I descend as carefully and quietly as I can, my footsteps muffled by the thickness of the rug beneath my feet. When I reach the bottom, I’m in what looks like a finished basement that’s been torn apart as thoroughly as upstairs. But there’s less furniture here, so it’s mostly a wreckage of toppled shelves and scattered sports equipment. I count four doors spaced evenly throughout the room; one is open, leading to what looks like a laundry area, and the rest are closed. Everything is just as eerily quiet as it was upstairs.
There’s a basketball directly in front of me, and I ease it to one side with my foot. It spins harder than I intended, and hits the edge of a metal shelf with a soft thud. Damn it.
The faint rustling sound comes again, from behind one of the closed doors. My nerves flare up, and I push them down as I scan the contents of the floor for something I could use to defend myself. There’s not much, unless—
“Arghhhhhhh!”
The door flies open and a screaming blur comes at me. All I see is a flash of silver before my skull explodes in pain and I’m on my knees. Another blow lands on my shoulder, weaker than the first. My vision gets hazy as something warm trickles into my eyes. I lunge forward blindly, and my hand connects with the cold metal of some kind of rod. I grab hold of it and pull as hard as I can, grunting in pain when whoever was holding it crashes on top of me. I lose my grip on the rod, and I hear it clatter against the wall. Adrenaline pumps through me hard and fast as I think with a savage kind of triumph, He’s down and unarmed.
For a few seconds we’re a tangle of twisted limbs and flailing fists, throwing punches that don’t land hard enough to do damage as we grapple on the floor. I haven’t been in a fight in years, but it’s like riding a bike, I guess—you don’t forget how. I dodge and shift, trying to pin him down while he keeps slipping away.
I still can’t see and my head is throbbing. When I feel one of his fingers stabbing into the flesh right next to my eye, a bolt of white-hot anger courses through me. I manage to catch hold of his wrist and bend it sharply backward, causing him to go limp with a scream of pain. I’m on top of him in a flash, blinking furiously to clear my vision, one arm pressing across his neck while the other hauls back in preparation for what I hope will be a knockout blow.
“Stop!” a girl’s voice screams behind me. “Mateo, Charlie, stop!”
Charlie? I freeze, then swipe a hand over my eyes. It comes away red with blood, and my vision clears enough to see Charlie St. Clair shove hard at my chest from below. I let myself roll off him and turn to see Ivy a few feet away from me, a baseball bat dangling from one hand. “What the hell?” I rasp. Then I turn back toward Charlie, who’s writhing on the floor, clutching his wrist and whimpering. There’s a golf club lying a few feet away from him, and Ivy steps over me to pick it up.
“Shit, Charlie, sorry,” I say. “I was trying to help you.”
“You got a weird fucking way of showing it, dude,” Charlie moans. “I think you broke my wrist.”
“Sorry,” I repeat, wiping my bloody hand on my T-shirt. “But you came after me with a golf club, so…”
“Because you broke into my house.” Charlie sits up, his wrist forgotten, as he pulls the puka shell necklace away from his neck and presses his fingers to the red marks beneath. I caused those when I was trying to pin him, and if I’d been thinking straight, maybe I would’ve realized I was dealing with Charlie when I felt the rough edges of the necklace against my forearm. “I thought you were…” He gestures around the room. “Whoever did this.”
“The door was unlocked. And I said my name,” I protest. “I called it out as soon as I got inside.”
“I can’t hear shit down here. It’s soundproof,” Charlie says. “Anyway, why would that make me feel better? What the hell are you doing here?” There’s something vacant and unfocused about his expression as he looks from me to Ivy, and then over at Cal, who’s come up behind us. “And you. And you.”
Ivy crouches beside him and takes hold of his wrist. “This doesn’t look swollen, but you should probably put some ice on it. And then—oh!” She gasps as she catches sight of my face. “Mateo, you’re bleeding. A lot.” She reaches out a hand, and I recoil before she can touch me. Now that the adrenaline has drained out of me, the right side of my head feels like it’s on fire. “We need to clean that up.”
“We need to leave,” Cal interrupts, his voice tight. “What if whoever did this decides to come back?”
I feel weirdly certain that’s not going to happen; like the person, or people, who targeted Charlie’s house have already moved on. But before I can follow that thought to its logical conclusion—moved on where?—Ivy says, “Good point. We can go to my house.”
Charlie’s slumped against the wall now, eyes narrowed. “Are you guys even real?” he asks thickly. He extends a hand and pokes Ivy in the arm, frowning. “Huh? Are you?”
Ivy blinks slowly. “Mateo, did you hit him in the head?” she asks.
“I don’t think so,” I say, although I’m honestly not sure.
“Cal, could you help Charlie get to the car?” Ivy asks. “He seems too disoriented to make it on his own. Stop that,” she says to Charlie, who’s still poking at her arm. “Mateo, can you walk okay?”
I stagger to my feet. “Sure.”