When a shy girl from Figure Eight suddenly gets whisked into a dangerous treasure hunt involving four pogues known for their knack for trouble, she finds herself navigating not only the troubled waters of adventure but also the complexities of frien...
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The morning was a quiet whisper, its breath cool against the cracked windowpane as shadows stretched across Sydney's bedroom. The clock on her nightstand glowed 4:53 a.m., its soft, green numbers a cruel reminder of how long she'd been awake. She sat cross-legged on her bed, her fingers twisting and untwisting the dainty silver bracelet on her wrist, hands restless as if they could somehow unravel the knot of thoughts tightening in her mind.
Today was the day.
And not just for finding the gold.
James Lyons was coming home. After a month away, her father would finally be back—and Sydney was completely and utterly dreading it.
The house had already begun to feel smaller, the walls pressing closer in anticipation of his return. She could almost hear his sharp footsteps on the floorboards, the quiet, measured way he spoke that always made her feel like she was being examined under glass. Her stomach twisted at the thought, a sinking weight pulling her deeper into unease.
She could already picture the cloud of tension settling over the house the moment he stepped inside, as it always did. Every time he walked through that door, it was as if the air grew heavier, thick with expectations that she could never meet. He didn't need to say anything for the pressure to rise—it was in the way he stood, the way he looked at her, as if he were studying an equation, trying to figure out where she'd gone wrong. And she always did. No matter how hard she tried, no matter how much she pretended to fit the mold, she always fell short.
She was now regretting turning down the Pogues' offer to crash at John B's house. She should have stayed—should have let herself be surrounded by people who would've laughed too loud, distracted her with stupid stories, and noticed if she started spiralling into her head of never ending thoughts. But no. In typical Sydney Lyons fashion, she had chosen the hard road, planting herself in this cold, empty house to sit with her worries and listen to the bittersweet silence.
Because when her dad could be home any second, the silence she usually worshipped and yearned for wasn't comforting. It was suffocating.
Every creak of the floorboards, every sigh of the wind outside, felt like a harbinger of his arrival. Her mind raced with the same relentless energy that had kept her awake all night—flashes of imagined conversations, words she wouldn't dare say, and the inevitable weight of his disapproving eyes. She tried to block out the images, but they kept coming—his sharp, cold stare as if he were dissecting every part of her. Her clothes, her words, her posture—everything would be questioned. Every time, she was put under a microscope, her every move scrutinized.
The girl didn't even want to imagine the type of argument that was most likely to implode when he found out she had been hanging out with the Pogues while he was gone. Just the thought of the inevitable storm of disappointment made her stomach churn. She could already hear his voice, low and precise, telling her how reckless she was, how beneath her. And even worse, she could picture his eyes—those eyes that only saw failure.
