Page 217 of The Devil's Fire

“Well, you want answers, so you better get to work.” I mumbled to myself. I moved the bed and grasped the corner of the carpet. Kneeling down, I began feeling around the wooden tiles, hoping to find a secret hiding place. I had no idea if it were even possible to hide anything under the tiles, but then again, I had already experienced enough to know that anything was possible.

I kept pressing the tiles with my hands, but they all seemed firmly in place, glued to each other. Frustration welled up within me. Maybe I was reading too much into this? What if it wasn’t as deep as I had imagined?

Despite these doubts, a nagging feeling persisted, urging me to uncover the truth. I needed something, just one piece of evidence that could lead me to answers.

“Give me one damn thing!” I exclaimed, slamming my fist down in frustration.

I rapidly blinked away the tears when I felt one of the tiles move slightly when I slammed my fist down. I touched it again, trying to shake it just to make sure I wasn’t tricked. It moved!

My heart was beating faster, now knowing that I might have found something. I was so anxious that my hands shook, and I had to take a moment to calm down.

It wasn’t easy to remove the tile, and I had to use my nails to get underneath it to get a hold of it. After a few tries, I finally did.

A knock on the door jolted me, and I nearly let out a scream before realizing it was just Michael on the other side. I was so focused that I had forgotten about him.

“Thaia, are you okay?” He asked. He didn’t open the door and stayed outside.

“Yeah, I’m just taking a moment, processing everything.” I grimaced at the terrible excuse. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“It’s fine. Take your time.” He said softly before I heard him walk away from the door, probably to give me a bit more privacy.

I breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the now-removed tile. Peering into the shallow darkness, I wasted no time reaching down to blindly explore its contents.

My hands moved from side to side until I finally felt something solid. Pulling it out, I found a small wooden treasure chest adorned with engravings on the lid; details that were unfamiliar and unreadable to me.

The chest was just large enough to hold a few items. Luckily, it lacked a lock and only had a simple metal hinge to keep it shut since I wasn’t supposed to see it, or anyone else, for that matter.

I quickly opened it to see what it contained. Just as I opened it, I saw some papers and something that seemed to look like letters and… was that a picture? I picked it up to see it was an old picture of my mother when she was younger, and she wasn’t alone. A man was next to her, and not someone I had seen before.

I kept rummaging through the small chest before deciding this had to wait. I didn’t want Michael to become suspicious about why I was taking too long, especially since I was only supposed to grab a few things. I also didn’t want to risk our safety by staying here for too long, so I suppressed my curiosity and quickly arranged everything back to how it was.

I grabbed a small box from my mother’s closet and placed the chest at the bottom before adding a few more of her belongings around it. I made sure to fill the box enough to hide the chest, wanting to keep this a secret until I had the chance to look through it.

I glanced around her room one last time, hoping I would somehow be able to avenge her death in one way or another.

“I’m ready to leave.” I said to Michael once I stepped out of the bedroom. He looked at me as if trying to see if I was okay, and I gave him a small smile to let him know I was.

“Do you need anything else besides these photo albums?” He asked, holding them up.

“No, I don’t really care about the rest. I just took the stuff that I knew my mom... liked.” It was still weird to talk about my mother in the past tense, and it made me slightly uncomfortable. I knew it was because there was still a part of me that refused to believe that I had lost her.

“Okay.” Michael gave me a comforting smile before we left.

I locked the door but kept the spare key with me. Michael was scanning around the area once again, but I wasn’t as worried as I was before. If someone intended to attack, they would have likely done so while we were in the house to avoid getting caught.

“Can you take me to the boutique while we’re here? I should put up a sign or something to let customers know we’re permanently closed.” I asked him once we were in the car.

There was no way I would want to run the boutique alone, and for some very obvious reasons, I couldn’t stay here. As much as I enjoyed my job, it wouldn’t be the same without my mother.

Michael looked at me with a frown on his face.

“…You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?” I looked at him, confused.

He sighed as he ran a hand through his hair and looked at me with a sad expression.

“It was burned down.”

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