HIS (YOU series #1)

Bonus chapter 5: Part 1

Aadil - Age 15

"Keep it down," I hiss at Samir as we head to the kitchen. "One more sound, and we'll get caught".

He had pretended to fall asleep in my room earlier so he'd stay the night in my house. The twins, Inayah and I, could easily sneak out of our houses without our parents noticing, but Uncle IB was highly attentive and a light sleeper. One wrong move on Samir's part, and he'd catch us.

"Just walk faster," he complains.

"Shut it!" I whisper yell as I unlock the back door. I let him out first before walking after him and closing the door behind me. I lock the door and shove the key into my pocket.

We walk stealthily to the gate, ensuring we don't wake anyone.

"Finally," Munir says as we reach the gate.

"Samir was wasting my time," I complain.

"Let's go already! The faster we leave, the faster we return," Inayah says.

Munir walks toward the keypad adjacent to the gate and punches in the code. The device beeps, letting us know the gate is now unlocked.

"Guys! Are you sure we should do this?" Munira asks.

"Relax, moon. It'll be fine," I assure her.

"Just go back home if you're going to be a party pooper," Munir says, slowly pulling the gate open.

Inayah grabs Munira's hand and pulls her out of the gate. "Loosen up and have fun, moon," she says to her as we walk towards our neighbour Khalil's house.

We know Khalil from school, and he happened to live a few houses down. His parents are out of town, so his older brothers are having a party, and he was kind enough to invite us.

We are used to sneaking out of our houses past bedtime to hang out in the backyard, but we've never left the house until today.

Khalil's gate was wide open. Cars were lined up across the road, and people were going in and out of the house.

"Our first party," Munir says excitedly.

"Before we go in," Munira says, halting us. "One hour max. We should go back before 12."

"An hour is too short," Samir whines.

"Moon is right. The faster we return, the less likely we are to get caught," Inayah says.

Munir rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we've got it. Now let's go."

Ailah

I stare at the screen as I watch the CCTV footage of the kids sneaking out.

"Where the hell are they going?" I ask out loud.

"Who?" Jafar asks, coming out of the closet.

"The kids triggered the motion sensor cameras," I explain, handing him my phone.

He looked at the screen aghast. "They've started sneaking out of the house. I thought they limited it to the backyard?"

"I thought so, too," I answer.

He facepalms and hands me back my phone. "We need to wake their parents up."

I shake my head. "No! They'll freak out."

"Ailah. We need to tell them. The kids could get hurt. We should have told them they snuck out to the backyard the first time they did it. We let it be, and now they're escalating," he says, pulling a shirt over his head.