She walked to the kitchen and grabbed herself a soda. She spotted her iPad and wondered if she should watch some YouTube, but she didn't really feel in the mood for it. She was sick of being home alone in the house every day. This was never the way it used to be. Back where they lived before, her mother was always home. It was only her dad that worked, but now her mother was always out. Doing what, exactly? She couldn't be grocery shopping all the time. Or going to the gym.

  Jazmine felt a nagging sensation in her stomach that she tried to ignore. For weeks now, she had wondered about her mother and what she was doing, pondering if she was fooling around with someone else. Could she be cheating on her dad? Were they getting a divorce?

  The thought made Jazmine's heart drop. Her best friend Tamara's parents had been divorced back when they were eight years old and that had changed her life completely. Her dad had quickly found a new woman—or maybe he had her already, Tamara suspected—and started a new family of his own, a new and better family, with prettier and more adorable kids, and soon Tamara was just in his way when she came to visit.

  I don't want to end up like that.

  Jazmine told herself she was just being silly, but the fact was that she wasn't exactly loving this new place they had moved to. The kids were nice, and she really liked hanging out with Jayden and Robyn, even though Robyn had been avoiding her for quite some time now, at least before they found the body. Now, they were kind of a group, all four of them, and she had to admit she enjoyed that. Everything else, not so much. Whatever was going on with her parents made her anxious. The neighborhood and especially the park and the lake scared her, and so did all the bats she often heard at night. She even believed she heard a wolf howl one night, the night when there was a full moon. And the owls. There were many owls at night, making their strange sounds. Jazmine hadn't been sleeping well ever since they got there. Her mother told her it was just because she wasn't used to this new place yet, to the new surroundings and the new house and all its noises, but Jazmine wasn't so sure anymore. It was more than that. This place had something else that she had no word for. It was just creepy.

  And now someone had been killed. It scared her insanely. Was it the same animal she had heard howling at night? She felt unsure.

  Later that same night, when she was finally in bed after dinner and homework, and her parents were both at the house, she lay awake in the darkness, waiting for sleep to overpower her. She could hear her parents rummaging around downstairs, as usual, and as the clock struck midnight, she was finally sound asleep. It only lasted a few minutes when she was suddenly woken up by the sound of the front door closing. Jazmine sat up with a gasp, then looked out her window, drawing the curtain aside. In the driveway, she spotted both her parents. They were walking away from the house, rushing forward in the cold night.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When I got back from the lake, my parents were in the living room. They were discussing something loudly, much to my surprise since they never debated anything this vocally. Usually, my mom would just give my dad a look and then he would stop arguing. But today, they weren't keeping their voices down and obviously didn't hear me come in.

  "We have to do something, Doyle," Mom said.

  "We can't," he answered. "It’s not our responsibility."

  "Yes, it is, Doyle. Don't you understand that? We have to…"

  "NO!"

  I almost jumped when I heard my dad yell. I had never heard him yell before, especially not at my mother. Something was off.

  "Don't you raise your voice to me," she said. "I’m telling you we must stop them. It is our duty. They're attracting atten…"

  She stopped when I walked inside, then smiled from ear to ear as she only did when trying to hide something. "Honey! You're home. Good. You hungry, huh? I'll make you some food."

  "What were you guys talking about?" I asked, concerned.

  "Ah, it's nothing, dear," Mom said and poked my nose with her long crooked nail. "Nothing you should bother your pretty little head with. How was school, huh?"

  "O-okay, I guess. Same as always."

  "I'll make you a smoothie," Mom said, not listening.

  That night, I went to bed early, worrying about my parents and whether they were having trouble and what kind of trouble they were having, if they were. Did it have to do with me? Or maybe with Adrian?

  Yes, that was probably it. They had found drugs in his room and now they were debating how to deal with it.

  I closed my eyes with a sigh when I heard a small pebble hit my window. Surprised, I walked to it and looked down. In my front yard stood Jayden, waving at me. I opened the window.

  "Are you crazy?" I whispered.

  "Can I come up?"

  I smiled. I couldn't help myself, remembering how Jayden used to come to my room back before he was forbidden to even see me. He would come late in the evenings and crawl up the old ladder, and we would hang out for about an hour or so before he had to go home in order to be home before midnight. His parents never let him out later than that either, just like most other parents in the neighborhood. Never past midnight. That's when the night creatures come out, my mother would tell me when I was younger. What exactly a night creature was, was never explained to me, but I had all kinds of images of them in my mind from back then. Now, I believed it had to be bears and mountain lions like they were talking about on TV. Maybe even bobcats. Those were the only ones I knew of. Someone had said they believed there were wolves in between the trees too, but most people didn't believe that.

  Jayden grabbed the old ladder from behind the house and crawled up the side. I felt terrified that my mom would find out, yet I couldn't stop laughing as I pulled him into my room. Just like old times.

  "What are you doing here?" I whispered.

  "I needed to talk to you. I don't care about our parents. I couldn't sleep, so I had to come here."

  I shushed him to get him to keep his voice down. "What? What is it that couldn't wait until tomorrow?"

