Page 120 of Veiled in Brick

“You fucking stop,” he argued. James’ arm appeared to tighten its hold, and Liam gritted out, “Ah!”

“James!” Luke yelled.

Claire screamed, “Guys, stop!”

I called out, “Jay!”

James finally released him, and Liam gasped for air.

“We already said we can’t barrel over there, Liam!” James announced. Liam’s hands on his knees, he looked around the room and huffed as James continued, “I get it. I wanna bust down the door too, man, but that wasn’t the plan. Any plan to go over there is dead now—I think we’re all with Zoey; Cassie shouldn’t—” James did an about-face, spinning his alarmed gaze around the room in the same fashion as Liam, and muttered, “Cassie?”

Liam stood up straight, his glances about quicker, and he asked the room, “Where’s Cassie?”

Luke stammered, “I—I didn’t see, you guys were all—”

Wide-eyed, James stated incredulously, “She did not just go rogue on us. It’s seven in the fucking morning; the guy’s supposed to believe that she needs help moving furniture from her old place at this hour?”

Cassie’s friendly, muffled voice was heard from the hallway, and all of us collectively groaned.

Liam threw his head back. “God fucking-dammit-Cas.”

Claire rattled off, “Okay, okay, no this is fine. This-is-fine. Plan A—we’re back to plan A.”

“I don’t want to do plan A, Claire!” I hissed. “I was iffy on plan A to begin with, but after seeing all this shit—”

“We don’t exactly have a choice now,” James deduced.

“So, what, we just roll with it and assume she’s trying to bring him back to her place?” I replied incredulously.

“Shhh!”

Luke shushed us, he and Claire having made their way to the front door. They each pressed an ear against it, listening with squinted eyes.

I rushed to their right, replicating their stance to hear whatever possible, and was greeted with Cassie’s voice.

“You. Are. Amazing!” she trilled. “This chair I have to move—so heavy. All my friends bailed on me to help me move…now it’s first thing in the morning and I’ve got no help.”

A deep voice replied something that I couldn’t decipher, his tone not nearly as loud as Cassie’s.

“What did he say?” Claire whispered to both of us.

Luke shrugged. “Not a clue.”

A door closed in the hallway, we all froze at the sound except for our heads ping-ponging between each other’s, my heart was ready to jump out of my chest, and when it seemed that enough time had passed, I opened the door because I was the closest one to it.

The hallway was empty.

Simultaneously rushing toward something whilst trying to remain unseen is harder than it looks.

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, all of us tentatively poking our heads out of the stairwell to view the street, we had quickly noted that Cassie’s vehicle—an old, black Jeep—was gone. Previously parked in front of James’ sedan on the side of the street, we all took little pleasure in knowing that she was, as James had phrased it before, jumping on a grenade. As we rushed to her house, all of us considered the plan laid before us. The more that we spoke, the more that our collective sleep deprivation was apparent for the haphazard plan—the one that seemed so perfect before we had seen the additional cameras—had the metaphorical appearance of Swiss cheese.

“How long has the guy even been living at Mister Milkovich’s?” Luke voiced from my left. “What if he got to know the other neighbors and knows that none of them are moving?”

“I mean, he didn’t get to know us,” Claire reminded him.

Luke pinched the area above his nose. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Even if he didn’t know the other neighbors,” James said from the driver’s seat, “there’s no moving truck outside. Is he gonna believe that she’s just moving all her shit a few boxes at a time in that Jeep? Unlikely.”

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