Page 8 of Enter if you Dare: Part One

“Sort your debt out. I mean it this time,” I growl. “Stop pulling me into your shit, or I will change the locks. I have to shower and get ready for work.”

“Valli,” he says, and I turn around to face him. “If Steedy comes here⁠—”

“You better hope he doesn’t,” I cut him off as I pause in the doorway. “Just sort it out.”

I rush upstairs before he can say anything else. The bathroom mirror does me no favors. My eye is dark and swollen, my cheekbone is a nasty color, and my jaw is bruised as well. I turn the shower on, strip down, and get in. Then I stand under the stream of water until it turns cold. I get out and dress, pulling my hair up out of my face and glaring in the mirror as I try to cover the mess. I call it a day when the bruises are no longer a nasty purple color, though I can’t hide the swelling, unfortunately.

Picking up Kayla’s hoodie, I hang it over the back of the rickety old desk chair I refuse to get rid of because my father built it for me. I will have to work out how to get it back to her.

Grabbing my spare set of keys from my desk drawer, I head back downstairs to find Rowan still on the sofa. He doesn’t say anything as I walk past, for which I’m grateful.

I lock the front door as I leave. As much as I can’t stand Rowan, he’s still my blood, and I really don’t want to see him dead.

Noa

I’m not sure whether Cave realizes that the man we dealt with has left behind a car. We can’t just abandon it there in case someone comes looking for him. Since I helped him dispose of the body, I guess this is now my problem to figure out. Cave may have no issues with going to prison, but I do. Not that he would end up in prison; he would end up in a psych ward with someone evaluating his mental stability. But I know he’s fine—the guy is smarter than anyone I’ve ever met.

The dark-blue, mid-sized sedan is parked on the other side of the bridge, and it won’t take a genius to figure out its owner ventured onto the island.

The car has nothing personal inside, so I assume it’s either borrowed or stolen. Everyone keeps something in their car—sunglasses, old receipts, water bottles—but this car is clean besides the smell of cigarettes.

The trunk is open, and there is a small backpack tossed inside. It’s dark green, with one of the straps broken, and next to it lies a phone, a set of keys, and an earbuds case, though one of the earbuds is missing.

I pick up the phone, lighting the screen up to reveal four missed calls and a lock screen with two women laughing. The one on the left is beautiful, with blonde hair and a smile that lights up her whole face. I wish I was that happy.

After putting the phone in the bag, along with the keys and earbuds case, I take out my phone and call Cipher.

He picks up on the second ring. I knew he would be awake; he’s always tinkering around in his shed despite the hour, fixing something he probably broke trying to work out how it operates.

“There’s a car over the bridge. I need you to come look at it.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t want to know any details?”

He’s silent, and I swear I can hear him thinking. “I’ll come now,” he finally says and hangs up.

Cipher is weird, but I guess we all are—that’s why we’re here. He never says more than he needs to and never asks questions. I find it frustrating because I want people to ask questions, if only so I can answer them.

I have two one-sided friendships with people on the island: Cipher and Cave. Most people avoid them. They believe Cave is scary, and I guess he can be if you don’t know him, but the guy is just misunderstood. Cipher grew up with a deaf parent, so he is used to silence and thrives in it.

In comparison, I need people around me—noise of some kind. The cemetery is great, and I love always having something to do. But talking to the fake dead who inhabit my space doesn’t have the appeal of real people, dead or alive. I just wish I had someone to help me, to keep me company.

I sit on the hood and wait for Cipher. He doesn’t know that we are secretly besties, though I doubt he would care even if he did.

I love the island at this time of day, when all you can hear are the birds chirping away. Rue, the cook at Ares’s bar, loves birds and has an entire aviary filled with different species. Vesper threatened to deep-fry and eat them if they woke her up again, so Rue threatened to let his birds loose in her house to eat her spiders, and that shut down that fight.

Outsiders find the people on the island strange, but they all accepted me when I came here. They didn’t ask questions or pry into my past—well, besides the mandatory background check. We have to keep it safe here for the kids, not that I interact with them often. I like to match people’s energy, and a grown man behaving like an excited child causes red flags apparently.

Eleven minutes later Cipher strolls toward me, and I can already see him eyeing the car skeptically. He walks around it with his hands in his pockets, then crouches down and looks at the tires.

“Plates are lifted,” he says. “Engine?”

I hop down off the hood, and he gets in and starts the car.

“I can break it down easily,” he says after he turns the car off and slides out.

“Good, I need this car to disappear. Fast.”