I yanked my suitcase rudely from his hand and carried it to my room without letting Julian finish. He, in turn, had followed me and was now leaning in the doorway. His gaze was on me. I could feel it.

Was he watching me?

I turned and looked directly into his sparkling eyes.

“Tell me, what do you actually want from me? You can't tell me you're here to kiss my mother's ass. Am I somehow your type or what? If so, I have absolutely no interest in you.”

Julian's expression instantly stiffened. I had apparently scratched his ego with my words.

Satisfied, I smiled.

“You're definitely not my type, and I don't know what your problem is. I was just trying to be friendly,” he retorted harshly. “You're all so aloof, except for your mother. Is that such a witch thing?”

Of course... Just because a girl wouldn't let him flirt with her, she was called a witch. What else? This guy fulfilled the stereotype to such an extent.

“I didn't need any help, okay?”

He raised an eyebrow in response to my sentence.

“That's not what it looked like,” he grinned again, and I was about to slam the door right in his face.

“I still didn't ask you to do that. Now, please go. I have other things to do.”

He looked at me for a moment before turning and disappearing down the stairs with the words, “I was happy to do it anyway, Adam's girl.”

I rolled my eyes and closed the door behind me.

Finally, he was gone, and I had my peace. That had definitely been too many annoying people in one day. It could only get better...

Chapter 2

Mady

The pages of the book no longer smelled of her. What remained was merely the coffee note. Bitter and yet somehow soft.

Automatically, warmth arose in my chest.

“Your mother is addicted to this devilish stuff.”

He had laughed and taken her in his arms, kissed her tenderly as if it had been their first year.

Blinking, I tried to focus on the book. The words blurred, and a wild pile of letters made it impossible to decipher a single word.

I slammed the book shut and wiped away the tear with the sleeve of my emerald-colored cardigan.

Enough reading, even if I didn’t know what to do with all this time until summer was over. My bookshelf was full of horror and dark romance books I’d borrowed from the public library, but if all I did was read all the time, I might get neglected here.

My gaze wandered from my coffee cup to the window, down to the street, where a young man with a suitcase in his hand was hurrying up the stairs of the abandoned house next door.

I held my breath.

Julian. The loner from high school with the dark hoodies. I’d never understood why Nash had pushed him away like that. Why he had pushed me away...

Automatically, I reached for the coffee cup, but it was empty.

With a sigh, I withdrew my hand and tried to focus on the present.

Julian had just strolled through the overgrown garden of the white house. Carrying a suitcase...

Confused, I watched the street. And then I spotted the girl with shoulder-length brown hair. She followed him into the house.

The ringing of the front doorbell forced me away from the window and down the stairs.

I didn’t even have to peek through the glass to see who was standing there on our porch. Relieved that she hadn’t forgotten me yet, I pulled open the front door.

With a crooked grin, Mia looked around to the street as usual and entered the house I’d been holed up in for weeks.

She wrapped her arms around me, and I automatically felt better. Longing mingled with lightness, but I suppressed the urge to pull her tighter against me. It was as if I needed that hug. Still, I quickly let go of Mia.

“God, you wouldn’t believe how demanding Dad is again,” she laughed, heading up the stairs, “and this time it’s not because of the missing people cases.”

The Bexleys had managed to get Mia’s father and my big brother unnaturally worried about us two with their news channel. Until a month ago, we had been out in the woods, enjoying the weather and gossiping about annoying girls in high school, but now there was a curfew for those under age, which meant Mia wasn’t allowed out after 10 p.m.

I actually liked Blairville Police Chief Graham Bardot, her father, but this measure was excessive.

I followed my high school friend up the stairs and thought three times about asking her. And then I did.

“Is he drinking?”

Mia said nothing until we arrived in my room. I regretted bringing up the subject. I had a talent for bringing up the wrong topics.

“No...,” Mia finally sighed, running a hand through her full dark blonde hair. It had grown longer over the past few weeks, whereas mine seemed to have stopped growing a year ago.

“But he’s been giving me lecture after lecture about how careful I need to be.” She rolled her eyes and dropped into the pastel green beanbag.  “With boys... And then he did start seriously telling me about birth control.”

I laughed softly, and a pillow crashed into my face two seconds later.

“Ouch!” Giggling, I sank back onto the windowsill.

“Julian saved me,” it escaped her with widened eyes, as if she were reviewing the conversation with her father before her inner eye.

The corners of my mouth moved upward.

She was lucky to have her big brother...

A shadow settled over my thoughts. I had never had that relationship with Ezra. He cared about me... But it didn’t feel like he was my brother. More like someone who was trying to hold on to everything our parents had left behind before it collapsed in on itself.

“Is Ezra still at work?”