Free Glimpse (The Tesla Effect Book 1) by Julie Drew Page B

Finn, who had caught up to her.
    She turned on him, her eyes narrowed to furious slits. “Get the hell off me, Finn!”
    “Wait, wait, wait,” he hissed. He pulled her back into the thick, solid wall of greenery. “Slow down. Tell me what’s going on, I can help.” He was winded—she had said she was no athlete, but the girl was fast .
    She squirmed and twisted, tried to break free from the tight grip he had on her, but his hand around her bicep would not yield. “Let me go !” she whispered fiercely, her voice low, but she stopped struggling. Finn’s hushed voice, his attempt to hide them both in the dark shadows of the hedge, had begun to affect her own behavior. She leaned toward him and whispered, “I need to find my dad—”
    “Shhh,” he suddenly cautioned, his mouth by her ear, as he pulled her deeper into the greenery and pointed at her house. “Look.” He felt her labored breath, the adrenaline-fueled tremors that shook her body. They melted into the hedge, safely hidden in the shadows that were even darker than the night that had descended fully since they’d left Angelo’s. A lifetime ago , Finn thought as he slowly, carefully leaned his head out from the hedge. Tesla immediately followed suit, just enough to get a glimpse of the front of the house.
    They stood still and peered through the dark, barely breathing. There was no movement, no noise at all on the quiet residential street. But just as Tesla opened her mouth to tell Finn she didn’t see anything, they both stiffened and stared, mesmerized by the ghostly vision they could just make out through the gently blown, sheer curtains of the open living room windows.
    A light moved along the interior walls of the house and made its way up the staircase to the second floor.
    “ Shit !” Finn said quietly to himself as Tesla darted out from behind him. She stuck close to the dense leaves and branches that formed a wall on her right as she began to walk quickly toward the backyard of her house.
    He caught up with her under the big maple half a dozen yards from the back of the house where Tesla had paused in the shadow of its thick, gnarled trunk. He stood just behind her, put a hand on her shoulder and leaned down. “What, exactly, are you doing?”
    “I need a better vantage point,” she whispered back.
    “There’s somebody in your house, Tesla, and I don’t think it’s a member of your family. You can’t go in there. C’mon, let’s go. Leave it to the professionals.”
    “Good. You call the police. The physics building—where my dad works—blew up tonight and now somebody’s in my house .” She stared him down, her eyes disconcertingly clear, blue and green even in the darkness. And then she walked swiftly toward the backdoor.
    I didn’t mean the police , he thought, as he hurried after her and cursed himself for not realizing before just how reckless she was.
    “The lock’s broken?” Finn whispered behind her, just as Tesla reached the door and began to turn the handle.
    “No. We never lock it.”
    Finn shook his head in disgust. Brainiacs , he thought. How do they dress themselves in the morning?
    He cringed at the click of the screen latch as it closed behind him, and then followed Tesla across the kitchen floor. She paused in the wide, arched doorway that led to another room, and he came up close behind her. He put his hand on the small of her back, aware of how close she was, the faint lemony smell of her hair, the top of her head just under his chin.
    “Tesla, we have to go,” he whispered in her ear. “Now. This is dangerous.” Although it’s anybody’s guess where the danger is coming from , he thought grimly.
    Tesla surprised him again when she suddenly reached behind her, grabbed a handful of his T-shirt, and began to inch her way forward. She pulled him along behind her and he did not resist. He could not know that he would regret his acquiescence in this moment for a very long time.
    They inched forward,