Page 6 of Unmasked Rivalry
“The rats almost got me,” I admit. “I spent the night in my car.”
“Ugh,” Sable says, walking up onto the porch and reaching for the front door.
“Don’t open that door!” I yell, but it’s too late; she has entered.
“Don’t worry,” Mera laughs. “She can handle it.”
“If you saw the size of those rats, you might not be certain of that,” I point out.
Nia reaches into the jeep and pulls out a coffee that looks hotter and fancier than mine. She hands it to me. “You can’t be living on cheap coffee.”
For a second, I want to cry—from something like gratitude—but Sable howls from indoors, “WHY ARE THERE DEAD RATS IN HERE?”
I make eye contact with Mera and then follow them inside. Now, the house of my nightmares is full of people, and my first instinct is to warn them to touch nothing, don’t sit on the furniture, don’t put your bag on the floor, and please, for the love of God, wear closed-toe shoes.
Through the archway, Mera is already cataloging the scene before her, “You know, ‘rustic chic’ doesn’t have to be literal.”
Nia shoves a bag of donuts at me, and my stomach grumbles. “Before we go any further, eat something; it looks like you’ll need it.”
“I’m scared to pull anything out in case the rats sniff it out...”
Sable laughs. “Come on.”
We do a lap of the place. The kitchen is still uninhabitable. The living room is a scattered graveyard of rodent carnage. The only place safe to sit is on the porch, so we sit down on the steps and eat. I am starving, and these donuts are so damned good I want to cry with happiness.
I expect them to grill me about Knox within the first five minutes, but it only takes two.
“So,” Mera says, “you’re really Knox’s old lady’s cousin?”
I nod, chewing. “Yep. Harper was more like a sister to me, though. I knew about Knox; I just never met him until now.”
“So, what happened to Harper?” Nia asks.
Mera elbows her. “That’s not really—”
But before anyone can finish, there’s a thud on the roof overhead. And another. Then a slow, slidey scrape that makes it sound like we’re in a horror movie, about to be murdered by some unknown being on the roof.
“What the hell was that?” Nia whisper-hisses.
I tip my head up, eyes wide, heart racing.
Then, as if in some sick kind of slow motion, a snake falls out of the tree onto the porch railing three feet from us. It probably isn’t as big as my mind makes it out to be, but that doesn’t matter; it’s a snake, and it is alive. The sound we make is less a scream and more a pack of feral goats. I lunge away from the snake, and Sable’s already thrown her coffee cup at it. Mera’s standing on the porch chair screaming, and Nia is gone.
I mean off the porch. Gone.
The snake is unimpressed and vanishes between the boards.
None of us move for a long, long minute.
My chest rises and falls with adrenaline, and I’m scared to take a step in case it pops its head back up.
“I think you’re going to need a bigger tent,” Mera whispers.
I shoot a look in her direction.
“You can come and stay with us at the club,” Sable offers.
“No, because then he wins,” I grumble. “It’s fine. Only six more sleeps to go.”
