Page 136 of Neighbors With Benefits

I stood up and immediately became dizzy. My vision blurred and the room spun.

“Easy,” Voldemort said, bracing my arms and lowering me back to the couch. “You have a concussion. I think. Saw it a lot in the Navy. Tall guys hitting their heads on the bulkhead. That’s why I shook you awake—you’re not supposed to sleep when you have a concussion. It’s bad for you.”

My head was pounding, I realized. I touched the source of the pain, my forehead, and felt a bandage.

“I cleaned you up,” he said, once again defensively.

Okay. I got scared and ran into a lamppost. I knocked myself out, which made sense since my memory was fuzzy, and he brought me inside. He hadhelpedme.

I felt myself relax. All of this was normal. I didn’t have any reason to be afraid.

“But I’m glad it happened,” Voldemort said. He held his hands in front of him, twiddling the thumbs nervously. “I want to talk to you.”

There it is. He wasn’t just helping me.

“I would like to go outside now, please,” I said with a calmness that I didn’t truly feel.

“No,” he blurted out. “First we need totalk.”

Images of horror movies ran through my head. That creepy guy inSilence of the Lambsespecially. I imagined being thrown into a deep hole, and Voldemort lowering food and water to me in a bucket on a rope.

“Maybe we can talk another time,” I said patiently. “When I feel better.”

“You’re afraid,” he said. He sounded shocked. “Why are you afraid? You shouldn’t be afraid!”

All stoicism disappeared, and I blurted out, “Because you’re Voldemort!”

Behind his glasses, he blinked in surprise. “What’s a Voldemort?”

“He’s the bad guy from Harry Potter!” I said in a rush. “You would know that if you weren’t a scary hermit!”

“You think…” He swallowed hard. “You think I’m abadguy?”

“Well… yeah,” I said.

He bit off a single word: “Why?”

“You’ve never gone outside,” I said. “You block all the windows. You have all those signs on your fence, and in your yard, warning people to stay away. You’ve booby trapped your front yard.”

“I’m… agoraphobic,” he said. “It means I’m afraid of open spaces. Or going outside. It’s the opposite of claustrophobia. And I hate solicitors. Especially during elections. Someone is always knocking on my door, and ringing my phone, andpressing my doorbell four times a day.” He touched his temples with both hands. “I just want everyone to leave me alone. I just want everyone to stay away. But you were injured, so I tried to help you, and now you’re calling me names… Do you really have a bad guy nickname for me?”

He sounded so hurt by the end, and confused, like a dog that didn’t understand why it had been kicked. His eyes were so big and innocent behind his glasses, and I couldn’t bear to see the pain I had just caused him, so I looked around the room.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing toward the window. “Binoculars? And some sort of plastic dish antenna?”

“It’s a parabolic microphone,” he explained.

“I’ve heard of those!” I exclaimed. “They let you hear things from far away. What do you need those for? Spying on everyone in the neighborhood? Listening to conversations that are supposed to be private?”

He hung his head in shame. “I’m lonely. I want to feel like part of the neighborhood, even though I can’t leave. You are all so friendly to each other. I feel… left out.”

Was he lying? I didn’t think so. He seemed genuine lonely.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous.

I heard a clatter deeper in the house, like dishes shifting in a sink. Tensing, I asked, “Who else is here?”

Voldemort held out a hand. He was still blocking my escape. “Just calm down…”

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