Page 1 of Safe (King’s Heart #1)

We stop at the end of the long driveway. Mom puts the car in park and leans back, letting out a long, tired breath before turning to me. “Okay, ready to go?”

I pout, squirming down in my seat. I don’t want to be here. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. No neighbors or anything.

This house is weird. That kid is weird.

I’d honestly rather be at home watching my little brother, Danny. But Mom said I had to come.

I turn away from her to look out the window.

The big statue of an angel in the front yard stares out at the road behind us.

I feel like it may have looked pretty at one time, but now it’s covered in green stuff.

Kind of like the house. It’s huge. And probably a long time ago, it looked really nice, but now, whenever we come up close, you can see that it’s falling apart.

The paint is peeling. The roof is covered in mold.

Still better than where we live, though.

Mom got this job a few months ago. The guy who owns the house, Mr. Nate, is working on fixing it back to “its former glory.” That’s what he’s always saying. He does this a lot apparently. Buys houses and fixes them up, but this one he wants to keep.

Mom cleans in all the areas where renovations haven’t happened yet.

I wasn’t allowed to come at first, so I stayed at home with my little brother.

Being babysat by some lady who also lives in the trailer park.

But then Mr. Nate said it might be nice for me to be there.

He’s recently had to take in his nephew whose parents died in an accident, and we’re the same age.

So now, Mom brings me along every weekend so I can keep the kid company. I feel bad for him and everything. I know his parents died, but like… I don’t really like him.

“Is he back?” I ask on a sigh.

“Yes, Landon. He’s here,” my mom answers. “And he could use some cheering up. He was in the hospital for a week.”

I make a face and turn back to her. “I don’t want to catch whatever he has.”

She rolls her eyes, growing a little annoyed with me. “It’s not like that. Let’s go. Out of the car.”

I grumble, but do as she says, following behind her up the stone staircase and trying to ignore the creepy feeling this place gives me.

The front door opens with a loud squeal, and Mom immediately heads to the closet in the entryway, setting her purse down to take out the mop and bucket. When she looks up and sees me still standing by her, she widens her eyes and jerks her chin toward the staircase.

My lips thin but I do what she says, stomping up the stairs and feeling happy to see that my sneakers are leaving little dirt footprints that she’ll have to clean up later.

Once I reach the top, I slow down, trying to stall until I have to be with him, looking around at all the things that make it horrible here.

The walls are a disgusting puke-green color. I refuse to touch them, but if I look real close, they seem slimy. Kind of hurts my stomach.

The hallway ahead of me is lit by old, creepy iron cage-things. The lights aren’t even bright, so it’s still super dark, and the bulbs must be pretty old too because they flicker over the musty smelling carpet.

I swallow and move forward, trying to step carefully, but the old floors still creak, telling him that I’m coming.

I stop in front of his closed door.

I don’t want to do this. But I know that this job is important to Mom. She’s told me enough times how great it is—about how it paid for the second A/C unit in the trailer. I definitely like not having to sweat through the summer nights anymore.

It’s been hard for her to find steady work, and this is the first one that seemed to be good in a long time. She doesn’t have to leave all night like she used to.

But he’s just so weird. He makes me feel weird .

I take a deep breath and softly knock, hoping he’s sleeping, but a second later the door swings open in front of me.

Grant smiles. “Hello, pet.”

I scowl at him. “Stop fucking calling me that.” I know I’m not supposed to cuss. Mom would be so mad if she heard me. But I feel like it makes me look tough in front of him. And I always seem to need that.

He cocks his head and makes a fake sad face. “Don’t be like that. You’re my favorite pet that Uncle Nate has brought me. All the others have been so boring . I think we could have fun together if you’d stop being so mad all the time.”

I cross my arms. “You’re always trying to get me in trouble.”

He shakes his head back at me. “No. You do that to yourself.”

I narrow my eyes and take a look at him. His shoulder-length black curls are brushed back, letting me see how bad he seems. Just sick. He looks pale, even paler than he usually does, and his green eyes are sunken in, lined with thick blue circles underneath.

His eyes have always been so bright, almost neon or something, which right now just shows how sickly everything else looks.

“Are you still sick?” I ask, taking a step back.

