The first thing I asked is if he found out anything useful. He told me he asked around, but nobody openly admitted to knowing anything.

The second thing I asked is if he knew how to quietly break a child locked window.

"What the FUCK JO?!" Thomas yelled.

"I haven't even said what we're doing yet!" I retaliated.

"Fine, then what're we doing?" He asked.

"We're breaking into my dad's place-"

"What the FUCK?!"

"Ok, ok, it sounds a lot worse when I say it out loud," I said, "but you need to trust me on this.  There's something I need to get out of my brother's old room and my dad's not gonna just let me back in, much less let me in there.  I know which window is closest to the staircase, I can run inside, get to the room, take what I need and leave."

"And if anything goes wrong?!"  Thomas asked.  "What if someone finds you in there?! What if they call the police?! In case you don't remember, I'm the one who's 18! You're going to juvie, I'M GOING TO PRISON!  And if that wasn't bad enough, we could spend MONTHS in there at the LEAST!  We'll never be able to find out where this house is if we're stuck in a cell!"

"I get your point," I said. "Counterpoint, we're not gonna be able to find where they are anyway if we don't find this."

"What about the book you already found?  Have you even looked through it yet?"  Thomas asked.

"No, but I skimmed through it really quickly and so far there are no leads.  I'd have to read it completely and that would take a few hours.  Right now, we can plan on how we get into the house, and if we finish with that before midnight I can get to the book before we leave."

"I hate how you can say all this so casually..." Thomas groaned loudly. "Fine, but for the record, if anything bad happens, I'm throwing you under the bus immediately."

"I'll take that. As long as one of us is out of jail we can keep the investigation going."  I said.  "Now let's get a move on, starting with the windows..."

***

If there's one thing I'm grateful for, it's that our summers are usually dry.  Otherwise I would be walking barefoot in wet mud and grass. Why was I barefoot? Thomas said he saw people outside while we were trying to sneak me out, so I was in a rush and forgot. I'm not sure what he saw though, because according to him they just... disappeared right after I got down.

It didn't matter anyways. What mattered is that we made it to my old house. I never realized how creepy it was in the middle of the night, probably because I was never allowed out so late in the first place. The steel blue paint against the outer walls with the white wood for the porch and accents and a dark grey roof. It would've looked so much friendlier if I didn't hate being here so much.

"Wait," Thomas said, "this was your house? I always passed this place up with Charlie when we walked back home in middle school. Always gave me the heeby geebies back then too, but I never knew why."

"I would say you get the heeby geebies from everything you pass by, but trust me, I will not blame you for this one," I said.

"Good, that means we both agree we should hurry and get the fuck outta here as soon as we can," he said. I nodded and we continued to follow our pre-planned route inside.

Running to the back of the house, I peeked in through the window closest to the staircase leading to the second floor. The windows were not only locked, but they were also child locked, and my dad was crazy enough to never remove the locks even after I wasn't a kid anymore. Thankfully, they were locked in such a way that they were easily opened just like some doors were; with a singular credit card.

It took a bit of muscle to shove the card in between the window and the windowsill, and it took even more muscle to swipe it hard enough to push the lock out while it was under the tight space, but enough trial and error finally got our entrance opened and I scurried on inside.

"Remember, if anything goes wrong, there's the red button on this thing for emergencies." I whispered, pointing to the button on the walkie talkie. While looking for things to use on this mission earlier, I had, with some reluctance, opened the many boxes Jojo hadn't unpacked yet to see if he had anything useful, and lo and behold, he had some really fancy walkie talkies. There were four of them, but we only needed two.

"I know I know," Thomas said, "you went over the plan like 100 times by now,"

I just rolled my eyes and continued my way further inside, keeping a death grip on the walkie talkie as I sneaked around.  Even better about being barefoot, tip toeing is much quieter than if I had the clanky boots that I usually wear.  The floor in the kitchen was a marble tile, but the walls were the same as the rest of the house; sandpaper rough and hard to clean without destroying the layer of steel blue paint.

I quickly made my way up the stairs and onto the second floor.  Once again, the walls were all the same, but the floor here was made of wood planks instead. Not anything rough, but those smooth wood planks that've been polished to hell and back. My brother's old room was a couple doors down from mine, and of course I remembered where my own room was, so I headed in that direction first thing. As I snuck down the hallway though, I suddenly heard a shattering noise downstairs, like something big and fragile was just slammed onto the floor. I had no idea what it was, and a part of me didn't want to stick around and find out, so I booked it to the room. 

As soon as I got to the door, I went to open it when the door knob simply rattled.  It was locked, and it was locked from the inside.

"Jo, are you ok in there?"  Thomas asked from the walkie talkie, his voice hushed but still audible.  "I think I hear some people downstairs, that's not you, is it?"

"No, it's not, I'm upstairs," I assured him, "I heard something break a moment ago, did you hear that too?"

"Yeah, there might be something going on, I'll stick around and see if I can get anything," he said, going dead quiet. 

"Got it," I said, reaching into my pocket for the credit card to see if I could open the door that way. Upon trying it out, it didn't work. I'd have to get the key made for the door. Fortunately, I knew that we always had spare keys right on top of the door frame, but unfortunately, the doorframes are 6 feet tall and I'm 5 foot 4.  I'd have to grab some kind of step ladder to reach up there first, and trust me, I tried jumping.

