Page 166 of Crave
I sat forward slightly, eyes scanning the road. The headlights barely cut through the darkness ahead. I tried to ignore the way my gut twisted tighter with every mile.
This was supposed to be safer. Splitting up, moving fast, staying low.
So why did it feel like a trap?
“I feel like we’re being led somewhere,” I whispered.
Marco tensed at the wheel, just for a second. Gabe caught it. I did too.
“Then we’re not stopping,” Gabe said. “We get in, we lock it down. Nobody gets in or out until we clear this.”
I nodded slowly, but the feeling didn’t ease.
Because I wasn’t afraid of who was following us.
I was afraid that someone had already been here.
That this wasn’t just a relocation.
It was a setup.
Gabe shifted, pulling his phone from his pocket, trying to ping the others. Static crackled through the line—no service. No signal.
And still, we kept driving.
“I don’t like this,” I said again, my voice harder this time. “It’s too quiet. Too clean.”
Marco didn’t reply. Gabe just looked out the window like he could feel it now too.
Whatever this place was, it wasn’t a safe house anymore.
It was something else.
We pulled off the road just past a rusted chain-link fence, the tires crunching over gravel and glass. The safe house loomed ahead—if you could even call it that. It looked abandoned. Faded paint peeled from the siding, a sagging porch half swallowed by weeds.
“Here?” I asked, the word catching in my throat.
Marco cut the engine. “It’s secure.”
Gabe opened his door first, scanning the shadows before he moved. I followed him, but every step felt heavier. My boots crunched down, too loud in the silence.
Something was wrong.
Not just off. Not just uneasy.
Wrong.
Marco disappeared around the side of the building to sweep the perimeter. Gabe led me toward the front steps, his hand tight on my arm even though he didn’t say a word.
We stepped inside.
The air was stale. Cold.
Dust floated in thin streams through the moonlight slicing in from broken windows. Furniture was covered with sheets, and the walls looked like they hadn’t seen life in years.
Gabe moved through the rooms like a soldier on a mission, checking corners, clearing sight lines, peering through narrow windows. I stayed near the front, staring at the warped floorboards, at the shapes beneath the covered furniture.
Something in the air crackled. Like static. Like electricity waiting to bite.
