CHAPTER FIVE
Emily
My childhood home looked the same as I remembered it if a little shabbier. The yellow paint was peeling off and the stone walkway was overgrown with weeds. My parents never would have let that happen. They were as controlling over their lawn care as they were over their daughters. Everything had to be perfect because they had to be perfect.
As we pulled into the driveway, I felt an odd sense of nothing. Everything was surreal but I didn’t feel overwhelming nostalgia or dread as I had expected. I just felt... nothing.
I got off Bryce’s bike and handed him the helmet. He gave me a quick glance as if checking to see if I wanted to turn back now. He was as protective as always. That definitely hadn’t changed since I last saw him. “Ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “Ready.” Together, we walked up the walkway to the house. “How did you know this was my old house?” I asked. I was never allowed to have friends over and my parents would have killed me if I suggested bringing a boy into the house, let alone one from the wrong side of the tracks.
He looked a little sheepish. “I used to follow you home on the days you were walking home alone. I know it sounds creepy, but I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.”
I stared at him. “My dad would have killed you if he ever saw you.”
He shrugged. “I know. But I thought it was worth the risk. I didn’t want you to get mugged or anything. If you walked home with Julie, I left you alone. It was only when you were by yourself.”
I smiled, feeling a little touched. Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised. He had always been protective of me. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very sweet of you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re not scared about me stalking you?”
“You were just looking out for me, and I appreciate it. God knows I needed it in a town like this.” I couldn’t believe my parents even let me walk home by myself most days, considering how controlling they usually were. But of course, they had also been busy trying to get ahead in their own careers, so they were always working late. But they were always home by seven to make sure we didn’t break curfew.
The inside of the house was dusty. I coughed and covered my mouth.
“Sorry, I should have warned you,” Bryce said. He went to the nearest window and pulled it up, grunting. That window hadn’t been open in years and it didn’t want to move. “No one’s lived here since your parents moved.”
“I doubted they could sell it,” I said. “Not with the Demons tearing the town apart.” Once news of the local gang hit headlines, nobody wanted to move here.
It was a small house, but it used to be spotless. I could picture the hardwood floors and the paintings on the walls so easily as if I had been here only yesterday. My parents loved to pretend we were richer than we were. I think they got it in their heads we would be the Kennedys one day. Instead, all that was left was a crumbling house and two runaway daughters.
I hadn’t spoken to my parents in almost a decade, and I had no wish to speak to them now.
Aside from a few sets of footprints on the ground from Bryce and his friends, there weren’t any other signs of life. “Why would someone break in here?” I asked as I tried one of the steps leading to the second floor. Satisfied it held my weight, I started to climb.
“It might have been a squatter,” Bryce said. “There aren’t as many as there used to be since the Hell’s Renegades started protecting the homeless shelter and keeping the Demons away. But there are still quite a few who prefer to find an abandoned building instead of risking being taken by the Demons.”
The first place I stopped was my old bedroom. It was empty as the rest of the rooms, but something was off. I couldn’t place it at first but then it hit me. “You said you found the envelope in a bedroom?”
“Yes,” He said. “Why?”
“This was my room. But the dust hasn’t been disturbed here at all.” No one had been in here recently.
He frowned. “You’re right. I think it was the other room.”
“That would have been my parents’ room,” I said. “Let’s go check.”
I led the way down the hall to my parent's old room. It was empty, but there was clearly a mess of footprints in the dust and a loose floorboard showing a gap in the floor. I stared at it as I pieced together what happened. “My parents found the letter before I did,” I said. “They probably read it too.” I cleared my throat as I walked to the hole in the floor. “They hid that from me.”
“Why would they do that?” Bryce asked.
My chest suddenly felt tight. I clenched my hands into fists. “They told me the Demons got her,” I said, my voice shaking. “They told me I had to behave and follow their rules and be a good girl or they would get me too.”
“They used your sister disappearing to control you.”
A sob escaped my throat and then another. I covered my face with my hands as I lost control.
Bryce pulled me into his arms and held me close. “Shh,” he whispered to me. “It’s okay. It’s okay, I’ve got you.”