“Sounds good, honey,” he said, already distracted by the tools in front of him.
Rolling my eyes, I headed for the house, ignoring the way it tilted as I stepped inside. Without this thing being leveled out, I was bound to roll out the door eventually.
And to make matters worse, I couldn’t even sit down and have a nice drink while I was waiting on them to figure out how to level the damn house. It was gonna get extremely boring around here at this rate.
Sighing, I sat down on the couch, staring out the window. Nothing was hooked up yet, and getting any kind of Wi-Fi out here was wishful thinking. After a whole two minutes, I decided sitting around wasn’t in the cards for me.
I shoved the door open, walking out as the guys continued to argue about where what piece went. They didn’t hear me as I walked away, and they didn’t notice when no one was there to fill their beer requests.
I walked along the river, enjoying the sounds of the water lapping against the rocks, but that wasn’t the only thing that drew my attention. The sound of glass breaking in the distance immediately had me on alert.
I had nothing to protect myself with, but when a light turned on in the house across the river, I knew I had to help if I could. There was a small footbridge not too far away. Running for it, I heard a small scream just as my feet hit the other side.
Sprinting to the house, I was just rounding the corner when my body slammed into another, taking both of us to the ground. I quickly gained momentum, flinging my body over his and straddling his hips as I yanked his arms up behind his back.
His cries did nothing for me, not until I yanked back his hood and saw the same face I had tossed through a window not that long ago.
“You!”
“Ow! Lady, you’re hurting me!”
“Yeah? You broke into someone’s house!”
“It was supposed to be vacant!”
“That doesn’t make it okay!” I shouted, tugging his arms harder.
A woman rushed out of the house, her gaze frantic as she stared at the boy on the ground.
“Are you alright?”
Frazzled, she didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”
“Good, I need you to call the police.”
As she ran back inside, the boy struggled underneath me. “Get off me, lady!”
“So you can run away? Not a chance. What the hell did you think you were doing, anyway?”
“I was just crashing there. No one was there!”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” I snarled.
“Hey, I didn’t think anyone was there. It’s been empty for months!”
God, the idiocy of this kid. “You don’t get to squat somewhere just because no one’s home. That’s not the way shit works.”
“Yeah, not much works,” he muttered under his breath.
I was tempted to let him up, so he wasn’t laying on his belly with his hands torqued behind his back, but there was no way I could be sure he wouldn’t run. And running out here in the dark was a dangerous thing.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“Go to hell!”
