Hideout by Jack Heath (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

Her footsteps just stop. The bed doesn’t squeak either. A good-quality bedframe.

I keep seeing Thistle’s face. She already thought I was a monster. Now she’s watched me torture another prisoner. At least when she found the head in my freezer, I was able to protest my innocence. This time I couldn’t even do that.

After all the movement is over, I wait another four hours. Long enough for everyone to finish reading or watching videos on their phones and fall into a deep sleep. Then I rise and slip out into the corridor.

Remembering the creaking sounds, I keep my feet close to the walls as I walk, reducing the risk of the house giving me away. After turning a corner I’m walking parallel to the boards, so I pick the darkest one—probably the hardest wood—and walk along it, balanced like it’s a tightrope, all the way to Fred’s bedroom.

No light under his door, so he’s not reading or using a laptop. I had hoped he might snore, but there’s only silence from inside. I can’t tell if he’s asleep or just lying there in the darkness.

I touch the handle. Fred is paranoid enough to padlock all his windows closed. Is he paranoid enough to set some kind of trap? It wouldn’t take much effort to stretch a tripwire between the handle and a heavy object, or to lean a broom against the door so it would fall onto something loud when the door was opened.

I’ll just have to hope he’s not that paranoid.

He’s not paranoid at all. You’re trying to steal his stuff.

I turn the handle. There’s a very soft click. I push the door open slowly. No squeaks from the hinges. No broom, no tripwire. In the darkness, I can see the bed and a shape in it, but I can’t tell if the occupant is facing me or not.

He doesn’t move, though; I don’t think I’ve woken him.

I can see dim outlines of the furniture in the room. A little red light glows on his phone, charging on the dresser. Some clothes are on the floor, possibly the ones he just took off. Maybe he’s planning on wearing them again tomorrow. One of the advantages of making other people clean up the blood—less laundry to do.

The dark makes it impossible to see the key bowl from the doorway. As I enter the room, I bend down and squeeze the clothes, just in case. Nothing in the pockets of his jeans, nothing in his shoes except silicone inserts. The shoes feel like leather—unusual for a vegetarian, though not necessarily for an environmentalist.

This reminds me of the jerky in his desk. I would love some more. But Thistle is depending on me.

So get some for her, the voice in my head suggests. She’s probably hungry, too.

I ignore the voice and make my way to the key bowl on the bookshelf. Fred’s key ring is there. I carefully clench all the keys together so they don’t jingle as I lift them up.

It’s not enough. The keys make a faint clink. Fred snuffles and rolls towards me. I freeze, my heart hammering, the keys in my hand. I crouch to hide under the bed—

But someone’s already down there.

I stifle a yell. Zara is staring at me. She has something clenched in her hand. I’m willing to bet it’s a pin.

Fred settles, sighs, and goes still.

Zara and I look at each other for a moment. Long enough for me to realise she isn’t going to warn Fred that I’m stealing his stuff. Long enough for her to realise that I’m not going to warn Fred that she’s about to stab him.

I slowly rise, back out the door, and close it behind me. I have no idea what Zara thinks I’m trying to do. But it doesn’t matter, as long as she keeps her mouth shut until I’m gone.

Escaping isn’t going to be easy. I know where most of the cameras are, but not all of them. Plus, once we’ve stolen Fred’s car, the motion sensor on the driveway will go off. Still, with everyone except Zara asleep, we’ll have a head start.

I sneak through the backyard, past Cedric’s opium farm, past Samson’s grave and past the dogs, which make that creepy moaning sound but don’t bark, thank God. Soon I reach the slaughterhouse. Some whispering is happening inside, but I can’t make out the words.

The whispering dies out as soon as I start unlocking the door. Once it’s open, I make my way to where Thistle is chained up. In the darkness I can only see her outline and her teeth. She’s slumped against the wall in one corner, one knee up, the other splayed out. At first I think she’s playing possum, like with Donnie. Then, for a horrifying moment, I think she might be dead.

‘Thistle?’ I say.

She flinches. ‘You can’t kill me.’

‘I wasn’t planning to.’ I was hoping Ivy had told her that my beating was mostly fake, but apparently she hasn’t.

‘I mean it,’ Thistle says. ‘The others will tell your pals at the house that you’re not really Lux. They all know the truth. Killing me won’t help keep your secret.’

‘Not unless I kill everyone else, too.’

This is the dumbest thing I could have said. I just wanted to point out the flaw in her plan, as though that would somehow make her trust me, given that her plan was predicated on not trusting me. As usual, my instinct was to be right rather than to be liked.

The other prisoners start whimpering helplessly.

‘Relax, goddamn it. I’m not gonna do that.’ I reach for Thistle’s leg, but she snatches it away. ‘Hold still! I’m trying to unlock your chains.’

She hesitates. ‘Oh. Sorry. I trust you.’

She’s lying, but at this point I don’t really care. I just don’t want her to die.