House of Darken (Secret Keepers #1)(10)
The window cracked slightly and I froze, waiting to see what the occupants would do next. The window stopped, leaving only a few inches open at the top. I could still see nothing inside. Finally, when I’d had enough of the weirdness, I turned tail and ran as fast as I could. Screw looking cool and calm, I was terrified and wanted to get my butt out of there.
Something was wrong with Daelight Crescent. I knew it now, and it felt almost like it was too late to truly escape. The Finnegans were lured here, and now we were trapped.
3
After my scare, the next few days passed quite peacefully. Sara and Michael disappeared on one of their supernatural hunting trips, leaving me home to read and indulge in my other favorite hobby. Knitting. Yep, I was an eighty-year-old in an almost eighteen-year-old’s body. Reading and knitting were my fun times and I would go crazy grandma on anyone’s ass who tried to stop me. Thankfully I had found a decent wool site online, getting bulk lots really cheap.
Daelight was still creeping me out, but I couldn’t deny how peaceful a street it was. Unlike the usual areas we lived in, I didn’t have to deal with domestic violence, gangs, or the randoms who wanted to fight it out in front of my house. The only thing dulling my happiness were the occasional stabs of loneliness, but I was used to the Finnegans disappearing for days on end.
My parents had been a bit on the helicopter parenting side. Michael and Sara were the complete opposite. They believed in freedom, making your own mistakes and learning from them. Plus they seemed to trust me completely. I had no curfew. No rules at all, really. Just make good choices, as they always said to me. When they took off, they had promised to be back in time to drive me to school on Monday, but since it was Sunday evening and there was still no sign of them, I wasn’t holding out hope. I would be okay, though. I always was.
Except for the food situation. It was running low, and I wasn’t sure I was up to braving the town on my own again. I had one bowl of cereal left for dinner or breakfast. I needed to make a choice now. My stomach rumbled at me – loudly – and no amount of shooshing or filling it with water was helping. Caving, I ditched my knitting needles in the basket of wool and got up to eat my Fruit Loops. Just as I was finishing, lights shone through the open blinds, and out of habit I pressed myself against the wall and crept to the window. Peering around the corner, I wasn’t surprised to see a car going back into the royal abode, as I called it now. I mean, their hedges were pruned into shapes. Who else but royalty did that?
As weirded out as I had been the other day, I also found myself strangely obsessed with spying on the rich side of Daelight Crescent. And since the royal abode was the only one I could easily see from the front window, it got most of my attention. After some careful and selective stalking, I had learned some interesting things. First, definitely more than one person lived there. Multiple cars emerged, often at the same time. So far there was a white Range Rover, a black Porsche, and the sleek fancy purple one – which looked a lot like an Aston Martin. Despite his general academic ways, my father had been a secret car buff. He’d even had an old Ford Mustang in the garage that he tinkered with on weekends. So I knew a little about make and model of cars from him. Enough to know that all of the vehicles that went in and out were expensive – like feed a small country for the cost of their tires expensive.
Other cars did drive up and down the street, all of them expensive and darkly tinted, but they went into the other estates. I guessed there were about ten mansions on the rich side, and twenty cottages on our side, all squished together. I almost never saw any of the people who lived in the cottages, just the occasional old beater in their driveways.
The mystery of this place was slowly driving me crazy. Multiple security people roaming around, mansions, fancy cars. A token side of poor people to even them out. What the heck?
As night fell, the pretty streetlamps lit up along both sides of the road. I wasn’t really that tired – what with my big day of knitting and creeping around like a peeping Tom – but I still decided to go to bed early so I’d be well rested for school the next day. Of course, my rock bed, teamed with nerves, had me tossing and turning all night, which meant the next morning I was not only hungry but a tired, red-eyed mess.
It took one hot shower, twenty minutes of grooming, and a failed braid before I threw down my hairbrush and called it a day. This was as good as I was getting today. Time to get dressed and get this first day out of the way. Surely it would be the hardest day, trying to learn all the ins and outs of a new school.
Surprisingly, the sun was shining, so I opted for denim shorts, my Converse, and a black long-sleeved fitted top. No need to wear anything fancy. Starslight Prep had a uniform, which I’d receive when I got there. I grabbed the funky vintage leather schoolbag I’d found while shopping in a second-hand store with Sara. Inside were pens, some notepads, and a few other essentials. I was as ready as I’d ever be.
My scholarship included textbooks, materials for class, and some food. Apparently I would find out all the details when I enrolled properly this morning. At least I had a bit of money to cover me if it didn’t, but I would have to be careful what I spent.
The only thing I did already know was my schedule. You could enroll online for that part, and Michael had done it for me before he left. But since there was still plenty I needed to do before class, I threw my wallet, security card, and door key into my bag and hurried out of the house.