Hide(45)

“Yeah?” Ava asks, and neither of them knows exactly what she’s asking, but they don’t need to.

Mack presses her lips against Ava’s. It’s her first kiss, and it’s soft and scared and hopeful, surrounded by darkness and suffused with it.



* * *



—

With the dawn deadline nearing, Brandon steps outside. Mack and Ava have been up in the hiding spot for a few hours now, and he can’t be sure, but he’s pretty sure they’re a thing now. Which makes him happy for them but also feeling a little left out. He doesn’t want their team to pair off, to create bonds he’s left out of.

At least he doesn’t have to worry about that with LeGrand. Maybe LeGrand will become his best friend. It doesn’t seem likely—LeGrand hasn’t really been friendly, even if he hasn’t been unfriendly—but there’s a chance. Brandon can imagine it. Becoming roommates. Staying up late playing his secondhand Xbox. Pooling their money for new games. Inviting the girls over for pizza. Sharing the out-of-date snacks he brings home from the gas station.

“LeGrand?” he whispers into the night.

A click answers, and Brandon follows it. He knows he shouldn’t be out, that maybe Jaden is looking for them, but it feels so lonely waiting in the Lovers’ Hideaway by himself, counting down until it’s light enough to join Ava and Mack in the good hiding spot so he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding. He checked it out when he helped Ava climb in. It’s super cramped up there. He won’t even be able to crawl; he’ll have to scoot on his belly. He’s not looking forward to it. He’s never been afraid of heights, but he doesn’t like enclosed spaces.

A building looms at the end of this path—the one with the rotting demon with skeletal wings. It’s hard to make out the details of it in the night, and somehow that makes it even creepier. At least if it was light, he could see how silly, how old and fragile it was. An impression of it, with his brain filling in the details, is worse than the actual thing.

Brandon leans against the bottom of LeGrand’s tree. He doesn’t know whether he wants his back to the demon so he doesn’t have to look at it, or to face it so he can keep an eye on it. Both options make him nervous, and make him feel silly for being nervous about an old decoration.

“Hey,” he says, looking upward as a compromise. The foliage of the tree is so dense, he wouldn’t know where to start with climbing it, and he can’t even see the other guy. How did LeGrand manage?

“Hey,” a soft voice answers.

“We’re up in a sort of crawlspace in the building. Against the front wall, overlooking the entrance. So you know where to find us.” If Brandon feels left out, LeGrand might, too, and he doesn’t want that. In his head, LeGrand is already his roommate. LeGrand’s weird, sure, but he’s nice-weird. Not mean-weird, like Atrius and Ian.

Brandon instantly feels guilty for the thought, because they’re out, or…well, they’re out. That’s what Brandon is okay with thinking. He understands why Ava’s wigged out, why they’re all scared, because he is, too, but he doesn’t want to be. And he doesn’t think anything bad happened. He just thinks someone here is a dick. Jaden, more than likely. It doesn’t really seem like something Linda would do. She seems too…classy for that. Nothing to do with her age, though. She doesn’t remind him at all of his grandma—Grammy had pink hair from a time she mis-dyed it and then declared Why the hell not, and she wore men’s T-shirts and short shorts, her tanned skin soft and crinkly. There was nothing fancy about his grandma, only funny warmth and honesty. Always honesty. Brandon misses her so much. Nothing’s been the same since she died, which is even sadder, because nothing has changed. He still lives in her tiny house, still works his same job, still does all the same things, only now he does them alone.

Everyone here is so worried about money, and he doesn’t have any, but he’s okay, thanks to Grammy. He’s going to invite them all to live with him. If they want to.

Brandon leans against the trunk of the tree and stares at the outline of the devil. He should check before he plans on LeGrand moving into Grammy’s house with him. “Do you have any family?” Seems like most of them here either don’t or aren’t really close with theirs.

“Yes.”

Brandon’s heart falls a little. If LeGrand has family, he’s probably not going to pack up and move to Idaho. “Cool. Brothers and sisters?” Brandon always wanted a little sister. He sometimes imagined what a good brother he’d be, sticking up for her, helping her with homework. Well, that was a stretch. He’d never been great at school. But he’d make sure she was. She’d probably be valedictorian, and he’d clap so hard. He’d start a standing ovation for her.

“Thirty-seven,” LeGrand says, though he sounds strangely unsure, like there’s a hint of a question mark at the end of the number.

“What?” Brandon exclaims, then catches himself and lowers his voice. “What?” he repeats at a more appropriate volume.

LeGrand doesn’t elaborate.

“Wow. Okay. Well, you know where we’re hiding if you’re seeking.” Brandon waits, hoping his stupid joke lands. He doesn’t want to have to explain why it’s funny because then he’ll know it’s not.