AllFreeNovel Stories worth discovering

Captivating Curse

Page 53

by Helen Hardt

The padlock itself is old but not welded by time.The chain is newer—galvanized links with the shine not quite scoured off.Someone cared enough to keep people out semi-recently.

Or to keep something in.

I step to the side and run the light up the seam of the doors.Two minutes with a crowbar would get me in.

“Trenches first,” I tell the dark.“Then accelerant after dawn.Not tonight.”

It’s not that I’m squeamish about fire, but I’m not going to touch a match on Bellamy land without cutting lines so clean they’d satisfy an insurance adjuster and a forest ranger.I don’t have fuel with me beyond what’s in the truck and the oil in the crankcase, and I’m not going to siphon like an idiot and leave a breadcrumb trail if I don’t have to.If Reyes wants a picture, he can wait.He didn’t saywhen.He saiddo it.

First, I want to know what I’m erasing.

And I don’t want to do this alone.

I need my older brother.

I need Falcon.

“Tomorrow,” I tell the building.

Then I walk back to the truck, turn on the engine, and begin the trek to the main road.

Falcon.

But first…Eagle.