Page 14 of Hyde

“I thought I told you to stay put?” Dad’s voice is once again calm as he places a hand on my shoulder when Mungo drives away.

“Once she ran inside, I knew she’d pop out of the backdoor,” I explain before turning back to the AC unit. “Let’s go see what she was trying to hide.”

Dad looks momentarily confused until I pull the bag out from where I had tossed it. The side of the nylon catches on something, loudly shredding the length of it.

“Oh, shit,” I say, after my brain catches up to what I’m looking at.

“Oh, shit,” Dad repeats when our eyes meet.

He immediately fishes out his phone and hits a button. “Get Jasper for me.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, covering the bottom of the phone, looking at me again. “The cabin is trashed. Go lock yourself in the downstairs bathroom, as long as you don’t see any needles or powder in there. This time you stay there until I get you.”

Nodding, I take one more look at the plastic-wrapped bricks of some grimy white substance and head inside, promising myself to do exactly what he asked of me.

Locked in the bathroom, I sit there regretting my actions. Or rather, my inaction. I should have pretended to trip and impaled that heinous bitch while no one was looking. Dad would have called the guys in, gotten rid of the body in a woodchipper, and I wouldn’t be sitting here staring blindly at ten-year-old wallpaper.

When I hear the sounds of Dad walking around the place in a final sweep, I stand up and wait for him to give me the ‘all clear’.

“Come on, Le-Lee,” he says after I’ve opened the door for him. “Why don’t you go hang out in the second bedroom, that looks untouched. We have to wait for Jasper and the others to get here.”

“Why don’t you let me start cleaning the place up?” I ask, getting the feeling that this is going to take a while.

“Because the thought of you getting jabbed by a needle…” his voice trails off as he looks around.

“There have to be gloves around here somewhere,” I suggest. “I don’t want to just sit around and do nothing.”

“I’ll check for some in the shed, but if I tell you to hide, you do it immediately,” Dad instructs me, the look he’s giving me sets off warning bells and it finally occurs to me how much danger we’re in.

Chapter 2

Leslee

“The drugs. She’ll be back for them, won’t she?”

“I doubt they belong to her, but someone will come looking for them. If they find her first, there’s no doubt that she’ll point her finger at us.” Dad swipes his hand through his hair, and I notice that the scar on his face has gone red.

“Tell me what’s happening, Dad. I’m not a kid anymore,” I demand the truth from him.

“We’re going to move the families into the clubhouse until we get a handle on who that bag belongs to. Your mom and Xander are heading there now,” he replies, looking down at the time on his phone. “Some of the guys are coming out here to sweep the house, after we’ve done that, you and I will head back.”

“And Mungo and Trinity?”

“People are out looking for them. Uh, Royce’s family will be at the clubhouse, also.” Dad looks away, but not before I see him trying to control his face.

I can’t help but grimace at that. Royce and Molly have two sets of twin boys, but they look so much alike that we all tease them about being quadruplets. Two of them, I make it a point to pretend I don’t know which ones they are, follow me around at all the family parties. They’re like overgrown mutts with drool dripping down their chins.

“I should have let her leave with the damn bag,” I mumble, looking up at Dad when he makes a choking sound, not even trying to hide his grin anymore. “It’s not funny.”

Knowing how annoying I find myfan club, he holds up his hand; his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart.

“I’ll go look for those gloves,” he says, reverting back to the earlier topic. “Don’t touch anything, God only knows if there are needles lying around.”

I shudder at the thought, but decide to start with the fridge. If they’ve been here any length of time, I’m sure that’ll need to be sorted out especially if this place will sit empty for a time.

A while after I get the fridge cleaned out and have the dishwasher running, we hear the roar of bikes approaching. My eyes widen and almost without thinking, I spin and duck into the pantry, closing the door for cover.

As the bikes pull up, Dad gives me the okay to come out and I’m soon swept up in my Uncle Connal’s arms.

“You alright, Le-Lee?” he asks, as the others crowd around us.

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