Page 22 of Hide and Seek

“Good thing,” I say distractedly as I finish up my scan. Now I can focus on planting the second camera.

“I need about two minutes, then I’m done. What about you?” he asks.

“Checked the room, and it seems clean. I just need to get the second camera set up.” I pull another box from my pocket and shake out a spy cam.

This one is a bit smaller than the other and has a stiff antenna that can be bent and twisted to tuck it out of sight.

“Let me know when you’re done.”

“Roger that,” I say and pick up a small statue of a character from the video game Myles is always playing.

In all the time I’ve been watching him, this is the only thing on the desk that I’ve never seen him touch. The character is wearing a black cape and black clothes, perfect for hiding a camera, and I fit it under the cape so the lens is peeking out from under the character’s arm. The shadows from the cape and the fact that everything is black help the case blend in. I weave the antennae around the hilt of one of the swords the character has strapped to his back to keep it out of sight.

When I’m sure everything is secure and hidden, I pull out my phone and sync it. I’m just tucking it away when I hear my brother’s voice.

“Looks like our friend is on the move. He just left the library.”

“How long do I have?” I ask and twist the base of the statue by about an eighth of an inch. Now it’s in the right place.

“About sixty seconds.”

“How long do you need before I can pull the drive?”

“Thirty seconds.”

“’Kay.” I cross my arms and fix my gaze on the screen as lines of code scroll by.

I can’t make out what Jace is doing because the code is moving too fast, but I keep an eye on it anyway while I wait for him to finish.

The screen goes dark.

“Done.”

At Jace’s word, I pull the flash drive out from the USB port and slip it in my pocket. With a final look around to make sure everything is exactly where I found it, I slip out of his room and lock the door behind me.

The door to the stairs opens just as I reach it, and Myles steps over the threshold, his eyes fixed on his phone.

“Excuse me.”

“No worries,” he mumbles, his eyes still on his phone as I slip past him.

The door bangs shut behind me, and I hurry down the stairs.

“All clear?” Jace asks as I push the back door open and step outside.

“All clear,” I tell him as I stride away from the building and toward the woods.

“Awesomesauce.” He snaps his gum again. “Want me to meet you at the cliffs?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I could use a climb.”

“Same, bro. Same.”

“See you in a few,” I tell him and head toward our climbing spot.

My phone feels like it’s burning a hole in my pocket, but I resist the urge to check the camera feeds. I’ll look while I’m waiting for Jace. That’ll give me a chance to get rid of this weird excitement I’m feeling, the same excitement I felt when I saw Myles’s expression after I took out those dollar store thugs who attacked him on his run a few nights ago.

He should have been terrified of me, but instead he stared at me like I was some sort of vision from the heavens, and there was an undercurrent of something else there. Something dark and wild. And something that looked an awful lot like heat.