17
I swiped for Lev’s number,but it went straight to voicemail, like his phone was switched off, so I left a message, “Bro, do you have the spare key for the basement?” I kept my tone even, so he didn’t grow suspicious because I wasn’t clear on what the fuck was going on.
Ez filled me in that Lev knew Adina was in the basement, and he was fairly sure he had the spare key, so he could work on the bikes whenever he liked.
“Did he screw us over?” I asked Ezrah as I paced back and forth, fucking seething.
“Bro, what the fuck,” Ezrah yelled at me, “he saved you from getting in trouble. You shouldn’t have shoved her down there in the fucking place.”
I barely heard him because I was too fucking angry, relieved, but angry. “Should we head down to Morgana? That’s probably where he’s taken her.”
“Just wait until he calls back,” Ezrah hissed at me so our roommates couldn’t hear.
There was a flash of light coming up from the forest-covered hill that rose behind the Lud, and we braced ourselves for someone to appear. A whistle cut through the night sky, and Ezrah whistled back as we stood in the dark, gazing up at the hill, waiting for a response to see if the whistler was friendly.
“Lev,” Ezrah said quietly as crashing steps through the foliage, until the flashlight blinded our vision as a figure jumped down onto the flat lawn.
“You fuckers were almost screwed,” Lev exclaimed, lowering the flashlight. “Luckily, I came along at the right time.”
“Where’s…” I was about to ask, then analyzed our environment to ensure we were completely alone before I continued, “The girl?”
“I lost her,” he said unconcerned, “but she won’t get far.”
“Will she survive the night?” I asked him.
“If she’s smart, she’ll follow the streetlights and find her way back down again,” he explained.
“What happened?” Ezrah asked him, keeping his tone low.
“I just came back from the maze, keen to poke fun at the snarling bear since she was caged here, but then I saw the cop cars and snuck her out, led her into the bush where we lay low until waiting for the cops to leave, but then she slipped my grasp and took off,” Lev explained. “I didn’t want to flick the flashlight on in case I grabbed the attention of the cops, but…so what happened in the end?”
I couldn’t be angry with him because he saved our skin, but it created a new dynamic. “They searched the house and found nothing, then searched the basement, and to our surprise, it was empty. She said a friend called the police, so I should’ve believed her.”
We fell silent with our gazes fixed on the horizon, where only a streak of orange light as the sun fell behind the mountains. I glanced back at the balcony to find that we had an audience, our roommates curious to know what the fuss was about.
“What are you thinking, Sick?” Ez asked me as I turned back to head back into the house, as he could tell something was on my mind.
“I’m getting some gear,” I told him as I returned to the house and ran upstairs to my room, as Ez followed, while Lev wandered into the kitchen to look for some food.
“What for?” Ez seemed concerned as if he could read the evil plaguing my mind. “Are you going out to find her?”
I shot him a sly smirk, “No, I’m going out to hunt her down.”
“Bro,” he freaked out when I took Adina’s confiscated gun from my hiding place behind the chest of drawers, checked the safety cap was on before sliding it into the waistband of my jeans, grabbed a flashlight from under my bed, put on my hiking boots, followed by a heavyweight flannel shirt. Opened my top drawer where I kept my protein and trail bars and stuffed my pockets, planning to stay the night in the bush until I’ve caught my prey. “You can’t be serious?”
“Perfectly serious,” I told him as the images of her teasing me as she was getting railed by him were on rotation in my mind. It pissed me off as much as it titillated my senses. “I always wanted a prize head on my wall.”
“Sickle, fuck,” he followed me as I left my room and strode down the hall to the stairs. Lev was down the bottom of the stairs, and once he noticed that I was fully kitted out in myhunting gear with a worried Ezrah at my heels, he frowned, “Are you going in?”
“Yep,” I told him. “You coming?” Lev was good in the bush and knew the area well.
“Yeah,” he shrugged, then looked past my shoulder to Ezrah and seemed confused by my younger brother’s panic.
“Wait,” Ez stalled, standing at the top of the stairs, “I’m coming with you.”
“Hurry up, then,” I yelled back at him as I kept walking toward the door with one thing on my mind. I wanted to hunt down the girl who teased me in the library, and once I found her, well…I’ll decide what I do then.
I stood at the foot of the rise, shone the flashlight into the thicket, and listened for cracking twigs and rustling leaves. Music was thumping down the road at a sorority house, and an owl was hooting, and I had the impression that she was watching me, but I couldn’t see her.
