Page 125 of Rules to Love By

Marcus faced him, suddenly glad he’d accepted his best friend’s offer to come with, and bring the armada of moral support. “You worked here,” he reminded Tris.

“More like you pilfered a bit of tips from the others to give me a paycheck I barely earned. I was such a little shit back then.”

Not a complete exaggeration. Marcus hugged him, one-armed, fast and hard. “And look at you now,” he said.

“Yeah. I tripped over a chair, and I think I broke my pinky. Lights?”

As everyone followed him deeper into the room, the front door swung shut with the satisfying tinkle of bells.

“Sort of missed that sound,” Marcus whispered, mostly to himself.

Tris slipped a hand around his elbow. “Okay?”

“Don’t be afraid of the dark, Tris.”

“Ha, ha.”

Marcus didn’t trip over anything. The place was so familiar to him, he could navigate it with the pale, thin light filtering through the closed blinds over the door and few intact windows. Either the others had already moved all the fallen furniture or the diner itself was guiding his steps.

The kitchen was a different story. The metal shelving units along the back wall had toppled. All the plates and glasses and mugs stored on it had gone with it, leaving the floor strewn with broken glass and stoneware. It crunched under his work boots as he took the least rubble-strewn path through the carnage.

When he made it to the electrical panel and flipped the stiff switches, their loudclacksechoed unnatural and vulgar in the dimness.

Nothing happened.

“The hell?” He flipped them again with the same results.

Someone shone a cell phone light up at the fixtures, and Marcus swore. The bright, expensive light fixtures he’d given up months of paychecks to afford were gone.

“That shithead!”

A fast glance around showed him the light fixtures weren’t the only things missing.

“We should open some blinds,” Ozzy said, taking Tris’s hand and pulling him back towards the dining room. “Shed some light on things.”

The opening blinds revealed one disaster after another as the morning spilled into the space.

Marcus shuffled his feet, grimaced at the crunch of broken crockery, and almost groaned with relief when Ozzy appeared at the pass-through, calling his name.

“Question,” the big man said.

“What?” Marcus didn’t mean to snap, but discovering Johnathan was just this much of a petty thief—his head was beginning to swim.

“The plumbing. Is it exposed in the basement?”

Marcus frowned. “I don’t—maybe? I think there are pipes running along the ceiling. Why?”

“I expect the copper pipes are probably gone. I’ll go look.” He disappeared back into the kitchen.

Marcus sighed.

“Also,” Ozzy said, reappearing, “be prepared. If he was really desperate, he may have taken it all, which will mean huge holes in the walls upstairs.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Marcus scrubbed at his face.

“Just—” Ozzy held up a hand. “Wait here.”

“What is happening right now?”

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