Page 4 of Dreadful
“Come on.” She takes my hand. “This way.”
I fasten mine around hers instinctively, letting her guide me into the hallway. It’s only after I step onto the thick rug that my heart skips for a different reason.
This is the first time I’ve held a girl’s hand.
The realization makes me trip, and she grips tighter to catch me. My cheeks heat with embarrassment, but I don’t let go as I take the lead.
“I know the way,” I mumble. Her lips purse, and her brow furrows.
“Oh, I thought…” She shakes her head. “Okay, I’ll follow you.”
I lead her just past her room before pausing. My teeth clench with anger at whoever’s behind that closed door. I’m tempted to push it open to see who he is, but I’m afraid to risk it. Her eyes dart around the hallway, more vigilant than I am. We need to get out of here, but I have to know.
“Where is the man? Do you know who he was?”
“No.” She swipes at her shiny cheeks. “But I…I think he’s dead.”
My eyes widen. “Didyoukill him?”
She tries to pull her hand away, but I don’t let her go. Her chin lifts, and she stands as tall as she can, still only coming up to my shoulder.
“I hope so,” she says matter-of-factly, almost like she’s taunting me to see how I’ll react.
“How did you do it?”
“I wanted to make him hurt, but I could only trick him. His medicine makes me tired, so instead of taking it, I dumped the whole bottle into his drink.”
A smile creeps over my face.
“Good. Let’s go.”
Her grin is a cute kind of evil, and her hand grips mine even harder as she races us both up the stairs. I’m shocked when the basement door is unlocked, turning easily in her small hand.
“Guess they didn’t think we’d try to escape,” she whispers.
Or they know we can’t…
I shake my head and push the thought aside so I don’t jinx us.
The old brownstone’s wooden floors normally creak, but she knows which boards are silent and which could get us killed.
She turns us down a servant’s hallway that takes us directly to the kitchen. We drop to all fours in the dark room and crawl around the island countertop toward the large doggy door.
When she climbs through without a problem, hope flutters in my chest. I stumble through behind her, and she holds up the plastic flap to keep it from slapping down when I fall out. Once we’re free, I stand up, but she yanks me down by the hem of my T-shirt.
“The emergency lights! You’ll make them go off if we don’t go slow.”
“Oh, crap, sorry.”
The girl scowls at me, and I try my best not to snort out a laugh. She’s little, but she’s sassy, a fighter, and way braver than I am. My dad would love her if she was a boy.
“The tulips are the dark purple flowers between those light purple ones.” She points across the private backyard to the corner farthest away from us. “We have to go around the shrubs outlining the maze. Got it?”
I nod once and let her slink ahead of me. It’s slow-going at first, but the closer we get, the harder it is for both of us to keep from sprinting.
When we’re only yards away, a noise from inside the house makes us freeze. After a few moments of silence, she continues on, but a thorny vine catches me, slicing at my arm.
“Dammit.” I try to pull away, but the plant has me by my sleeve. “I can’t get out. Keep going, I’ll catch up.”
