Page 9 of Crazy House (Crazy House 1)

“When was the last time you saw her?” My fingers were twitching by my sides. Finally I had a clue, but these two morons were in the way!

“Yesterday?” the guy suggested.

The girl shook her head. “Nah. She came here… not last night but the night before. Around midnight.”

I almost choked. Becca had been driving around in the middle of curfew. And I hadn’t known about it. “Then what?”

The girl shrugged. “She hung out here.”

Somehow I managed not to grab her shoulders and shake her till her teeth rattled. “Then. What,” I said tightly.

“She left,” the girl said. “Like around two, two thirty.”

“Where did she go?”

The door opened wider and another guy stood there. He had shaggy blond hair and needed a shave.

“Lookin’ for Becca? I heard her say she was going to the Boundary, man,” he said, shaking his head.

“The Boundary?” I felt like I’d been punched. “Why would she do that?”

The guy shrugged. “’Cause she’s Becca.”

Well, he had me there.

“So at two in the morning she headed out to the Boundary?” I asked. “Did anyone see her actually try to cross the Boundary?”

The blond guy nodded. “Taylor went with her. Like they were daring each other. Egging each other on. He was on his moped, and Becca had the truck.”

My truck.

“Did Taylor come back, or is he missing, too?” My heart was beating fast and my mind was racing.

“Naw, Taylor’s back,” said the first guy.

“Where is he?” I demanded.

The first guy opened the door wide enough for me to go in.

“Taylor’s here?” My voice was thin and screechy.

“He’s downstairs,” said the girl, and drifted into another room toward the back of the house.

Inside, the house was just as creepy as outside. The tall guy led me through one dark room after another. I was aware of several people sitting on broken-down furniture, either sleeping or drinking silently, or watching a Cell News show with no sound.

The tall guy opened a door and gestured down: these were cellar stairs, and they led into total blackness. And it was only then that I realized that there might not be a Taylor at all, and that maybe I’d made a really stupid mistake.

14

BECCA

OUR PRISON ROOM HAD FOUR narrow metal beds. There were five of us in here. As the newbie, I was elected to sleep on the cold concrete floor. I was already in so much pain that it didn’t really make it worse.

Another fun thing: we had a tiny metal sink that dripped constantly. Around 2:00 in the morning I decided they made it drip on purpose to drive us totally batshit. And it was working.

There was one toilet, just a metal bowl attached to the wall. No seat, no lid. One toilet out in the open, and there were three girls and two aim-deficient guys in here. It was enough to make you want to hold it, like, forever.

I’d been gone a long time. Cassie must be frantic. Frantic and super pissed. If she were missing, I’d be flipping out. Since it was Cassie and I was missing, I knew she was doubly flipping out. That’s how she is. Sorry, Cass.