Page 8 of Wilde's End
Because if I’m focused on work, I can’t be focused on the random shit going on. Like how my keys got from where I left them on the kitchen counter to the table when Kennedy and Hart swear they didn’t touch them.
Though it would be just like Hartwell to mess with me.
Thankfully, he has his uses too.
He’s drawn up plans for extending the houses, and hopefully, today is the day he gets the plans back from his engineer friend. Of the three of us, he’s always been the smartest, and while I wanted him to stay at college and get his architecture degree, he’d scoffed at the idea and told me to fuck off. Mom and Dad gave up on us all forever ago, so I’d had no one in my corner to help convince him.
I walk along the street, hoping today will be the day I get used to the place. It’s still creepy, but with each day that passes, the early fog and thick trees in every direction don’t play with my mind as much.
Kennedy is loudly bashing away at something inside, the constantthunkechoing through the deep silence. As someone who’s always surrounded by people, this complete isolation is new. The cell service is spotty at best, which is something we’ll need to fix, and I keep bouncing between being completely at ease in what could be a hidden paradise and close to panic over us doing something so fucking stupid.
I stoop down to pick up a rock and send it sailing down the street. It bounces off the road with achink … chinkbefore hitting dirt, and when I pull my eyes up from where it’s landed?—
Holy fuck.
My heart jumps out of my fucking chest as I throw myself against the nearest house. My pulse is racing like I’ve launched myself off a goddamn cliff, and it takes me a second to process what the hell just happened.
A man.
I think I saw a man.
I lean forward, easing off the wall to look back up into the trees. I’m not confident on exactly where I saw him, and with each passing second, I’m wondering if it happened at all. My brain is swimming inwhat the fuckas I try to get myself to calm down.
“Hudson?” I jump at my name before I recognize Kennedy’s voice. He’s paused on the stairs from the house we’re working on, rolled-up carpet slung over his broad shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“I dunno, fucking turtles? I’m panicking, what does it look like I’m doing?” I start toward him, not able to stop from flickinglooks back toward the trees. Was it a ghost? An axe murderer? My imagination well and truly losing it? “I think … I saw someone.”
His eyebrows hit his hairline. “What? Where?”
I’m still not confident on exactly where, but I point in the general direction. “Up there. It was a guy. I think he was watching me.”
Kennedy tilts his head, but the trees rising above us on that side stay empty. With ahmm,he heaves the carpet over the short metal railing and into the junk pile we’ve started on the street. “Someone hiking past?”
I turn the suggestion over as he joins me, admitting that probably makes sense. There’s a main-ish road further up the hill, so the guy probably parked there and took a walk down.
My heart rate calms into something normal. “Probably.” I crack a smile. “Freaked me the fuck out.”
“I bet. We’ve been here … almost a week? Haven’t seen anyone. I probably would have pissed my pants.”
“Yeah, but you did wet the bed until you were ten, so …”
He gives me a friendly shove. “It was seven, you dick, and that’s a totally average age.”
“Is it though?”
Kennedy brushes off his gloves. “Should we go for a walk and check it out? Make sure the guy isn’t lost?”
Lost? That hadn’t even occurred to me, which only goes to show that my brother is a million times better than I am. I’d seen the guy and thought serial killer. Which means I’m not at all interested in going searching for him, but Kennedy has already headed that way.
“You sure about this?” I check, falling into step with him. “What if he’s waiting to skin us alive?”
“Well, there’re two of us and one of him, so I think he’s shitout of luck. Come on, getting an answer will make you less dramatic.”
“There you go, underestimating me.”
I’d leave a note behind for Hart to save himself, but knowing my brother, possible death will be an incentive for him to follow us.
My hands burrow into my pockets and I follow a step behind Kennedy. I never claimed to be the brave one. “So what’s your plan?”