  He sighed. My heart started to race.

  This is it, isn't? Now, he’s going to tell me about Jazmine and the fact that they are together and that they want my blessing.

  I had many ideas as to what he might say, and how he might have said it, but what actually came out of Jayden's mouth wasn't even close to what I had expected.

  "I kept thinking about your brother, about Adrian. After what you told me this afternoon."

  My shoulders sank. "My brother? Why?"

  Jayden ran a hand through his thick hair. It stood out in all directions. "Because my brother has also been sneaking out. Not every night like Adrian, but a few times."

  "Logan?" I asked.

  Jayden nodded. "Yes, and now I’m worried about him too. He seems to have changed as well. Since he turned eighteen two months ago, he’s been different. I didn't realize how bad it was till you started talking about Adrian."

  "Different how?"

  "Like…in everything. He’s working out like crazy. He never did that before and he is getting really buff. He is getting in a lot of trouble in school because he can't seem to sit still. And he is not able to focus at all. He drives up to the mountains on the weekends, where he runs for hours and hours. And he smells, Robyn. He smells really bad even though he showers."

  "Wow," I said. "What do you think is going on with them?"

  "Drugs?" he asked.

  I nodded. It made sense.

  "What should we do?" I asked.

  Jayden looked sad. "I don't know. I don't want to rat him out to my parents and I don't want them to worry either, in case it’s nothing. At the same time, I’m worried about him. I don't like it."

  "Same here," I said. "I almost miss that annoying brother I used to have."

  "Me too," Jayden said. "Who would have thought?"

  "I know," I said with a chuckle.

  We sat in silence for a few seconds, each of us thinking about our brothers when we suddenly heard the front door slam shut. Then we heard voices whispering underneath my open window.

  "That doesn’t sound like Adrian," I said and rushed to the window. Jayden came up behind me. I could smell him as he leaned against my back.

  Underneath the window, I spotted my parents as they left the driveway and rushed into the cul-de-sac. Seconds later, I saw Jazmine's parents follow them and Jayden's parents join them from their house.

  "Where are they going?" Jayden asked, startled.

  I shrugged, just as puzzled. "Who knows?"

  "They're stopping at the abandoned house," he said. "Are they…are they…going in?"

  I gaped. What the heck were they up to? All my life, my parents had told me to stay far away from that house…that it was haunted and condemned and could fall on my head.

  "If they are, then so are we," I said and pulled his arm. "Come."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The old iron gate sounded like it complained when I pushed it open. I looked at Jayden, then back at the abandoned house.

  "What are you guys doing?" someone whispered in the darkness behind us.

  I turned around and saw Jazmine. "What are you doing here?"

  "Well, first I saw my parents leave the house, then I saw both of yours do the same, and then I saw you two sneaking down the street. I got curious. What's going on here?"

  "That's what we're hoping to find out." The voice was Amy's. She was standing behind Jazmine and I could barely see her.

  "Amy?" Jayden said.

  "My parents were the first to go in there," she said. "They thought I was asleep, but I was on my computer looking up recipes for a mince pie I want to make."

  "What do you think they're doing?" I asked. "It's not like them to actually be in the same house together, voluntarily," I said and looked at Jayden. "At least not our parents."

  "It is very odd indeed," Amy said. "Shall we? Or do you plan on standing out here all night?"

  I went into the heavily overgrown yard. There were plants there that reminded me of movies from the Amazon Jungle. Tall and thick-stemmed, with huge leaves and some of them even seemed like they were watching us as we moved forward across the yard. How plants like these, which demanded a much warmer climate could grow in this cold area, I didn't understand, but then again, there was a lot lately that I didn't grasp.

  Jayden was right behind me; I could feel his closeness. I walked up the steps to the front porch of the old house, the wood creaking underneath my weight. The others followed, and we approached the front door cautiously.

  All the windows in the house were covered with plywood, so we couldn't look inside.

  "What do we do now?" Amy asked as we stood in front of the tall wooden doors. On each of them was carved some sort of emblem. I stared at it, wondering what it meant. It looked like some old shield. There were four elements in it. I thought it was beautiful and couldn't stop staring at it.

  "Are we going inside or what?" Amy said.

  "Sorry," I whispered back. I put my hand on the handle and carefully pushed the heavy wooden door open. I peeked inside but couldn't see any of our parents anywhere. Then I opened the door fully and we all walked inside, careful to not make a noise. I felt my heart beat faster as we walked into the old house. The thumping noise I always heard when approaching it was very loud when inside it. The others didn't seem to hear or feel it, so I decided it had to do with me and my anxiety.

  The old house was nothing like I had imagined it would be. All my life, I had imagined this dark dirty old house with holes in the ceilings and floors and spider webs covering everything. The spider web part I had gotten right, and the dust, but that was about it. The house was not ready to collapse at any moment. There were no holes in the beautifully sculptured ceilings and none in the wooden floors. There were statues and paintings on the walls showing all kinds of creatures, some of them very creepy. A big chandelier under the ceiling was lit and I guessed it had to be by our parents. I came to the odd conclusion that our parents somehow knew their way around this house.