I’m not supposed to ask about his sickness. Mom says it’s rude. But he’s sick a lot. Some weeks I come and I can hear him throwing up clear across the house—and it’s a big house—or Mom leaves me at home because he’s in the hospital again.

His dark brows slam down. “No. I’m not sick, dufus. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

“Well, you don’t look good.”

“Neither do you.”

“I look better than you.”

His eyes look around my face, stopping briefly on each of my features. “Yeah. I guess you do.” Then he turns away from me, walking deeper into his room. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

The thing I hate most about this house is how dark it is.

Everything inside is dark. The floors are dark wood.

His bedspread is a dark red with a canopy of the same color hanging on top, covering his bed in even more darkness.

The windows still have glass that’s like a thousand years old and covered in dust, so it stops any of the sunlight trying to come in.

Dark. Dark. Dark.

It feels like this house sucks out anything happy or light.

He goes to his bedside table and starts trying to push it out of the way, huffing and puffing the entire time. That’s when I notice how much skinnier he looks than the last time I saw him. How his thin little arms shake like twigs as he fights with the small table.

I quietly sigh and walk over to help him. The nightstand scrapes loudly against the floors, making me wince.

Once it’s out of the way, I stand and look over at him. He’s even more pale than before, and little dots of sweat have popped up across his forehead.

“Uh, should you sit down or something? You don’t look so good.”

He glares at me. “Shut up. I’m fine.”

I close my mouth, even though I really wanna know why he was in the hospital. But again, I’m not supposed to talk about it.

He points to the space where his bedside table used to be. There’s a door there—one I’ve never noticed before. It’s kind of small. We probably have to crawl to get through it. I don’t know if an adult could even fit. Maybe.

He bends down to open it and then steps back, gesturing with his hand for me to go ahead.

I bend too, looking through the door to see a long, dark passageway.

I shake my head. “You’re crazy if you think I’m about to go through there.”

Smirking, he says, “What? Are you scared?”

“I’m not fucking scared.”

“Then why won’t you go in?”

My brain scrambles to come up with an answer.

I’m obviously scared. It’s a small secret door in a creepy house. Everyone would be scared.

“How do I know that you’re not trying to trick me?”

He’s still smirking. “And how exactly would I be tricking you?”

I flap my hands in the air. “I don’t know. But you’re always trying to get me in trouble. You’re weird like that.”

“Fine. I’ll go first.”

He gets down on his hands and knees and starts crawling through the passage.

I stand there for a moment, quickly debating what I should do in my head. I don’t want to look like I’m too scared to go in there, but also… I am too scared to go in there.

In the end, looking scared wins out, and I crawl after him.

The passageway is dark and smells… old. I can feel the grains of dirt and dust with each shuffle of my hands. It’s probably going to get all over my clothes. Mom is going to kill me. These are the only pants I own that don’t have a hole in them.

The outline of the exit is up ahead. Light comes through the edges of an old small door like the one we just went through.

There’s the squeak of him turning the knob, and then I’m blinded with light.

I shuffle faster, wanting to get out of the damp, dark space and practically fall out into a room that’s not much better.

I brush my pants off, muttering a curse when I see the beginnings of a hole before lifting my head to look around.

It’s a good-sized space—shaped like a circle.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a circular room, so that’s cool.

And if it’s even possible, it’s more dusty and gross than the rest of the house.

Peeling maroon-and-yellow-striped wallpaper hangs on the walls.

The wood floors are all scratched up, forming a circular pattern to match the shape of the room.

And there’s weirdly no windows—just an old light bulb buzzing above us.

The longer I look around, the more uncomfortable I feel.

“We should go back,” I blurt, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

He rolls his eyes and walks around the edge of the room, running his fingers over the peeling wall. “You are such a baby.”

“I’m not,” I say, stomping my foot.

“Come on.”

He skips past me, making my eyes follow him to an old rocking horse off to the side.

It’s white and covered in gray splotches, which I think is just where the paint is missing, and one of its eyes has been carved out, leaving a gaping hole.

My mom let me watch a scary movie one time, there wasn’t a rocking horse in it, but I learned enough to know that the thing I see in front of me, probably has a thousand ghosts attached to it.

Nope. Nope. Nope. I’m getting out of here.