummed in acknowledgment.
“I left them a message for whenever they fire things up again.”
“Coded?” Erik asked softly.
“Yes.”
Then we were silent as we moved further onto the property.
I placed my steps carefully as I led the way. I hadn’t seen anyone in the trees, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. We just hadn’t encountered anyone yet. When we came to the place where Pop would go his own way, he set his fingertips to his lips and then brushed my cheek.