  Jayden nodded in the direction of a door and we followed him, staying close together until we reached a staircase made of stone, going down.

  "I hear them," he whispered. "I can hear voices."

  As we listened, we could all hear them. Our parents weren't even trying to keep it down.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The voices got louder as we approached them, walking quietly down the stairs. A large high-ceilinged room opened up as we came closer, and soon Jayden signaled for us all to get down, so our parents wouldn't be able to see us. Still on the stairs, we peeked over the railing down into some chamber of sorts. The walls were made of stone and some of them had those same emblems engraved on them as the door outside.

  It quickly occurred to us that our parents weren't just talking loudly, they were fighting about something. And, of course, my mom was the one yelling the loudest. Even though she was yelling, we couldn't hear everything from where we were hiding, mostly broken sentences.

  "You have to…we can't have…control…that…of yours, before…destroy everything," my mother said.

  Jayden's mom stepped forward. I couldn't hear the first part of what she said but got most of the ending.

  "…might as well be…son…throw stones…glass houses."

  My mom's eyes grew larger as they always did when she got angry. She let out a long hiss and pointed her long fingernails at Jayden's mom. This time, she yelled so loudly that I had no problem hearing all of it.

  "My son is NOT out of control!"

  Then the others mumbled something amongst themselves that we couldn't hear, and my mother got even angrier. Amy's parents, Jim and Carol, who were just as small as her, stayed a little behind the rest like they didn't really want to participate in what was happening.

  "Is that what you all believe?" my mother asked.

  There was silence.

  "Is it?" Mom hissed, showing off her teeth. "Jim? Carol?"

  Amy's parents tried to avoid her but nodded. My mother answered with another sizzle that caused Amy's parents to step back in fear. I knew perfectly well how intimidating my mother could get, but had never seen her do this to grown-ups, to other parents. I felt embarrassed.

  "Briana? Norman?" she continued.

  They too nodded. My mother turned to look at my dad, who shook his head. Camille then approached Claire once again, hovering above her like she was trying to make her feel small, which she was, smaller that is, but she was also a lot wider and stronger than my mother.

  "I’m not afraid of you," Claire said, almost yelling like she wanted to make sure Camille heard it. "Besides, this is not a time for us to fight. We need to stick together. No matter how much you don't like it, we need each other right now. You need us, Camille."

  My mother sounded like a snake as she pulled back to her husband. "I’m not going to just stand here and listen to this, come, Doyle. We're leaving," she said.

  "We can only do this if we all work together," Claire yelled. "But he needs to turn himself in. Someone will start asking questions soon."

  Camille looked appalled. She shook her head. She pointed at Jayden's dad, Ben.

  "You. You make this go away, you hear me? Make this whole thing disappear."

  "I…I can't…" Ben said.

  "Of course, you can. Pull some strings," Mom continued.

  "All right…I can try," Ben said.

  Claire shook her head. "And risk losing his job?"

  "It's okay, Claire," Ben said. "I can do this."

  "And what about next time, huh? What are we going to do then?" Claire asked.

  "If there is a next time, then we will deal with it ourselves," my mom said.

  "If you don't, then we will," Claire said.

  "You stay away from my son," Camille snorted as she grabbed her husband by the shoulder and dragged him toward the stairs. Before she reached the stairs, she turned and looked at Claire, then said:

  "You tell that bastard son of yours that I will personally skin him alive and make a rug of him if he does it again."

  "You stay far away from my boys!" Claire yelled after her.

  My eyes met Jayden's and we didn't have to say a word to agree to get moving. Knowing how fast my mother could move if she wanted to, and especially when she was angry, we rushed up the stairs, through the big hall, and ran into the yard where we scattered into the street, each of us running home to our own house, quickly crawling into our beds, breathing heavily under the covers in fear.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I barely slept. I got up the next morning and went downstairs for breakfast, fearing that my mother had somehow seen me the night before or somehow knew anyway, maybe because she could read it on my face or maybe she could actually read my mind, like it felt like from time to time.

  Both my parents were already there, Dad sipping coffee at the breakfast counter, Mom asking him to stop slurping and drink with good manners and respect for others. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  "Good morning," I said, my voice breaking.

  Mom turned around on her heel and stared at me with those big emerald eyes that had been blazing the night before when she was fighting with Jayden's mother. The look in them made me uncomfortable—more than usual—and I looked away.

  "Good morning, sweet pea," my mother chimed. "Sleep well?"

  I swallowed hard, then nodded. "Yeah."

  My mother handed me a spinach and cucumber smoothie accompanied by a smile.

  "To get your day started right."

  I forced myself to return the smile. "Thanks, Mom."

  My mother looked at my dad, then signaled for him to speak. He cleared his throat.

  "Sweetheart?"

  Uh-oh. This isn't good.

  "Yes?"

  "Your mom and I have been talking and…well, we don't like that you’ve been seeing that boy against our wishes."

  "Jayden? I haven't been seeing him at all," I lied. Could they tell? Did they know?