Free Crow’s Row by Julie Hockley Page B

in?”
    The doorway where he was standing was attached to a large building that, from the darkness, looked like a barn. There were tall cedar shrubs that lined the face of the edifice, with the door being the only shrub-free space. The moon’s shine reflected off the tin roof, and I couldn’t tell if the building had any windows because of the cedars that hid its exterior walls.
    Inside the barn was a foyer with a vaulted ceiling. The beige, tiled floor of the foyer merged with dark, ancient-looking hardwood floor. Half-mooned stairs led to a second-level hallway with an unencumbered white wall and wood rail. Through a side doorway, another set of stairs led down to a floor below. I could see the flickering of images from an unseen downstairs TV bouncing off the plain stair walls.
    Kid kicked off his shoes onto the pile of huge man shoes that were strewn by the front door and disappeared through an arched doorway that was at the far end of the foyer, next to the curved staircase. Getting used to his unspoken commands, I did the same and followed him through the archway. By the time I made it down the two steps that led to a living area, he was already sprawled in front of the TV on one of the two couches, remote control in hand—it was like we had never left the apartment in the city.
    I sat on the edge of the other couch and waited, carefully examining my surroundings.
    It was one big open space that connected a living room to a kitchen to a large, pine-colored dining table. I could see now that the barn was a home. The living room had brown leather furniture—the soft kind that seemed to form around your body as you sunk into it. There was a fireplace made of stones stacked to the high ceiling, with an oversized flat screen television that hung above its mantel, which Kid hadn’t taken his eyes off of.
    A humungous kitchen separated the living room from the dining table—it had two of almost every appliance: two restaurant-sized refrigerators, two microwaves, two toasters, two dishwashers, but only one oven. And the dining table looked big enough to seat twenty people. To the other side of the living room was a small hallway.
    While Kid settled on cartoons, I nervously kept my eyes on him. I was trying to decide which one was worse: not knowing how I was going to die, or not knowing when it was going to happen. I was weary, impatient.
    After a few minutes of my stare, Kid diverted his attention from the TV and sighed loudly, “Are you always this uptight, or are you just like that with me?”
    “No, I’m usually a lot more fun when I get kidnapped and brought in the middle of nowhere against my will,” I snapped. His indifference to my plight was maddening to me.
    His eyebrows furrowed. “Hey, don’t get upset with me. I’m just following orders.”
    “What are your orders, exactly?” I took the chance of asking, just in case he obliged me with an actual answer.
    “Weren’t you right there when I got them?” he questioned in answer to my question.
    “All I heard was that you were taking me for a drive to the farm. I don’t know what that means, but this place doesn’t look much like a farm to me.”
    “It does when you know the animals who live here,” he said, laughing.
    My eyes swept the room again and rested back on his face. “This place is what Cameron meant by taking me to the farm?” I had noticed his face flinch when I said Cameron’s name, but he didn’t say anything about it.
    “What else could it mean?”
    I gulped. “Death,” I admitted. And then I clarified, “My death.”
    Kid seemed to consider this. “You mean you thought that Cameron would send me to kill you ?”
    I nodded, though I thought that I had already made this clear enough to him.
    “Really?” he insisted, his voice pitching on the last syllable.
    I nodded again, but with less certainty this time.
    “Wow!” He grinned from ear to ear. “Thanks!”
    “So you’re not going to kill me?”
    He shook his head.