We raced to the front door. Cherry peered through the peep hole cautiously and opened it. I was standing right behind her with the medieval bow in my hand.

The door swung open. It was Axel .

I lowered the bow and stared at him in surprise.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. It came out out sharper than I intended.

Axel raised his eyebrows. His hair was mussed like he had just woken up.
And he looked totally cute. Wait. I couldn't let myself distracted.

"I could ask you the same thing." he said.

"Well, I asked first."

I couldn't believe that he had come now just to be annoying. Wasn't he aware of any of the bizarre things that had been happening lately?

"Cherry is my neighbor and I wanted to make sure that she was alright. I saw her parents leave earlier and with all the stuff happening right now..." He trailed off in mid sentence.

"What?" He demanded. "Why are you staring at me like that? Are you jealous that I came to check up on Cherry?" He smirked .

"I am not staring." I could feel myself turning red. "Its just that why are you being a nice human for once? Coming to check up on Cherry is very thoughtful of you." I narrowed my eyes at him .

"Ouch." He said putting a hand on his heart. "You hurt my feelings."

I rolled my eyes at him.

Cherry ,who had gone into the living room, yelled at us. "Are you two finished with your flirting? Because you might want to see this."

She was standing by the French windows . Oh my God. I had totally forgotten about those mottled men. I raced to the windows.

Axel followed without being invited. Typical .

I looked out of the windows. I saw pools of silvery liquid lying in the garden ,gleaming in the moonlight. The three mottled men were nowhere to be seen .

"Ok what's going on?"asked Axel, clearly getting annoyed. "I don't see what the big deal is. There are just some globs of silver paint lying in your garden."

Cherry and I looked at him.

"We have a lot to tell you." I said.

Cherry sighed. "This is going to be a long night."