Page 53 of Our Darkest Summer
“Really?” he whispered nervously, and I nodded, squeezing his hand.
“Relax. He would be lucky to have you.”
Thomas strode ahead and we followed him up the stairs into a narrow hallway. The walls were covered with old pictures of Kevin and a man, I suspected to be his dad.
“So, where do you want to start?” Kevin asked as he led us up to the second floor. “My dad’s office?” He pointed at a door on our right. “Or Pops’s?” He gestured at a narrow staircase.
“Fuckers,” someone said before we had the chance to answer, and I stilled, looking at the boys. Did they hear it as well? “Fuckers.” The high pitched voice came again and Connor’s eyes met with mine.
“Is there anyone else here?” I asked, and for a moment, Kevin looked confused by my question, then?—
“Oh, that’s just Marley,” he said as an explanation, but I remained clueless.
He opened an already creaked door, and we stepped into the room. The walls had different kinds of records hanging on them. I spotted Eminem, Elton John, Alton Ellis, Snoop Dogg, Billie Holiday, and Elvis, among others. On the desk under the window and next to the twin bed were at least fifty small pictures of a green parrot. I couldn’t help but wince at the sight. I had a parrot once as well, let’s just say it didn’t end well for him...
The memory sent a nauseous wave down my spine. A melodic whistle pulled my attention toward another wall of the room, and my eyes landed on a huge birdcage.
“Oh shit,” Connor muttered from beside me, and I couldn’t have agreed more.
Especially when I realized the door was open and the cage seemed empty. Could it be that it was maybe uninhabited? In that exact moment a hand-sized parrot landed on Kevin’s shoulder, and tipped his head to the side. I startled backward. A little late, but now I remembered Connor asking Kevin about a parrot the day we arrived.
“Come, meet Bob Marley.” He waved us closer, but neither of us moved.
“Are you okay?” Connor muttered and I nodded, even though the oxygen disappeared from my lungs.
“Hello,” the bird said, and my eyes widened.Hell no.
I inched toward the door. “We should…head upstairs,” I stuttered, my skin breaking out in nervous hives. “We don’t know how much time we have.”
“Kinsley’s right. We don’t have time to waste.” Thomas was standing in front of me, shielding me from the small bird without knowing.
For a split second, my fear blurred into something warmer. Something familiar. I was back in my dream. His hands pulling me under, his mouth against mine, the heat of his breath ghosting over my skin. The way he held me like I was both breakable and burning.
I swallowed hard.
“She’s a green-cheeked conure,” Kevin went on, clearly lost in his own head.
Clearly, I was too, because it took me a moment to register that Bob Marley was ashe. He took the bird off his shoulder and took a step in our direction. That was all I needed to jolt out the door. I couldn’t help myself. I squeezed my eyes shut, calming my breaths.
“It’s okay,” Kevin called after me. “She’s a nice bird. Aren’t you, Marley?”
Marley is a good bird,the parrot repeated twice, and the next thing I heard was the sound of wings flapping. Thomas stepped out into the hallway as well and shut the door behind himself. I straightened away from the wall, wetting my lips which were suddenly dry from the adrenaline rush.
“You okay?” he asked, and I nodded even though my blood sugar felt insanely low.
“Kinsley’s afraid of birds,” I heard Connor’s explanation from the other side of the door.
I wasn’t truly scared of them, it was more of being afraid for them. I saw enough dead birds for a lifetime. It was probably one of the reasons I had ornithophobia in the first place.
Kevin and Connor exited the bedroom, to my relief without the parrot, and the weight shifted off my chest. Connor put his arm around my neck, but neither of us said a word as we walked up the narrow staircase to the next floor. By the time we stopped in front of a dark wooden door, the dizziness had already faded into nothing but a memory.
Kevin pulled an old skeleton key out of his pocket and pushed it into the lock on the door. It released with a high creak and Thomas was about to stride inside when Kevin put an arm on the doorframe, blocking his way. It was the first time I got a real look at his tattoos. Musical notes, feathers, bees, birds mid-flight, a Rubik’s Cube, and symbols I wasn’t familiar with covered his dark skin.
“We have to be careful,” he warned. “If my dad notices we were in there,” he pointed at the office, “I’m pretty sure I’m a dead man.” He looked at us one by one and only dropped his hand when we all nodded in agreement.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Thomas
