Shadow

Nonchalant Murders

"Miss Knight?"

I sighed. "Marie, I told you to call me Kiera. I hate being called Miss Knight."

The maid winked at me. "I'm sorry. It's my job to call you that. Anyway, we don't . . . umm, we don't know how to . . . clean the living room."

I leaned back and peeked around the corner at the destroyed living room. Sigh. "I'll take care of it. My parents had some stuff that would help in case of this scenario. Go home, Marie. I know it's your daughter's birthday. I don't know why you came in the first place." I pushed her out the door. She stopped me before I could shut it all the way.

"Thank you, Kiera," she smiled.

I waved it off. "No problem. I would never keep you like this. Tell Grace happy birthday for me!"

"I will."

I shut the door and puffed air out from my cheeks. I'd forgotten the maids were coming. I would just have to tell them to stay out of the living room. The stairs creaked under my boots as I ran upstairs and grabbed Shadow's gloves. I would be proving if the acid-proof material worked or not.

A bad feeling had taken root in my gut, and I hadn't been able to get rid of it all day. I needed a distraction.

The DJ table was totally wrecked, and not in a cool way. It was burned and melted, tilted on its side. Thankfully, the guy had gotten away safely with his laptop. I took the table and kicked it into smaller pieces, then threw it in a corner. That was now the trash corner. One of the couches was completely destroyed. Oops. Trash corner. I threw in one of the small tables on top of it. Countless red plastic cups went into the trash bag. Eventually, the most destroyed items were all thrown out.

"Hey—what are you doing?"

I whirled around, taking off the gloves in the process and stuffing them in my back pocket. "Hey, Cole!"

"What are you doing?" he repeated, stepping over trash.

"Cleaning up."

"How did you move that stuff by yourself?" He pointed to the trash corner.

I shrugged. "I've told you, I'm stronger than you think."

Cole took my arm and squeezed my biceps. "But there's nothing there."

"Ha-ha. Very funny. How 'bout you make yourself useful and help out for once in your life?" I tossed some latex gloves at his face. "You know, because apparently little old Kiera has no muscle?"

Cole sighed and snapped on the gloves. "Fine. But actually, I came to tell you that the group's coming over."

I furrowed my eyebrows. "Group?"

"You know, Jase and Daniel? Our History group? The project? Ring any bells?"

I wanted so bad to smack him upside the head with the table leg. "Shut up. But seriously, you invited them over?" I didn't even bother to ask how he got either of their numbers. Jase wasn't necessarily in his social circle until just recently and Cole and Daniel had some sort of sworn hatred for each other.

He shrugged nonchalantly, as if welcoming someone you hate into your home was something you did on a daily basis. "Yeah. We've got to get this project done, and I felt bad for the other day in class." He plopped down on the other couch that was undamaged. "I really am sorry, Kiera. I know I was acting childish."

I shook my head. No point trying to correct his use of past tense. "Don't worry about it. Just put up with each other for another week or two and then we're done with the project. Then you'll never have to speak to each other again."