Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) Read Online Free PDF

and taking forever. “And then we
have to be out of here.”
    I heard him mumble something
that sounded like, “Relax, kiddo,” followed by the buzz of his
electric razor.
    I sighed. Rebecca had been Fat
Rabbit’s regular dog sitter until she joined our team. Now we’d
been trying to find the right one for a while. The last one we had
was Dex and Rebecca’s friend Seb, and when we returned home, we
were paranoid that Seb had turned the place into a marijuana
grow-op. Even the dog seemed to be extra lazy upon our return. As
soon as the new sitter, Ana Rita, showed up, we’d take off for
Oregon.
    I still hadn’t told my parents
about it. In fact, I hadn’t told Ada either. We’d decided to head
straight to the coast and then stop by Portland on the way back, so
at this point I’d only called Uncle Al. He sounded overjoyed to
hear from me—it’s wasn’t like I regularly talked to him anyway—and
it calmed my nerves a bit.
    But only a bit.
    Because I was pretty fucking
nervous about this whole thing. The child ghosts at this school
weren’t even entering my head—I was worried about my parents and
their reaction to me showing up. I was worried about how they would
or wouldn’t accept Dex. Even though I’d cut the ties and I was more
than old enough, they were still my parents and they still had a
strange hold on me.
    I looked over my shoulder at my
small suitcase I’d packed on the bed. Then I looked at Dex’s duffel
bag on the floor. I peered inside. It was completely empty.
    I rolled me eyes and ran over
to the bathroom door and pounded on it. “Hey, you haven’t packed
yet!”
    The buzzing stopped
momentarily. “It’ll take me two seconds.”
    Right.
    I went back to the room and
started flipping through his closet, pulling out a leather jacket,
a cargo coat, a hoodie, and a long-sleeved dress shirt for when
he’d meet my parents again, then headed to his dresser. I rummaged
through his drawers, picking out a few t-shirts and folding them
before I tackled his boxer briefs. I only pulled out one pair
before I heard the bathroom door open and Dex cry out, “What the
hell are you doing?”
    I whipped around to see Dex
charging toward me and slamming the drawer shut. Thank god I
removed my fingers just in time.
    “ What’s your
problem?” I asked him, noting how his body was now blocking the
entire dresser, his eyes wide with panic. He’d trimmed down a lot
of his beard and ‘stache so it was just sexy scruff, and put in his
eyebrow ring. He was looking good. But obviously nuts.
    “ What are you
doing?” he asked again.
    I gave him an odd look. ”I’m
trying to pack for you.”
    “ I told you
I’d do that,” he said, though he was starting to relax.
    “ Well I’m not
counting on that. Why are you acting so sketchy? I’m allowed to
touch your underwear.”
    “ Not when
there might be skid marks on them.”
    “ Ew!” I
wrinkled my nose. “Holy TMI, and also, don’t you know where the
damn laundry basket is?”
    He shrugged. “Now that you know
what you’re up against, you can continue packing if you’d
like.”
    I shook my head and gave him a
wave of disgust. “No thank you, it’s all yours.”
    He grinned at me like he’d won
some kind of war, and I could do nothing but take my suitcase out
to the front door just in time to hear the buzzer from
downstairs.
    Fat Rabbit immediately started
barking, staring up at me with a forlorn expression on his wrinkly
face. He always acted a bit weird whenever we went away and the
suitcase was a clear sign. I hoped he wouldn’t give the new sitter
too much trouble.
    I buzzed the woman up and
turned to see Dex strolling proudly out of the bedroom with his
duffel bag in tow.
    “ See,” he
said, “packed in seconds flat.”
    I narrowed my eyes
suspiciously, figuring he’d probably forgotten a bunch of stuff
like deodorant and socks.
    When he got next to me, his
face grew serious and he reached out to touch my hand, holding onto
my pinky. “Are