Codename: Shadow

Chapter 7

I crossed my arms. “You’ve got—“

Ten seconds. That was how I wanted to finish that sentence, but I was cut off. “Nara?” I heard a familiar voice call out.

How long had I been upstairs? I glanced down at my watch. Ten minutes was overtime, I guess. But Jake shouldn’t have been in my house. Jake was never in my house.

“Get out of here,” I mumbled to Eli and continued down the stairs. “For now, I won’t hurt you, but he will.”

Elijah gave a slight nod and glanced up at the ledge at the top of the staircase. It wasn’t much of anything—just a one foot ledge with a vase of fake flowers and a circular window. For a moment I wondered why this would interest him, but the more I looked at it, I noticed that some of the dust had been misplaced.

The next thing I knew, Eli had jumped up, grabbed the ledge, and hoisted himself up onto his knees. Then he opened the window, slipped outside, and brushed the dust off the ledge, making it almost unnoticeable. “We’ll talk later, I promise.” He said with a wink.

“Is my house seriously that easy to break into?” I asked, promising myself that I would try that move at a later time.

“Yep.” And then he was gone yet again.

I stumbled silently down the stairs while making a mental note to myself to install a better security system at all possible entrances to the house.

Rounding the corner into the living room, I pushed the sleeves of my shirt above my elbows and stormed over to the one person who didn’t belong. Not in my house, and especially not anywhere near Johnny.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” I snapped at him.

Jake casually looked up from his conversation with Johnny and smiled at me. “Oh, ‘evening Nara. Johnny was just telling me that you might be a while.”

It was a little shell shocking to see him in my house. I mean, I wasn’t really angry at him, but I would have liked to have invited him in. Then again, if he was outside, then he would’ve seen Elijah. I probably should have been a little thankful that he was standing in the middle of my living room, drinking a can of Coke.

“You seem to have forgotten our arrangement.” I said, crossing my arms into a less hostile body position. If I hit him, he would fight back.

Jake laughed. “Yes, yes, the one where I don’t enter your house and I get to keep the way my face is arranged? I remember that quite well. Nice place you’ve got here, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I grabbed the soda from his hands and swiftly finished it off. Then I looked up at him and let out a laugh. “Has Johnny been kind to you?”

“When am I not?” Johnny asked from where he sat at the kitchen’s island, looking through the newspaper. Which was odd, because I’d never seen him so much as glance at the headlines.

I glanced between the two boys. On the outside they were so different—one Mexican, the other from Wisconsin—but when I took into account their personalities, both were pretty much the same. Jake was well muscled, while Johnny was fit, but not obviously fit.

“We should get going,” Jake tossed my duffel bag to me and I adjusted the strap so I could ride with it on my back.

“Yeah.” I said with a final glance at Johnny. “We really should.”

~0o0~

This could possibly be one of the absolute worst things to say, but: I love nightclubs. They’re so noisy and crowded. Some may hate that they can’t move an inch without knocking elbows with someone, but the more crowded a place is, the easier it is to disappear. The music blares, which makes it so that no one can overhear a conversation.