Flock by Wendy Delson Read Free Book Online Page B

think we should share that we were at risk,” I said after a long pause.
    “What? Why?”
    “Even you have to admit, we have enough I-shouldn’t-be-alive stories to start our own TV show. To say we were there will invite gossip and speculation.”
    “I see what you mean,” he said, ten-and-two-o’clocking the wheel.
    “Your dad wouldn’t say anything, would he?”
    “I’ll talk to him,” Jack said. “He won’t want too much attention over the whole thing, anyway.”
    For once, Lars’s taciturn nature came in handy.
    While saying good night, Jack had to pause before choking out the words, and his eyes were haunted. He also had a hard time letting go of me. As always, I enjoyed the ferocity of his affection, but I could do without it coming on the heels of a life-threatening situation. We’d had our share of those.

The next morning, Saturday, after receiving a
Busy. Will call later
text from Jack, I shambled down to breakfast, with a fitful night’s sleep having earned me the crazy bedhead that had my hair looking like dandelion fluff. Besides reliving my near fall into a muddy abyss, I had heard Leira crying off and on through the long night, so I understood the desperate slurps and full nasal inhalation with which my mom was ingesting her coffee.
    “Oh, hon, did Leira keep you up, too?” she asked. “I know your room gets the worst of it, which brings me to this morning’s plans: we want to show you a house.”
    Even if the lease on our rented property wasn’t about to expire, a move was overdue. My bedroom shared a razor-thin wall with Leira’s; last night was a good example of why that wasn’t such a perfect floor plan. And what had been an already cozy space for my mom and me had become a shoe box with the addition of Stanley, his gazillion books, rowing machine, and more sports equipment than I’d have figured for a pocket-protector type. With Leira finally home from the hospital and the pile-on effect of her carrier, high chair, rocker, and bazillion toys, the current situation possibly qualified us for a feature on A&E’s
Hoarders.
    “You found a place?” I asked. I had left the house-hunting trips to my mom and Stanley, opting, instead, to watch Leira and give them some alone time. Besides, I would be graduating in nine months and had always planned on an away-from-home college experience. My opinion wouldn’t matter for long.
    “Maybe,” my mom said. “We’re going back for another walk-through today. It’s our favorite so far, and we both got . . . I don’t know . . . really good vibes, or something, from the place.”
    As much as I wanted the 411 on the earth opening up over at Snjosson Farms, Jack’s text had delayed any news on that front for a while. I was not scheduled to work at the store, nor did I have any pressing schoolwork. And, heck, when my mathematics-minded mom threw around words like
good vibes,
I was in.
    “When are you going?” I asked.
    “How soon can you be ready?”
    En route, I briefly explained the previous night’s scene at Jack’s farm, downplaying the danger we had been in. My mom simply thought it was odd. Stanley, on the other hand, was intrigued.
    “How big did you say it was?” he asked.
    “It was dark, but maybe a hundred feet. That’s what Lars estimated, anyway.”
    “It’s unusual to have one so large.”
    I was starting to hate words like
unusual.
    “I’ll make a few calls later today, see if there are any theories as to cause. Sinks are often due to human interference.”
    I noticed we were just a few blocks away from Afi’s house, Penny’s, too, for that matter. “What street are we on?” I asked as Stanley’s car rounded a corner.
    “Spruce,” he said, pulling to the curb in front of a large Victorian.
    The name tinkled some familiar key, but my brain was too busy taking in a first impression. The house was big: two floors plus a third-story attic with dormer windows. As for the downside, it was painted a brazen shade of