I started to head to our upstairs bathroom, thinking that we still had the old stool we used when I was a kid, because my mom and dad weren't very tall either. Thankfully the bathroom door was unlocked, so I slowly opened it and went inside.

The bathroom was tiled like the kitchen and once again painted like the rest of the house. There was a 2 in 1 bath/shower against the wall farthest from the door, with the toilet and sink being on the wall to the left of it side by side. In between them was where we kept the stool, so I found it very easily.

I quickly grabbed it and headed back to the doorway of my brother's room, placing it down and using it to reach the top of the doorframe. The stool wasn't tall enough for me to be able to look, but it was tall enough to let me feel around, and it only took a few seconds to feel the cold, slightly dusty metal of the key.

Carefully unlocking and opening the door, I stepped my way inside for the second time in my whole life. My dad kept this room a secret for so long, sometimes I forgot it existed as a kid. It made me think that every house had that one room you just never went in to.  Like those bar areas at kids' restaurants, the one place where kids weren't allowed to go.  At the time, I thought it was normal, but I think it was a conversation I had with Ally one day that made me realize it wasn't.  That's when I decided to look deeper, and that's when my dad decided to kick me out of the house. 

The room itself was pretty basic.  There was a window on the wall farthest from the door, a closet across from the bed in the top right corner of the room, and a desk next to the bed with a dusty old computer on it.  It wasn't that small of a room, but it wasn't that big either.  What made it worth its while were all of the belongings in it. Almost everything in this room belongs, or at least used to belong to my brother.  There were so many of his personal items lying around when I first came here. A blue and black jacket, a photo framed on his desk with him and his friends, and...

"Oh no..." I muttered to myself. The last time I came in here, there was a book on the desk. When I saw that collection of books at the library, I immediately recognized the style of the cover to be similar in pattern and color, and the gears turning in my brain didn't go any slower when Lola told me that one of the books were missing for almost 20 years.

Joseph wrote those books, and he never got to send out the last one.

Just as I came to the realization that the book wasn't there anymore, I heard another bang coming from downstairs. Then more banging, thudding, and general chaotic noises ensued. 

I dashed over to the closet, throwing the doors open in a desperate attempt to find that book as soon as possible. I quickly spotted it on the top shelf, but I didn't want to waste any time with grabbing the stool, so I jumped up, grabbed the edge of the shelf and took the book out that way. Landing square on my feet, I held the book close to my body and rushed out the room, but before I could make it halfway down the hall, Thomas nearly screamed from the device.

"DON'T GO DOWNSTAIRS! DO NOT GO DOWNSTAIRS!" He said frantically.

"Why, what's up?!" I said, hushing my voice in the hopes that he'd get the memo to quiet down. He did.

"I don't know what exactly's going on, but there are at least two people down there fighting and one of them's your dad."

"What? What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.

"Find somewhere and hide, or find a safe way out from where you are, either way those people are really close to the staircase right now!" Thomas said.

Despite Thomas's warning, I decided to get a little closer to the staircase anyway.  I peeked my head over the railing, but I couldn't see much from where I was.  I'd have to get down a bit, which I did while still sticking behind the rail.  Just before I could focus on what was going on, I suddenly heard a gunshot ring out. Then another.

A few more blasted through until someone screamed, at which the shots stopped. I looked to see my dad holding a gun and some other person, but they were doubled over and mostly covered with a cloak, so I couldn't tell who they were. They were holding onto their leg, which I could only assume was where they were shot.

"You should've died a long time ago!" My dad yelled. "I left you for dead for a reason!"

"Well fuck you, I lived bitch," the other person said.

"Not. Any. Longer." He said, pointing the gun straight at them. Acting on impulse, I quickly pulled the walkie talkie out of my pocket and threw it directly at my dad. I threw it too hard with my bad arm though, and the force almost immediately ripped open my bullet wound and caused me to yelp in pain. The throw knocked the gun out of my dad's hands and left him confused for a moment. It was just long enough for the figure to get back up and sweep his legs off balance, knocking him to the floor. I didn't wait around to see what would happen next, instead I made a run for the kitchen window, sliding over the counter as I heard one last gunshot ring out.

I fell onto the outside grass, dazed and confused for a moment before Thomas snapped me back into reality.

"Oh holy shit man are you okay?!" He asked, helping me get back on my feet. "You're not hurt are you?!"

"No, no I think I'm- AGH-" I suddenly felt the sharp pain in my arm all over again. "Fuck, I forgot about that!"

"What?! What happened in there?!" Thomas asked, probably noticing more blood on my arm.

"I'll tell you later, but I got what I came for and we gotta get the hell out of here!" I said, raising up the book. He nodded and took it from my hand.

"First, we're getting back to your apartment and fixing your cut up again. If I have to call Alicia tomorrow, I'll do that too," Thomas said sternly, like he wouldn't be taking no for an answer. I just nodded and followed him out.

For a second, I turned to look back at the house. Then, from my brother's bedroom window, I noticed the stranger from before looking back towards me as I walked away. It might've just been because I wasn't at all feeling like myself at the moment, but I started to chuckle at it.

With their face pressed up against the glass like that, they reminded me of a bug. Desperately running into the window a thousand times just trying to find their way out of a room.