Free Creed by Trisha Leaver Page B

of run-down equipment. With only one wall at the back, it looked more like a stall than anything else. I didn’t see any space for a body to fit, never mind four.
    Luke stood at the edge of the massive motor, his lips pressed into a thin, tight line. “What is that?”
    I peered around him, inhaling sharply as a second shed came into view. The water pump and irrigation equipment had completely eclipsed my view of the even-smaller structure behind it.
    This shed was about half the size of the shoebox dorm room Luke complained about having to live in next year. And with no idea who or what was waiting on the inside, I seriously considered taking my chances with whatever was out there in those fields.
    “I don’t think I can do this.” I heard the panic in my own voice and glanced behind me, searching the fields for a sign that whatever had been lurking there was gone. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to go in there.”
    Luke advanced on Joseph, his eyes filled with a protective anger. “I’m going to trust you because right now I don’t have any other choice. But if you hurt her, if you so much as look at her funny, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. You got that?”
    “And I’m more than happy to help him,” Mike added.
    Joseph yanked back the heavy wooden door, his voice shaking, his hands trembling as he spoke. “I’m not looking for a fight. I just want to get inside the shed.”
    I stood completely immobile, staring at those hands. Big and calloused, they looked like they’d never seen a drop of lotion. The fingernails were short but jagged, and a variety of scars—some fresh, some healed over—blanketed his skin.
    “What’s in that shed that’s so important to you?” I asked.
    “Safety.” Joseph paused before taking his first tentative step inside. He disappeared into the darkness and I leaned forward, straining to see or hear something … anything.
    I heard the strike of a match seconds before I saw the flash of light, and my nose burned with the unmistakable smell of sulfur. Joseph’s shape came into view, the light intensifying as he placed the glass globe onto the lantern and adjusted the wick. In that brief, unguarded second, I saw the defeat weighing him down. I didn’t know if he was nuts or brave or stupid, but the one thing I could tell was that he was desperate.
    “Nobody will come in here. We’re safe,” Joseph said, coaxing us in. “But if it makes you feel better, there’s a board over there in the corner you can wedge underneath the handle.”
    Mike eyed the board but made no move to retrieve it. I knew what he was thinking. That piece of wood could trap us in as easily as it could keep somebody out. I was with him; I wanted a quick escape should things go wrong.
    Luke grabbed my hand and inched us backward out of Joseph’s reach. “Hey,” he whispered as he tried to gentle the death-grip I had on his hand. “Don’t worry. Like Mike said, there are three of us and one of him.”
    “Sure,” I mumbled. Spending an entire night in a stranger’s house was messed up enough. Expecting me to walk into a dimly lit room with a kid we knew nothing about was too much.
    “Is there any other light?” I asked.
    “Nope, this is all I could get my hands on,” Joseph said as he turned a knob on the base of the lantern, sending the flame flaring a bit higher. I could see the entire shed now. Mike was standing guard by the door, Joseph was sitting on the floor in the corner, and Luke was plastered to my side.
    “We just left a neighborhood full of empty houses. Why didn’t you grab a flashlight or another lantern?” Luke asked as he let go of my hand and took up a spot on the floor opposite Joseph.
    “There’s no way I could take anything without being noticed. He catalogs everything. Everything .”
    My mind flashed back to last night. Had we eaten anything? Taken anything by accident? Left anything behind? I’d done the dishes, and I was quite sure we’d left the six