CHAPTER THREE

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Matt laid sound asleep. After his friends left he and Tyler did their usual Sunday routine. A walk in the park, a trip to the local playground, and a visit to the cemetery to see Amy's grave, something Tyler loved doing. They closed it out with ice cream at the Custard Stand, Maple Brook's highly rated spot for the best desserts anywhere in the area.




He had put Tyler to bed early and passed out in his jeans soon after, lying on top of the covers on his bed.
It was a noise from downstairs that jolted him awake. He looked at his phone: 2:00 in the morning. Normally he would think it was one of his friends, they crashed at his house often, plus they all had a key, but this home invasion in Haddon Glen had him a little uneasy. He texted Shannon: ARE YOU HERE?
He waited as the bubble came up immediately on his phone: NO.




Shannon actually had her own room in his house, she stayed there so often. So it made sense that it could be her. The others would have texted him if they were crashing. He opened his nightstand and pulled out his 9mm Smith and Wesson handgun. He threw on a black tee before he went to the doorway.




His room was right at the top of the stairs. He peered out the open door and down the staircase. The kitchen was at the bottom, directly to the right. He could see a faint light coming from there. It was too faint to be the light from the ceiling, it was more like the dim refrigerator light. He thought about calling down there, then decided against it. If this WAS an intruder he didn't want to give himself away.




He stood on the top stair, then slowly he descended, taking one at a time. He had seen so many movies where the stairs creaked with each step the person took. He was glad at that moment it wasn't the case as he made it to the bottom without a sound. He prepared to enter the kitchen, the dim light was still on. He raised his gun, holding it with his right hand, barrel pointed at the sky for now. He could hear noises coming from the room. Someone was definitely in there. He took one last deep breath and slowly turned the corner.




He pointed the gun in the direction of the fridge. The light was indeed coming from there. Staring into it was a figure wearing a black hoodie and black sweat pants. The first thing he noticed was it wasn't one of his friends. He would have recognized the body type. This person was short, so short in fact that if it were one of his friends it would have to be Gab. He still had the advantage, the person hadn't seen or heard him yet. He took another step into the room. Then... the floor creaked.




The perpetrator wheeled around, aiming a gun right back at him. The refrigerator door closed and they were in the dark, aside from the moonlight shining through the double doors that led to the back porch.



"Put it down." Matt said, surprisingly calm.
"The gun or the chocolate milk?" The person asked, in an equally calm voice.
The voice.... It was female. He then noticed she had a carton of chocolate milk in her left hand.
"The gun, the fucking gun!" He said, louder.





Instead the young girl put the milk on the kitchen table. It was with that same hand that she pulled back the hood of her sweatshirt, revealing her face and long blonde hair, so blonde it almost looked white. Her blue eyes glowed like nothing he'd ever seen before, forcing him to take a step back. In the darkness they almost didn't look real.




Matt had seen this face before, many times in the last two days. It was a face everyone knew. The face everyone was talking about. This was the girl everyone was looking for.

Casey Carson.

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