I leaned against the wall and gave my best friend a scrutinizing look.

It was a wonder I’d managed to follow the Adams all the way to Blairville without them seeing me. I’d driven right behind them a good five times, and that was on a motorcycle.

“I don’t know, Larissa, I wouldn’t trust anyone here if I were you. This town is the embodiment of a rumor mill, and maybe not without reason.”

There we had it. You couldn’t trust anyone. Still, it was a dull little town. Nothing remarkable.

I could hardly imagine anything being worse than the streets of Sacramento. At least I had a roof over my head now, and a very nice one as well. I didn’t want to go back to that stinking hole, that old life on the streets without a permanent home.

It really felt like a new chapter, as I had had the opportunity to take my best friend with me and leave all the garbage of the past behind me. Jackpot indeed.

It was horrible how hard it had been to get rid of all those toxic relationships and gangs, because they had always found me again. Sacramento had never been safe. Even for someone like me who had been born into it, where mums did drugs, drunk dads beat their kids and disappeared to the cigarette machine, never to return. The place where homeless children struggled on the streets for everything they were denied.

I had already seen a few people die. And I was glad that I had made it this far.

I deeply hoped that everything would change from now on, and I hoped that things would work out with my studies. I simply had no other choice.

Bayla paused and looked at me.

“Larissa...” she began hesitantly. “I wanted to ask you what you think about the idea of getting out of here.” I raised both eyebrows. “I have a packed bag at my mother’s vacation home, and...”

“Wait a second...” I interrupted her, confused. “You want to go back?”

She pressed her lips together as if she was afraid of my reaction.

“This town is weird,” she continued. “Girls disappear from campus here and die in the woods somewhere.”

“You’re not still thinking about that murder...” I murmured, tilting my head with a furrowed brow.

Bay widened her eyes. “Larissa, something like that is horrible!”

“Don’t be so loud,” I warned her in a low voice. “And don’t be like that.” If only she knew that one death was nothing compared to the crowds of people who died every day in big cities because they overdosed, were killed by gangsters or simply starved to death on the street. “We have it really good here. And just because the people here are a bit weird doesn’t mean we have to be the same.”

Bay looked down at the ground in despair.

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve got me, and I won’t leave again, I promise.”

She looked up. Then she nodded, slowly, but still with a desperate expression, and turned back to the lock.

I wondered if I’d ever be ready to talk to Bay about the past, or if she’d judge me the same way Olivia did back in high school.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked Bay, who by now was sliding her hands along the doorframe instead of turning her attention to the lock.

“The lock looks like it’s locked by a certain mechanism... But I don’t understand it... Maybe there’s something on the frame.”

Bayla had a wild imagination when it came to this. She had been writing stories or telling me about her books full of mystery and intrigue since elementary school. We’d spent hours with our flashlights in my old orphanage because Bay had been sure she’d seen a ghost, and at her house, we’d decorated castles of blankets with fairy lights and cuddly blankets so she could read to me late into the night – at least until the renowned spoilsport Diana had turned up and sent us to bed.

“Only you could come up with something like that.”

I grinned at her with amusement. She tilted her head and gave me that typical Are you serious? look.

“I’m trying to help you, okay?”

She sounded more irritated than usual. Something seemed to be stressing her out.

Outside, the wind howled, causing an eerie noise in the empty porticoes of the ancient building.

I automatically pulled my biker jacket a little tighter around my waist. It had suddenly become so cold.

“Do you like him?” I asked Bay, trying to distract myself a little.

She seemed to know immediately who I was talking about because she paused for a moment before continuing to examine the door frame on her tiptoes.

“He’s so annoying.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah?”

She always said she wasn’t into go-getters.

I’d tried to convince her to flirt with Ezra yesterday at Midnights, but she’d complained nonstop about having a headache.

What a lousy excuse.

“Really.” Bayla sounded annoyed. “And don’t always raise your eyebrow like that. It’s unfair.”

I grinned.

Typical Bay.

Clack.

“Oh my God!” I gasped.

The stone snake moved over the massive lock and finally disappeared into the keyhole.

“What the...”

Bayla and I looked at each other in surprise and I couldn’t suppress my joy.

“Whoever had been the architect of this building, holy shit.”

I couldn’t describe it any other way. Who came up with such creative and yet really unnecessary ideas? Especially as it had looked almost real.

“Your turn,” Bayla whispered, taking another look at the lock.

I took my tools, which were my only memento of Sacramento, and fiddled with the now exposed lock until I heard another soft click.