Read Online Where Silence Gathers by Kelsey Sutton - Free Book Online

though?
    I’m doing this for you.
    To occupy my hands, I take out everything I need for the essay. But I can’t wait; the flash drive rests in the center of my palm, dry and warm. The last key to Dad that I have. I pull Briana’s laptop toward me from where it’s been humming on the counter, and I uncurl my fist.
    There’s a clatter—Briana pulling the pan of pizza rolls out—and then she notices what I’m doing. “What is that?” She takes a spatula out of a drawer and begins transferring the rolls onto a plate. Crumbs scatter across the surface of it.
    The laptop was asleep. I tap the touchpad and impatiently wait for the screen to come up. “A flash drive,” I mutter, distracted. My knee bounces. Impatience, short-haired and stocky, gives me a hard shove. Briana doesn’t seem to see the way I jerk forward, scowling. No point in whipping around and punching him in the face, though; he’s already vanished.
    â€œ … on it?” Briana is asking.
    â€œI don’t know.” The computer is still waking up, and I watch the screen intently, but then I realize Briana is waiting for me to go on. “I found it. I think it was my dad’s.”
    The laptop finally finishes. Without waiting to see what my friend’s reaction will be to this, I plug the flash drive into the jack. It takes another minute to load, and then a message pops up on the screen. My heart sinks. “There’s a password,” I say, perplexed. Why would Dad put a password on anything?
    â€œOh, well, that’s easy.” Briana circles the counter to lean over me and types ALEX .
    The computer thinks for a moment, then the box quivers and erases the dots. Wrong. I try my mother’s name: TRACEY . Next, my brother’s: HUNTER . My dad’s birthday.
Our first and only dog’s name. Wrong, wrong, wrong. “Maybe ask your aunt and uncle?” Briana suggests.
    It comes over me without warning—a fierce ache to be in motion. Acting on impulse, I unplug the flash drive. “Look, sorry to make this so short, but I better go. I haven’t been home yet, and Saul and Missy have been on edge lately.” The pizza rolls are still on the plate, untouched.
    â€œOh, okay.” Briana watches me pack up my things. “What about the essay?”
    I shove the flash drive in my pocket and shrug. “I can work on it later. Thanks for offering to help.”
    â€œOf course. See you tomorrow?” Her anxious eyes follow me to the door and I mumble a vague response. It feels like I’m always leaving someone. Funny, since I was the only one who stayed six years ago.
    Outside, the rain has stopped. I plunge into the cold, forgetting my jacket. “Alex—” Briana calls. She wants to ask questions, demand answers that I can’t give. Almost as expertly as the Emotions, I disappear.
    There are two missed calls on my phone. Both Missy.
    The drive home is less eventful. No voices, no Taurus, no Fear. By the time I get to the apartment, it’s dark. The woods around the building are full of swaying shadows, and the only lights on are coming from Angus’s window and the one over the shop door. Fear stalks me up the stairs, all the way to the narrow deck and around the corner. His hand tangles in my hair, brushes the tender skin of my neck. I yank free and reach the door, slamming it in his face.
    Just like at Briana’s house, noise blares from the living room and a blue glow covers everything. I set my bag and keys on the floor next to my boots. Missy sits on the couch, her knees covered by a blanket. One hand clutches the remote and the other rests limply in her lap. She’s not wearing makeup and her hair is in a ponytail. She looks … weary. And alone. I try not to make comparisons to Francis.
    â€œWhere’s Saul?” I hover in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot.
    â€œOn a job. Someone’s piano needed tuning in