Before Beasts, There Was Sound--Book 1

Glass, Guns, and Achilles

Once this is over, he thought savagely, I am going back to Moscow and never coming back out. The others can have their bit beasts stolen twice over, I don't care.

It was probably because his arms felt like they might snap in two from bracing himself up for so long on a windowsill in the middle of the night. Said windowsill was attached to a closed window and was maybe three inches wide.

And set into the east wall of a mansion.

Said mansion was aglow with its garden lights, which could have served as spotlights for how few shadows they had left for him.

Kai's window just happened to be on the second floor in the only unlit, shadowing portion he had been able to find so far on the damn place. Luckily, ever bit of his pale skin had been painted over with leftover black Halloween paint he had found in Tyson's room. Sure saved him time on finding something like it in town when he couldn't be sure he wasn't being followed (the Abbey made one paranoid as an extra freebie). He had dressed in black and covered his palms with black athletic tape.

He strained his head back over his shoulder. He had allowed his neck enough time to rest in order to get the cramp out of it. He could see the black wire along the windowsill where the security system ran. Now he just had to make sure of the angle...

Knees popping, he crouched as much as he dared, arms straining as his center of gravity leaned farther and farther out of the tiny windowsills reach. His fingers found the edge of the decorative window shutters. Fast as he could, he whipped out the same pocket knife Kenny had used earlier that day and stuck the sharp tip onto the farthest square pane of the window. With one agile twitch, the corner of the glass snapped loose. Old fashion mansions did have one perk.

Legs trembling and knees screaming now, he dropped the knife on the sill, plucked the stretched out coat hanger being held to his arm by his wrist band, and eased it in. From here on out, he had to move by feel and memory, and hopefully not pull up the wire instead of the latch.

Sweat prickled down his forehead. He bit the side of his mouth so hard he tasted blood.

He was out of practice. But then, he had also had to improvise. Improvise a lot.

It was a good thing Ray hadn't come. What a whole bag of nightmares that would have been. But, as fortune would have it, he had been scheduled to have the delicate bones of his ears repaired, as they had simply become dislocated. Even so, after the girl had painfully traced out the map for him and wrote down all she knew of the security system, Ray insisted Kai remain with them. Kai said nothing. He just left. After all, he had never meant to give anyone the impression that anyone could order him around, for better or for worse.

Those big blue eyes, unclouded by messy hair or a too big, ratty hoodie, had pled with him not to go as well. Her voice had been shocked out, and the doctor's had predicted at least a few days before it would return in any amount. Even if she could have come, her greatest weapon was out of commission.

The window behind him gave a little click. His breath hitched, but the night remained quiet. Dropping the wire, he eased himself up and used the heel of his boot to lift the window open, lowered himself again, and back stepped into the opening, using his calves and hips to wedge it open large enough for the rest of him to get in.

The last thing he did before shutting and locking it was retrieve his knife from the ledge. After taking a quick glance at his surroundings (it looked like he had dropped into an unoccupied bedroom), he slipped out Ayah's map again just to recheck his location. She was no artist, but at least she had remember which side of the house the sun rose on, and you couldn't go too amiss with squares and lines.